Do Chief Marketing Officers Have The Toughest Job In Business?
With the pace of change in marketing continuing to rapidly accelerate, bringing with it countless opportunities for business growth, many would think Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are sitting pretty. Not so. For many, even those who are most passionate about their work, being a CMO is one of, if not the toughest jobs in the C-suite. Are they right? If so, what makes it so tough, and will it always stay that way?
Toughest Job By Tenure?
If tenure is anything to go by, the lifespan of a CMO in post is definitely one of the shortest in the C-suite and it’s falling from 4.2 years in 2022 from 4.5 the year before, according to a new study by Spencer Stuart. But it’s not the lowest, that’s held by Chief Inclusion and Diversity Officers (2.7 years) followed by Chief Operating Officers (2.9 years) and finally by Chief Sustainability Officers (3.4 years).
So, Toughest On What Levels?
Thomas Barta, Founder of The Marketing Leadership Masterclass, certainly believes marketing is the toughest job in the business world. In his Renegade Marketers Unite podcast, What Makes A Marketing Leader, he outlines three reasons why that’s so.
First, marketers, Barta explains, typically focus on the future, whether that’s future growth streams, customer behaviour patterns and so on. Consequently, making them appear less credible than other positions that are more rooted in the here and now, such as Chief Finance Officers, say. Barta calls this the “the trust gap”. Second, he explains that as “very few” of the business functions that are critical to delivering a great customer experience report into marketing, this leaves marketers with a large “power gap” to grapple with as well. Third, as the technical pace of change in marketing is moving so fast, this creates a “skills gap” for marketers to fill.
With martech proliferation, the skills gap is a particularly tough challenge for CMOs. In her Marketing Smarts podcast, CMO, The Toughest Job In The World, Jamie Gier describes her CMO job as "mind-boggling" as Gier tries to keep up with all the tech changes in order to understand what the implications of it all are for herself as a marketer, for her business and her customers.
The uniqueness of the CMO role, as articulated by Bray Brockbank, in his LinkedIn article, Why the CMO Role Might be the Hardest C-Suite Role, echoes the power gap challenge. Brockbank explores the many layers and the diverse and varied nature of the CMO role, explaining “marketing has grown to encompass multiple functions and specialties, touching everything internal and external, from prospects and customers to employees and investors.” Yet as marketing typically manages only a few of these functions, this power gap necessitates that CMOs are exceptional at working in multiple cross-functional teams, as they seek to align with others to enhance the customer experience and drive growth. Often that means having to collaboratively navigate their way through minefields of conflicting priorities, personalities and cultures within their business to achieve this. Undoubtedly, this poses a formidable challenge for even the most competent of marketing leaders.
Another often cited pain point for CMOs is their relationship with their boss, the CEO. We know when this relationship works a business can truly thrive.“CEOs who place marketing at the core of their growth strategy are twice as likely to have greater than 5 percent annual growth compared with their peers” according to McKinsey’s The Power Of Partnership: How The CEO–CMO Relationship Can Drive Outsize Growth.
That said, we also know that this relationship is often poor, reflecting the trust gap, with 66 percent of the CMOs surveyed saying “their CEOs were not comfortable with modern marketing.” The findings also reiterate the power gap for CMOs as they point out that “the vast majority of companies have multiple marketing related-roles that report to the CEO…which result in a blurring of marketing’s roles”. It’s easy to see how both these issues, if not dealt with as priorities, will quickly erode this crucial relationship for business growth.
Will It Always Be So?
With marketing success increasingly factually hard-wired into business growth success, not having a fully functioning marketing team is no longer an option. In other words, the momentum for business realignment to bring about this positive change is already happening.
It’s clear much of the groundwork to do this has to start at the top with the CMOs and CEOs working together to close the gaps between their roles, especially around Barta’s trust and power gaps.
Other areas that challenge CMOs, such as the technical skills gap need to be put in a more helpful context. The rapid pace of change can certainly be overwhelming for many CMOs (and CEOs alike) that said, it can also be flipped to something that makes marketing so exciting, which after all, it is. It’s a mindset shift that’s needed here. CMOs don’t need to stress or fixate on having to master every aspect of new martech, that’s what specialists are for. But they do need to know enough to understand the bigger picture implications of how technology can help them grow their business. In other words, taking a more pragmatic, and frankly much more enjoyable approach to change is a must if CMOs are to avoid overwhelm in this space.
A Final Word (Or Two)
It may not be the toughest job by C-suite tenure, but the unique challenges and nature of the CMO role arguably make it so. With many well-seasoned, passionate marketing professionals firmly agreeing that it is. By flexing their strongest change management muscles CMOs (working closely with their CEOs) can bridge the trust, power and skills gaps in order to align and unlock their full growth potential. And as each gap is bridged to deliver this, the sense of accomplishment this alone brings, has to make the CMO role the most rewarding job in business.
