Joshua Gould runs thebigword, a global language services company with more than 400 employees and a network of over 15,000 contractors. He told me the hardest step in any executive career is not the jump into the C-suite. It is the jump from the C-suite to CEO, because every other seat comes with a boss. The CEO seat does not.
Quick Answer
You lead without having all the answers by telling your team exactly where you are unsure, then asking the people closest to the problem what they see. Glenn Gow coaches CEOs to treat this as a speed advantage, not a risk. Roger Jansen, CEO of Exponential Health, rejects the idea that a leader must be an all-knowing “silverback.” Nathan Louer, CEO of Magnolia Bakery, walked into his first ninety days and told his team he did not understand their business as well as they did. Both moves built trust faster than pretending would have.
Why CEOs Think They Need All the Answers
Roger calls it the silverback trap. He said leadership is not about being “this incredible 1960s madman figure who is, you do what I say because I’m the silverback of the group.” He said the group’s opinions and ideas matter more than his own certainty.
Roger pushed further on where that pressure comes from. He said boards expect their CEO to have every answer, and CEOs feel obligated to perform that role. He said, “The CEO doesn’t have all the answers. We’re all just people walking around this planet going around a huge marble whirling through space.” He added that too many boards expect certainty that does not exist, and too many CEOs pretend to supply it.
Ross Meglathery, CEO of Integritek, spent years as a Marine Corps officer before running a company. He said the same trap catches leaders in combat and in the boardroom. “I think as you get older and more experienced, you recognize that you just can’t be the expert at everything. And if you do think you’re the expert at everything, you’re not.” He has watched the alternative play out. “I’ve seen people catastrophically fail because they’re not willing to admit the things they don’t know.”
Glenn Gow sees this pattern constantly in his coaching work. CEOs arrive convinced that admitting uncertainty will cost them authority. The guests on this podcast prove the opposite.
What Vulnerability Actually Buys a Leader
Nathan took over Magnolia Bakery and inherited a consumer packaged goods operation he had never run before. He told his team directly: “You guys have built a wonderful business. I don’t understand it end to end like you do.” He said that admission “humanizes you” and “allows you to tear down walls so that you can build back stronger quicker.”
Nathan went further when a reporter asked him how AI would change the brand’s guest loyalty experience. He said, “I’d be lying if I said that we had that figured out. I just don’t have any idea right now. I hope that’s an acceptable answer.”
Elias Stahl, CEO of Hilos, builds the same habit into his company’s culture on purpose. He said, “There are two underlying mantras at Hilos. One is growth through vulnerability. And I have to display that every day. I have to say what I’m not good at.” Elias also frames his own capacity as the ceiling on the company. “My job is to make sure that none of us stop growing… if this company grows 4x every year, then you grow 4x every year, right? And you are the cap on the company’s growth.”
Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, CEO of Visiting Media, said the performance of certainty is itself the danger. “The reality is that I don’t know all the things that I need to know all the time. And anybody that pretends in the role that I sit in that they do, like they’re making it up, right?” Glenn Gow tells CEOs to write down the one thing they’re least sure about before every board meeting.
The Investor Dilemma: Polished Truth vs. Raw Truth
Joshua treats his investors the way he treated his father when his father chaired the company. “I drive my investors mad because most CEOs will only give a very polished view of the world to their investors. But I actually treat my investors like I treated my father when he was the chairman of the company. Part shrink, part coach.” He said most investors cannot handle that level of honesty. They want to hear the business is going well because their capital is on the line.
That tension shows up across the guests on this hub, and it is worth mapping directly.
| Approach | What the CEO Gets in the Room | Downstream Outcome for the Company |
| Polished reporting to the board | Comfort, fewer hard questions, short-term calm | Board expects certainty it never gets later, trust cracks when reality surfaces |
| Raw, unvarnished reporting (Joshua’s model) | Friction, discomfort, harder conversations | Board and CEO solve real problems together before they become crises |
Roger’s read on board expectations lines up with the raw-truth side of that table. He said too many boards expect CEOs to have all the answers, and that expectation is “just a mistake.”
How to Say “I Don’t Know” Without Losing Authority
Michael Cherney, CEO of Cooler Logistics, learned this the hard way as a first-time manager. He moved to run a remote office with almost no guidance. “I honestly was probably a terrible manager, but I tried to do everything by myself. And I stumbled so often that when I had a moment to take a step back, the greatest opportunities for success were when I needed to ask for help.”
