Leadership Training Lytham St Annes

No one wants to see ignorance or indecision in their CEO, but leaders are human too. We look at how coaching and mentoring can help company chiefs develop their skills.

Pilar Martinez-Vidal set up courier business Impulse International in the late 1980s. Three years ago she bought out her original business partner, who had been suffering from personal problems.

‘I felt very lonely because although her involvement in the business had lessened, at least we could share our worries and plans for the future,’ recalls Martinez-Vidal. ‘From the moment I bought her out, I felt the whole responsibility for the company falling on my shoulders. There were no excuses any more, no one else to blame.’

The solution was joining a chief executive development organisation, which arranged meetings with other CEOs and one-to-one mentoring sessions that helped Martinez-Vidal share her problems and get useful feedback. Three years later Impulse’s turnover has doubled to £4 million and she says the discussions she’s had as part of her group have been invaluable.

‘Though the other businesses in the group have nothing to do with my own, I’ve had discussions that have been very helpful. We talk about things that I wouldn’t have been able to share with my own management team.’

Lone rangers
For CEOs, being ‘lonely at the top’ is an occupational hazard. Even Christina Domecq , the ostensibly steely and self-reliant CEO of global technology business Spinvox, admits that she wouldn’t be where she is today without listening to people who know what they’re talking about.

‘Mentors give me an outlet – someone to bounce ideas off and ask questions no matter how stupid those questions are,’ says Domecq, who started her first business when she was 20 and now has six mentors who advise her on different issues.

She wasn’t always this open to advice. ‘When I started my first business, my mentor told me you have to hire well, even over-hire, especially if you are young and inexperienced,’ she recalls.

‘I didn’t listen. I had a tight budget and thought I couldn’t afford it – so my business trundled along and didn’t grow as fast as it could. When I started Spinvox, the same mentor asked me, “Are you going to do it the right way this time?” That’s why with Spinvox we’ve hired some very highly qualified individuals who have given us a platform from which to grow.’

Domecq’s experience shows how valuable it can be for a CEO to be challenged. Tony Price, the interim CEO of chief executive development organisation Vistage, says that many leaders remain unaware of how they’re holding back their own businesses.

‘A lot of owner-managers have been running their business for a number of years, it’s reached a plateau and they don’t know why. Very often it’s because they’ve always done everything themselves. They think they know all the answers, and they haven’t brought in a management team around them to take the business to the next level. In those cases they have to rea...

Copyright 2010 Vitesse Media

Click here to read more from growthbusiness.co.uk