According to Business Insider, the average tenure of a CEO is around 6.6 years, which decreases if they are an external hire to around 4.1 years. Elon Musk has recently announced that he will be stepping down as CEO of Twitter after just 197 days.
From this quick turnaround, we wanted to evaluate why some CEOs last longer than others, and how to secure tenure longevity.
Expert Opinion
To understand the struggles and triumphs of CEO leadership we spoke to Jeremy Reis, founder of Explore Startups.
He said “As the founder of my own company, I’ve seen firsthand how the role of a CEO can be both rewarding and tremendously challenging.
CEOs who don’t last a year often face a mismatch between their leadership style and the company’s needs, or they’re unable to navigate the unique challenges the company is facing.
In other cases, the board may have unrealistic expectations, or the CEO may lack the necessary support to execute their vision.
It’s a reminder that the role of the CEO isn’t just about the individual’s capabilities, but also about the fit with the company’s culture, the board’s expectations, and the specific challenges the company is facing at that moment in time.”
With this in mind, ensuring your leadership style matches the current team is the key to keeping a long tenure.
Matching Leadership Styles
Before you take on the role of CEO, you first need to spend a few weeks working with the team. A day trip will not show the team in their normal state, as everyone will be “on their best behavior” for your arrival.
Instead, watching the team for a few weeks, you will see just how they function together, and where improvements can be made or similarities can be found.
Here are some common leadership styles to help you learn the business’s current process, and your preferred method.
Transformational Leadership
This leadership style focuses on change or transformation, hoping to inspire, look ahead, and help the team reach further.
This type of leader will also make sure their workforce is comfortable with the changes before any are made. This is because inspiration is key to this leadership style. Lastly, they try to develop the strengths of their team, pushing them toward new heights.
This leadership style is great at promoting positive change, but bad for companies that want to maintain their progress.
Delegative Leadership
A delegation leader will give jobs to the most talented people in the company. They follow a “let them get on with it” approach which avoids micromanagement and allows people to complete their work without constant check-ups.
This type of leadership is great when working with competent workers who don’t need instruction, but makes responsibility hard to maintain.
Authoritative Leadership
Authoritative isn’t the same as authoritarian. Instead, it shows one clear leader who motivates and inspires people to follow their actions. They are extremely hands-on which can easily lead to micromanaging, but it allows the team to remain streamlined.
Which Leadership Style Do You Pick?
There are more leadership styles than this, but these few should give you a starting point. From your weeks of observation, you can see which style is most effective and which is most prominent.
If you are used to delegation leadership, but the team works best with authoritative leadership, you can ensure the correct communication style is created before accepting the job.
You should also remember that one style isn’t better than another. In fact, most leaders will use a mixture of styles depending on the company’s needs, the workforce’s needs, and the project’s needs.
How To Monitor Your Leadership Style
As your tenure continues, you will need to monitor the workforce and see if any changes are needed.
If the team starts to lose morale, switch to transformational leadership. If there are too many projects for you to monitor, switch to delegation leadership. If a certain aspect of your company isn’t performing well, focus authoritative leadership on that area.
The main takeaway is to remember that leadership needs to change to continue producing results. This means you need to change with the business or allow someone else to take over when you can no longer help.
Final Thoughts
Most CEOs are not around for over 7 years. This is because new leadership styles are needed to help the business stay at its best. However, if you can develop your leadership abilities, you can stay in your tenure for longer than expected.
