About to hire your first employees? Congratulations, you will soon be in a position where knowing how to be an effective leader is a must.
To prepare for this inevitability, it is important to learn how the best CEO’s in the world conduct themselves on a daily basis.
While we are used to hearing about CEO’s only in the context of corporations, they have all of the same responsibilities in startup environments as well. However, they are leaned upon with a greater dependence in this type of company, so you need to start preparing now.
Larry Polhill has been CEO of American Pacific Financial for a long time. During his tenure, he has developed a number of strategies to maximize his effectiveness as the top guy at his firm.
Want to be like Larry? Below, we’ll go over some qualities that every aspiring CEO should have.
1) They protect their time
In the rough and tumble world of startups, everybody inside and outside of your company will be gunning for your time.
Managers trying get your sign off on every little decision, executives trying to influence you to take a different direction, vendors trying to sell you on their product or service – they all want a piece of you.
If you try to accommodate every single request, meetings will carve up your time, making it next to impossible to focus attention on the high-level work you need to be doing as a chief executive officer.
Use e-mail to answer simple questions, keep any necessary meetings to an absolute minimum, and when you have them, limit them to 30 minutes maximum.
When it comes to e-mail, set up dedicated times to check your inbox and advise contacts of this schedule.
This way, you’ll allow yourself to have the long blocks of uninterrupted time you’ll need to be an effective chief executive.
2) They stay focused on the right things
There are many things you can get done during the course of a day, but not all carry an equal weight of importance.
Get used to making a tight list of tasks the evening before the next work day, and complete them before noon if possible.
By cutting through the ambiguity that rules when you don’t craft a to-do list, you’ll have a crystal clear road map towards productivity.
Keep your door shut and have lower executives field requests while you are busy getting the most vital tasks done, and you will be able to work wonders.
3) They consult their employees
When it comes to collecting intelligence on how things are going in your business, you have experts all around you: your employees.
Leave your office several times a day and walk around the office, head to the lunch room, and engage your charges along the way.
By gauging how they are and what they have to say, you will have data from the people tasked with carrying out your plans, helping you to better structure how your company operates.
4) They see things through the lens of their business
When you get intimately involved with a startup as its chief executive, it should change how you view everything in your life.
From your morning routine to how you go about your work in the office, things will have to evolve if you hope to be an effective CEO.
Even mundane everyday occurrences can give you product ideas or can contain a lesson you can apply to your business.
If you aren’t already, begin thinking about how activities and things in your life can benefit your company.
