FRESH TAKES ON BIG IDEAS

I’ve spent most of my career working with CEOs; I have met with a hundred or so just in the past year. When I tell people that, everyone wants me to distill the secrets of leadership into a simple formula. Sorry, I can’t do it. But I will pass on something I’ve learned that might be helpful.

Everybody knows about what we might call the macrohabits of leaders: staking out a vision for the company, setting a tone of fairness among employees, being visible to stakeholders, fielding tough questions, pushing hard for results—these are the behaviors that everyone expects from a CEO.

But there’s another layer of behaviors that goes less noticed and arguably has even more to do with success, especially if success to you means excelling in areas like commitment, sustainability, satisfaction, and well-being. These are the microhabits of leadership—the little things—and they’ve never been more important, as business and society grapple with an endless cascade of uncertainty or worse: wars on several continents, a global economy that can’t make up its mind, new technologies like gen AI that might make everything better (or worse), and so on.

How do you stay zen through all of this and still deliver on the vast expectations of a CEO? Start at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs: bodily health. Leaders need to find the time for simple daily routines that preserve mental and physical stamina. One go-to move is to set up a regular early-afternoon call with someone you like. Taking a walk is never a bad idea. And sometimes, it’s just a matter of staying upbeat and finding new sources of inspiration. One leader told me he wakes up every morning asking the same question: “What’s going to be nice today?”Expressing gratitude is a powerful daily habit. Above all, get some sleep. Turn off your phone and pick up an old-fashioned book for 30 minutes.

“The microhabits of leadership—the little things—have never been more important, as business and society grapple with an endless cascade of uncertainty.”

Sound mind, sound body: if you’ve got that, you’ve got everything you need to build a few microhabits to elevate your workday. It’s more important than ever to know your strengths and pace yourself. Many leaders fall into a trap on their way up the career ladder. They don’t dare (or know how) to delegate. Huge mistake. You hired the people around you because they were exceptional; why don’t you trust them? Stay out of their way and let them do their thing. The true test of leadership is when your team succeeds without you. Letting others take the wheel is probably the top secret of time management for CEOs, but there are others. Hold the line on travel. Cap the length of meetings. Pick up the phone rather than ponder the right wording for an email.

OK, let’s kick it up a notch. Some leaders have also told me about the importance of symbolic acts. How many times have you heard a friend describe an encounter with a celebrity by saying, “He was really down-to-earth” or “She seemed like a real person”? In our optics-focused age, being a real person seems weird or forced or impossible, but it doesn’t have to be. Some CEOs, celebrities in their own right for their workforces, are taking turns as mystery shoppers to see their companies the way their customers do. Some are showing up at stores to greet customers, even doing a shift at the customer-service desk, to model how best to listen to people who are unsatisfied with a transaction and then turn them into customers for life. Others are spending time with junior managers, half of whom started after the 2008 financial crisis and 70 percent after the dot-com bubble. Stories from the old days can inspire and inform.

These are some of the microhabits that I’ve learned from leaders and try to practice myself. Remember that as a leader, the only way to take good care of your teams, customers, shareholders, and communities is to take good care of yourself.

ABOUT THIS AUTHOR

Homayoun Hatami is the managing partner for global client capabilities and a senior partner in McKinsey’s Paris office.

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