Do Sales Pros Make Good CEOs?

Here's a quick question to test your basic understanding of the business world.

It's also a question that tests (a bit obliquely) your ability to sell to a CEO, because it helps you understand what that breed is all about.

Here's the question. Answer honestly, please.

Do sales pros make good CEOs?

• CHOICE #1: Of Course! A sales professional needs great people skills, a winning personality, listening ability, enthusiasm, a sense of vision, and the talent to work well in a team. Those are exactly what a good CEO needs to lead a great company.
• CHOICE #2: No Way! Most CEOs have backgrounds in law, finance, or even marketing, and many have MBAs. While there are a few famous CEOs who started out as sales professionals, there must be a reason that they're not all that common.

The latest research was summarized in a recent column by the New York Times columnist David Brooks. Here are the bottom line of those studies, with quotes from that column:

• CONCLUSION #1: Successful CEOs do not usually have good people skills. "Traits like being a good listener, a good team builder, an enthusiastic colleague, a great communicator do not seem to be very important when it comes to leading successful companies."
• CONCLUSION #2: Successful CEOs are all about organization and execution. "The traits the correlated most powerfully with success were attention to detail, persistence, efficiency, analytic thoroughness and the ability to work long hours."
• CONCLUSION #3: Successful CEOs are not flamboyant visionaries. "The best CEOs were...humble, self-effacing, dilient and resolute souls who found one thing they were really good at and did it over and over again."
• CONCLUSION #4: Successful CEOs tend to be rather dull. "The CEOs that are most likely to succeed are humble, diffident, relentless and a bit unidimensional. They are often not the most exciting people to be around."