The path to becoming a CEO is not always a direct one. Many people think it’s just the next rung up the corporate ladder, but for others, getting the role is serendipitous. Perhaps, like politicians, the best CEOs are those who don’t seek out the role but focus first on being successful in their chosen fields. Here are three first-time CEOs who fall into this category. They built great careers and somewhere along the way realized they have what it takes to be a CEO.
For Randy Chou, CEO of enterprise cloud storage infrastructure provider Panzura, becoming a CEO was never a focus. He had a successful career leading software teams for companies such as Aruba Networks. Then a breakfast with veteran tech investor Ben Horowitz in 2008 changed his life.
“At the time we met Ben, my co-founder and I were getting ready to start Panzura. We had worked together for years in other companies but had not determined yet who would be CEO. Ben shared his thoughts on what makes a good CEO, including the ability to effectively deal with emotions and the importance of fully understanding the product, customers, market, and other components. He compared building a start-up to having a kid, because there is no off switch.”
In fact, Chou said Horowitz shared many of the insights he would later publish in his book “The Hard Thing About Hard Things.”
“Ben’s description of the CEO role inspired me to become Panzura’s CEO,” said Chou. “Every facet he thought was a requirement described exactly how I function, and the Panzura team agreed. It was career changing and gave me the confidence to move forward. He was not trying to convince me to be CEO. He was just describing what was needed. He really made it a no brainer for me.”
Like Chou, Dan Pickett, CEO of technology company nfrastructure, did not seek to be a CEO during his career as a technology executive. He was content to be in a number two role supporting a CEO, but then became one by necessity.
“I was really happy working directly for a CEO who I respected and had great chemistry with up until we exited that business,” said Pickett. “At the time, I was on the board of another company that was performing poorly, and the board asked me to become CEO.”
Pickett took the job but knew he had quite a challenge on his hands. To get the company back on track, he had to quickly replace a majority of the executive team as well as instill a vision and mission that the company could rally around.
“I quickly realized that my time in the number two position definitely prepared me to be CEO,” he said.
The route to CEO for Brendan Morrissey, CEO of digital marketing company Netsertive, was also a circuitous one. He too benefitted from working closely with CEOs during his career as a business development executive for technology companies.
“I had long aspired to something nebulous such as starting my own business but didn’t really know what it meant,” said Morrissey. “I worked alongside a number of CEOs of venture capital funded tech firms throughout my career and those experience helped hone my skills. When I co-founded Netsertive in 2009, I realized I had been in training to become a CEO my whole career.”
With the benefit of hindsight, what have these “accidental” CEOs learned as first-timers?
For Morrissey, the skill of being able to make decisions quickly is paramount to keeping an organization moving forward. “It’s sometimes very hard to make speedy decisions on difficult or high-risk ones, but I don’t think a CEO has ever looked back over time and said, ‘I wish I’d made that decision more slowly.’”
Morrissey also points to the challenge of communication. “Once we got to more than about two dozen people, I started to hear that we needed to communicate more. As you grow, you have to understand how information gets transmitted differently and at different speeds. You have to imagine how someone such as a frontline software engineer receives your message to ensure you are communicating accurately."
Dan Pickett of nfrastructure advises first-timers to understand what they are getting into as a CEO. “The first-time CEO is more vulnerable than experienced ones. I got there because I was good at sales and building customer relationships, but the job of a CEO is a lot more comprehensive. The risk for new CEOs is being lopsided in certain areas, such as being too technical and not focused on the people aspects of the job. You need to be committed to sustaining an effort to make it work.”
Picket recommends cultivating mentor relationships. “Almost everyone will be able to identify someone who has been in your shoes as a CEO. In fact, I have a couple of CEO mentors that I meet with every few weeks.”
For Randy Chou of Panzura, the most difficult challenge has been managing the executive team. “As the company grows, you have to determine when to bring in new people to make sure you can scale the company. Someone may have reached his or her limits as an executive. You have to decide whether to coach them or bring someone else in.”
In addition, he says CEOs have to learn to deal with a level of uncertainty. “I am comfortable with uncertainty if there is a logical set of criteria that says we will be okay, no matter if a partner or the market or a customer or the product is not quite there. What I’ve had to do is learn to slow down and be sure my staff is also comfortable with uncertainty.”
Handling uncertainty with aplomb is part of the emotional intelligence that Chou asserts is crucial for CEOs, which he first learned from Horowitz. “I feel that a lot of different individuals could easily have the talent to become CEO, but what holds them back is controlling emotions. You need a certain level of calmness to control the highs and lows in a company. This has to come from the CEO. It cannot come from anyone else.”
All of these sentiments ring true to my 20 years of experience as a technology CEO. As Morrissey states, “You are never really prepared to be CEO. You really don’t know what you’re in for until you are in it.”
This is part of the reason I’ve devoted my career to helping CEOs better run their businesses. Our economy cannot afford to lose great people who may have never contemplated becoming a CEO, but have the skills to succeed in the role.
