10.19
One of the most interesting responses we had at the Young Entrepreneurs Society Panel last Tuesday was to the question “What does a startup CEO actually do?”
While, Sanjay Parekh replied “Everything“, Merrick Furst countered with “Nothing“.
The explanation is simple. The CEO is responsible for doing everything and must be willing to do it all (this includes taking out the trash). In reality, a CEO does not have the time to do anything at all. A CEO’s job is to hire people to do different tasks, tell them what to do and make sure they get it done. Once that is done, the CEO has run out of hours in the day.
This is not only true with startups but also with organizations and pretty much any leadership structure.
What keeps the CEO from going crazy and doing everything themselves? One word: Trust! A CEO must be able to trust their subordinates to get their part done. The moment an employee loses the trust of his superior, it’s going to be hard for everyone. The CEO has to micromanage the person (which he doesn’t have the time for) and the person gets annoyed by having someone micromanage them.
Rules of thumb:
- If you say you are going to do something, do it!
- If you need help, ask as far in advance as possible!
- Make sure not to lose someones trust, it isn’t easy to get back!
Those are my rules, what are yours?
Hi Mr. Karthikeyan,
Very nice post – I really like your “rules of thumb” and find myself following a similar set every day. One additional rule I would add would be to always stay positive and constructive. A CEO must understand how fellow employees are doing / feeling. Sitting down each week and seeing where peoples’ frustrations lay and outlining solutions helps the company as a whole function more soundly and productively.
I left a NYC finance job to found CollegeJobConnect about 9ish months ago. Quick background: we are a job connection service dedicated to exclusively helping current undergraduates connect with career opportunities. We built a connection platform, not an endless list of job postings. All our student members create a Resume Beacon (similar in concept to your posting on “My Visual Resume”), which indicate their abilities and interest in employment opportunities. Employers have free, immediate access to all these Beacons year round. We have been marketing our service to students at Dartmouth mainly and have seen a lot of interest.
A start up has many ups and downs and everyone, especially the CEO, needs to help each other when those “downs” hit – it is cliche, but you need to be a fearless leader
[Reply]
Totally agree, as a CEO myself I find myself always trying to do everything, I need to learn to trust my employees more. It isn’t very easy to let someone else do work that affects YOUR company, you want everything to be done exactly as you like and your way but it can’t always happen that way.
[Reply]