I love massages. They are so good for both the mind and the body, that I try to get them regularly. As the CEO of Infinify, a mother of three daughters, a partner to my beloved husband, and a few other roles I fill in my life, my mind is always occupied with something. Over time, the body feels it too. To keep the party going, I must make sure I’m in good shape – both physically and mentally – and so I do what it takes. With massages, it just happens to be super fun too 🙂

During my last massage, I felt the therapist was almost breaking my back. I immediately assumed I had so much tension there that she had to do it. I bit my lips and said nothing. It was only when she got to my hands and I felt her strong pressure again, that I asked her to ease up. Don’t get me wrong, here, too, I initially thought my hands were also so tense that it demanded that kind of strong pressure, but having had a few such massages in the past end with bad bruising I knew this was where it was going, and didn’t want it to happen again.

I had to get a real, tangible indication that something was seriously wrong in order to tell the therapist what I needed, which was – I remind you – the whole point of me getting a massage to begin with. Why couldn’t I just tell her to do it more lightly when I initially felt the pain in my back? Because I thought she was the authority – a professional therapist who knew what she was doing. Which she was, by the way, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t – or shouldn’t – contribute my own part.

One of the reasons that allowed me to eventually say something is that I know myself, and I know this is a pitfall I have. I have a lot of respect for authority, and often assume these people know what they are doing or talking about, and don’t question it. As I have learned so many times in the past, this is a pure mistake. 

If you are anything like me, you are doing it in many of your relationships – at work, and probably in general too. Today I’d like to focus on one such relationship where this is most likely to come up – your relationship with your CEO.

Both as an employee and as a consultant working with CEOs closely for 5 years already, I have seen it happening time and again. So here are three things I tended to assume – usually unknowingly because saying them out loud immediately makes you question them – but learned they were mostly wrong assumptions to make.

They Want a Specific Solution

Raise a virtual hand if your CEO tends to come to you or your team members with specific solutions they want to promote. I’m sure asking this in a room full of product leaders would show many raised hands. 

Whenever that happens, our initial reaction is usually to discuss the solution. But you need to remember that the CEO is most likely talking about a solution because that’s the easiest way for them to think about it and communicate. It’s much easier to suggest a solution than to clearly articulate a problem. But that’s exactly your expertise as a product leader, isn’t it?

Whenever the CEO comes to your – or your team – with a solution, help them take a few steps back and understand the problem that they are trying to solve. You might end up getting to the same solution still, but you will have a much better context. In many other cases, you will get to a better solution, but asking the CEO the higher-level questions that lead to understanding what they really need, is the best way to get them on board with a new solution. Otherwise, you might find yourself either arguing endlessly on “my solution, your solution” or simply giving up and simply doing what they asked for (more about this later). But that’s rarely the right thing to do.

They Have It All Figured Out

Depending on where the roots of your career were, you might have a different view on guidance coming from above. In my case, growing up professionally in the Israeli Air Force, we knew we were part of a bigger system and needed to work from within. It’s not that you had to simply take orders as is, but at some point, you were expected to disagree and commit. Generally speaking, working in such a large system meant that I had to take guidance from my superiors since they had a much wider perspective than I did. 

But as a product leader, you don’t have that luxury. While your CEO does have a different perspective that is important to take into consideration, they don’t always see the full picture. And even if they do, the world you live in is so complex that seeing it and figuring out what to do are two very different things.

Assuming that your CEO has got it all figured out, and your role is simply to execute whatever plan they make, is no longer an option as a product leader. That’s unfortunate in a way because the role would have been so much simpler this way. But of course, it would also lose much of the impact that comes with it, so if you ask me – we are better off living with this complexity, and instead of executing upon the CEO’s vision and plan – helping build the right vision and the right plan.

You can use their plan as an initial hook to start the discussion. Take them gradually a few steps back to make sure you understand why and how they got to this plan. Sometimes, they would have clear answers, which you can agree or disagree with. But more often than not, they wouldn’t have any answers at all, and your questions are actually helping them think.

They Just Want You to Do What They Say

I know that’s a terrible thing to say, and I have rarely heard it as bluntly. But it’s not about what your CEO says, it’s about what you are telling yourself about what they really want. Moreover, it’s about what you are telling yourself unknowingly about what they want, which has a direct impact on how you operate. 

Test yourself: do you ever operate under the assumption that they just want you to do what they say? If your answer was a definite no, check again, because as I said above we are doing it unconsciously. So perhaps the right question would be where are you operating under that assumption?

You might have come to operate this way because of past experiences. Maybe the CEO doesn’t like you questioning them. Some CEOs don’t feel comfortable with questions like “wait, what are you actually trying to do here? Why do you think it’s the right thing to do?”. But their lack of patience for this discussion shouldn’t lead you to the conclusion that they just want you to do what they say. As a CEO I can share with you that it is very scary because it leaves all the responsibility on me. Ideally, I would like my team to take what I say as a starting point. I want them to see if it makes sense to them, check on what I missed, and suggest an improved alternative. That’s the only way the team can really take ownership of some of what I do, and not leave me as the sole responsible person.

The fact that I know that, by the way, doesn’t always mean that I say it out loud all the time. Back to my first point, it is always so much easier to simply say what you want. But you shouldn’t take it as an order, even if it sounds like one. Find a way – each CEO is different in their preferences – to work in partnership with your CEO even if they talk in bottom lines. Everyone will benefit from it.