“If I have one person reporting to me and he is a lemon, that’s one too many, and if I have managers like those we now have, the number can be almost unlimited”
The difference between a great CEO and even a decent CEO is night and day. As Warren Buffet said when asked how many he could have reporting to him:
“If I have one person reporting to me and he is a lemon, that’s one too many, and if I have managers like those we now have, the number can be almost unlimited.”
As you delegate management you will find the 80/20 rule applies. 80% of your problems will come from 20% of your CEOs. It is not that they are causing the problems; they are not containing the problems. Too much of what goes on beneath them finds its way to you. This will inevitably lead to the decision:
A. Replace the CEO
B. Work with the CEO and hope they improve
I am chronically guilty of choosing path B. I obviously saw potential in them; that is why I named them CEO. Firing them goes against that belief. Firing them is admitting I was wrong. Firing them is messy and leads to a whole new search process.
In almost every example where I chose to work with them, I ended up replacing them at some point. I also always regretted not going with path A from the beginning because by that point the mess to clean up was even larger.