Lonely at the Top

Shellye, as a first time CEO what was the learning curve? Like what mindset did you need to adopt to keep up with all that needed to be learned and all that needed to be done as well?

Well? You know, it's interesting. Yes, I was a first time CEO. But I had run major divisions, billion dollar divisions of course, so leadership I was familiar with. And then I had a chance to sit at the table, which is why I took those jobs at a couple of growing companies to understand what's so different. But I'll tell you, even with all that preparation, actually getting a CEO role and everybody telling you, oh, you know, it's lonely at the top, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, it's not until you actually get in the role that you realize the why. It's lonely because you have no peers. Everybody either works for you or you work for them. There's no one that you can go to and kind of let your hair down and say, oh my God, can you believe this? You just don't have that. And everybody's looking to you for the answers. And the hard part is you don't want to be the one that's giving all the answers. You know, one of the things I firmly…

You may not have all the answers.

Oh, exactly. I mean, knowledge and the skills and all that is built into the team. So, the key is enabling and encouraging and building up the confidence of the team for the team to be able to make decisions and work with you. So, it's just a lot of pressure. And then you've got the lives of people. I mean, especially when you're going through hard times, I mean, I don't know if I can make payroll in two days. So, it's huge, huge pressure that comes and one of the things that I did because this whole no peer thing was not working for me. So, I actually created my own peers. I pulled together a group of other women who were also building companies in Silicon Valley and we became each other's peers and, if you will support group, and the whole bit, so it was very, very helpful. So, figure out what you need. But the big thing is get help. You know, I've never done anything all by myself. Never. I've always gotten help in some way to support what it is that I'm trying to do. And it's not a sign of weakness. It's a sign of strength. It's a strength of knowing your own capabilities and where you need to fill in and add. So, take help is my biggest advice.