Life in the C-suite is life under the microscope. Leaders who are new to C-level roles often experience growing pains as they realize their every word said and move made can be interpreted by the organization—and not always in the way they intend. For some, managing this new degree of scrutiny can lead to an obsession with perception. That’s a losing battle, according to Michael Franco, CEO of SitusAMC, a privately held U.S. provider of financial solutions in the real estate industry. “When you’re coming into a new role [or] a new organization … I would be less worried about the perceptions of you and more worried about the realities,” he said. These realities are the actions that leaders can control, including how they spend their time and their willingness to help people find solutions; these are the things people notice, said Franco.

“If the CEO or the CXO has a bad day, and that is visible for hundreds—or maybe thousands—of employees, then that transpires into the entire organization.”
– Mads Nipper, CEO, Ørsted

While employees respect—and often expect—authentic, vulnerable leaders, many C-suite officers have found that too much transparency leads to anxiety among those they lead. “If the CEO or the CXO has a bad day, and that is visible for hundreds—or maybe thousands—of employees, then that transpires into the entire organization,” said Mads Nipper, CEO of Danish renewable energy company Ørsted. “I actually don’t see that as an obligation. … To me, that’s a huge motivator.”

When there’s important news to share, it’s not always an executive’s responsibility to share it, according to Karen Orosco, former president of global consumer tax and service delivery at U.S. tax preparation provider H&R Block. “You have to ask if this is your message to carry,” she said. “You can undermine your own influence as a leader if you’re communicating things from your platform that should be communicated by your leadership team.”

When a presentation is necessary, Orosco has found that focusing on the intended reaction of her audience is more important than the perfect delivery. “If you’re communicating, you’re doing it because you’re trying to influence people. When you don’t focus on them, you could give the best speech of your life. But if people walk out and don’t know or feel something and do things differently, then really what was the point?”

Here’s what new C-suite leaders should consider when establishing clear communications with stakeholders:

• How do teams prefer to be communicated with? “When I first transitioned into the C-suite, I tried to use vice president strategies that were very tactical. … I was not employing C-level strategies,” said Dan Key, chief operating officer at U.S. manufacturer Solenis. “I was scheduling and trying to have one-on-one, hour-long phone calls with my C-level peers on a monthly basis, which was … not necessarily how they wanted to communicate with me about strategy. I had to ask each one of them what was the best way to discuss topics.”
• Consistency is key. C-suite leadership requires a new level of thoughtfulness in each interaction with stakeholders, according to Ron Williams, former chairman and CEO of U.S. health insurance provider Aetna. “You enter a room, and there are four people in that room. You speak to three [but] get distracted and don’t speak to the fourth. The fourth one is [now wondering] … did they get on [your] wrong side?”
• Board presentation decks almost always need to be shorter. “The higher you go in an organization, the shorter and more crisp your messages need to be,” said Carl Wiese, former chief revenue officer of Poly, HP’s division for hybrid work solutions. His first board presentation deck was 40 slides. These days, it’s five. Board directors don’t have the time or patience for more, he said.