Christopher V. Flett

Recently, I’ve been chatting with professionals who are in the role of CEO for their companies (the size of these companies ranging from $500,000 in revenues through to one with a market cap of $250,000,000). Although these professionals are extremely diverse (both in age, style, experience, and industry), they were all struggling with the same question…what is a CEO supposed to do. All of them are engaged with their teams, they are all prepared to roll up their sleeves and get the job done. I thought it timely to discuss the true role of a CEO.

*Please note that this is directed at leaders of companies that have teams underneath them. If you are the CEO of your company and it is only you, this information is not going to fit.

The role of a CEO is to:

• Set the strategic direction for the organization.
• Engage in high end meetings with other leaders in client/alliance organizations.
• Ensure all senior management (C-Suite) have the right tools and teams in place to achieve organizational objectives.
• Engage with the board (if publicly traded) or investor (not necessary publicly traded) and offer commentary on the direction of the company.
• Manage the revenue direction of the company ensuring that it is trending in the right way.
• To hold the ‘brand’ of the company and model how they expect the senior management to conduct themselves.
• Keeping everyone’s eye on the bottom line of the business. Everything should be bottom line driven in a ‘for-profit’ business.
• Examining the corporate structure of the company to make sure it is set up properly (from a development point of view)
• Support, coach, and mentor their senior leadership.

The things that CEOs do that they shouldn’t:

• Do the work for their senior management
• Do the tactical components of the company’s initiatives (this should be done by others; the role of the CEO is strategic).
• To trouble shoot tactical issues (this is the responsibility of managers underneath the CEO).
• Hiring, managing, firing of non-management positions.
• Bird-dogging opportunities (a CEO should be examining deals that come in through a staff member, not routing out the opportunities on their own).
• Excessive travel that is non-investor related.

The CEO should have the most responsibility and do the least amount of work on a daily basis. Not to say they are sitting on their hands, but they should be reviewing the work produced by others and giving direction. To use an over-simplified analogy, the CEO of a company is the Owner of a Sports Team. Their C-Suite Management (CFO, COO, Director of Marketing) are the coaching staff and the individuals that oversee the stadium the games get played in, player acquisition, and so on. The players of the team are the front line employees. The fans are the customers. When using this example, almost every CEO I know thinks they are the coach on the bench, giving players direction. No! They are the ones overseeing the whole organization, not the tactical (what’s happening on the ice or the field).

Just because someone holds the CEO title, doesn’t mean they know how to do the job. The challenge for most CEOs (often the Alpha personality) is that to be an effective CEO, you need to do less, not more. Great CEOs have the right teams to do the work; CEOs that are having challenges often do the work themselves that their teams should be doing for them.