Dan Turner, CEO of Xperigo, took over as CEO exactly as COVID hit and the automotive economy shut down. “I thought I was coming into this with, you know, this toolbox that I had built over the years… throw the toolbox out the window because we’re gonna have to throw it.”
Glenn Gow points to Dan’s next move as the sharper lesson. Instead of tightening control while uncertain, Dan extended trust to his team before they had proven anything.
Where CEOs Find Their Sounding Board
Joshua Gould said the CEO seat is the first executive role in his career with no one above him to call when something goes wrong. “The step up from C-suite to CEO, which is the head of the C-suite, is by far the hardest step… because even a COO or CTO… you do have a boss. You never have to be alone… And then one day you become the CEO and there is no one to call in the middle of the night.”
John Volturo, CEO of Evolution, said the same isolation drove him to build an outside network. “When you’re in the CEO role, you feel really isolated too sometimes… and most of the time what I find is really successful for CEOs is to belong to something. And that thing is typically some sort of a group of like-minded people, whether it’s a mastermind… where they can just really run things by others without the fear of judgment.”
John also described the cost of chasing certainty on your own. He said he spent years in “a swirl, you know, constantly worried, a swirl, just constantly worrying about everything I was doing. Was it the right decision?” His advice to his younger self: “Trust yourself because you know what you’re doing.”
Will Jones, President and CEO of Thompson Child and Family Focus, built a formal structure around this instinct. “Any adverse decision I make, one is I’ve talked about it with my coach several times… and then it’s my peer group… I will surface up scenarios and thought patterns to other CEOs across the country that I know well to get their feedback.” Will also credits his wife as a check on his instincts. “One of my biggest coaches is my spouse… My wife is more heart than head. I’m probably more head than heart… so she balances my decisions out where I could be running 100% with my head.”
Roger described the same principle in a single image. “Growth is a lot easier when you’re climbing the mountain and somebody else can help carry the backpack for a little while and you can rest and you can take it and carry it the mile.”
Glenn Gow builds his coaching practice around exactly this structure: a sounding board removed from the daily politics of the company, where a CEO can say “I don’t know” out loud without it costing them anything.
Why Command Decisions Work in Combat but Fail in the Boardroom
Ross and Elias both moved from military service into running a company, and both said the two worlds demand opposite instincts. In the Marine Corps, Ross learned that a commander sometimes has to give a directive order with no time for discussion, because a wrong call under fire costs lives immediately. He said the private sector runs on a different set of rules, because employees “have feet and they can walk.” A CEO who tries to command a civilian team the way a commander directs a platoon will lose the team.
Elias carried his time in Israel’s Special Forces into how he runs Hilos, but he applied the lesson in the opposite direction from what a first-time founder might expect. Instead of leaning on command authority, he built a culture where he has to “say what I’m not good at” out loud, every day, to the people who report to him. He said this openness is what lets his team tell him when they are struggling, before a small problem becomes a company-wide one.
| Setting | What the Leader Does | Ceiling or Limit |
| Combat (Ross’s Marine Corps experience) | Gives a directive order with no discussion | Works because subordinates cannot leave; fails the moment it is used on people who can |
| Boardroom or startup floor (Elias’s model at Hilos) | Asks the person closest to the problem what they see before deciding | Slower in the moment, but keeps the team intact and moving |
Glenn Gow tells former military leaders moving into the C-suite to ask the person closest to the problem before deciding, every time.
What This Means for How You Lead This Week
You do not need to fake certainty to hold your team’s respect. Nathan proved that admitting a skill gap on day one built trust faster than hiding it would have. Roger proved that boards asking for false certainty are asking for the wrong thing. Ross proved that the leaders who fail are the ones who never admit what they do not know.
Pick one decision this week where you genuinely do not have the answer. Say that plainly to the people closest to the problem, then ask them what they see. Glenn Gow has watched this single move rebuild trust faster than any confident-sounding plan ever could.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I lead without having all the answers?
You say plainly where you are unsure, then ask the people closest to that problem what they see. Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, CEO of Visiting Media, said the alternative is worse: pretending you know everything means “they’re making it up,” which his team spots instantly. Glenn Gow tells CEOs that this move builds authority instead of costing it.
Is admitting uncertainty a sign of weak leadership?
