It’s tough being a CEO today. It’s a life lived in a goldfish bowl. CEOs have to watch what they wear and what they say, every day, everywhere. Everybody has a recorder or a camera and a casual comment or remark, which a few years ago would be treated as a joke, could well find its way into social media or the newspapers.

“Yes,” says Marshall Goldsmith, renowned CEO coach and author, “it’s lonely at the top. What’s changed is the increased access to companies, the reporting on it, greater transparency… so people are constantly watching you.” Goldsmith recalls coaching a future CEO in an organisation, who asked her boss, “Does it mean I have to watch how I look and what I say for the rest of my life?” His reply, says Goldsmith, “Welcome to my world!”

“Well,” says Goldsmith, in a conversation with Business Line , “They get paid a lot, and the price they pay for it is the constant scrutiny. If they don’t want it, don’t take the job.”

Goldsmith, in Chennai to address senior executives in a CII programme, says performance in a pressure cooker atmosphere has reduced the tenure of a CEO. “The visibility is double-edged. Your performance is constantly watched. And, if the CEOs do well, there are the bigger companies which will pay more and poach them. Either way, the scrutiny has led to a shorter span for CEOs,” he explains.

Asked what attributes the CEO of today should possess, Goldsmith points to a study he had done on global leadership for the next generation. Of the 15 qualities that came up, ten of them would have been quite relevant in the past — such as integrity, customer satisfaction, vision, empowering and developing people.

But he recounts five factors that came up which are different from the past. First, CEOs need to think global. In the past leaders used to manage domestic operations. Today, it doesn’t matter if it’s a domestic operation; they have to think global suppliers and connections.

Second, CEOs need cross-cultural appreciation a great deal more. They have also to be tech-savvy. “They’ve got to understand how technology can change the business environment,” he says. Fourth is building alliances and partnerships with suppliers, customers, and sometimes even with competitors.

Last, today it’s all about shared leadership. “If you are managing knowledge workers, they already know more than you do, so you cannot tell them what to do. You have to ask, listen,” says Goldsmith.

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