Five characteristics of successful CEOs in retail discovered | Retail Voice

Retail business leaders have been on quite a rollercoaster ride over the past few years, with the continued growth of technology and e-commerce increasing competition across industries in areas such as innovation and customer experience.

To succeed in this environment, retail CEOs must drive new ideas and tackle challenges with determination and optimism.

But how can they be successful?

To answer this question, we spoke to ten current and former retail CEOs from around the world, most of whom are members of the World Retail Congress Advisory Board. From these conversations, we discovered five insights that illustrate what it means to be a high-performing CEO.

Prioritize support and accountability

Influential leaders publicly support their teams and know when and how to take responsibility.

“The CEO must know how to modulate the pressure on the team,” said Jaume Miquel Naudi, President and CEO of Tendam. “Pressure and constant change must be part of the culture and teamwork shared by the entire organization. They cannot be just one-sided.”

Practice effective and frequent communication

Successful retail CEOs are excellent communicators and do so consistently via email, in person, and other channels.

Leaders who model good communication set the expectations for their successors.

“Be as transparent and open as possible,” said Judith McKenna, former CEO and president of Walmart International. “People should understand why resources are going to a particular area.”

Seeing the big picture

“Future CEOs should understand the broader systemic dynamics and be alert to technological trends,” said Frederico Trajano, head of Magalu.

In fact, the most successful retail CEOs are systems thinkers who develop strategies, decipher key trends, and understand how different ideas and decisions are connected. Systems thinkers are good at problem solving, adaptable, and able to extract important insights from large amounts of information.

Be open-minded and curious

Managers should thirst for different perspectives. “The boss has to question everything, every day,” says Julian Diaz, chairman of Telepizza.

Successful retail leaders seek the views of people from all areas of the business. While open-mindedness is an underdeveloped skill in most leaders, CEOs can challenge themselves to ask more questions and pose questions that encourage healthy debate.

Strengthening culture through shared values

Successful retail leaders create a culture based on shared values ​​that helps their organizations adapt quickly and respond to change.

Pandora CEO and President Alexander Lacik said the retailer’s leadership team gathered input from employees across the board and then incorporated those insights into the company’s values. A shared value system helps leadership teams make strategic decisions quickly and without too much back and forth.

It’s a lot to ask for one person to have all of these qualities and skills, but successful CEOs don’t operate in isolation. Leaders can leverage their internal and external resources – stakeholders, customers, employees and communities – to achieve high performance and lead their retail organizations successfully.