I recently held a training for a vibrant group of team leads at a company in the FinTech space. The focus was on understanding strategic executive support—basically, how to do their jobs in a way that’s genuinely useful to the higher-ups. Sorry for the buzzwords; I hear they’re necessary in this space :D
During one of the trivia sessions, I posed a question: “What do you think is the greatest need your CEO has of you?” We got several interesting answers, ranging from “providing whatever is needed in the moment” to “supporting him in every way possible” to “my blood” (just kidding!).
When all the answers were in, I tied them together and highlighted a surprising insight: the fundamental need was TRUST. The CEO simply didn’t want to have to look over his shoulder to check for oversights.
This sounds simple enough until you try to translate it into meaningful day-to-day actions. How can we make it truly easy for executives to lean on their teams without second-guessing? During the interactive session, we discovered that it all starts with how we think. Thinking differently.
Understanding the CEO Mindset
What do I mean by thinking differently?
Team leads often interpret executive requests through the lens of their own team and its isolated KPIs. Team members, even more so, filter those requests through their immediate routine tasks.
But how is the CEO thinking? To provide meaningful executive support, we must tap into the CEO’s perspective, latch onto it, and milk it until it produces action-worthy insights.
The Priority of Long-Term Thinking
One of the simplest but most crucial priorities for an executive is long-term thinking—thinking not just for the now, but in a way that ensures sustainable success. This is a pillar of strategic thinking.
Imagine this: One of my KPIs as a customer success team lead might be to ensure 90% of customer complaints are resolved within 24 hours. I might think, “Maybe we need more customer service agents,” or “Maybe we need to arm our agents with the knowledge needed to respond faster.”
Would I be correct? Of course.
However, long-term thinking pushes me to find solutions that are scalable, cost-effective, and efficient—even if our customer base grew by 200% in 10 new countries.
For example:
- Can we adopt AI technology to handle level-1 requests, escalating only complex issues to a real person?
- Can we create a small team of support engineers who analyse customer complaints and collaborate with the core engineering team to actively optimize product development, reducing or eliminating recurring issues over time?
After all, a wise man once asked me, “Have you ever had to contact WhatsApp support?” I’m sure your answer is the same as mine was—nope!
We can either keep firefighting or develop solutions that put the fire out sustainably.
The Mental Grit of Strategic Thinking
I don’t mean to oversimplify the mental grit required to fit into the CEO’s big, painful, prickly, itchy shoes—nor do I suggest that strategic thinking will magically solve every problem. However, it’s the only way to come remotely and sustainably close to utopia.
Thinking strategically will push you miles down the road of personal growth—and hey, I’ll always raise a glass to personal growth!
