Taming managers who are corporate animals

Question:

I work for a company that started operations a decade ago and has become very successful. Although much of that success is due to the hard-working employees, the CEO usually takes all the credit.

He is very over-bearing and last month he even fired a well performing colleague who he perceives to be his competitor.  This has become a trend as he fires everyone who is a “threat”. After the latest incident , I was promoted to the position that fell vacant after a colleague who was also my friend left.

I now feel very frustrated because I have to keep pandering to his ego otherwise I will be fired like the others.

How can I let him know he’s becoming to problematic to work with?  Shall I tell the board?  Or do I get a new job?

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A number of CEOs of profitable companies in Nairobi will look at your question and think you are talking about them.

The typical CEO of a medium to large company such as yours is a relatively young, self-driven, ambitious, intelligent person who has had a distinguished career in business and for whom, the sky is the limit.

Many such people would have been at the very top of their class, right from primary school, would have scored very high marks in high school and university and would in most cases have been the subjects of admiration by both their teachers and the girls or boys. These are the best performers from an early age.

Their school report cards would have comments that would suggest a level of impatience, intolerant to fools, and boredom with routine.

Such persons would be in constant search of stimulation, would have burnt the energy in heavy partying while at university, rugby, football or simply large collections of girls, who would have characterised a landscape of broken hearts.

In social settings, say weddings, birthday parties or even in a restaurant, their eyes attention and focus would wonder from person to person, their conversations would change a great deal, and their spouses or girlfriends would frequently complain about the person not paying attention to what she is saying.

Every little movement would become his focus.

I have seen such men gaze at every passing person in a restaurant.

Nowadays, such men will have a BlackBerry or two, and even at Valentine’s dinner, the texting and phone calls would not stop.

At home, he would be found with the TV remote control in hand, phone (or two) in use, while he tries to talk with the spouse about topics they had finished earlier that evening.

Because such people have high intelligence, they are able to succeed in the corporate world because of the combination of high intelligence, great drive and charm.

Little attention is paid to the fact that they have elements of the syndrome attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) which, for some confers great advantage as a corporate animal, while for others (such as your CEO) comes with challenges that sometimes manifest as impatience and intolerance at the work place. Such people have poor interpersonal skills.

The CEO you describe almost certainly falls in this personality type and there is little you as his junior can do about it.

The Board, however, can do a great deal for him and the company.

This sort of person is ideal for new projects.

He is an excellent asset be it in IT, farming, banking, aviation or whatever industry a new company wishes to go into.

The intelligence, energy, intuition, charm and capacity to multitask all come in very handy in the first years of setting up a company.

The adrenaline of new markets, products, routes, mergers or even acquisition of large accounts, keep the person busy, in the same way rugby, girls, and parties kept his energy in check.

The honeymoon lasts on the average three to five years, and the CEO, such as yours, starts getting restless, bored and erratic.

A good Board will pick on this trend, put in place a succession plan, and send the CEO to a new project in Nigeria, South Africa or even Europe to in a sense, cool his heels and grow up.

Many investors, lose brilliant men and women because they fail to see the signs of the boredom of success.

In your case, if you have any access to the Board, or even in the event that the CEO will listen to you, it might be worth your while to broach this subject without seeming to be a threat.

If you get a hearing from the Board, well, who knows, you might be the perfect fit for a company that has now reached cruising altitude, and all it needs for the next five years is less adrenaline, and more stability to put all the systems in place.

You sound like my bet for the job.

Good luck.