Developing his own leadership style
While he held senior leadership positions in the military, Chris acknowledges that being CEO of a startup is quite different.
There are certainly a few things that benefit him in a commercial setting—”being able to stay focused, keep the organization on task, and work through priorities efficiencity.”
But his Harvard MBA taught him to adopt more of a collaborative leadership approach, in which his role is to get the most out of his team through empowering them. “At Guzman, I’ve assembled a team of spectacular, smart, driven, morally centered people. A lot of what I do is just help give them resources and help them shape their thinking,” he reveals.
While Guzman is now a much bigger player in the energy industry, Chris is still keen to retain the status of a disruptive outsider. “I’ve never had the background to know how it should be done—how it has always been done—so I just do it the way that it makes sense to me, using things I learned at HBS.”
From the military and looking to study on the Harvard MBA? The HBS Armed Forces Alumni Association is hosting a Military Virtual Visit Week on the 9th - 12th November. You can find out more here.
READ MORE: The US Army Veteran Using His Harvard MBA To Do Good
