A CEO/MD Guide to Leading the 10 Steps
The 10 Steps to Business Recovery set out the framework. But frameworks don’t execute themselves. Leadership does.
As CEO or MD, you’re the one who shoulders responsibility and carries the can. You can’t promise success. No one can. But what you can do is give your business the best possible chance of stabilising and recovering. That chance depends less on the framework itself, and more on how you lead it.
This is what that role looks like in practice.
Facing Reality and Owning It
The first step is always to face the facts. But as CEO/MD, it goes further. You don’t just acknowledge reality, you own it.
If the numbers are worse than expected, you say it. If the forecasts don’t stack up, you call them out. Your people and your investors take their lead from you. If you soften the picture, they will too.
Recovery starts with credibility, and credibility comes from dealing in truth.
Making Cash the Non-Negotiable
Liquidity is oxygen. Without it, nothing else matters.
As CEO/MD, you show that cash isn’t just finance’s problem, it’s the whole business’s priority. That means challenging spend requests, cutting costs that don’t add value, and making it clear every decision is weighed against liquidity.
One discipline I use is to translate spend into revenue required. If your net margin is 10%, every £1 of cost equals £10 in new sales.
Take a simple example: an administrator on £25k looks manageable at just over £2,000 a month. But at a 10% margin, that means £250,000 of extra sales just to cover the hire. The monthly looks small. The sales burden doesn’t.
And it works the other way too. Strip out £100,000 of cost and you’ve taken £1m of pressure off the sales line. That’s why cuts buy you more than cash. They buy you room to breathe.
Cutting Costs and Facing the Hardest Calls Early
Cash control buys time, but costs are where the real decisions live. For most businesses, the hardest to cut yet the largest single cost is headcount.
The mistake I see again and again is waiting until a liquidity emergency before acting. By then, redundancy costs themselves can’t be financed and the business enters a spiral where the cuts it needs most are no longer possible.
Equally damaging is when cuts are made, but not made deep enough. Too many comfortable decisions are left on the table, and the result is another round of reductions soon after. That drip-feed of cuts is worse than one decisive move. It drains morale, undermines confidence, and leaves the team waiting for the next blow.
The principle is simple: cut once, cut deep. Do it early enough to control the timing. Make it deep enough that you don’t have to come back for a second pass. Painful as it is, the business and its people are far better served by one hard adjustment than by death by a thousand cuts.
There’s another trap worth calling out. In many businesses, admin staff are close to management teams. Long-standing relationships, trusted support, people who feel indispensable. That proximity makes it harder to cut, while costs further from the boardroom get challenged more aggressively.
Don’t let proximity be the justification for protecting costs. Judge everything by value added, not closeness to leadership. When you’re weighing the dilemma, ask yourself:
“If we didn’t already have this person in the business, would I hire for this role right now?”
If the honest answer is no, then the cost can’t be justified.
Mission and Strategic Objectives One Clear Focus
There can only ever be one mission. It is the single defining statement of intent, the thing the business must achieve above all else. And if you are running a commercial enterprise, any valid mission must therefore be commercial.
That mission doesn’t stand alone. It is supported by four or five strategic objectives that make it real. Those objectives give structure, but they never compete with the mission.
Be explicit. Don’t hide behind vague language. If the mission is to “Realign the business in order to respond to market conditions,” say it exactly like that. Then hang the objectives beneath it: stabilise cash, reshape cost base, strengthen customer retention, rebuild margin, prepare for investor discussions.
Ignore the academic noise. Mission and vision statements are too often decorations on a wall or filler in a proposal document. At best, they’re irrelevant. At worst, they’re dangerous distractions, dragging the business into places it doesn’t belong. If you could imagine it holding up at a beauty pageant, it’s likely an inaccurate direction for your commercial business.
Understand complexity and create simplicity. A clear, accurate mission may look almost too simple, but in reality, it’s the most powerful first step you’ll ever make.
And here is the real test: if your mission is not commercially sensitive, it isn’t explicit enough. A true mission will always expose strategy, intent, and direction that competitors would love to know. For that reason, it is not to be shared outside the SLT and the board. It is not a wall-hanger, not a slogan, and not for general distribution. It is the anchor for leadership and leadership alone.
Your role as CEO/MD is to set the mission, define the objectives, and hold the line. The mission never blurs. The objectives never multiply. Everyone in leadership knows what the business is working towards and how their work fits into it.
Galvanising the Team Behind the Mission
A mission, however clear, means nothing if the senior team doesn’t line up behind it. As CEO/MD, your job is not just to set direction but to unify the leadership team so they act as one.
One way I do this is by running a short session with the senior team. We start by setting out the current situation in plain terms, the facts, the implications, and the risks if nothing changes. Then, as a group, we shape the mission. Everyone has a hand in it, so everyone owns it.
That doesn’t mean you back down as CEO/MD. On the contrary, you still hold the line. But if another argument proves more compelling, you adapt. The mission that emerges is stronger because it’s been tested, challenged, and shaped collectively.
