The One Trait That Best Predicts CEO Success?
The Study
Everybody has a theory about what separates the CEOs that scale. Grit. Charisma. Strategic brilliance. Storytelling. Decisiveness.
These all sound great, but what does our experience show?
To answer this question, we studied every CEO we’ve had the privilege to work with over the last 10+ years. We then identified five traits we believe matter most at the Series A → early-scale phase.
The five raw traits:
Accountability Sets a high standard of excellence and holds everyone to it (including themself).
Talent Magnetism Instinctively and proactively nurtures and lands players above their 'weight class'.
Prioritization & Decisiveness Focuses on the right things; bias for bold action and direct involvement where it counts.
Persuasion & Influence Generates buy-in and inspires confidence through storytelling and credibility.
Relentless Drive Deep, burning need to succeed; highly resilient and performant under pressure.
We also identified five key “assets” related to scaling software companies:
Network & Social Capital Strong reach and goodwill within the relevant industry / ecosystem.
General Mgmt. Experience Previously managed a team to a specific outcome (ideally financial). Multi-function is best.
Industry Knowledge Deep, working grasp of the market’s realities on the ground.
Product / Tech Depth Previous involvement in software product or R&D functions, either as IC or manager.
Commercial Skills Previous granular involvement in demand gen or sales, either as IC or manager.
We considered these traits and assets for each CEO, both at investment and over time, then compared that to how well the business scaled under their leadership.
The Results
Turns out, the traits and assets were littered with mixed signals. We found counter examples for just about everything, except for one. Across all companies, one trait predicted success more than the others combined: Accountability.
Accountability – which we defined as setting a high bar, measuring against it, acting quickly when reality deviates, and holding yourself to the same standards – was the trait that consistently separated CEOs who built durable value from those who plateaued.
What Accountability Looks Like in Practice
A CEO Who Embodied Accountability
From our earliest conversations, it was clear this founder and CEO was results-focused. He wanted to win, and he built a tribe of people who shared that ethos. His superpower wasn’t necessarily recruiting proven talent. It was his dispassionate, continuous approach to holding people accountable to expectations.
If someone wasn’t meeting expectations or wasn’t the right fit for the next phase, he addressed it proactively and respectfully. He might even help them land their next role. Then he hired the “right” person and held them to same crisp, unambiguous metrics.
He didn’t wait and see, and he didn’t put off uncomfortable conversations. He didn’t outsource the standard. The culture followed suit and his company scaled accordingly.
A CEO Who Lacked Accountability
This CEO was humble, likable, and deeply passionate about his mission. Employees enjoyed working there. The vibes were positive. But the culture wasn’t demanding.
Delays were normalized, hard conversations were avoided and missed commitments were reframed as market headwinds or strategy shifts—explanations with no one to blame. Player performance was rarely scrutinized.
Low and behold, the team grew bloated with mediocre contributors and execution eroded. This CEO cared deeply. But he wasn’t accountable, and neither was the organization he led. Ultimately, the outcome reflected that reality.
Why Accountability Dominates Every Other Trait
It took going back through 10+ years of history to see that accountability is the trait that metabolizes all the others.
Drive without accountability becomes a solo mission
Talent magnetism without accountability produces a high-potential, underperforming team
Persuasion without accountability leads to overpromising
Decisiveness without accountability is continuous motion without traction
Accountability is the forcing function. It is the trait that prevents drift, raises standards, and sharpens execution. But it’s easier said than done. There is nothing fun about telling a longtime friend and co-founder they aren’t scaling effectively with the business, a common situation among maturing startups. It’s even harder to look in the mirror, honestly assess whether you are scaling as CEO, and choose continued equity value creation over personal control. Some people are just wired with a greater willingness to handle these situations directly.
To borrow a line often said about Jeff Bezos:
“If you’re not good, Jeff will chew you up and spit you out. And if you’re good, he will jump on your back and ride you into the ground.”
Doing all this with a dose of grace and humanity is the real tightrope to walk. Many people are capable of being an asshole, but very few can instill true accountability while also preserving dignity and thus avoiding toxic culture. We posit that the antidote for the former is genuinely caring for people. We’ve all heard the difference between being “nice” and being “kind”…
Key Questions and Caveats
A few important questions we are pondering:
Is accountability innate or trainable?
We are inclined to believe the habits can be sharpened, but wholesale personality change is rare.
Is it better to “spike” in one or two traits or score high across the board?
Our CEOs that achieved scale seem to do both: they spike in a few areas and maintain high aggregate scores. But accountability seems like a prerequisite either way.
Every strength has a dark side.
Accountability overdone becomes rigidity—or worse, being impossible to work for. Standards must coexist with humanity.
Stage context matters.
This framework applies to the early-scale-up phase (post product-market-fit, revenue generating, building the initial go-to-market machine). Zero-to-one and late-stage PE environments demand different muscles.
Different markets require different personas.
Example: creating a new category requires different strengths than selling a better mousetrap into an existing market.
Sample size is small.
Patterns were clear enough to take seriously, but the dataset is not large enough for universal laws.
Still, across all those caveats, one conclusion rose above the noise:
It’s very hard to find a successful CEO who scores low on accountability.
Final Thought
Drive, charisma, persuasion, decisiveness; they all matter. But accountability is the multiplier trait. It forces reality into the room. It eliminates drift. It converts potential into performance.
In the next post, I’ll outline how we identify an accountable leader.