Foundational, Growth, and Large Cap CEOs!
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/06/20/in_ceo_race_experience_often_trumps_youth/
One must be careful with seasoned executives because in my belief there are three different types of growth leaders for businesses and picking the wrong one can slow growth.
Foundational leaders; they are excellent at building companies from zero to a 50 to 100 hundred person operations. They create the motivational vision, get people to join with low salaries, they are great at creating results on very small budgets, and they excel at getting small footholds in tough markets. Their management and organizational skills may be adequate. They have a compulsive need to get their hands dirty. They see their role as a founder and are willing to do anything to get the company going.
Growth leaders; they are excellent at taking 50 to 100 people companies and bring them to 500 to 1000 people companies. They drive growth through more rigorous management techniques and create a driven culture. They have management and organizational abilities that are superior to foundational leaders and can drive achievements through their ability to set motivational companywide goals. They to like to get their hands dirty, but they are much more intent on getting basic processes and systems in place for growth. They see their role as both a leader and a master manager.
Large cap leaders; they are excellent at taking a large company (1,000+) and making it an international brand. They do not like getting their hands dirty with the basic everyday tasks (like line work), they prefer to manage the upper managers and focus on high level strategic issues and plans. They need a set of personal secretaries to get basic work done, because they fundamental believe their time is too valuable for simple office duties. They are masters of markets and know how to pull strategic levers to get large market and companies to changes. They act as leaders, and see their role as strictly that.
In my opinion, there are few leaders which can perform all three of these roles effectively. For example, large cap leader dislike getting their hands dirty doing things like deliveries or customer calls and eventually grow to dislike startups for this reason. Similarly, growth leaders have a hard time letting go of their management responsibilities to focus solely on the leadership role required for international companies. Finally, foundational leaders often lack the raw management and organizational talent to be a master manager. Foundational leaders also often lack the knowledge to put in processes and systems to grow their company beyond the foundation phases.
When picking a CEO for a startup one must be careful to pick the appropriate leader.
Dr. Brian Glassman
Ph.D. in Innovation Management and Business from Purdue University
Visual CV and resume
http://www.visualcv.com/ik5pn40
http://www.linkedin.com/in/drbrianglassman
http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A9L4HI981KP09