Most people might imagine being a CEO implies distance from everyday workers. A CEO’s place is in a boardroom on the highest floor or a corner office with the best view — far above the fray.

John Harbaugh had a nice office in Owings Mills, but you could hardly accuse one of the exemplars of “CEO head coach” of being aloof.

The players would see him throughout the day — in the weight room, in their team meetings, at their practice or at lunch. In the cafeteria, Harbaugh was notorious for using the lunch hour to go over blocking technique, pantomiming as a pass rusher despite measuring up at a compact 6 feet.

The door to his office was always open, but he also sought players who didn’t walk through it. As Harbaugh told ESPN in 2013, “I’m constantly thinking, Whom haven’t I sat down with lately?”

As the Ravens scour applicants to replace their winningest head coach of all time, one of the things to watch closely will be how much owner Steve Bisciotti and his cadre depart from the formula that made Harbaugh successful for so long.

When Harbaugh was hired in 2008 from his special teams coordinator role with the Philadelphia Eagles, it was viewed as an unconventional, off-the-radar choice. But over time Harbaugh became well regarded for his jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none approach. It allowed him, somehow, to take a larger view of the state of his team yet be close and personable up and down the roster.

Could the Ravens hire the next-generation CEO head coach? It seems doubtful.

The approach, which is often admired but rarely replicated, may be best understood as a product of Harbaugh’s personality. Getting a successor to follow the process might be the hiring equivalent of hoping lightning strikes twice.

“I don’t think the CEO model is dead,” said Domonique Foxworth, an ESPN analyst who played for Harbaugh from 2009-11. “It’s just hard to find.”

Freedom to lead

The highest level of football Harbaugh reached as a player was in college as a defensive back. In theory, there was little he had in common with his offensive linemen, from size to skill set.

And yet Matt Skura, a starting offensive lineman from 2017-20, would hear from Harbaugh frequently, asking him to walk him through calls or blocking technique.

He wondered how Skura processed the game, how he thought it through. It rarely felt like micromanaging, Skura said — more like Harbaugh encouraged him to reflect and assess his own performance.

“He floated around, but you never felt like he was trying to impede on anything,” Skura said. “He really allowed the players to lead from the locker room.”

Harbaugh viewed his special teams background as a way to connect with players on offense and defense. What stood out to those he coached were his curiosity and passion for knowing all parts of the game, a true coach’s son.

The NFL rarely has such memorable leaders who are generalists. The conventional path is to cut one’s teeth on offense or defense to rise to the coordinator level, from which most head coaches are selected. Among the coaches in the playoffs this season, perhaps only Philadelphia’s Nick Sirianni, who won the Super Bowl last year, is considered cut from the CEO cloth.

The label implies delegation, and on Foxworth’s teams — which were player-led by veterans including Ray Lewis, Ed Reed and Matt Birk — Harbaugh trusted those under him. But he also got down in the trenches with them, something Foxworth couldn’t say about every coach he had in the NFL.

“You could easily make the argument that it gives you a better chance to connect with everyone,” he said. “I played for [Denver’s] Mike Shanahan for years, and I barely talked to him. I played hard for him, and we had some good years. But I didn’t feel the same way about him as I felt about John.”

Harbaugh also went to different meetings, depending on team needs, involving himself with offense or defense (or special teams) more if he felt it needed attention.

The CEO model works less well when the coach has to draw up plays to save his season. You might trust Andy Reid, Kyle Shanahan or Sean McVay to design the perfect play for situational football, or you might expect DeMeco Ryans or Mike Macdonald to push the right defensive button.

While Harbaugh developed a reputation over the years for gutsy calls and fourth-down conversions, his lack of a specialty never really gained him credibility as one of the NFL’s best minds for X’s and O’s. The Ravens’ approach and culture — gritty and disciplined, as well as having well-executed special teams — were more his calling card.

But the upside of that, Foxworth said, is Harbaugh was able to adapt systems and styles.

“A lot of guys who come up on one side of the ball or the other are married to their systems that made them successful,” he said. “If their systems are great, that’s great. When it ages out, they need to evolve. And that’s where you see John was able to hire smartly, adapt and incorporate new voices and new people.”

It took Harbaugh a while to fully form his leadership style, which started fairly rigid in the Bo Schembechler mold but grew to be more player-driven. Even at the end of Foxworth’s tenure, he sensed Harbaugh growing gradually more sure of himself.

“It kind of went from ‘the sky is falling’ all the time to some level of positivity and encouragement — less on edge,” Foxworth said. “That happens to a lot of young leaders for the first time. A few years in, he didn’t have to do the big-man-on-campus stuff. He had grown into his own.”

In the owner’s footsteps

The Ravens’ process may hew more toward hiring a traditional offense- or defense-leaning candidate, based on the reported pool. One of the last times an NFL team hired a special teams coordinator as head coach — when the Giants tapped New England’s Joe Judge — went disastrously wrong with a 10-23 record.

But it’s possible that Bisciotti, who has a background in hiring and tremendous faith in his own impulses, will want someone with similar traits.

The biggest reason? Bisciotti himself leads from the personable CEO model, according to former players.

On the “89” podcast, former Ravens receiver Steve Smith Sr. said Bisciotti has no compunction about approaching players and asking what’s going on.

“He’s always gathering information — he’s very hands-on to gather information,” Smith said. “But he also allows the people he’s hired to do their jobs.”

Although Bisciotti is generally out of the spotlight when it comes to the Ravens (his press conference Tuesday to discuss Harbaugh’s dismissal will mark his first public comments to media in four years), he is around the team a lot at the Castle. He is a frequent face at practices, training camp, in the locker room after games, at community events or just saying hi in the hallway.

“What was true of Harbs, it was kind of the same thing with Bisciotti,” Skura said. “Not in an ominous way or in a way that everyone needed to be fearful of him. He would just be chopping it up with the players. It was cool that he could be around us and it wouldn’t be like this big event.”

It may be that, in hiring Harbaugh, Bisciotti landed on someone who could emulate his own leadership traits but on the football field instead of in the boardroom.

Former Ravens are interested to see where the organization lands on Harbaugh’s successor. The Ravens are unique among the NFL openings this cycle because of their talent — starting with quarterback Lamar Jackson — but also because of their culture. With Ozzie Newsome still in the building and Eric DeCosta with decades in the organization, there is an ironclad sense of “what a Raven is,” said Skura, something that probably won’t change with the new head coach.

The trap could be that the next coach feels pressure to do what Harbaugh did in the same way he did it.

“I think when head coaches get themselves in trouble is when they try to act like their previous boss,” Skura said. “The key is embracing the history, the culture of the Ravens organization, but putting their own spin on it and being themselves. Trying to be like Harbaugh, that can only last for so long.”

Meanwhile, it’s likely the CEO model continues — wherever Harbaugh is hired next. Already one of the top candidates on the coaching market, Harbaugh is likely to take his brand of leadership elsewhere. And whoever gets him, Foxworth said, will probably embrace the leadership that had seemingly gotten a bit stale in Baltimore.

“The funny thing about the Ravens is they’ve never really been bad — the standard there is something else,” Foxworth said. “Whatever life you live, you get accustomed to it, then you want something else, even if you’ve been a Super Bowl contender for the past few years.

“Jets fans or Browns fans will look at Harbaugh and say, ‘That’s nice,’” Foxworth added. “‘I’ll take it.’”