Five strategies for executives deal with a difficult temperament CEO

When a CEO’s leadership style creates more problems than it solves, organizational performance can sometimes suffer dramatically.

McKinsey surveys show that up to 45% of a company’s performance variation is directly linked to the effectiveness of its CEO.

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Gallup finds that managers and leaders account for 70% of the variation in employee engagement. In other words, when leadership fails at the top, the consequences spread quickly.

Signs are easy to identify: talent dropout, stagnant innovation and psychological security disappears. However, companies’ advice often ignore these warning signs if the financial results remain strong.

This leaves senior leaders with a difficult dilemma: How can I protect my team, keep the business on the right track, and influence it up when the CEO’s style seems unshakable?

With our executive counseling and coaching work (Kathryn as Executive Coach and Main Speaker, and Jenny as Executive Counselor and Leadership Development Specialist), we have seen this challenge repeatedly.

Consider “Alex”, a marketing director in a medium -sized technology company with whom we work. His CEO was celebrated by his brilliant view, but was also notorious for his impatience and intolerance to divergences.

At executive meetings, he discarded ideas that did not correspond to his instincts, required immediate execution and interrupted people in the middle of the sentence. Directors started to leave.

Engagement research signaled low confidence, but the council’s metrics were closely focused on quarterly growth. As long as the revenue continued to rise, the CEO faced little resistance.

What can leaders like Alex do? You can’t change a CEO’s personality, but you can shape the way you engage, align others and create the conditions for performance.

Here are five strategies that we successfully use in our work with leaders.

1. Manage leadership

Managing the leadership is not appeasement; It is alignment. Start asking: What results are most important to my CEO?

Alex mapped the two main priorities of his CEO: rapid growth and investor confidence. She then reformulated each recommendation through these lenses. When raising worries, she used the SCR (situation -complication – resolution) structure to remain concise and strategic.

For example:

Situation: “We are on our way to launch the campaign next month.”

Complication: “Initial tests show a risk of adoption that can undermine the investor’s confidence.”

Resolution: “Delaying in two weeks strengthens the test points and accelerates adoption, which investors will value.”

In speaking the language of her CEO, she is no longer perceived as obstructive to being seen as a trusted consultant. Leaders are much more receptive when ideas connect directly to their declared priorities.

Test each message about your CEO’s central priorities – clients, customers, investors, or whatever it motivates it. Reinforce your argument with external validation, such as market data, board expectations or customer references.

2. Build agreements on communication and papers

CEOs of rapid pace often create a “organizational whip” by revisiting decisions or annulling the execution halfway. Ambiguity feeds frustration. The antidote is to build explicit agreements, which reduces microgerencing while preserving Momentum.

Alex and his executive peers have worked with multifunctional leaders to agree on decision rights: who makes the final decision, who contributes to Input, who is responsible for the execution and those who simply need to be informed.

She also established a disciplined flow for conversations: starting with facts, then exploring the implications, moving to interpretation and leaving decisions to the end. This rhythm guaranteed that discussions remained grounded while gradually moved to the action.

Once the leadership team was aligned, they socialized their agreements with the CEO, framing them as a way of accelerating decisions and reducing rework. The results were tangible: less project reinices, faster decisions and less rework between functions.

3. Amplify external voices

CEOs may dispense with internal disagreement, but rarely ignore customers, investors or board members. Alex began supporting her recommendations with feedback direct from customers and investor comments.

Listening to a customer saying, “We are frustrated with constant changes in the product,” was much more persuasive than another executive showing the same point.

At an annual meeting, Alex’s company hired us to facilitate strategy sessions. Together, we have selected customer stories, market insights and investor prospects to anchor the discussion.

The change was immediate: instinct -driven debates gave way to evidence -based dialogue, and the leadership team reconnected in long -term priorities.

When trying to persuade your CEO, ask yourself: which voice will have the most weight with him? And what external evidence will it make my argument undeniable?

A single voice of disagreement is easy to ignore. A united leadership team is not. Alex invested in building confidence with his peers, aligning himself in shared priorities before entering the meeting room.

To avoid overlap and blind spots, the group divided responsibilities into different categories: customer acquisition, customer retention and operational efficiency. Together they then presented a unified and comprehensive strategy to the CEO.

Not only did it make your recommendations more difficult to dispense, but also replaced a feeling of isolation with coordinated leadership.

Informal dinners, parallel meetings, and pairs check-ins strengthened the coalition and amplified their collective voice. When leaders come together, disagreement ceases to look personal and begins to look good decision making.

5. Practice strategic patience

With visionary or founders, change is rarely immediate. Progress happens in layers. Alex began with small visible victories – slaughtering papers, refining the meeting structure and incorporating customer data into conversations.

She then worked on the development of new operational principles, such as the promotion of more inclusive leadership behaviors and the emphasis on collaboration as a central value.

Finally, she learned to accept what could not be influenced today while preparing the ground for tomorrow. This layer approach establishes a balance between the need for short -term progress and the patience required for a lasting change.

Consider these rhythm questions to guide your influence:

Today – What quick victories can I deliver to build credibility?

In this quarter – What medium term changes can I demonstrate to present traction and momentum?

This year – What long -term strategies should I start sowing for a lasting impact?

At the annual meeting, Alex connected his weekly progress updates to a broader organizational direction to be checked in: revisiting vision, identifying great movements, realling resources and choosing an operational principle to change.

This maintained your updates visible and linked to the strategy. The lasting change requires rhythm the influence to correspond to the CEO tolerance for the interruption.

Executives cannot transform a CEO’s style alone, but they can mitigate negative aspects and create performance conditions. Ultimately, success comes from aligning itself with what the CEO really cares, whether growth, investors or customer satisfaction.

As Alex discovered, the key is not to fight against the leading style, but to speak the leader’s language while constantly shaping strategy and results inside.

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