Weak Frontline Leaders Undermine CEO Confidence

CEOs Are More Pessimistic When They Don’t Have Faith in Frontline Managers

Across the board, CEOs are confident about their company’s ability to meet key business challenges. However, their outlook tends to downturn significantly based on one key factor: their confidence in frontline leaders.

This decline in CEO confidence is most acute when it comes to capturing organizational knowledge. As highly experienced employees retire or depart for new opportunities, CEOs fear that poor frontline managers aren’t retaining valuable knowledge before employees leave. Indeed, it may be that CEOs believe their managers may be pushing valuable workers out the door, as many organizations also struggle to prevent burnout.

Even in organizations where CEOs are highly confident in their frontline managers, managers often don’t share their optimism toward challenges. While CEOs are confident about fostering an inclusive culture, only 24% of frontline managers say that inclusion is a strong part of their culture. Likewise, while most CEOs say they are able to prevent burnout, only 27% of leaders say their organization is committed to well-being.

Given CEOs’ confidence across business challenges, it stands out that CEOs feel the most unprepared for AI and emerging technologies. Organizations often rely on highly skilled and knowledgeable technology workers at the frontline to guide their AI strategies. As a result, this is another area of CEO confidence that is highly variable depending on how they view the quality of their frontline leaders.

Without skilled frontline leaders, CEOs clearly believe their business strategy will not come to fruition. These CEOs should depend on their HR partners to reverse the situation by advancing the leadership skills of their managers.

Source: CEO Leadership Report 2023 by DDI