Nike CEO John Donahoe Is Out. The Old Guard Is In.
The (near) impossibilities of leadership.
It was announced today that Nike CEO John Donahoe is stepping down from his role as CEO at Nike. In his place, Elliott Hill, a longtime Nike employee who worked alongside former CEO, Mark Parker, who currently holds the title of Executive Chairman of NIKE, Inc., will take over as CEO on October 14th.
Let me start by saying, being a CEO is not easy. Hell, being the CEO of your own life can be difficult at times. Running a company that has such passionate fans and vocal critics as Nike does, makes that job even more difficult than many of us can possibly imagine. As much as I have been one of those vocal critics of John Donahoe, I think he did the job to the best of his abilities through one of the most difficult times of our existence, and an even more challenging era for businesses to maintain success than we’ve ever seen. Yet, despite his career achievements and undeniable success prior to joining Nike, I can’t help but feel like he was never quite the right fit for the role.
Being a leader is challenging. It’s not for everyone.
To be a leader, in my opinion, the first thing you have to be good at, is recognizing that your personal expectations, needs, and desires, can never be prioritized. The people have to come first. You have to be able to listen to everyone within your organization with an open mind. It may seem counterintuitive to think that the voice of the person that works in retail for minimum wage is equally as important as the executive making hundreds of thousands of dollars, but it’s fundamental to understanding the way an entire business works together in order to achieve success. Oftentimes, the retail employee has a better understanding of the customers than the executives, and that makes their voice incredibly valuable.
Think about it like a car or a bike. You can have the most beautiful Porsche in the world but one spark plug bent out of shape can make it undriveable. You can have the best road bike in the world, like a Specialized S-Works, but if any of the components are improperly adjusted, it quickly becomes not the best road bike in the world. The key to its performance depends on paying close attention to the condition of all its pieces.
Mechanical components of a sports car or bicycle are easy things to fix on their own. Even without prior knowledge, many people can probably work their way through instructions to change out a part that is failing. While the employees of a business are similar in a sense that they are parts that make up the whole, they require additional commitment to understand them. It takes even more care to listen and understand the nuances of people, especially in a work environment.
There is no instruction manual that can act as a guide to help you. Yes, there are tools and practices that can help you understand human nature, but the beautiful thing about humans is that we’re all unique. We are all different in ways that require different needs to be met in order for us to be motivated in our work, while simultaneously finding a balance in our free time to be happy. All of these things, are essential to be hyper-aware of as a leader in my opinion.
I’ve worked for CEOs that thought if they made it seem like they were working at all hours, then the team would think, “Oh, they work hard around the clock, so I should do the same.”
I’ve worked for CEOs that never show emotions in an attempt to never “show their hands” to employees. They distance themselves from everyone, declining meetings in order to show they’re too busy for the workers in an effort to “seem more like a CEO.”
I’ve worked for CEOs that did nearly nothing, and then at the last moment, gave disruptive input on projects that teams had been working for months, derailing all progress in an effort to feel like they were contributing.
None of these types of people, would I consider leaders. Leadership doesn’t come with the title of CEO. Leadership doesn’t come with the highest paycheck in the company. Leadership doesn’t come with a fancy office and a plaque on the desk that says, “Chief Executive Officer.”
Becoming a leader comes from listening. It comes from communicating. It comes from acquiring as much knowledge and information about every person, project, and initiative that exists within a company, AND every person, project, and initiative, that made the company great in the first place. Then using all of that information to make difficult decisions that are always focused on the long-term goals of the company.
To me, the brand is always more important than the sale.
What I mean by that is great leaders need to be able to see through the inevitable ups and downs. They need to be able to understand that artificially bumping up sales numbers to satisfy investors (or keep investors off your back in some cases), will never create future success the way embracing your core principles, and inspiring your teams will.
Sure, you can temporarily make the numbers work in your favor. But if doing so means letting go of talented people, or leaving a stain on the company culture that made a brand successful in the first place, you’ve just set the company up for failure in the years to come. Eventually, all of those choices that were in your own personal best interest in the moment, will come back to haunt you. Whether to appease shareholders or board members that ultimately decide your fate as CEO, choosing to make a temporary choice of profits now over people and culture, in order to avoid standing up to them, will always be the wrong decision as a leader.
It’s not easy to prioritize people over profits when your job seems to depend on the latter. In my experience, the best leaders are clear that doing what’s in the best interest of the people is the greatest form of leadership. The message I received from a friend at Nike today says all you need to know about what John Donahoe chose to prioritize.
Let’s hope that Elliott Hill understands the difference.