Why the CEO Needs to Be the 'Consistent Emotional Orchestrator' Sincerely caring for the well-being of your team is a profound competitive advantage.
By Greg Salsburg Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Beyond the already encompassing role that a company's chief executive officer embodies, today's CEO needs to exemplify the skills of "consistent emotional orchestrator."
This new position is a direct response from today's workforce is being driven by "f" words. Starting with feelings, it continues along with freedom and future.
Blame it on the millennials, or the person who decided that everyone gets a trophy at soccer games, but as of today, you need to focus on your workforce as obsessively as your customers/clients.
Focus on the doing.
The workforce is flooded by all the emails, conversations, news, events and demands that are going on around us daily. The new CEO's trick is to lead others into melting it all away: focus on the doing.
Even the most normally focused minds become lizard brains by the constant deluge of thoughts worrying about the future or trying to forget the past, or simply bobbing and weaving through life's numerous distractions. Multi-tasking is a multi-distraction that causes multi-filled anxieties and multi-mistakes. Being multi-present is not a badge of honor but an admission you either cannot fully concentrate on one thing long enough or simply aren't fully vested.
The CEO needs to be mindful of others' desire for balance, while guiding and inspiring them to focus on the action required at the moment. Understanding and teaching that it doesn't matter what the doing is, focus singularly on the doing and you will drop your worries, anxieties, jealousies, anger, grieving and distraction
"When walking, walk. When eating, eat." ~Zen proverb.
Related: How to Stay Focused: Train Your Brain
Fill the emotional quotient.
Work/life balance is passé. We spend more time working then living and, as such, demand for a positive work experience rivals, if not trumps, life.
To meet this demand, escalate internal communication quality and remember to have fun. However, you want to measure it. Success in the feeling sector is a type of inertia that motivates, so you must continue to fill employee's passion bucket.
Related: Chasing the Myth of Work-Life Balance
Feed inspiration.
In the highly turbulent, quickly reforming business environment of the new economy, the competitive advantage goes to the nimble and malleable, the flexible and quick, but most importantly to the CEO that truly cares. No one has a monopoly on validation, unless it's self-validation, which is a diminishing commodity; CEO's needs to inspire this within all.
A CEO needs to teach inspiration within the process of working to manage the mundane and life's daily grind. Reinforce that success is rarely a straight and orderly line; inspiration dosed carefully and consistently is the fuel for unbridled success.
Foster relationships.
Influencing and mentoring are different. Being an influence can derive positive and negative connotations while mentoring implies selflessness and encouragement. We are influenced from numerous variables, while mentored by only a few. Influencing can feel forced and at times obtrusive and intrusive; mentoring happens when two forces are willing and able.
I have been blessed to have a vocation where I work on the periphery of mentoring with our clients and the emotions are rewarding. On a personal level I have had and continue to have mentor(s) within my life who have enriched and guided my journey. A lesson I have learned is that if you are fortunate enough to be guided, you must be open to receive.
The quality of your life lies within the quality of your questions. Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch famously would ask all, "How'm I doin'?"
Today's CEO needs to follow it up with, "How are you feeling?"
