I watched another very interesting and straightforward video by Simon Sinek last week. He was talking about the job title of CEO needing to go and that it is no longer relevant. He believes that the role should be called, or at least seen as, Chief Visionary Officer.

As usual his definition (of the role) was simple: The CVO is responsible for setting and ensuring the company stays on the path of the vision. He made a number of interesting points during the three-minute video, which you can see below.

It got me thinking about the Clients I am working with that are undertaking a transformation. These transformations are digital, strategy and product based. The CEO or Chief Visionary Officer is someone that can initiate a disruption to the strategy or business model. They need to have the courage to lead and to build trust in teams

The challenge of any transformation and, or disruption, cannot not be underestimated. A lot of the challenges of disruption I hear about are internal with people unwilling or closed to change. The CEO/CVO needs to be brave, determined, and resolute in order to keep the company on the path of the vision and overcome the inevitable resistance. I take from this that may be useful for some of the C level board and senior leaders have an element of the infinite minded leader

Simon believes that many of the other C suite roles can be finite minded and those people are more comfortable with the status quo. He makes the point that when the CEO is replaced its normally assumed that the CFO / COO is the likely replacement, but often, at least historically, these people are finite minded and therefore don’t fit his definition of Chief Visionary Officer.

A very interesting topic and highlights to me the need for the CEO to have vision, determination, and courage to successfully steer a company when it needs to pivot. When succession planning for the CEO replacement to consider the finite and infinite minded characteristics. If the role was called Chief Visionary Officer then things may well be very different on both counts.