Scaling Frustrations

Scaling Frustrations

Two things have come up in spades lately for me that are frustrations for me as a CEO of a high growth company.  These are both people related — an area that's always been the cornerstone of my leadership patterns.  That probably makes them even more frustrating.

Frustration 1:  Worrying that I don't get completely candid feedback from deep in the organization.  I've always relied on direct interactions with junior staff and personal observation and data collection in order to get a feel for what's going on.  But a couple times lately, people had been warning me (for the first time) when I've relayed feedback with comments like, "Of course you heard that — you're the CEO.  People will tell you what they think you want to hear." 

So now the paranoid Matt kicks in a bit.  Can I actually trust the feedback I'm getting?  I think I can.  I always have.  I think I'm a good judge of character and am able to read between the lines and filter comments and input and responses to questions I ask.  But maybe this gets harder as the organization grows and as personal connections to me are necessarily fewer and farther between. I probably need to start recognizing that as the CEO, people may feel uncomfortable being totally open…and it is my job to figure out how to be sure people understand that I do want to hear their voices…unplugged and constructive.

Frustration 2:  Needing to be increasingly careful with what I say and how I say it.  This comes up in two different ways.  First, I want to make sure that while I'm still providing as transparent leadership as I can, that I'm not saying something that's going to freak out a more junior staff member because they're missing context or might misinterpret what I'm saying.  Ok, this one I can manage.

But the tougher angle on this is having unintended impact on people.  Throwing out a casual idea in a conversation with someone in the company can easily lead to a chain reaction of "Matt said" and "I need to redo my goals" conversations that aren't what I meant.  So I'm doing some work to formalize feedback and communication loops when I have skip-level check-ins, but it's creating more process and thought overhead for me than I'm used to.

Nothing is bad here – just signs of a growing organization – but some definite changes in how I need to behave in order to keep being a strong and successful leader.