There are lots of responsibilities that go along with being a CEO. You are trusted and your decisions are respected. You are a role model for those around you, and they all follow your lead. You are not just a CEO, but also a mentor. You will come across many people in life who will tell you the things that you should be doing but it is hard to find people who stop you from doing the things you shouldn’t do.
Sometimes, NOT doing SOMETHING leaves more impact as opposed to doing EVERYTHING.
Here are 5 Dos and Don’ts for CEOs:
1- Don’t invest money in things, Invest in People:
Everyone desires to have a good-looking office with all the amenities one can desire. Employers often extend their budget on things that are not required.
As an entrepreneur you shouldn’t only focus on making your personal workspace beautiful by spending on that space, you should learn to hire employees with the skills you need even tho their salary expectations are high. Not hiring an employee because of the high salary expectation, but spending that money on your workspace can be disastrous to your business. You need to realize the importance of having deserving people in your company even if they cost more because you will always have the option of cutting down your costs on things that don’t matter much and investing them in people who can make a big difference.
2- Don’t Think Your Employees Know Everything. Train Them, Set Deadlines For Them, and Make Them Follow Company Standards:
You can use this approach:
- Hire Talented Candidates
- Make Them Aware of the Company Standards and Train Them
- Assign Them Responsibilities
- Continue Training Them and Continue Raising the Standards
- Expect Results
Remember, candidates can either be a fresher who has no industry experience or someone who has experience working in some other company that follows work standards that may or may not match the work standards of your company so in both cases, proper training is required.
Moreover, it is crucial to set proper deadlines for every employee because if you think they will do all the work on their own you are highly mistaken.
Shed the belief that your employees know everything and they will always deliver and follow the habit of training them and setting proper deadlines for work.
3- Don’t Make Your Employees Feel Unrecognized and Unappreciated. Appreciate Them and Earn the Respect You Deserve:
You often remain busy recognizing your own accomplishments and planning for your next step. Little did you realized that your employees deserved your attention and expected you to tell them the 2 magic words “good job”!
When employees start feeling undervalued and unappreciated, they lose their interest in work and they start disrespecting you. As a leader, you lose the game when this happens!
On the other hand, when you are appreciating employees for the smallest accomplishments they make, you are actually making them more confident. Confident employees are happier and more productive.
4- Don’t Do All The Work Yourself. Delegate Low-Level Work and Invest Your Time in Bigger Stuff:
People sitting on the highest chair often behave like perfectionists or rather they are perfectionists. They have the attitude of “Only I can do this task and no one else can”.
Moreover, perfectionists have a fear of losing clients if they don’t oversee every single task allocated to the team. I am not saying it is not good to be a perfectionist but rather it is sometimes better to trust people in your team and allow them to handle the team single-handedly instead of overseeing every smallest stuff. This might sound like a big risk but leaders are born to take risks, don’t they?
I have realized the fact that allocating your time to develop and manage the senior leadership team and planning for expansion into new markets is the role that you as a CEO should be into instead of doing tasks that someone else in your team can do easily.
5- Don’t Tolerate Poor Performance and Don’t Underutilize Employees. Be Fair and Accept Ideas and Suggestions:
Being a CEO does not mean you are there to tolerate the poor performance of employees. Many times you might feel giving your employees a second chance is the best but this second chance will become third, fourth, and continued till you realize tolerating poor performance converts into a bad habit in the longer run.
Be strict and stop tolerating poor performance. People who give excuses can’t bring results for the company.
Also, see that you are not underutilizing people in your team. Sometimes people hired for a particular work are seen allocating more than 80% of their time doing completely different tasks. This ultimately results in poor performance.
Moreover, as a CEO, you must be willing to accept ideas that come from your employees. Doing so will make them feel they are a part of a big family. This will give them confidence and they will work with greater zeal to improve the overall productivity of the organization.
We hope you found this useful. Remember, a CEO is a leader who decides with speed and smartly engages the employees to get the maximum impact.
