A Good Boss Knows How to Have It Both Ways
When it comes to hard decisions, people tend to pass the buck. It eventually stops at the top of an organization, where the leader must make a choice, right? Maybe not. Successful CEOs actually tend to embrace contradictions in their strategies, says a new study by professors from the Harvard Business School, Chalmers University of Technology, and the TruePoint Center for High Commitment and Performance. In Embracing Commitment and Performance: CEOs and Practices Used to Manage Paradox, the researchers analyze the results of conversations with 26 CEOs representing a wide range of successful companies, such as IKEA, Campbell Soup, and Nokia.
When it comes to choosing between business strategies that focus on short-term performance and those that look at the long term, the CEOs responded that they do both simultaneously. A good CEO is one who creates a community of trust at the company that allows short-term successes to add up to achievement of long-term goals, the January working paper argues.
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