Good Intentions That Pave the Road to Business Hell

As a CEO, you may be doing everything you can to engage and empower your employees: giving them the latest incarnation of AI, exploring flatter company structures, offering free lunches, letting people work remotely, etc.

But in reality, a lot of our good intentions as CEOs backfire. Even the smartest leaders can convince themselves that certain practices are for the good of the company—even though they just make our own jobs easier.

Let me give you examples of what I mean.

“We keep our organization nimble.”

I am continuously shocked by how many CEOs, even those of large, complex organizations, don’t set clear goals for the company. Lots of times, they will justify it by appealing to the need for agility and nimbleness. They feel like dictating goals to the company is going to demotivate people, give them tunnel vision, or make them miss opportunities. But these concerns are often an excuse. What the CEO really wants is absolution from the responsibility of defining priorities for the te…