4 Mistakes No CEO Should Ever Make

CEOs are busy and under a lot of pressure to perform well. If there’s anything wrong with the business, some of the blame will fall on the CEO.

With all that stress, it’s easy to make mistakes. This is a list of mistakes that a CEO can make.

1. Neglecting The Team

For a company to succeed, the members of that company need to be mentally and emotionally supported. In many ways, the CEO doesn’t run the company – the team does. And the CEO runs the team.

CEOs are busy and under a lot of stress, and sometimes they don’t provide the in-house care their company needs to succeed. One of the chief examples is not paying employees what they deserve.

If there’s a hard worker who isn’t getting paid well, that’s a recipe for bitterness and discouragement. That person is likely to quit, and may even go to a competitor.

Another key to taking care of employees is to consistently remove roadblocks to their work. If a CEO keeps making their workload easier, the team will grow to appreciate and trust their CEO.

2. Avoiding Feedback

This is a huge mistake CEOs fall into. Simply not asking for feedback on their performance or before making a decision.

There are a few reasons why a CEO might avoid feedback. They can neglect seeking feedback because they’re busy and just forget to do it. But if the CEO doesn’t see the importance of feedback or hates receiving it, they’re setting themselves up for failure.

Everyone, including CEOs, has blind spots and a need to learn and grow. They should routinely ask their boards for feedback and take advantage of counsel when it’s available. Good CEOs learn to ask professionals for advice, whether it’s from in-house or outsourced experts.

3. Bottlenecking Important Decisions

Bottlenecking important decisions is when a CEO insists that every important decision goes through them.

It’s understandable that a CEO wants to make all of the important decisions. There’s a lot of pressure on the CEO to keep mistakes to a minimum. Whether fair or not, a lot of fault falls onto the CEO if anything goes wrong.

It’s kind of like letting your teen drive your car for the first time.

However, there are two big reasons why this is a trap. One, this isn’t an efficient way to run a company. There are too many important decisions to make and if a CEO tries to make all of them, sooner or later they will experience mental overload.

The second reason is that CEOs are not always the best person qualified to make a decision. On many occasions, there is someone else in the organization who’s more qualified to make that decision.

For example, if the company is choosing a new country to build in, let someone who understands international law make that decision.

4. Picking A Favorite Coworker

You don’t have to be part of a company to know the damage this can cause. Ever see a parent favor a child over another? Or see a coach favor a particular player? It just demoralizes others.

Like all humans, CEOs want to connect with people and make friends. But they need to be careful they’re not playing favorites. If the CEO attends multiple conferences with the same person, the rest of the company may get the idea that they don’t matter as much.

Obviously, a CEO can’t be close friends with radically every single employee. But they should make an effort to maintain an equal relationship with the ones they’re close to.

Business Is About Adapting

CEOs will make mistakes, but the worst one is not learning from their errors. The chief lesson here is one we often come back to in the business world – keep adapting.

If a CEO is making one of the mistakes listed here, it’s time to change their ways. Like all workers, CEOs are growing, maturing, and evolving. Sometimes it takes time and sometimes it takes effort.