What does it mean when you are the CEO?

 It means YOU are the face of the company

You are the franchise quarterback of a billion dollar franchise. The company succeeds and fails under your leadership. But, what does it mean to be the face of a company besides the surface level comments of what I just mentioned? It means you are the leader. It means you demonstrate the qualities of the company and if you choose to lose faith, others will too. This puts tremendous pressure on one person, but being the face of the company requires them to have the perfect team. For the CEO to maintain their status as the face of the company, it is imperative they choose their team correctly. This is often related to the various aspects of a company such as the financial aspect, production, and human resources. Therefore, if the CEO chooses wrong, the ripple effect could be too great for them to overcome, causing them to resign.

However, through the evolution of the C-Suite, I find a glaring position that is not being utilized in most companies. This is the position of strategic leadership. It is imperative this person has access to the entire organization. Too many mistakes are often due to poor leadership as many executives assume good leaders can handle most situations. This is a false statement as different situations have had greater success with different leadership styles and people do not change their leadership style. The executive leader would assume their subordinate would change their leadership style to meet the needs of the situation, but the day-to-day operations keep this from happening. This is why an executive from a strategic leadership aspect is so important.

A Clear Vision

When you are CEO you must have a clear vision and act on that vision. If your vision is to be the best company in the world within your market, you need to define what the best means. Does that mean the highest customer satisfaction rating? Does that mean 100% on-time delivery? Does that mean the highest amount of sales revenue? Someone based on their own perspective could easily interpret what it means to be the best differently than the CEO. Again, it is important your message is clear and cannot be interpreted differently. You do not necessarily need to quantify your message, you just have to eliminate the ability for interpretation.

Acting on your vision is just as important as having a clear vision, after all, this is going to tell the Board of Directors and all the employees under the company’s umbrella what you will be doing and what you are trying to accomplish. If you choose to go against your vision, how are you supposed to expect your employees to follow this? This does not mean you are perfect or will be perfect, however, even if you fail, if you stay true to your vision the people will still follow. It is not until you give them mixed signals, where they start to disperse and rebel against your actions.

Long and Short-Term Goals

Arguably, the hardest out of the three is the long-term and short-term health of the organization. They both come with their unique set of challenges, but often collide with one another, especially when it comes to resources. For example, a short-term goal might require your whole quality department, but if your quality department is your main source of income, the long-term goal which requires money, might be negated due to insufficient funding, or vice versa. One must be able to balance the need to complete certain short-term and long-term goals with the health of the organization. It is up to the CEO to determine which set of goals need to be met as the organization depends on their leadership and decision-making ability. Granted, most long-term and short-term goals often translate to investing in the company, the CEO needs to invest in its people. People drive results and people demonstrate leadership. A CEO will be much more successful when it has the right combination of organizational and employee investment. This does vary between industries as tech companies are often employee invested where manufacturing companies are often organizationally invested such as equipment.