WHEN YOU NEED TO PUT THE COMPANY’S NEEDS AHEAD OF YOUR OWN

Dear Founder,

You may be grappling with one of the hardest issues any leader faces—when do you put the company’s needs above your own?

Being the CEO of a company sounds like a great job—until you actually have to perform the work and you quickly find that this work must come before your own personal desires. You’ll find that the chief leadership role requires you to put the entity’s mission ahead of your own goals. Sometimes, it’s a huge wake-up call.

At least it was for me. When I became a manager at IBM, I realized how much more responsibility I had than when I was an individual contributor. Comments that I used to make in jest were interpreted with fear (e.g., “Is my job in jeopardy?”). I also realized that employees expected me to fix their concerns about the department. This was my first experience understanding the broader role of a leader versus an individual team member, which is what I had been in the past.

As my career progressed, I landed new jobs and kept getting excited about gaining bigger and bigger roles, including CIO jobs, a COO role, and a CEO role. I took on board roles and even served as chairman a few times. There were countless times when I had to do something for the good of the entity at a personal sacrifice to myself. As a matter of course, I would often take less compensation for myself to ensure that my star employees could receive more. I canceled family vacations, including turning around one time on the way to an airport. I once was asked to spend almost half a year in China away from my home and family to help turn around eBay. This “opportunity” occurred during my son’s final year in high school and in the middle of building our dream home. Meg Whitman asked me to grade, on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the highest), my enthusiasm for the assignment. I answered honestly, “a ‘1’ or a ‘2.’” I was told, “You’re going anyway.” And so, I went. I did my best to put my heart and soul into fixing things at the company, but it came at a big family cost. (In hindsight, this sacrifice was worth it, but in the moment I was not so certain—neither was my family.)

A year later, when my daughter was about to enter her senior year in high school, I was asked to transfer to Europe to run Skype. This time I put my family first, but also knew that decision meant it was time for me to leave eBay. It’s not that eBay required that I resign; it’s that I realized that I was unwilling to put the mission above my personal desires, which felt wrong as the number two person at the company. I have never regretted the decision not to move and the subsequent decision to leave; it was the right call because of what I was willing to give at the time.

There are all sorts of leaders, from command-and-control leaders who bark orders and expect everyone to toe the line, to inspirational servant leaders who put the entity’s needs above their own. The most inspiring CEOs are committed to changing the world, and they are able to do so by putting the destiny of the company ahead of their own ego or needs. (Where it gets really tricky is being able to simultaneously take care of all the entities they are part of—their company, their family, their team.)

Your leadership style is personal, so don’t let anyone else decide how you want to deploy the CEO role at your company. CEOs approach their role in different ways. Yet in order to determine if they still deserve the role, every great CEO needs to examine their performance and periodically ask themselves:

• Am I driving/leading the company forward, or am I holding it back?

• What unique contributions am I making to the success and future of the company? Would I rehire myself as CEO? Why?

• Am I getting managed into compliance by the team? Or am I challenging the team to get to previously unimagined capabilities?

• When I do challenge the team and then later look back with hindsight, was pushing them the right thing to do, or did it cause unnecessary churn and a failure to reach the desired result? Why?

Sometimes, when you’re tired or overwhelmed, you need to harden your resolve and dig deeper. I have a lot of belief in founders and their willingness and commitment to do the unthinkable. However, if you no longer have the burning desire to take on the challenges and responsibilities that come with the top job, you may need to put the company’s success ahead of your own. And, that may mean stepping aside.

Being a leader is hard work and it requires tons of personal sacrifice. You have to manage your employees, your customers, and your board and investors. The founder of the private equity firm TPG once compared being a CEO to playing three-dimensional chess. It’s insanely difficult.

You have the toughest and the coolest job on the planet. I wish you strength.

All the best,

Maynard