Page 48 - Roy W. Rice - CEO Material How to Be a Leader in Any Organization-McGraw-Hill (2009)

You Never Have To Rely on Your Technical Brilliance • 29

The CEO has 1,000 jobs, and working with his team is just one of
them. You’re expected to be the visionary and everything else.
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I don’t do just any one thing. I enjoy making all the parts of the sym-
phony come together.

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If you have the reins in hand, all things must matter to you instead
of just some things. You simply cannot say, “That’s not my thing.” It’s
all-encompassing.

Learn, understand, and appreciate others’ responsibilities rather
than focusing solely on your immediate tasks at hand. Don’t mistakenly
think that no one else is doing work as important as you. Appreciate how
important all parts are and how the whole works. You’ll have greater con-
fidence, power, flexibility, and influence when discussing a variety of
issues both internally and externally if you do.
If you get a feel for how your work decisions affect profitability
and the financial impact of your actions on the entire organization,
you’re more likely to come up with new ways to increase revenues and
profit.

I initiate a series of discussions with each functional head about how
dependent he [or she] is on other functions . . . marketing with IT,
sales with engineering, finance with engineering, sales with IT and
finance....

You will be highly valued by management, by human resources, and
by executive search consultants the more you have exposure to finance,
operations, retail, customer service, marketing, corporate strategy, fund-
raising, sales, competitors’ tactics, and so on.

Even though I’m in banking, I’m a top-level big-picture thinker every-
where I am. For example, when I go to a restaurant, I’m always think-
ing about where the food came from, how they created the menu and