P&G’s statement of purpose, at the time, read as follows: “We will provide products and services of superior quality and value that improve the lives of the world’s consumers. As a result, consumers will reward us with leadership sales, profit and value creation, allowing our people, our shareholders, and the communities in which we live and work to prosper.

As he put it, he had to learn to become skilled at flag painting in addition to road building. What he means by “flag painting” is articulating in a vivid and concise way the mission he wanted his team to advance.

This involved really pushing himself to boil down his vision for the company’s guiding mission into highly persuasive and memorable words, such as creative collaboration and accelerating document productivity. “I obsess over that,” he said, stressing the importance of “learning the power of the written word, because if you get that right, your message will flow off the tongue, you’ll use it with passion.” Then, he emphasized, people will be inspired to rise to the occasion and interpret the guidance as best suits the products or services they’re working on.

In the past, primary emphasis was placed on financial and operations acumen— still, obviously, important— but today the vanguard of innovators in the sector increasingly appreciate a CEO’s people leadership skills for achieving the above-market returns investors expect.

Improving the performance of companies that are performing fairly well is now the predominant objective, and PE firms have learned that a CEO’s people leadership abilities are the vital complement to strength in finance and operations for this new frontier of performance improvement.