What do people at Cisco think about the CEO? What do they do well and what can they improve?

Chuck's an impressive guy in general. He flew up through the ranks at Cisco, and has done most functions within the sales organization. He was hand selected by John Chambers as his successor. There's a lot of Chambers in Chuck. Chuck is fundamentally different from Chambers in two ways. Firstly, he's not a visionary. Chambers had an uncanny ability to exploit market shifts and make sure Cisco was well positioned throughout these. He caught a few of these really well (voice, security, IoT), and missed a bunch more (software, whitebox). Many of Cisco's competitors missed all of them. Chuck hasn't shown an ability to do this - it wasn't a required skill of his job until he got to CEO. Secondly, Chambers showed an incredible human instinct especially one on one. Chuck likes to rely on the numbers. Something to watch out for: is Chuck being manipulated by the numbers? Essentially, Cisco can show growth in any area as long as they account for things in a specific way.

People love Chuck! He is a great genuine leader.