THE WAYS TO BE A GREAT CEO

Everyone thinks that being a startup CEO is a glamorous job or one that has to be a ton of fun. Here are some of the ways to be a great CEO.

BE A KEEPER OF THE COMPANY VISION

The CEO is the keeper of the company’s overall vision. Not talking about the vision for the next few months, but the larger road ahead. The CEO needs to be able to keep things on course for the current quarter to make sure that the large overarching vision of the company can be achieved. The takeover the world vision of a startup usually can’t be achieved in one year or even in some cases, like Google, in a decade. It takes a great startup CEO to keep the company on track to achieve that vision. A great startup CEO will often judge upcoming initiatives to see if they fit in as a piece of the large puzzle for the bigger vision.

ABSORB THE PAIN FOR THE TEAM

A startup CEO needs to be the personal voodoo doll for a startup. They need to be able to take on a strong burden of stress, pain, and torture all while making level headed decisions. We can’t have the troops stressing and worrying about the difficult challenges at hand. A good startup CEO will absorb the stress, so the rest of the team can carry on. He also needs to be able to mask this pain and stress. Not that he should hide or lie to the team. Most of the day to day nuances+stresses of a startup aren’t worth having the entire team worry about and the CEO needs to bear that pain.

FIND THE SMARTEST PEOPLE AND DEFER ON DOMAIN 

A startup CEO has a great knack for finding talent. The key is finding people that are smarter than we on specific topics. A startup CEO has to have the ability to find these people and make relatively fast decisions to hire them. They also have to be able to show the fire and passion to convince them to leave what is most likely a better paying and more secure job to join the company. The real key to hiring as a startup CEO comes after the hire. A great startup CEO will be able to trust the hires that they make and defer to them on areas of domain expertise. It’s hard to let go, but we have to learn to, especially when the company grows.

BE A GOOD LINK BETWEEN THE COMPANY + INVESTORS

Whether we want to believe it or not, we are not an investor’s only portfolio company. Even if we are a superstar, they have a handful of other companies to help and a ton of incoming potential portfolio companies. A good investor will pick 2-3 new companies per year to work with. A good startup CEO will be a good link between progress, issues, and areas where they need help with investors. A good portion of early stage startups that raise money will have a board comprised of 3 people: the CEO founder, the investor, and an independent board member.

BE A GOOD LINK BETWEEN THE COMPANY + PRODUCT

The best companies are those that keep a founder as CEO for the long haul. Not because the founders have the right to be CEO, but because the CEO needs to be close to the product vision of the company. Founding CEOs understand this the best and can carry out that same unified vision over time. To fill in the management gaps a great COO, other board members, and heads of divisions will come along. It’s a strategy that Facebook has employed and why Apple has had a great resurgence with Steve Jobs at the helm. It’s all about keeping the CEO as close as possibly linked to the product.

BE ABLE TO LEARN ON THE JOB

Most startup CEOs didn’t start out with an MBA or some background in growing a company from nothing to something. The best have an ability to learn along the way and embrace their failures to become a better leader. Don’t worry about whether “we’re qualified” as it’s hard to put typical qualifications on the job. We’ll learn the really core stuff along the way. The best startup CEOs will surround themselves with smart mentors to be a sounding board along the way.

NO EXPERIENCE ALMOST PREFERRED

It’s almost better to have a blank slate of zero experience as a startup CEO. If we come in with preconceived notions and block out the scrappy methods of a startup founder, it actually hurts us. Traditional education often trains us to be CEO or manager for a much larger company, not for a startup of under 50 people. It’s a different kind of leadership and company.

HAVE AN UNCANNY ABILITY TO SAY NO

We will be inundated with a list of requests from potential partners, investors, employees, and more. As we grow, we will also have the resources to execute more of them. Don’t. It’s easy to say yes, but so very hard to say no. By having an uncanny ability to say no, we can keep our company on track with the large vision we maintain. It will also keep our team members (notice I don’t like to use the word “employees”) laser focused and feel more rewarded as they are able to focus on one thing for a good chunk of time.

HAVE SOME TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLSET

A good startup CEO shouldn’t be afraid of a little bit of code and a text editor. They don’t need to be diving into the source code on a daily basis, but they need to understand the technical requirements. It’s easy to say “go build this”, but it’s a whole other ball game to understand how to build it. What seems simple may be a huge mountain of a technical feat that just isn’t feasible with the given resources and deadlines. It can also help lend some street cred with hiring early technical team members too.

BE ABLE TO BREAK THINGS DOWN INTO SIZABLE CHUNKS + MILESTONES

Remember that huge unwavering vision that we are the keeper of? Odds are it only makes sense to us and our cofounder. We will need to break it up into sizable chunks and milestones for the rest of the team to understand it. We also need to be able to pick when and where to conquer things strategically.

HAVE THE ABILITY TO CALL AN AUDIBLE

Nothing goes according to plan. Things fall through, people quit, shit happens, servers crash, and other random things go bump in the night. We’re going to have to deal with it and fast. This is a football term:

“Seen when the quarterback goes up to the line of scrimmage, sees a defensive alignment he wasn’t expecting, and adjusts by yelling out a new play.”

We’re going to come up against things that we didn’t expect and just be able to call an audible. Launch faster, spend more money here, or even abandon a project.

CAN MOTIVATE THE TEAM THROUGH DESPAIR

People love to talk in this business. People love to talk even more when we’re company isn’t fairing well. A great CEO will be able to take those moments of public despair and keep the company focused. They will be able to debunk the rumors or even approach them head on by keeping the members of the company focused on the bigger mission at hand. It can come in simple 5 minute talks or motivational emails. The worst thing we can do is avoid the situation and be passive aggressive.

BE A GREAT COMMUNICATOR

We need to be able to portray the energy and passion that we feel into others…over and over and over and over and over and over again on a daily basis. As a startup founder we need to communicate the vision and hope for the future of our startup to the rest of the world. We need to be able to break down the overall vision of the company into something that mere mortals can understand. We can’t speak in crazy technical jargon or industry terms. It needs to be simple, clear, and compelling. We also need to be able to argue our point. Many will pick “fights” with us just to see how strong willed we are. Be respectful, but be very confident in our answer. Often wrong, but never in doubt my friend.

DON’T BE A “FAKE CEO”

Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga, makes a strong case for not being a fake ceo. In short, worry about things that produce results, not fame. If it’s between going to a conference/doing an interview or completing a deal, get the deal done. Don’t “leave it to someone else”. You need to get your hands dirty every single day. By no means is this an exhaustive or definitive list. In some cases, the traits listed above might be counter-intuitive.

Reference :

http://jasonlbaptiste.com/featured-articles/14-ways-to-be-a-great-startup-ceo/