Venture Capitalists (VCs) and family office networks (FON) heavily decide whether to invest in a CEO based on their previous knowledge of the CEO’s leadership skill sets. If a CEO is unknown to them, it is not easy to determine if the CEO has the skills to be an effective leader. VCs and FONs know that if a CEO is an ineffective leader, their employees will be ineffective, their company will not grow or worse, may fail in spite of having an investable product or idea.
What would indicate to investors whether a CEO might be a successful Leader? Is it specific personality traits such as passion, exceptional communication, appetite for risk, perseverance, adaptability, and industry knowledge as gleaned from interviews? Or is it specific leadership skill sets including effectively hiring employees, measuring employee performance, holding employees accountable, coaching employees to perform their tasks effectively, managing managers, managing managers with skill sets outside their own, and developing strategic thinking for how to do something better than the competition with a sustainable advantage?
At Yarger Executive Coaching, we believe personality traits must be combined with specific leadership skill sets which are more predictive of and critical for a CEO’s success. Unlike personality traits which can remain the same, leadership skills differ for CEOs who are leading a startup company compared to leadership skills necessary for CEOS of growth stage companies. During due diligence, we can determine if a CEO already has appropriate leadership skills or is Coachable.
Most successful CEOs have Coaches to help hone their current leadership skill sets along with regularly preparing them with additional leadership skills needed for growing companies. The key is to obtain an experienced Coach to guide them through different and sometimes difficult phases of their company’s growth. As experienced CEOs who have founded and led successful businesses,we look forward to working with you. How might we serve you?
