After listening to nearly a dozen hours of audio from Dan Carlin about World War I, I’ve heard this distinction made many times. There are peacetime generals, those who are good in drills, good at planning, sound decision makers when they have plenty of time and little pressure. And there are wartime generals, those who are good in the heat of battle, making hasty decisions with not enough information.
While business is not war, there are parallels between how generals lead armies and how companies are led.
There are great peacetime CEO’s. These are people at the helm of stable organizations. They make quality projections and keep everything running business as usual.
Then there are the wartime CEO’s. The people who turn things around, who create something from nothing, who organize chaos just enough to get by.
Great leaders can be both. But often it’s hard to find both in one person. This is why many venture capitalists remove the founder CEO from growing companies. After the startup phase, they need better peacetime CEO’s.
While finding a CEO who can do both is rare, this is also why they’re so valuable and why founder CEO’s lead some of the most successful companies in the world (think Zuckerburg, Bezos). Playing both roles provides continuity, vision and pragmatism that is unmatched when you divide the responsibilities between two people.
In which situations do you thrive and how might you build capacity to fill the gaps?