I have just started working with a new executive team.

Before I meet the team, I spend time with the CEO. It is a vital conversation – and one of the parts of my work I enjoy most.

Its purpose is to understand the starting conditions before we begin. We explore four things:

Only then do I ask a more personal question: “What do you see as your most important job as the chief executive of this organisation right now?”

I am not asking for a complete CEO job description.

I want to know what this particular organisation needs most from its CEO at this particular moment.

Every answer is different. This week, the CEO answered without hesitation.

“Three things,” he said. “Inspire. Connect the dots. Be the chief talent scout.”

“What we need to get done is going to be hard. It will ask a lot of everyone. I need to help people see the future and want to get there. This does not mean false hope. To inspire means not to sugarcoat, but to say it as it is.”

“I need to set the example and be straightforward, authentic and clear. We, the Executive Team, must inspire hope and confidence that we have a credible plan – and that we know how to do this.”

This was not inspiration as corporate cheerleading. It was grounded in the difficulty of the task ahead. No false hope. No hollow plan.

Then he added: “My own energy is important. If I am not fired up and resolved, I have no right to expect that of anyone else.”

“My job is to make sure that everything ultimately adds up.” As he said this, he joined two fingers together.

“There must be one set of results that everyone is working towards. One mission. The organisation’s energy and resources must all pull in the same direction.”
He spoke about velocity: speed with direction. When the direction is clear and the organisation pulls together, the pace increases. When the dots remain disconnected, energy is wasted and people end up serving different missions.

“My job is to ensure trade-offs are made. That deadlocks are broken. That one part of the business does not win at the expense of the whole.”

The future of the business, he told me, depends on having the right people in the key seats. “I am always looking. It is a full-time job.”

He emphasised the key seats – those positions that have a disproportionate effect on all the others.

I suspected this would become an important conversation around the executive table.

“What do you look for?” I asked.

KSQs was his reply: knowledge, skills and qualities. And of the three, it is qualities that interest him most. Who has the judgement? The hunger? The resilience? Who can be trusted with something bigger? Who makes the people around them better? And who may have reached their limit?

These are not comfortable questions.
But CEOs who avoid them eventually pay the price.

I loved the conviction, clarity and simplicity of his answer: inspire, connect the dots and be the chief talent scout.

None of these jobs, of course, belongs to the CEO alone.

The CEO carries the ultimate responsibility.

But none of this can be done alone. The executive team will either strengthen this leadership – or weaken it.