Jason Buechel grew up in Wisconsin, where his father was a cheesemaker, and his maternal grandparents owned a dairy farm. When I asked the now-Whole Foods’ CEO last month whether he deliberately charted a path to the corner office, his response was immediate. “Absolutely not,” he chuckled.
It’s a sentiment echoed by many C-suite executives, including those who didn’t follow a traditional path to the top. Instead of meticulously planning their ascent, they attribute their success to excelling in each role they undertook.
It stands to reason, then, that Heidrick & Struggles’ CEO Tom Monahan says companies are wary of people who myopically aspire to be CEOs.
“I think boards and CEOs are inherently skeptical of someone who so desperately wants to be a CEO that they define what they want to be as wanting to be a CEO,” he tells me. That assessment might sound counterintuitive. After all, wouldn’t a board seek an individual who wants to be a leader, sees themself in the corner office, and is in pursuit of a lofty goal?
Monahan stresses that while companies value self-assured leaders, it’s equally important that CEOs can reflect and engage in honest dialogues about their strengths and weaknesses. This self-awareness, coupled with building a team to complement areas of deficiency, is a crucial aspect of the CEO role.
“Someone who is so hell-bent on being a CEO at all costs can sometimes ignore what other people have to give, their own weaknesses, and their blind spots,” says Monahan.
He adds that there are hugely capable professionals who express ambition subtly due to their upbringing, cultural background, or identity. In fact, Monahan says some of the most exceptional leaders he’s worked with needed to be told they were on the path to the C-suite.
“They didn’t wake up every day saying, ‘I want to be a CEO.’ They woke up every day saying, ‘I want my team to succeed in accomplishing this next important thing,’” he says. “It turns out that’s a really good predictive indicator of who’s going to be a great CEO.”
Those with an eye to the corner office should bring a balanced approach to ambition and shift their focus to developing essential competencies in their current role, says Monahan. He flags three in particular:
1. They should be creative and thoughtful about using technology as a strategic lever.
2. They should be able to show evidence that they can learn, adapt, and grow.
3. They should have strong listening and communication skills to create an organization that’s goal-aligned.
“Boards want to see the best potential leaders, not only those who self-diagnose as the best potential leaders,” says Monahan, noting that while the two can intersect, “it’s not a total eclipse of the moon.”
Ruth Umoh
ruth.umoh@fortune.com
The CEO mind
What's front of mind for today's CEOs.
Good leaders plan for different potential futures to determine the business opportunities and disruptors. At the tech and manufacturing company Honeywell (No. 114 on the Fortune 500), 2024 scenario-planning requires anticipating, preparing, and responding to the biggest election year in history, CEO and chairman Vimal Kapur tells me.
“What matters to us is economic stability, right? So what are the implications going to be?” He's watching things like changes to the U.S.-Mexico trade agreement, climate regulation, and tax regulation.
The current U.S. tax regulation (Tax Cuts and Jobs Act), for instance, expires at the end of 2025, and without an extension, corporate tax rates could increase. “Administration A will have one point of view, administration B another view, and we'll have another point of view. So that certainly has implications for us,” Kapur says.
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News to know
France is facing a hung Parliament after the left-wing coalition unexpectedly surged in a shock election that had projected a right-wing landslide win. BBC
Boeing, which just agreed to plead guilty to criminal fraud over the 737 Max crashes, may have found a new CEO frontrunner. Fortune
Many workers say they feel stuck in their roles. Bosses are noticing. WSJ
The Biden administration has awarded $504 million in grants to create “tech hubs” in regions beyond Silicon Valley and the coasts. NYT
