More and more CEO’s are leveraging their staff’s ‘smarts’ by empowering them to make recommendations and drive upper management decision-making.  Leaders are learning that it’s impossible to have the depth of expertise that each direct brings to the table. As well, our understanding of group buy-in is that ‘those who came up with the ideas are most likely to execute them.’  It would therefore be a disservice to the advancement of the business by not seeking out their direct’s expertise.

However, beyond the ‘buy in’ and ‘leveraging’ argument, the reality is that some CEOs make bad meeting leaders. So why is it the case that a CEO isn't the best person to lead the meeting? In general, meetings are getting more complex due to the attendance of multiple stakeholders with multiple agendas. Meetings therefore need leaders who are disciplined in structuring the meeting while managing how people interact while leaving the ‘idea generation’ to the group. This poses difficulty for many CEOs because:

• It’s hard to be neutral due to having a vested interest in the content and outcome of most discussions; CEO’s tend to get involved swaying the group’s ideas by verbally stating their bias or communicating bias through their ‘body language and tone’ (the most significant clues at to identifying the leader’s ‘attitude’).
• To avoid a CLM (career limiting move), participants may limit their ideas to those they perceive the CEO wants to hear, or they just might shut down if a CEO’s bias is clear.
• CEO’s typically are drivers and will want to get to solutions quickly.  This may limit a qualitative discussion around what the actual problem really is resulting in more ‘band aid’ solutions.
• CEO’s, like many managers, lack discipline with structuring agendas and managing participant relations while staying out of the ‘content’ of the discussion. In fact, quite often CEOs can provoke controversy through random questioning, injecting their content ideas and going off-topic at his/her leisure.  Why? Because they can – he/she is the CEO!
• CEOs though they may want to achieve a consensus through collaboration, may inadvertently try to manipulate the group to his/her thinking by attacking other’s ideas that don’t fall within what she/he feels is right.  This can cause frustration in the team to the extent that participants shut down and do anything to avoid having to attend or actively participate in a CEO led meeting.

Should I or Shouldn’t I?

The CEO right off the top needs to decide if she/he should be facilitating a meeting or not.
You should facilitate if you …

• Can remain neutral by not injecting opinions verbally or non-verbally
• Know how to create and focus on a step-by-step meeting process or ‘structure’ (i.e. from problem identification to problem resolution)
• Are capable of managing member’s participation levels such that they’re interacting respectfully and actively listening to one another

You should not facilitate if you …

1. Have a strong vested interest in the outcome and need to your ideas to be heard
2. Have access to an internal or external facilitator