Becoming a CEO is the utmost jump and nearly the highest achievement that an executive can make in his or her career. However, we rarely look at the other side of this station — the side that entails all the new challenges a CEO has to face in leading the company towards success.
One of the most difficult challenges faced after taking the leadership seat is becoming popular and effective for the organization. Most business leaders aren’t sure if being popular amongst the employees or being effective CEO leadership will give their company the boost it deserves. For most of CEOs, creating a balance between popularity and effectiveness is crucial. Some of them might get strict on their employees in an effort of enhancing effectiveness but in the long run they end up with losing a grip on the team. Others will go for popularity by losing effectiveness in the working. Creating a balance between these two is important for every CEO, to learn in the quest of meeting the company’s vision.
Here are a few guidelines on how to become a popular and effective CEO and how to create a balance between these two:
1. Empower your team.
Empowering your team is one of the ways to become a popular CEO and still maintaining effectiveness. This can be achieved by letting each member of the team know that what they are supposed to do, teaching them how to do it and letting them do it by themselves. What CEOs should avoid is micromanaging; how their team members perform their duties- telling them how to get their job done. This however, does not mean that the CEOs should not get involved. On the contrary, they should by discussing their high-level goals with the team members, sharing their expectations and letting them know they are there to help them. They should then leave them to discover how to accomplish these goals on their own.
2. Work hard but smart
Success is mostly an outcome of hard work. However, working hard and not smart enough will not have much reward. As a frontrunner, a CEO must recognize the difference between working hard and working smart; not just for themselves, but for those they lead.
Good CEOs lead their team in achieving that which is of importance to the company and filter out that which is not. They will keep the team focused on the things that will drive more value to them. One way of achieving this is celebrating the moments when company makes a big achievement. They make it a culture to work hard, perform harder, which improves their popularity among the team and at the same time boosts the team effectiveness.
3. Manage expectations
Transparency and communication is another strategy that can help in building self-popularity and effectiveness of your team. Each member of the team needs to know what do you expect from your team. Regularly inform your members what is working, what is not and how they should deal with it. It is also of importance to acknowledge the efforts of those making things happen and recommend improvements to those, not achieving much. In doing this, each team member understands what is happening and what role they should play in it.
4. Get inspired
Great CEOs never stop learning. They encourage their team members to learn something new each day. To achieve this, you can have meetings or forums, maybe in the morning when the members of your team meet and share. You can also use this forum to teach them things that will help them manage their duties, teach them more about the products and service the company offers and much more. In doing this you will broaden each other’s view on topics outside the wheelhouse of knowledge helping in team bonding and effectiveness.
5. Delegate work
As much as we would love to do everything on our own and to our own standards, we just can’t. It’s simply not possible. Popular and effective CEOs understand that he cannot work alone and he identifies individuals in the team who are gifted in certain skills and delegate some of their duties to them. This raises trust among the team and enhances effectiveness.
6. Motivate the team through despair
There will be mountains along your way to success; that’s life. Good CEOs are able to take these moments of despair and keep their team focused to the company’s vision. They are able to steer the team forward and face these challenges head on. They keep the team motivated despite all. These are the popular and effective CEOs.
7. Have an uncanny ability to say no
As a CEO, you will be inundated with a number of requests from members of your team or potential customers. Some will sound wonderful and it would be easier to say “YES” but it would be harder to say “NO” to those that are not as pleasing. However, CEOs who have an uncanny ability to say NO will be able to explain why a particular request won’t go through without making the team members feel demoralized. They uphold their relations with members of their team and maintain their effectiveness.
Featured photo credit: bostonherald.com via bostonherald.com