As Eisenhower put it: “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” Your job is to turn a mission that might not be instinctively popular into a unifying cause.
When the senior team is aligned, the rest of the business follows. When they’re fractured, the business stalls.
Being the Emotional Anchor
People don’t just watch what you do. They absorb how you do it.
In tough times, panic spreads fast. So does calm. Your role is to absorb the pressure and project steadiness. Not passive, not paralysed, but decisive action delivered without drama.
The way you carry yourself gives others space to perform. You are the anchor they tie themselves to.
Resetting Rhythm
Recovery doesn’t run on good intentions. It runs on rhythm.
That means sharper meetings. Daily updates where needed. Clear reporting lines. Everyone knows exactly what’s expected, when, and to what standard.
As CEO/MD, you don’t have to manage every detail, but you do have to insist on the tempo. If the rhythm slips, inertia takes over.
Endurance and Discipline The Standards That Don’t Slip
Most leadership teams start strong. Energy is high. Then, weeks in, you see it: meetings missed, excuses made, numbers not known, board reporting weak.
Endurance is your role. You need stamina, and you need to demand it of your team. Recovery is not a sprint. You set the expectation that standards don’t drop, not in week one, not in week ten.
And discipline is what keeps that endurance real. No “near enough.” Meetings happen. Numbers are sharp. Reports are accurate. If you let standards slip, you’ve signalled recovery is optional. And once that line is crossed, the whole thing unravels.
Guard Against Burnout Protecting Your Senior Team
Recovery isn’t just about systems and cash. It’s about people.
Your senior team will carry a load most of the business never sees. They’re often hard-driving, resilient people, but they’re not machines. In my experience, CFOs and FDs are the worst offenders. Something about their training makes them believe the answer lies in more hours at the keyboard. They’ll quietly grind themselves into exhaustion.
Your job is to spot it and step in. Encourage rest. Balance workloads. Make it clear that sustained performance is worth more than raw hours. A burned-out senior leader isn’t an asset. They’re a risk.
Demanding Accountability Without Killing Morale
Tough times expose weaknesses. Some people rise. Others don’t.
You cannot carry passengers, but you cannot destroy morale either. Your role is to set accountability fairly: support those who can deliver, reassign those who can’t, and be crystal clear on where performance falls short.
Done well, accountability lifts standards across the board. Done badly, it poisons the culture when you need it most.
Communicating Relentlessly Across All Fronts
In uncertainty, silence is toxic.
As CEO/MD, only you can link the whole system: staff, management, board, and investors. Your responsibility is to say what others can’t. Share what you know. Admit what you don’t. Explain the next step.
But communication can’t be ad hoc. It needs rhythm. I always insist on a team briefing system that gets information from the top to the bottom of the business within a working day, or at most 24 hours.
My senior team meets weekly to discuss the mission and progress. We agree a standard team briefing template and what content is going into the briefing, and ensure one version of the truth is cascaded across the business. Everyone hears the same message, at the same time, in the same words.
And never by email. It’s lazy, it will be leaked, and it strips out leadership. If your senior team can’t, won’t, don’t have time, or can’t be bothered to deliver a simple team briefing, you have the wrong people in leadership roles.
Some businesses prefer town hall meetings. They’re fast and efficient for delivering one message at scale, but they lack intimacy, people are less likely to ask questions, and they tend to make it about one person at the front. I prefer small team briefings delivered by each member of the SLT. They own the message, they hear the questions, and the feedback is far richer.
And critically, briefings must run as a closed loop. Every team briefing should carry questions and feedback back up the chain, not just cascade information down. This ensures issues are surfaced, not buried. Concerns are addressed, not ignored. And the leadership team gets to test whether the message has landed as intended.
What matters most is the effect. Ask yourself: when each attendee walks out, if someone asks “what was that about?”, what do you want them to say? That’s the outcome you’re aiming for.
Balancing Survival With Recovery
The hardest dual role: managing today’s fire while preparing for tomorrow’s future.
Most of your team will be consumed by survival. You must hold both horizons in view. Protect today. Plan tomorrow. Balance immediate stability with future growth.
That’s the difference between merely surviving turbulence and emerging stronger.
The Leadership Burden
The 10 Steps provide the framework. But as CEO/MD, you are the one who:
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Faces facts when others soften them
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Protects cash when others spend it
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Cuts costs when others hesitate
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Sets the mission when others blur it
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Galvanises the team when others drift apart
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Anchors calm when others panic
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Drives rhythm when others drift
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Sustains endurance when others tire
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Enforces discipline when others relax
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Guards your team when others burn out
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Demands accountability when others excuse
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Communicates when others stay silent
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Holds both horizons when others can’t
Frameworks don’t lead. Leaders do.
You may not be able to guarantee recovery. But if you carry the 10 Steps in this way, with stamina, discipline, and clarity, you will have given your business its best chance. In tough times, that is what real leadership looks like.
