How to become a CEO in the organization without paying with life

How to become a CEO in the organization without paying with life (Only God can do everything alone)

Background

This reflection is aimed at talented people working, with professional and demonstrated ability, leadership skills and strong commitment to the organization and work; eventually, as a reward for a great performance, they will become top executives. This is not a message for people in the public sector, because they can get those charges, and usually happen, without having the necessary professional and competitive merits, only luck, and a great capacity for manipulation, cynicism and even immorality. There are exceptions but they are not very relevant, are sporadic cases.

It is expected that a professional aspire to the highest offices, exhibiting and working and professional achievements as maintenance, which is a desirable situation. Best of the organization must be forward because the business image and stay in the business world are consolidated with them.

In the past, the relative stability and low complexity of life, limited business dynamics, allowed a senior executive, in addition to professional success, had a similar counterpart in the familiar. A happy family, health and career success.

 Currently, the business complexity, volatility and rapid changes in the attitudes of consumers of goods or services, fierce competition from anywhere in the world, make it hard to balance work and family, in many cases it favors the first element with a very high cost, limited family life and of low quality or life itself.

Professional success and family life

Factors explaining career success are numerous, so for simplicity we consider some that are relevant and useful to the subject development; others act similarly.

The graph 1 shows these factors. The responsibilities of work, which involves the will to fulfill the duties and the decision to influence others to do the same, as a motivating ambition of optimal behavior, the execution of critical and noncritical tasks with discretion and proper preparation to make the best decisions, strategic and not strategic planning and also the will to continuously improve the professional and personal skills, the ability and willingness for continuous learning.

Graph 1 show that in general, the executive shows a high performance, so the time spent on these activities is very high. It could be the profile of a "workaholic".

 

In the family there are also goals and conditions for achieve them. This parallelism is considered important because no person acts in isolation, no executive lacks a family and responsibilities included (exceptions do not invalidate this statement); and as it aspires to succeed in the organization, it also aspires to succeed with and for the family. Chart 2 shows the relevant aspects.

 

Spending time with family members, quality time to be used to perform common enriching tasks, dialogue, adventures, trips or holiday outings, practice hobbies, support members family in times of transition or crisis, and even the loss of time and creative leisure. Tasks seem trivial but full life requires time allocation between productive activities and creative tasks, fun or “creative leisure”.

Figure 2 can be understood as a consequence of the state shown in Figure 1. lot of hard work, almost abandoning the family. The diagram may correspond to that of the CEO of a large corporation but their situation regarding family and personal life is not enviable.

Returning to the first situation. If a spider diagram, show the proximity to the circle as the crowning achievement in each of the categories shown; proximity to the origin shows a poor performance. The same happens in the family aspect, the closer to the outer circle, the higher the satisfaction and better spend more time with family.

A major challenge to achieve both goals is limited time. For all it is absolutely impossible to add one second a day to be with family or improve the work without neglecting the family. Intense tradeoff between the two is created. If you want to optimize performance at work, be an example of dedication and efficiency, as executive you should stay longer in the business, be the first to arrive and the last to leave. The company wins, but the family lost; significant gaps remain and this is seen in Figure 3.

You can consider this as a pyrrhic victory for the executive, which achieves significant results for the organization but sacrifices the most valuable, authentic and the essence of life, interaction with family, children, spouse, parents, and friends.

Table 1 shows 8 categories selected and the possibility of time by making them that only a leader or a business executive can take. The delegation to collaborators is one of them, and what is presented is not a rule, but a suggestion that could be considered, as each executive has his priorities and options; in any case it is to illustrate the idea that it is possible to reach the top of the organization without dying in the attempt, without paying the price of success with family harmony and life.

Table 1 Categories of performance in the organization

 

Category	Type of activity	Option	Familiar Trade off
Responsability	Not delegated	Support and advice are possible	No
Ambition (for achievements)	Not delegated		No
Critical tasks	Not delegated	Support and advice are possible	No
Noncritical tasks	Delegated	Support and advice are possible	Yes
Improvement studies	Not delegated	Support and advice are possible	Partially
Skills development, on-site training	Not delegated	Support and advice are possible	Partially
Critical Planning (strategic)	Not delegated	Support and advice are possible	No
No critical planning	Delegated		Yes

   Source: Own (CRR / 2014)

In the table above, you can see some factors that can be managed so that the organizational objective is achieved without losing quality, timeliness, and relevance while gaining time for family.

In Figure 4 the coveted work-life balance is shown as it searched for the many executives as the "holy grail" of happiness. You can then reach the top in the organization, achieve professional goals, while enjoying the sublime pleasures derived from shared with son and other family member’s time.

 

Conclusions

The work-family balance is not only positive and desirable; is recommended because the executive or professional have time for personal matters, but this does not means selfishness or neglect of responsibility at work; It is good because the benefits are very favorable. Health, emotional and psychological balance, physical and emotional strength away executive enemies: Stress, occupational diseases, the nightmare of burnout, family tragedies from overwork and confinement in the company.

There are many cases of bright executives, competitive professionals, with great personal and social merits who suddenly die of a heart attack, one of the common causes. Most impressive is that they were young with a great future; therefore his death is a great loss for the organization, society and family. How would this person enjoyed in life, whether to reach the summit had walked more calmly or was inevitable accelerated pace, to not load on their shoulders all the responsibility would delegate tasks and responsibilities, to disconnect from the organization and live fully?

In conclusion, you may be the CEO or top executive, achieve other significant goals in the organization without addressing the opportunity cost associated to the neglect of family life. Just follow the principle of Archimedes, calling for a lever to hold the world. The lever is the partner or partners in those roles, tasks and responsibilities are delegated, and the executive is one who like Archimedes, knows that it is possible to achieve an impossible task if it has proper mechanism. And being wise means, being a leader, trust each other, know how to choose the best, have empathy, get others to trust in one. You cannot have divinity as God, do everything yourself, but you can get the wisdom.

This approach is desirable at the present time with more intensity, because of the complexity and unpredictability of events in business and life.