No. Ross Meglathery, CEO of Integritek and a former Marine Corps officer, said the opposite is true, and Roger Jansen, CEO of Exponential Health, backs him up from the board side: “too many boards expect they have all the answers and that’s just a mistake.” Glenn Gow sees the same pattern in his own coaching work. CEOs who fake certainty burn out faster and lose their team’s trust sooner than CEOs who ask for help.
What are signs of weak leadership?
Weak leadership usually looks like false confidence, not honest doubt. Roger Jansen, CEO of Exponential Health, calls this the “silverback” pattern, describing the failed model as a leader who insists “you do what I say because I’m the silverback of the group.” Glenn Gow tells CEOs that a team following orders out of fear, rather than offering ideas, is the real warning sign to watch for.
How do CEOs handle the isolation of the top seat?
Most build an outside sounding board removed from company politics. Joshua Gould, CEO of thebigword, said the CEO seat is the first executive role with no one to call in the middle of the night. John Volturo, CEO of Evolution, said the years he spent trying to handle it alone left him in “a swirl, just constantly worrying about everything I was doing.” Glenn Gow’s coaching practice exists to fill that same gap.
What is CEO imposter syndrome and how do I deal with it?
John Volturo, CEO of Evolution, described years of second-guessing every decision as “a swirl, just constantly worrying about everything I was doing.” He said the fix was deciding to stop seeking outside validation and trust his own judgment instead. Glenn Gow tells CEOs that imposter syndrome fades faster once you have an outside sounding board, not once you feel certain.
How do I lead with confidence when I’m not sure of the answer?
Confidence comes from your process, not from pretending to know the outcome. Dan Turner, CEO of Xperigo, took over exactly as COVID shut down the automotive economy and said every framework he had built became useless overnight. He led by extending trust to his team before they had proven anything, rather than tightening control while he figured things out. Glenn Gow calls this a decisive leader’s real advantage: speed of response, not certainty of outcome.
Should I show doubt in front of my board?
Yes, carefully. Joshua Gould treats his investors as “part shrink, part coach” instead of giving them a polished report. Glenn Gow points to the tradeoff directly: boards that only get comfort end up blindsided later, while boards that get the raw picture end up solving problems with the CEO before they become crises. Glenn advises CEOs to bring boards real problems early, before those problems force an uncomfortable conversation later.
What is the 5% rule of leadership?
There is no single agreed-upon “5% rule” in leadership literature. The closest idea in this hub’s research comes from Will Jones, President and CEO of Thompson Child and Family Focus, who said his organization says no to roughly 75% of the opportunities it sees each year so it only takes on what it can actually execute well. Glenn Gow tells CEOs that discipline in saying no matters more than any fixed percentage rule.
What are the 7 C’s of leadership?
The “7 C’s” is a common leadership framework, but it is not the model this podcast’s guests use. Instead, Elias Stahl, CEO of Hilos, points to something simpler: his own reminder that “you are the cap on the company’s growth” the moment he stops being honest about his own limits. Glenn Gow agrees that one honest habit, repeated daily, outperforms a checklist.
How do I lead during difficult times?
Throw out your old playbook the moment it stops working, and find people to help carry what’s left. Dan Turner did the first part, telling his team the “toolbox” he had built no longer applied the moment COVID hit. Roger Jansen described the second part in a single image: “somebody else can help carry the backpack for a little while and you can rest and you can take it and carry it the mile.” Glenn Gow tells CEOs that difficult times reward leaders who adapt and lean on others in public, not leaders who hide their adjustments.
Why do some CEOs give employees unearned trust instead of making them earn it?
Because waiting for trust to be earned can make people feel like they don’t belong, and that slows a team down exactly when speed matters most. Dan Turner said he decided to “trust everybody until they give me a reason not to” the moment he took over as CEO during COVID. Glenn Gow has seen this approach build faster-moving teams than the traditional earn-it-first model.
Can military-style command decisions work in a company?
Rarely, and only in narrow emergencies. Ross Meglathery, who served as a Marine Corps officer before running Integritek, said combat sometimes requires a directive order with no discussion. Elias Stahl, who served in Israel’s Special Forces before founding Hilos, took the opposite lesson into his company, choosing to “say what I’m not good at” out loud every day instead of commanding from the top. Glenn Gow tells former military leaders moving into the C-suite that the instinct to command must be replaced with the instinct to ask.
What You Do Next
You do not have to have every answer to lead well this week. You have to be honest about which answer you don’t have, and go find the person who does. If you want help building that habit into how you run meetings, make decisions, and talk to your board, book a session with Glenn Gow and walk through your specific situation together.
