What do CEOs do? A CEO Job Description.

Business, CEO, entrepreneurship, HBSWK, leadership 

 

The Chief Executive Officer is one of the most coveted titles, and least understood jobs in a company. Everyone believes that CEOs can do whatever they want, are all powerful, and are magically competent. Nothing could be further from the truth. By its very nature, the job description of a CEO means meeting the needs of employees, customers, investors, communities, and the law. Some of a CEO’s job can be delegated. But several elements of the job must be done by the CEO. Read on for the details of what makes a CEO.

What is intrinsic to the CEO’s job?

This isn’t a traditional job description; it’s an examination of the actual roles that a CEO plays (legally or de facto) within a company. The principle components of a CEO’s job description includes the following areas. Any individual CEO may take on any tasks that they wish, but these are the things that can’t be delegated:

1. Setting strategy and direction
2. Modeling and setting the company’s culture, values, and behavior
3. Building and leading the senior executive team
4. Allocating capital to the company’s priorities

While a CEO may get input for some of those duties, it is the CEO’s—and only the CEO’s—responsibility to perform those well. Being the CEO, they can spend the rest of their time doing whatever they decide they want to spend their time on. But ultimately, everything else about a given CEO’s job is optional.
Success as a CEO requires more than just knowing the CEO’s job description. A CEO needs to know how to measure their success as a CEO, avoid the pitfalls that are unique to the CEO’s job, and conduct themselves to stay sane and skillful over time.