If you are the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of your company, no matter how good you are at your job, you could always be doing things a little bit better. Being a CEO is a job that has a great deal of pressure. After all, you are responsible for making the big decisions that will determine the success or failure of your company. This will also impact the lives of all your employees.
There are many things that make a person a great CEO. But it is rare to find a person with all of these qualities. Nevertheless, greatness is worth pursuing, and it should be the endeavor of every CEO.
If you are looking for inspirations, here are a few tips you can use in order to improve your overall performance as a CEO.
1. Avoid over-scheduling
Do not make a schedule that is too much for you to handle. Indeed, being a CEO means that you will always be busy. However, you need to remember that you are only human. If you pack your schedule full of meetings, you will eventually become tired and lose focus. If you are tired, you will not be able to give these meetings the attention they deserve. It will also be more difficult for you to pay attention to what is being said. Therefore, it is a good idea to have one of your trusted subordinates attend a few of your meetings if your schedule becomes too packed.
As CEO, you may feel the need to go to every meeting, but bear in mind that this is not essential. Pick and choose the meetings you attend, leaving the less important ones for someone else.
2. Learn to delegate
Delegating responsibility is one of the hardest things for many CEOs to learn how to do. However, you will never be a great CEO like Bob Parsons, founder of Go Daddy, until you master this skill.
Remember, a CEO is only as good as the people he or she is surrounded by. With that said, you need to assemble a competent staff that you trust completely. This will allow you to delegate various assignments that do not demand your direct attention, freeing you up to handle issues that only the CEO can deal with.
You need to give decision making authority to some of the people beneath you at your company. Otherwise, your business will slow down as your staff is constantly waiting to get your approval for various tasks.
3. Understand stress
Needless to say, CEOs are constantly under a great deal of stress. Stress is unavoidable and comes with powerful jobs. While stress itself may be unavoidable, the amount of stress a person is exposed to can be controlled.
It is important to know when you are becoming overwhelmed emotionally and physically by your job. If you feel exhausted, take a break and shut down. Have regular physical exams and constantly monitor your blood pressure.
In order to run your company the best way possible, your brain and body need to be functioning at peak efficiency.
4. Stay in contact
No matter how big your company gets, it is important for you to stay in touch with as many people beneath you as possible. Do not surround yourself with a group of people who act as buffers between you and the rest of your employees.
If you start to have too many employees to be on a first name basis with, you should give regular speeches to boost employee morale.
Great read, and yes I struggle with all those things. My main struggle is letting go control! So delegating and getting my staff to go to meetings is a big challenge for me. I want to know every little thing that goes on everywhere… and yes it is impossible.
I am now working from home a lot to try and give my staff the space to breathe and actually do what they are employed to do without me peering over shoulders!