{"id":27655,"date":"2019-05-21T18:59:25","date_gmt":"2019-05-21T23:59:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/salesv4.aligntoday.com\/blog\/jack-of-all-trades-master-of-all-the-well-rounded-ceo\/"},"modified":"2019-05-21T18:59:25","modified_gmt":"2019-05-21T23:59:25","slug":"jack-of-all-trades-master-of-all-the-well-rounded-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aligntoday.com\/blog\/jack-of-all-trades-master-of-all-the-well-rounded-ceo\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack of All Trades, Master of All: The Well-Rounded CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the ultra-competitive world of scaling businesses, the success of a company is often determined by the strength of its CEO. The job continuously presents new challenges, and, in order to go from good to great, CEOs must constantly evolve and learn.<\/span><\/p>\n

Being a CEO is often thankless work that requires you to make big decisions and take heavy risks in an unpredictable environment. You need to be a master of good business habits and emotional intelligence, all while earning and keeping the respect of your employees.<\/span><\/p>\n

*Breathe in, breathe out*<\/span><\/p>\n

But, probably the most challenging part about helming your organization is balancing the many hats you wear. While a CEO can always hire excellent people to assist them, they still need to <\/span>at least<\/span><\/i> be competent in sales, marketing, research and development, human resources, design, and a host of other areas of the business.<\/span><\/p>\n

In an article for Entrepreneur.com — <\/span>6 Challenges Awaiting You When Finally You Become CEO<\/span><\/a> — experienced business leader, Joel Trammell, insists its important to acknowledge you won\u2019t be prepared on day one.<\/span><\/p>\n

Seth Birnbaum, CEO and cofounder of <\/span>EverQuote<\/span><\/i>, remembered, \u201cWhen I initially became a CEO, I felt a lot of internal pressure to know how to be a CEO out of the box. But you shouldn\u2019t feel that way. It requires a ton of learning.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Try Different Roles<\/h2>\n

Of course, that begs the question, <\/span>How does one learn to be an effective Chief Executive Officer? \u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Since we\u2019re all aware knowledge doesn\u2019t grow on trees, Lauren Kay, founder of <\/span>Dating Ring, <\/span><\/i>provides this word of advice:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are always a million things you can be doing as a CEO, and so a lot of my time has been spent trying to figure out what is worth spending my time on. Every month or two, I take on a new role, and then I try to figure out if that role is vital to our company and how to structure the role, so that I can hand it off to another member of the company, and look for a new hat to try on.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

In their book, <\/span>REWORK<\/span>, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson agree with Kay that sometimes the best way to learn is to do. They begin their chapter about hiring with a page called, \u201cDo It Yourself First.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNever hire anyone to do a job until you\u2019ve tried to do it yourself first,\u201d they write. \u201cThat way, you\u2019ll understand the nature of the work.\u201d They continue by explaining this experience will allow you to identify what a \u201cjob well done\u201d looks like. You\u2019ll know how to write a job description for the role, what questions to ask during an interview, and whether you should hire someone full-time, part-time, or just continue to do the role yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll also be a much better manager,\u201d they continue, \u201cbecause you\u2019ll be supervising people who are doing a job you\u2019ve done before.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

You might feel uncomfortable engaging in work you\u2019re not familiar with. You may even feel like you stink at it. <\/span><\/p>\n

There are really only two ways out of that feeling: you can learn your way out of it or you can hire your way out of it. Fried and Heinemeier believe — before you resort to hiring — it is beneficial to learn first.<\/span><\/p>\n

Adding to Experience<\/h2>\n

As you learn a new skill on the job, there are copious ways to reinforce that knowledge. And, as <\/span>major employers are rethinking the value of a college degree<\/span>, less formal places of learning can help you acquire the skills you need.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, each individual job and the department will have different resources available. In other words, you probably won\u2019t go to the same place to build your marketing chops as you will to dive into human resource training. Blogs such as <\/span>this one<\/span><\/a> can be a great resource for discovering the best spots to gain knowledge on isolated departments within a company. <\/span><\/p>\n

But there are a handful of resources that can work, regardless of the skillset you\u2019re learning.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot that can be learned by reading articles and blogs, but many have had success receiving college-level training on free schooling sites like <\/span>Coursera.org<\/span>. Many other specialized courses can be found on <\/span>Lynda<\/span>, <\/span>Springboard<\/span>, <\/span>SkillShare<\/span>, <\/span>Udemy<\/span>, <\/span>Udacity<\/span>, and <\/span>General Assembly<\/span> in addition to business strategy courses like those from <\/span>Growth Institute<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Make that Learning Pay<\/h2>\n

There\u2019s no denying it: being a successful CEO is the most challenging job in the building. The best of the best don\u2019t just understand the workings of the department from which they rose, they have a handle on the full breadth of the organization.<\/span><\/p>\n

Entering the role having mastered everything an experienced CEO will one day know is an unrealistic expectation, but working hard to gain new understanding and competencies can set the stage for the success of the entire organization.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trammell identifies <\/span>five core responsibilities<\/span> he believes must be done by a chief executive. The more of a holistic view the organization\u2019s leader can earn, the better they will be able to guide their firm through these key duties:<\/span><\/p>\n