Across my multiple decade career, I have spent a great deal of my work life mentoring and coaching executives and boards on developing effective habits and systems. As I have done a fair amount of turnaround work, building a high performing organization was as much about creating effective leaders and leadership habits as it was addressing systemic problems and failed or broken systems and structures. The habits of effective leaders would undergird, support, and implement the change(s) that needed to occur.
In 2023 I wrote a piece about leadership principles that I have maintained as key to becoming an effective leader. My list is simple and if you will, “core”. I am a fan of keeping things as clean and as simple as possible. https://rhislop3.com/2023/05/19/friday-feature-5-important-leadership-principles/
Since I started this blog/site, rarely do I post stuff from other publications nearly or almost, word for word. This post is a bit of an exception to that rule.
Recently, I ran across (in my voluminous readings) an article is a Becker’s Hospital Review e-newsletter on executive leadership effectiveness 18 questions for CEOs to ask themselves . It was written off of a McKinsey and Company newsletter titled, “The CEO’s Essential Checklist: Questions Every Chief Executive Should be Able to Answer.
Both pieces are good and worth sharing, especially since the information, while geared toward a CEO and/or Board, has so many applications for any senior leader.
As I wrote about in my post back in September 2023, the best CEOs rely on a set of guiding principles. The McKinsey checklist helps an executive to turn mindsets/principles into practices that can impact, successfully, company performance via the creation of a culture and paradigm of effectiveness The CEO’s essential checklist: Questions every chief executive should be able to answer | McKinsey
Per McKinsey, the best CEOs achieve excellence via six critical domains or steps. Expanding from the elements in each domain is where the checklist/questions were developed.
The checklist is designed to evaluate CEOs’ performance across six dimensions: establishing direction, aligning the organization, mobilizing leaders, engaging the board, connecting with stakeholders, and managing personal effectiveness. The “Cliff Note” version is below. The full expanded version plus the actual checklist is available in the McKinsey article link, second paragraph above the graphic.
1. Vision: Do we have a clear and compelling vision that reframes what winning looks like, and is it owned by the whole enterprise?
2. Strategy: Have we created a short list of clearly defined big moves at the enterprise level that will distance us from our competitors?
3. Resource allocation: Are we ‘thinking like an outsider’ to actively reallocate resources (such as dollars, people, and management attention) to our highest priorities, even when it’s hard to do?
4. Culture: Are we targeting and systematically pursuing specific areas of cultural change to further execute our strategy?
5. Organizational design: Is our organization characterized by a balance of stability and agility that maximizes the speed and effectiveness of execution?
6. Talent: Are the most value-creating roles in our organization filled with the right talent, and do they have a strong leadership pipeline?
7. Team composition: Is my senior team the right size, comprising people with complementary skills and characterized by an ‘enterprise first’ mindset?
8. Teamwork: Does my senior team effectively use data and dialogue to make timely decisions on topics that only they can take on?
9. Operating rhythm: Does my senior team have an effective annual operating rhythm and business review cadence that drives execution and minimizes surprises?
10. Relationships: Have I built trust with my board members by being ‘radically transparent’ and showing an interest in their views?
11. Capabilities: Do we have the right profiles on the board, and are we sufficiently educating directors and pulling them in to help where they can?
12. Board meetings: Are board sessions well prepped, effectively run, and focused on the future (going well beyond fiduciary topics)?
13. Purpose: Are we clear on the holistic impact we aspire to (our ‘why?’), and have we embedded that into the core of how we run our business?
14. Interactions: Do we fully understand our stakeholders’ needs (their ‘why?’) and find constructive common ground with them?
15. Moments of truth: Have we built resilience ahead of any potential crises so that we’ll be able to mitigate their impact and use them to unlock opportunities?
16. Time and energy: Do I manage my time and energy well, and do I have the right office support in place to help me successfully and sustainably do what only I can do as the CEO?
17. Leadership model: Am I leading in a way that is authentic to my convictions and values while also adjusting my behaviors to what the organization needs?
18. Perspective: Do I approach my position with humility, focusing on helping others to succeed and continually improving my ability to do so?