HireLabs Perspective: CEO: Oh! the phenomena
If you are anything like most of us, you wouldn’t be able to help but be in absolute awe of the phenomena that is the CEO. Go on. Admit it!
But often it has been observed that most CEOs haven’t always been the performing types (must I post a link here to confirm the claim!?), and that’s because so few of them can get beyond the glamor of the title!
So many of them don’t even understand what is being expected of them, let alone measuring against some performance metrics. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being impossible), how hard do you think a CEO’s job is? Answer: 10! But do you believe the job is simple to do? Absolutely Yes!
The responsibilities of a CEO are enormous. Everything that a business is responsible for in it’s undertakings comes down to how well the CEO delivers. This couldn’t be truer for a startup. The CEO is responsible for the success or failure of the company. Fundraising, business repute, organizational strategy, values, culture, systems and tools, operations, marketing, financing, human resources, regulatory compliances, sales, PR, and everything else, they all fall on the CEO’s shoulders.
A CEO is a corporate title for the human face of a business.
In it’s performance, the CEO title is self-explanatory: Chief Executive Officer, the Chief being the head of the tribe. Each business is a clan that must find ways to better adapt to the environment that it must face during the course of it’s existence. If it can’t, it will be either run over, overtaken, or simply perish! The Chief decides, in consultation with the wise of the tribe (the board), on what course of action to take in steering the clan. And that course of action is almost always toward progress.
And progress, my friends, comes from visions and values.
If vision is where the company is going, values tell how the company gets there. CEOs lead by example. They demonstrate values by setting the tone for acceptable behaviors. CEOs send value messages all the time. They just need to be careful as to the kind of messages being conveyed are either the kind that motivates the team into excelling or the kind that completely destroys team morale completely, and eventually, the business.