I often struggle to understand what executives do all day. I work (and have worked in many different orgs) with executives quite a bit, see insight into their process, and often come away underwhelmed instead of more confident in leadership.
There are exceptions - I can think of a couple CTOs I know that are worth their weight in gold - but they are just that - exceptions.
I will say, the smaller the organization, the more having the right executives is important though, but it seems that only lasts while headcount is sub ~200 people or so and executives maintain an active role with all pillars of the organization relevant to their function (e.g., it isn't weird for an IC to talk to the CTO from time to time about how their job is going)
I often struggle to understand what executives do all day. I work (and have worked in many different orgs) with executives quite a bit, see insight into their process, and often come away underwhelmed instead of more confident in leadership.
There are exceptions - I can think of a couple CTOs I know that are worth their weight in gold - but they are just that - exceptions.
I will say, the smaller the organization, the more having the right executives is important though, but it seems that only lasts while headcount is sub ~200 people or so and executives maintain an active role with all pillars of the organization relevant to their function (e.g., it isn't weird for an IC to talk to the CTO from time to time about how their job is going)