It’s easy to find information about how a CEO should act in the early stage of a business. It is equally essential for you as a CEO to understand how to make the most of your growing company. There are a lot of misperceptions about what makes a truly great CEO, as evidenced by the fact that some of the most important qualities of a CEO are underrated by most people.
As the CEO of a company, you might love doing many tasks yourself. Though it might seem noble, it is not the right thing to do. You should focus on doing things that only you can do. If you think that there is someone in the office who can manage any other task, it is wise to allow them to do the job.
It is not a good idea to spend most of your quality time on things that can be quickly done by others. As a CEO, the most underrated quality you should have is the ability to let go of things and properly delegate.
1. You Can’t Run a Company Alone
Since yours is a growing company, you need to understand that you will not be able to do things all by yourself. Even if you can use all 24 hours in the day, you will still fall short. You might need help to offload some of your responsibilities. Understand the fact the getting significant deals take some time. It might seem like hiring requires you to spend too much time interviewing people, but once you’ve hired good people your job will be much more manageable.
It is common for the entrepreneur CEOs to feel that they can do everything by themselves. But, if you want to become the best CEO, it is crucial for you to know that you cannot do everything. You need to hire people who can share your responsibility. As you delegate your core tasks to others, you can free yourselves from activities that are not of priority. You may then shift your attention to things that are of priority.
2. Find People Who Are Smarter Than You
It is critical to the success of your business for you to surround yourself with people who can understand your vision and assist you in achieving your company’s goals and objectives. Most importantly, it is vital for you to find people who are smarter and are experts in their fields. They can bring a lot of value to the things that you intend to do.
Find top-notch engineers who have subject knowledge and hire salespeople who know how to get deals in the pipeline. The people whom you intend to hire should have vast experience in that particular field and should have the knowledge and expertise to do things according to industry best practices.
3. Set the Vision
As the CEO of a company, you need to create a vision for your company first before planning to bring the people onboard. After which you need to take care in hiring people who understand and adapt your vision as their own. They should be able to see your vision and know what you are going to build.
You should give them enough training so that they are on the same page as you. By doing this, you can let them do things independently with the assurance that they are working toward the shared goal. But it is only possible when each of the employees in your entity knows and understands the vision of your company well.
4. Trust and Defer
It is essential for you to follow the principle of ‘trust and defer.’ After hiring critical people on the team, you need to take time to help them understand your vision and the goals you want to achieve as a company. Once you educate them about these things, you need to delegate specific responsibilities to them. Once you entrust them with a responsibility, it is essential for you to allow them to make any decision in that particular area freely.
You will be surprised to see that people do a fantastic job when you entrust them with specific responsibilities. They will also attain domain expertise when you designate an area for them. A good CEO conveys confidence to the people that he or she hired. This positivity and respect can have huge benefits for the business’s outcomes.
5. It Will Hurt You
If you have had a hand in many company tasks from its founding, as the company grows it can be a surprise that more employees are sharing your duties. While in the beginning, there might be only one or two co-founders, suddenly, you will realize that there are more than ten people across the globe working for you.
As long as the employees are trustworthy and smarter than you, understand your vision and have expertise in their field, you are on the right track. It’s easy to think that you should be involved in the day-to-day operations of your business, and, of course, you will be to some extent. But you can’t get stuck in the details. As a CEO, you should work on setting the vision and focus on things that only you can do.