Like It or Not You Need To Be CEO

“Whether you wanted the job or not, congratulations, you have been promoted to CEO.” 

You Must Be The Leader

When asked whether their goal was to “lead a company,” many entrepreneurs will say, “no.” They will say that what motivated them was their passion, their niche, their product, their idea. In fact, many may not have thoroughly considered the “company” part of being an entrepreneur. Think of the doctor, the technologist, the jewelry maker, the fashion designer, the consultant, the scientist and the publicist. They see a way for their unique product or service to come to life. They rarely think about offices, finances, capital, organizational structure, team management, priority setting, and the list goes on.

The passion of entrepreneurs is focused on the product or service that they know, love, or feel. It’s not on the organizational activities that make a business work. But now that you have the job, you must understand the impact you will have if you don’t lead, or if you lead with the wrong perspectives. You must understand how you are perceived, the impact of your actions, the do’s and don’ts and how you must act and communicate as the CEO.

Imagine if an entrepreneur was trying to attract you to come work for their jewelry business. They could pitch you in one of two ways:

• “We develop pieces for women that combine the world’s most exotic gemstones with a personalized approach to styling. Women find our pieces compelling, colorful, playful and unique.”

OR

• “We hold meetings every Tuesday, set priorities and allocate resources accordingly, and have regular finance review on key company metrics.”

The first sounds a lot sexier than the second. The passion of most entrepreneurs is focused on developing the product or service that they know, love, feel or understand. It’s rarely focused on the organizational activities that are required to make a business work. While organizational charts are much less sexy than selecting gemstones, businesses must be led and organized.

If your perspective—like the perspective of many entrepreneurs—doesn’t recognize this reality, it will make progress difficult. Even though your passion may be focused on the product or service you deliver, you must lead the company. If you are the technologist, you must lead the company. If you are a fashion designer, you must lead the company. If you are the scientist, you must lead the company. Many companies with great ideas struggle because there is no one leading them.

I know—you thought there would be a big party when you became CEO. Just like when you became the entrepreneur, no one handed you a membership card. Same with being CEO. When you are the entrepreneur, even if you don’t have the title, you must run the show.

What It Means to be CEO

There will be plenty of times that you debate with yourself and others, whether you are qualified or even want to be the CEO of the company. Whether you’re eager for the position or pushed unwillingly to it, you must be the CEO during the entrepreneurial launch stage of your company. Whether it is just you, a small team or fifty of you, you need to act like the CEO and must do many things, including:

• Set the priorities of the company
• Align the organization to those priorities
• Ensure that the company is properly funded
• Inspire people to stick to the vision
• Clearly communicate with the various constituents of the company

Being the CEO of an established company is hard enough, but being the CEO of a developing business is the ultimate baptism by fire. In most cases, you must do it all without formal training. It takes most leaders their entire career to develop the skills of a good CEO. Is it fair to expect you to learn all the skills of a CEO when it takes most a lifetime? Of course not. Too bad—you have to learn those skills in a fraction of that time. You’re on the accelerated course. You must be the leader.