Lessons for a rookie CEO.

• Author: Naples, Ronald J.
• Position: Chief executive officer - Reprint from Directors & Board, Summer 1984 - Putting In Place the Right Board for the 21st Century

IT STRIKES ME that in today's corporate world there are few corporate hierarchies -- even small ones -- that respond lockstep simply because an individual is anointed the CEO by a board of directors. There is a need to establish one's legitimacy in the CEO role in order to be able to spend time getting the job done, rather than defending or proving one's "right" to be CEO. Surely, over time, the best proof of legitimacy is performance; but in the early days, it is a mistake simply to wait for time to establish one's legitimacy. One must face the realities of the organization's perception of the CEO's legitimacy.

It's important to understand that the reasons for the board of directors choosing a certain individual to be the new CEO may not be well understood or even known by the organization. And even if they are known, they may be perceived as irrelevant. This is because a board has in mind certain implicit needs in naming a new CEO, and these rarely get translated into an explicit view of the future around which the organization can develop a consensus that the new CEO is clearly the best choice to address these needs.

It is clear to all that a new CEO represents change -- or at least is change -- but as Bertrand Russell observed, "Change is one thing; progress is another. Change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy." So whereas the organization may see only change, the board is reaching for progress. The new CEO must recognize the dynamics of these interactions and come to grips with the realities of his own situation in terms of how his position is viewed by the rest of the organization.

Nothing has been more of a revelation to me in the CEO job than the importance of and the amount of energy which must be devoted to communicating well. I am struck by the triteness of my observation. But the reality is that despite the intellectual understanding we may all have of the importance of communicating with others, being faced with the need to achieve a wide range of communication goals -- from informing to advocating to inspiring -- with a range of audiences places great demands on a CEO's time and can be the difference between success and failure. And it is one of the areas in which we are often least prepared. Good communication is ignored only at one's peril.

It is, I suppose, an old saw that the higher one goes in management, the more one must be prepared to deal with ambiguity. In the CEO job, while one may have...