How Sweet the C-Suite?

 How Sweet the C-Suite?

 

By Ajit Chaudhuri – March 2026

 

It is said that CEOs are a different breed. They are separated from the rest of us by their brilliance, their capacity for hard work, and the Gods smiling upon them, and from others in the upper echelons of management hierarchies (who are also bright, swot-worthy, and lucky) by a sense of ruthlessness that one is either born with or doesn’t have, it is not a trait that is learnt or acquired. And yet, they are humans, they make mistakes, and some of these mistakes don’t boil down to excessive pride, taking their own PR seriously, or an inability to keep a certain part of the body in their pants.

 

The article ‘Set Up Your C-Suite to Execute Your Strategy’ in the Harvard Business Review of Jan/Feb 2026 outlines one such mistake. Designing an executive team (Ex-T) is among the most consequential choices a CEO makes, because it is this team that determines resource allocation, trade-off resolutions, speed of decision-making, and pivots in the face of unforeseen challenges within the organization, and its shape needs to reflect organizational strategy for it to function effectively. And yet, many Ex-Ts are a gathering of everyone with the word ‘Chief’ in their designation, and its meetings resemble a high-school lunch table with occupants jockeying for turf while decisions drag, priorities get blurred, accountability becomes confused, and energy gets sapped.

 

Why does a roomful of brilliant individuals turn into sludge when put together, the article asks, and why does the C-suite erode into a club? Because of three myths, it says.

 

The first is the ‘status’ myth – that the ‘chief’ title equals an Ex-T seat. In fact, ‘chief inflation’ is rampant; whereas earlier one had a CEO, COO, CFO and perhaps CTO, a ‘chief’ designation is now doled out as a status marker, a recruiting perk, or a symbolic gesture, with people holding positions such as ‘chief happiness officer’, etc. Some of these roles are valuable but may not belong in an Ex-T, and an Ex-T built around fads risks confusing the fashionable with the strategically necessary.

 

Then the ‘hierarchy’ myth – that reporting to the CEO equals Ex-T membership. Reports should serve the CEO, whereas the Ex-T should serve the company, and it is reasonable for a CEO to have direct reports who are not part of the Ex-T (such as the head of investor relations, for example, and others whose role is primarily advisory).

 

Research on team effectiveness (Hackman and Oldham, et al) suggests that, as groups expand beyond 5 members, coordination costs climb and the quality of decisions drops, and that larger teams encourage the phenomenon of ‘social loafing’ (Ringelman, 1913) or the ability to hide in a large group and exert less effort.

 

And finally, the ‘capability’ myth – that more chiefs equals more competence. Adding Chief Strategy/Growth/Digital Officers may look like building muscle or adding strategic capacity, but if their mandates overlap it means turf wars, politics, and slow decisions. For example, in some companies, a CDO (D for Digital) is a genuine accelerator in integrating digital strategy across the enterprise; in others, a CDO fights with the CIO over the platforms and with the CMO over the customer data and also duplicates the CTO’s innovation strategy (I – Information; M – Marketing; T – Technology).

 

The article goes on to suggest remedies, some of which make for interesting reading. One was about ‘seams’ or the places where functions intersect to form competitive muscle (for example, the seam between product and sales enables service delivery; between the supply chain and finance drives efficiency; and between R&D and marketing accelerates innovation), where it says that good CEOs don’t assume seams will work out on their own, they design Ex-Ts to ensure that this happens.

 

But this note is not about remedies, it is about what I think about the above. So, here goes!

 

One, I agree with the main contention that a good Ex-T is necessary (but not sufficient) for a CEO to be effective, and the cost of a non-functional one is high. Having seen a few Ex-Ts in action, I can also confidently state that, while the ‘status’ myth is a reality, there is a caste-system within the Cs and many of them do not sit in an Ex-T and do not report to the CEO. It is common for some positions to report directly to the CEO but not sit in an Ex-T (such as the head of forensic accounts, or government relations, for example). Problems in an Ex-T usually boil down to unsuitable people (you will be shocked at the number of bozos, assholes – check out the book ‘The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t’ by Robert Sutton – and characterless butt-kissers in the ranks of senior leadership) getting onto the table, and to groupthink and yes-man-ship due to a CEO’s inability to delegate decision-making.

 

Two, I am uncomfortable with the Chief Strategy Officer being cited as an example of the ‘capabilities’ myth. Given the connect between the Ex-T and organizational strategy, it is critical for the latter’s custodian to have a seat at the table (and they usually do). This observation, it must be said, may be tempered by the fact that I retired as a CSO.

 

And three, for those who aspire to reaching the C-suite, there is a Russian curse that goes, ‘may you get everything that you want’.