How to be a great CEO - Ask me Anything with Paula Bennett

Listen to the full episode for more from Rhiannon McKinnon about her pathway to becoming a CEO.

Ask Me Anything is an NZ Herald podcast hosted by former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett. New episodes are available every Sunday.

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Cassiobury chief executive Rhiannon McKinnon provides advice and guidance to aspiring business leaders.

If your dream is to become the chief executive of an organisation, you may want to make sure you are doing it for the right reasons - and know what you’d be getting yourself in for.

That’s the advice from Rhiannon McKinnon, the founder and chief executive of Cassiobury, a business advising CEOs on strategy, growth and leadership.

Speaking to Paula Bennett on her NZ Herald podcast, Ask Me Anything, McKinnon said that there’s no one personality type that suits sitting in that top job in a business, but a key thing is knowing why you want to be doing this.

“If you just want to be doing it because you think it’s the next step and you think it’s important and you want the salary, I think you’re going to find it a tough run.

“It’s really hard work trying to drive an entire company organisation in one direction. So I think you need to be clear as to why. When I did it, I thought, I’ve got a vision, I want to do this better, and I’ve got these great ideas.”

McKinnon said that there’s nothing wrong with not aspiring for that top job and sticking to what you know, as it can change you as a person.

“By the time you’re at the top, you’re not really doing as much as you used to. You’re kind of leading and you’re talking and you’re managing and you’re filtering and you’re doing all sorts, but there’s not so much of the doing the do.

“And if you actually like getting in the weeds and getting stuff done, CEO is probably not necessarily the spot for you, depending on the size of the organisation.”

After a string of roles in the business community, McKinnon was appointed chief executive of wealth fund Kiwi Wealth in 2021.

She told Bennett that she battled imposter syndrome during those early stages in the job.

“I certainly woke up with butterflies in my stomach every day for the first two weeks. I just [would] wake up and be like, ‘Oh my goodness, I’ve got to turn up and be CEO today’, and what on earth does that mean? You go in and you do it and by lunchtime they were gone, and by about three o’clock I was trying to go to the pub because I was so spent.”

Asking questions and re-examining established norms are ways a new boss can find their feet and make the role their own.

But McKinnon said there needs to be more of an acknowledgement around the difficulties that come with being ‘the boss’, particularly around how isolating it is.

“Especially if you get internally promoted, suddenly all your mates and your peers aren’t your mates and peers anymore. I think those internal transitions are almost harder than if you get parachuted in.

“It is one of those lonely positions where you’ve got your chair and your board above you, you’ve got a whole sort of senior leadership or executive leadership below you, and I liken it to being in the middle of an hourglass.

“You’re filtering the information in both directions, you’re deciding what out of that leadership team information needs to go up to the board, you want to paint them a transparent picture, you want to give them the information they need to make their own wise governance decisions, and then you need to be filtering the board back to the leadership team so they know actually what they should be carrying on with.”

For any aspiring leaders out there, McKinnon said a key thing to keep in mind is how you divide the role from the rest of your life.

“CEO is just a job, right? And I think that really helps by the time you get up there. It doesn’t have to take over a hundred hours of your week. Yes, it’s probably quite time consuming, but you do need to have a really good cut off and remain linked in with your friends and family as well.”