Your CEO wants concrete examples …

What happens when your CEO wants concrete examples of a risk you mention:

1. He’s (less often, she’s!) the “don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions” kind of guy. Run. He doesn’t even understand his own role as the chief Leader. Just signing off on the preferred solution is for a middle, rather middling, manager [pejorative use; though I certainly don’t endorse that use, excepting exceptions] – don’t even bother trying to get the discussion going where you want it / where any sane person would require it to be; incompetence to think in abstractions oneself is what we have here. Whereas the solution, when it has to come from the ‘shop floor’ (relative! to the Board floor), it demonstrates the worst Peter Principle at work. Actually worse; the inverse i.e. those at the top have floated up by lack of weight the fastest, most ..!
2. He needs Gängelwagen [1] – conclusion: the same;
3. An ‘inversion of wits’ is what true Leaders demonstrate. Here, the surrounding themselves with people far smarter (obviously) may very, very well be the case but then not letting them have their way ..!? Second-guessing them ..!?
4. Hence [I’m using the numbered list style without purpose; you should know me to do such things by now] actually, one only has proper management-sometimes-ridiculously-called-governance, when communications any level up the organisation sees higher levers of abstraction being commonplace/rule. Including sanity checks along the way, of course, if that weren’t obvious as well.
5. Also, promote based on competence in thinking in abstractions, all the way up. The sheeple that come out of business schools with big-mouth blabber about how they understand and the rest not, may be relegated to literal-shop floor work. Such an increase in the quality of management!

Points 4 and 5 then, are hallmarks of Leaders. The other points, were already qualified. Did the above sound like frustration? Rightfully, yes; decades of it.

Never mind; and:

[Walls as thick as their skulls; Cordoba across the river]

[1] “So sind Beispiele der Gängelwagen der Urtheilskraft, welchen derjenige, dem es am natürlichen Talent derselben mangelt, niemals entbehren kann. (Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernuft 187 A 134, B 173-4)” [Note: the translation to ‘go-kart’ isn’t what Kant meant (read the original ..!!), ‘walker’ is the word you should use!]