Being an Objective CEO

You said something I found interesting earlier, because you said you don’t think you’re very good at being a CEO. So, what makes you say that? And then how would you define your unique style of leadership? How is it different from other leaders and CEOs?

Yeah, I consider myself a better founder. I think I’m a pretty good entrepreneur. I would say that. I think the CEO is much more about maintaining and being even keeled, not getting riled up. I am on the empath side. So, I hold it in, but that’s where my anxiety comes out. I can get hurt, you know, I do wish that I could be a little bit more, I would say callous, but a lot more objective about things. I think I’m too loyal.

I’ve had people that worked for us for so long, but I didn’t know what to do with them. Now I’ve learned through my executive coach that it was actually, I was being nice to them, but I wasn’t being kind, right? I wasn’t being clear, you know, clear is kind, right? And I think that was where I think I made a lot of missteps, where I knew somebody didn’t belong in the company, because we outgrew them, and they were great.

I think we’re in this new saga, where we’re not an origin story anymore. We’re a medium-sized company. And so, we’re not as scrappy as before, we don’t break the rules, because we have to be compliant. So, the people with that mindset, who are like, “Oh, you got too big and too bureaucratic.” I was trying to appease them a lot. So, I think that was a huge misstep on my part.