Do CEOs Need Mentors Too?

Mentors help young managers excel - but do CEOs need mentors too?

Of course they do.

CEOs are especially in need of mentoring because it really is "lonely at the top" and there isn't anyone else. Using a director on the board is usually a fast way to shorten a CEOs time on the job and consequences of poor decisions from a CEO have greater repercussions than poor decisions of other executives.

New CEOs will experience a very wide range of decisions concerning matters they've likely never tackled - so its really true for new CEOs that "What got you here won't get you there."

Your Board is Not Your Mentor

The Board is not in place to guide and mentor CEOs through new decisions. Simply put, one of the key roles of Boards is to hire, monitor, and evaluate the CEO.

For most CEOs it is simply too risky to expose gaps in knowledge and experience to a chairman or a member of the Board.

The Numbers are In!

HBR surveyed 45 CEOs with formal mentoring arrangements, “and 71% said they were certain that company performance had improved as a result.

More than anything else, these CEOs credited mentors with helping them avoid costly mistakes and become proficient in their roles faster (84%)”. HBR article

Trust & Confidentiality are Essential

Strong CEO-mentoring relationships can only exist when the mentor commits to total confidentiality. This confidence cannot be broken even by - and especially by - curious members of the board.

So Who is the CEO Mentor

The CEO mentor should be a former CEO themselves and unaffiliated with the CEOs organization. Relevant experience, a broad perspective - a mentor must have sat in the “hot seat“ to earn the respect of the CEO.

The mentor needs to offer advice based on true-life experience and share these experiences in a storytelling approach.

Specific and relevant examples from the mentors own career - including good and poor decisions, failures and successes.

Regular interactions are designed to deliver what both see as the aim: helping the CEO traverse the learning curve more quickly and perform more effectively.

A Mentor Can Help a CEO Traverse the Learning Curve

When business leaders falter in their decisions, their companies suffer.

With the right mentoring at the top, the CEO is better equipped to make goods decisions, traverse the learning curve more quickly and perform more effectively.