Six Essential Roles of the CEO

According to Dr. Lawrence King, legendary T.E.C. Canada speaker, the role of the CEO encompasses six essential functions:

1. Strategist. This function sets the future direction of your company. The process for creating effective strategy involves a team-centered strategic planning retreat, whereby you go off-site with your management team, look three years out into the future, and ask the most important strategic question: where will our future profit margins come from? Chances are they will not come from the same place as today.
2. Ambassador. Meet with your important customers and clients once or twice a year, not for a sales call but for an informal lunch or dinner. The idea is to get to know the customer and let them get to know you, so that you can increase their trust in you and establish your credibility.
3. Inventor. Success in business requires finding your customer’s pain and developing new products and services to relieve it. The inventor function ensures that the strategic direction of the company aligns around the customer’s pain.
4. Coach. Become a teacher, coach and mentor to your direct reports. Instill a culture of learning throughout all levels of the organization. Your direct reports do not have your big picture perspective, so find ways to teach it to them.
5. Investor. Treat your company as an investment. Know the market value of your business and strive to grow it. Improving market value should direct all decisions for the business and reward the clear focus and direction of the CEO.
6. Student. Stay active in some form of continued professional development — not just in your area of functional expertise but as a student of leadership.

Your strategy, culture, team, stage of company and personal strengths and weaknesses will factor in to how you divide your energy among these roles and projects you lead.  Our members have found that by being more intentional about their roles and the time and energy they devote to them, they are more focused and effective.  They also find that these six roles give them a useful framework to continuously and consciously learn and adapt to their roles as their business and influences change.