There are so many strategies to be implemented and changes to be managed today. The era of the heroic CEO is over.
The days when, in any organisation, small or large, integrating the different needs of all the stakeholders could be managed by a charismatic founder CEO are past and gone.
No single leader can any longer meet the complex demands placed on them by all the various stakeholders – customers, employees, investors, suppliers, partners, regulators, and even the communities in which you operate.
It now requires an effective leadership team to share the leadership demands.
Yet many CEOs carry on, believing that it takes a heroic individual, working silly hours, making all the decisions, firefighting, doing the heavy lifting on the critical issues and constantly working in the business instead of on it.
But this isn’t a time management problem.
If this sounds like you, the first step is to stop trying to be the heroic CEO and start building a team that shares the load. That means being clear about who owns which decisions, and giving your people the room and the accountability to make them. If you want to look at where this starts, have a read of why good business owners struggle to let go. For some background on the role itself, there is a useful overview of the chief executive officer position.
