LEADERSHIP STRATEGY: THE CEO AS BRAND CHAMPION

Our time is being referred to appropriately as the “shift-age”.   CEOs struggle if unknowingly, they are viewing the world through an outdated paradigm.

Most CEOs were either raised in the industrial-age or mentored by people who were. Deeply imbedded industrial-age thinking allows ghosts from a bygone era to haunt and inhibit corporate performance. The negative impact is particularly severe on an increasingly important relationship between the CEO and marketing.  As the company’s primary forward thinkers, the CEO and marketing must operate as a tightly knit unit to create and rigorously defend the master brand. In the midst of incessant shift-age turbulence, they’ll need regularly scheduled time to spend together. Assuring quality time will be next to impossible if everybody is vying for a piece of the CEO.

Industrial-age thinking causes the urgent to trump what’s important. When the CEO is conditioned to be a first responder, forward thinking will get relegated to the back burner each time an operating issue surfaces. Spending an inordinate amount of CEO time on current operations—and at the expense of forward thinking, is a classic industrial-age entrapment.

With so much happening, shift-age compliant companies develop the equivalent of a North Star. Early explorers never expected to reach the North Star, but they could use it to travel anywhere. When blown off course, navigators would sight-in to regain their bearings. Access to a stable, super-ordinate position, allowed our ancestors to traverse unfamiliar territory. The master brand should stand out as the “Corporate North Star”. Employees feel less threatened when they live a culturally-congruent master brand with customers, suppliers, and colleagues from other departments.

Proper enforcement demands a direct correlation between the master brand and a declared set of cultural-values. A values congruent master brand will guide decision makers, generate corporate energy, promote process discipline, and hold people accountable—acting as the third person in the room ( tie breaker) when conflict occurs. Marketing is capable of creating and testing a master brand, but only the CEO can grant it authority to define the company inside and out. CEOs must be viewed as the primary Champion and a relentless enforcer of the company’s Master-Brand and Cultural-Values.

     Remnants of industrial-age thinking 

• Branding is a marketing responsibility because it’s part of advertizing
• To hold people accountable, manage using personal authority
• The CEO, should be among first responders when operating issues occur
•  If department heads run their operation well, the company will succeed
•  Set a long-range plan and stick to it
•  Operations should be the CEOs main focus
•  Internal competition keeps everybody sharp..
•  Success depends on having experienced managers and workers.
•  Financials should be shared on a need to know basis only.
• Success makes companies and people stronger.

This blog sponsored by How to Survive and Prosper in the Shift-age Workshop