Life at the top can be lonely for a CEO.
But it may be less so for the dozen or so CEOs who last week spent a day in St. Paul listening to an expert speaker and then delving, confidentially, into the issues and challenges they face at their companies.
Leading the process was Brian Davis, an industrial organizational psychologist and talent management consultant who now chairs three local CEO and business-owner peer groups. All are affiliated with Vistage International, a for-profit, peer-advisory and executive-coaching membership organization based in San Diego.
A CEO or business owner may have come to the role with a strong executive or entrepreneurial background, Davis said, but still be unprepared for the daunting responsibility and potential isolation that come with leading an organization, large or small.
"Most never went to CEO school," Davis said. "The CEO role is so different than all the others in terms of total responsibility. The buck stops there. You're the person that can make or break the company and there's no one else to blame if it doesn't go well. So it's helpful to go to a safe haven of fellow CEOs who have a great deal of experience and whose only vested interest is your success."
Davis says he offers just such a haven at monthly meetings of his three Vistage groups, which have 50 members whose companies total $1.2 billion in annual revenue.
Before becoming a Vistage chair two years ago, Davis spent most of his career as a leadership and talent management consultant for Global 1000 companies at Personnel Decisions International, now PDI Ninth House, the highly regarded global leadership consulting company headquartered in Minneapolis. Davis left a few years ago to start his own practice, executive coaching firm Leadership Catalysts, choosing the Vistage model to bring his experience to small and mid-sized companies.
A CEO peer group can serve as a sounding board for dealing with problems, including decision making, handling difficult employees and setting direction for the company.