Where CEOs Spend Their Time: Where Should a CEO Focus on?

Putting Together a Successful Team

When you are hiring someone, there are many things to consider. You want to make sure you hire the best person for the job, but you also don’t want to spend too much money doing it. Hiring the wrong people can cost you both time and money.

The most important thing about recruitment is finding the right candidate. This is where having a strong network comes into play. If you know someone who knows someone, chances are you’ll find someone who fits what you’re looking for.

In addition to networking, you should also look for ways to save money while still making sure you hire the best possible candidates. Here are some tips to help you do just that.

Leading by Example and Managing Your Team

The best managers are those who understand what it takes to motivate others. They know how to develop talent and build teams. But even the most effective leaders sometimes struggle to inspire their teams. In fact, many managers don’t realize that they could be doing much better. So why do some bosses fail to inspire their teams while others succeed? And how can you become one of the latter?

To answer these questions, we surveyed over 300 managers about their leadership styles and the impact they had on their teams. We found that there are three main factors that determine whether someone succeeds or fails as a manager. These include:

1. Leadership style – How does the leader behave? What behaviors do they exhibit? Do they set clear expectations? Are they approachable? Do they listen? Do they reward? Do they praise? Do they criticize? Do they give feedback?

2. Employee performance – Is the employee performing well? Does he/she meet deadlines? Does she/he follow instructions? Does he/she work hard? Do they take initiative? Do they ask for help? Do they show respect? Do they contribute ideas?

3. Manager behavior – How does the manager interact with his/her team? Do they encourage open communication? Do they provide constructive criticism? Do they hold meetings? Do they delegate tasks? Do they offer guidance? Do they support? Do they coach? Do they mentor?

Based on our research, here are four key tips for becoming a great manager:

1. Lead by example. If you want to inspire your team, start by leading by example. Set high standards for yourself, and make sure everyone knows what they should be aiming for. This way, no matter where each person ranks on the scale, the entire team will always strive to reach the same goal.

Executing on Go-to-Market Strategy

The startup world is full of stories about companies that failed because they didn’t execute well enough. But there are also many success stories — startups that took off quickly and grew into big businesses. In fact, according to CB Insights’ latest report, “Startup Growth,” over half of the most successful startups in recent history had strong go-to-market strategies.

In our research, we found that startups often struggle with executing on their go-to-market strategy. This is especially true for early stage startups, where it’s hard to justify spending money on marketing when you don’t know how much revenue you’ll generate. However, the best startups do something different: They start executing on their go-t-market strategy immediately, even before they’ve figured out what product/service they’re building.

This approach allows startups to build momentum early on, while simultaneously learning about customer behavior and refining their messaging. We call this the “execution first” approach.

We conducted interviews with founders of some of the most successful startups today to learn more about why they chose this approach, and what they did differently. Here’s what they told us:

1. Focus on Execution Before You Build Your Product

At the beginning of a startup, it’s easy to get distracted by everything else you need to do. But if you want to succeed, you have to make sure you spend your energy on the things that matter most.

Founder of Quora, Adam D’Angelo, says he learned this lesson the hard way. When he founded his company, he spent months trying to figure out what problem he wanted to solve. He thought about what questions people asked him every day, but couldn’t find a solution that solved those problems. So he built Quora, a question answering site.

Building a Strong Company Culture

Startups are often known for being fast paced and dynamic environments where you don’t have much time to focus on things like building a strong culture. But having a strong culture will help your startup grow faster. Here are some tips to build a strong company culture.

Fundraising

Raising capital is one of the most important aspects of starting a business. In fact, it’s often the difference between success and failure. You might think that fundraising is easy; however, there are many things to consider. This article will help you understand how to fundraise successfully.

There are two main ways to fundraise: VC funding or IPO (Initial Public Offering).

VC Funding

A venture capitalist is someone who invests his/her own money into startups. Venture capitalists invest in companies because they believe in the founders and the team behind the product. They do this because they want to see the company succeed.

If you decide to go the VC route, you must find a good fit. Make sure that the VC firm understands your vision and mission. Also make sure that the VC firm is willing to take risks. If they aren’t, then you shouldn’t work with them.

The best way to determine whether a VC firm is a good fit is to meet with a few different firms. Ask questions like: How much does the firm invest in each deal? Do they prefer early stage or late stage deals? What percentage of their portfolio is focused on eCommerce? Do they specialize in certain industries?

Once you know the answers to these questions, you can narrow down your list of potential VC firms. After meeting with several firms, choose one that aligns with your needs.

Managing Your Time as Your Business Expands

As companies grow, it becomes increasingly difficult to balance work, family life, and personal interests. For many executives, the challenge is compounded because there are always competing demands on their time. As a CEO, balancing your time effectively requires prioritizing and making tough decisions about how to allocate your time across multiple areas.

Coaching can play a key role in helping you make better choices. By providing guidance and feedback, coaches can help you clarify your goals, set realistic expectations, and develop effective strategies for achieving success.

In addition to coaching, another way to manage your time is to hire someone else to do some of the heavy lifting. If you’re looking to bring on a chief operating officer (COO), consider asking yourself the following questions: What skills does he/she possess? How much experience does she/he have? Is s/he willing to learn? Does s/he fit into our culture? And finally, what compensation package is offered?

Frequently Asked Questions

Which CEO Type Is Better for Companies?

We wanted to know whether there was something special about the leadership style of CEOs. So we studied how much each CEO tilted toward either the “leader” or “manager” traits on the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), a widely used measure of executive behaviors.

The LPI is based on research conducted over many decades by psychologists such as Daniel Goleman and John Kotter. In it, respondents answer questions like “How often do you use persuasion to influence others?” and “Do you encourage employees to take risks?” These questions tap into four dimensions of leadership behavior: vision, inspiration, integrity, and empowerment.

We compared the pre-CEO LPI scores of CEOs with those of their successors, looking at both the average score and the distribution of scores. We also examined how well the CEOs did relative to managers of similar age and experience.

What we found surprised us. Not only does the average leader outperform his manager peers, but he also performs better than the average CEO of comparable age and experience.

Is One CEO Type Always Better?

The popular notion that “one size fits all” applies to how well leaders perform is wrong. We found that there are differences among CEOs based on what type of leader they are.

We analyzed over 2 million firm-year observations across 17 industry sectors, looking at the relationship between CEO characteristics and corporate financial performance.

Our analysis showed that, overall, the performance of large firms is better than small ones, and that the performance of firms in more complex industries tends to be worse than those in less complex ones.

But we also discovered that the performance of firms with certain types of CEOs – those who are highly skilled, task-oriented, and/or high-level communicators – tended to be better than that of firms with other types of CEOs.

In particular, we observed that firms with high-skilled CEOs outperformed those with low-skilled CEOs.

And, contrary to conventional wisdom, we found that firms with high-level communicator CEOs performed much better than those with low-level communicator CEOs.

These findings suggest that it isn’t enough just to hire someone to fill the role of CEO; rather, the specific skillset required of the individual must match the needs of the organization.