Traits of the Best CEOs: How Do You Stack Up?

As I wrote in a recent blog post, the untimely death of Steve Jobs got me thinking about a lot of things.

It caused me to reflect on Jobs’s vision, creativity, and foresight, and how Apple’s products impacted my life and the the lives of my friends and family (they did, after all, manage to turn my technophobic mom into an iPad whiz). I thought a little bit about Jobs’s affinity for user experience too, and how that philosophy altered the way I look at OpenView’s own portfolio of expansion stage software companies.

But I also thought about Steve Jobs the CEO; the calculated, intrinsically talented, experienced leader of a company that started from nothing, grew to be one of the world’s greatest corporations, and began to fail without him when Apple’s board ousted Jobs in 1985.

So, why am I writing about him again?

Because it was no accident that Apple’s resurgence began in 1997 when Jobs was re-named CEO of the fledgling company. In his absence, Apple was missing direction, operational guidance, leadership, and — most importantly — a true vision for the future. And those are qualities that Jobs and other great CEOs like him have in spades.

The best chief executives are able to identify, hire, and manage top executive-level talent. They understand why their company exists, rather than what it exists to accomplish. They create a crystal clear vision for their business and ensure it’s adopted at every level of their company. They identify new market opportunities and establish operational efficiency as the company scales… and the list goes on.

My point is this: Some CEOs have a handful of those traits, but very few possess the entire package.

Steve Jobs, and guys like Oracle CEO Larry Ellison or Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, are the exception. Sure, they all have different leadership styles and, for the most part, vastly varying personalities. But Jobs, Ellison, and Benioff share a handful of common traits that make them great CEOs.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll break down some of those qualities and discuss why they’re important — for major corporations like Oracle, Apple, and Salesforce.com, and smaller startup or expansion stage software companies alike. Here are a few of the topics I’ll cover:

• Attracting, recruiting and motivating an outstanding senior team
• Creating and communicating the mission, vision and values of the company
• Building a highly effective and value-adding board of directors
• Making sure that the company is always optimally funded
• Architecting the optimal exit

Keep in mind as you read each post that it doesn’t really matter how big or small your company is. As the CEO, the fundamental principles of leadership, management, and operational efficiency apply across the board. Just look at the CEOs I’ve used as examples in this post: Jobs, Ellison, and Benioff built their companies from the ground up, in two instances starting in their parents’ garage (Apple) or a humble San Francisco office (Salesforce.com).

And while they were all blessed with some natural CEO qualities (leadership, the ability to articulate and communicate vision, etc.), they learned a lot from their peers, mentors, fellow executives and advisors along the way too.

So, Mr. or Mrs. CEO, how do you stack up? Are there certain qualities you share with Jobs, Ellison, Benioff, and other great executives? Which skills have room for improvement?

Stay tuned to find out!