The Confrontation Obligation | RKG
“CEO jobs are insanely confrontational, which is not human nature. We don’t like it. We’re not naturally confrontational.” —Frank Slootman How many times have you heard a leader say something like, “My job is to hire great people and get out of their way”? Sounds like a great approach, right? You get to be a humble leader who empowers their team. The team gets to be creative and have freedom. You get to be a leader who is respected and loved. And everyone lives happily ever after because this is a fairy tale. Of course you need to hire great people. But you can’t get out of their way. The best leaders set the standard and relentlessly reinforce it. Greatness is forged through high expectations and difficult conversations. There’s a reason that none of us like conflict. It sucks. I’ll tell you a story from a particularly terrible business review. The numbers were bad and the team sounded like sideline reporters analyzing a game rather than players participating in it. Like any halfway-d