.png)
Whoever comes up with these quotes has never worked in a company, certainly not in a large organisation. LinkedIn is a hot mess with these quotes and posts that have no practicality or relevance.
"Every aspiring CEO should spend at least two years in HR to understand what it takes to be there for your people." No, CEOs must learn how to make money so they don't have to lay employees off. That is their way of being there for their people.
"Every CEO must apply to their company or go undercover once a year to understand their people's experiences" That's why you have HR to test employees' experiences and take action. You don't need a CEO for that.
"Leader's responsibility is to take of the people so that the people can take care of the business. No, managers' and HR's responsibility is to take care of the people so they can take care of the business.
"Bosses grow the numbers leaders grow their people." False. Leaders grow the business, that is why they are hired.
"When you become a leader success is about growing others." Once again, false.
This is a whole lot of fluff that sounds good to your soul as an employee therefore, these posts get lots of likes but are far removed from reality.
In reality, CEOs must look after the business nothing else. Their role is to raise stock prices, IPO companies, deal with business investors, negotiate with governments (depending on the size of the company), acquire new companies, grow the business in terms of numbers etc. CEOs are out there dealing with bankers, and shareholders and representing the company on the global stage. That’s what my ex-CEO was doing which made us extremely successful. I don’t know what examples you have seen but I think you saw the wrong ones. CEOs don’t deal with or think for the employees or the customers. This is why they have teams. They think for the business. And if that’s not what they do they are in the wrong job.
This applies to other business leaders too not only to CEOs. The role of the VP of marketing is to make sure money is coming through advertisements. The CFO's role is being right next to the CEO when investors and shareholders are asking about the balance sheet. The role of an F&B VP is to ensure the strategy is financially viable and so on.
Then comes the only leader who should be caught up in people matters, HR (but these days they are caught up in business matters with their seat at the table LOL). CEOs and leaders look at their people's numbers just like they look at other numbers and when people's numbers are not satisfactory they go to the HR leader and their managers and ask what is happening with their people. But it doesn't mean they are invested in it or spend time on people matters. They tell the CHRO or the head of HR to sort it out just like they would tell the head of PR to sort out the company's reputation. The only time they should take over is when HR is incapable of sorting people's matters out. I am working with a CEO together now and the reason he called me in is because his HR is not up to par. But he is not dealing with it. He just wants to see results for his people. he doesn't even want to hear about my plan. He said, "Sort my people out". I like that approach. He knows that he doesn't have the expertise but I do so, why would he even go into details? He wants results not stories and plans like any good leader.
HR and line managers are the ones who look after the people not leaders. Managers are the ones who train, coach, guide, and grow people. 70% of employees' experiences depend on them. And this is when HR comes into the picture because it is their job to develop, guide, and support managers in this process so together they look after the people and let leaders look after the business. HR's job is to make sure that leaders don't have to worry about people matters. Because if they have to, then they don't need HR.
There is a hierarchy for a reason and you really don't want a leader who is caught up in people matters. I have seen this and it wasn't pretty. There was nepotism and favouritism all around and the business was not successful. Is this what you want? And do you know why that leader was more involved with people matters than business matters? Because he had no idea how to do business. When we don't know how to do something we always end up doing something else. Do the job you are hired for! Easy.
Leaders are not there for the people, they have HR and managers for that. They are there for the business. There is always a problem when people step out of their roles and into others'.
And YES! You also need bosses or managers because they ensure the job gets done.
PS: Now, of course, it depends on the size of the company and structure but the moment you have managers on board leaders must deal with growing the business.
How to design employee experiences:
Common sense has left HR and we need to bring it back:
Comments