• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Submissions
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • May 27, 2023
  • Startup
    • Creating a Plan
    • Funding a Startup
    • Franchise Center
    • Getting Your Office Ready
    • Making Your Business Official
    • Marketing Your New Business
    • Personal Readiness
  • Run & Grow
    • Customer Service
    • Human Resources
    • Innovation
    • Legal
    • Operations
    • Risk Management
  • Leadership
    • Best Practices
    • Communication
    • Green Initiatives
    • Open Culture
    • Strategic Planning
    • People Skills
  • Sales & Marketing
    • Advertising and Lead Generation
    • Marketing Innovations
    • Marketing Plans
    • Online Marketing
    • Relationships
    • Sales Activities
  • Finance
    • Budgeting and Personal Finance
    • Payments and Collections
    • Tax and Accounting
    • Pricing Strategy
    • Working with Investors
    • Working with Lenders
  • Tech
    • eCommerce
    • Hardware
    • Software
    • Security
    • Tech Reviews
    • Telecom
  • Shop

SmallBizClub

Helping You Succeed

taxbandits banner
Home / Leadership / Best Practices / The Top 3 Leadership Challenges CEOs Face
The Top 3 Leadership Challenges CEOs Face

The Top 3 Leadership Challenges CEOs Face

2090 Views

Feb 11, 2015 By Mike Harden

If being a CEO were easy, everybody would be one. CEOs are expected to know what to do—and to do it without falling down. There is a reason few in business rise to this position. It is your responsibility as CEO to ensure you’re fostering your company’s growth and value—but the task doesn’t necessarily come with ease. Here are the top three biggest leadership challenges CEOs face.

 
Loneliness
 
It’s lonely at the top is an axiom of business for the CEO. The chief executive is typically the most isolated person in the company. They account for such a small percentage of the population, without any peers within their own companies. Think about it like this: every other person in the organization has a boss. Who does the boss go to for help? You can’t ask employees to give feedback on ideas and strategies, and you can’t seek council from your board of directors out of fear of looking weak and indecisive.
 
Related Article: Never Underestimate the Power of a Group
 
To help relieve the isolation, CEOs can build private/outside advisory boards—or find peer groups like Vistage International or Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) to receive advice and unbiased feedback. Believe it or not, other CEOs are experiencing similar problems.
 
Balancing competing interests
 
One of the main jobs of a CEO is allocating resources effectively. You are constantly tugged in dozens of directions daily, and employees, managers, suppliers, customers, shareholders, and even family, are all making demands of resources and time. Deciding who gets those limited resources and time is a delicate balancing act.
 
Competing interests always view the situation as a win/lose scenario. If you have three different department heads vying for a major investment to increase their revenues—but only have a limited amount of money—you can either spread it thin between the three, or allocate it to the department you think has the best chance of success. If you do the latter, the other two will be upset and feel they’re not getting a fair shake. However as a CEO, it’s your job to look at the ROI of each resource and allocate properly. Someone wins, and someone loses.
 
Creating a path to growth
 
Growing a company is like rowing a boat upstream. Since your competitors are rowing their own boats beside yours, you can’t stop rowing or you’ll fall behind. CEOs are always trying to figure out how to row their boats and edge the competition.
 
The path for growth is a difficult one. For the CEO, growth means increasing the top line in revenue and the bottom line in profits. It requires investments, strategies, execution, and talent—and all of these are tough to find, fund, and figure out. Besides acquiring a crystal ball and peeking into the future; engaging outside advisors, acquiring market intelligence, and developing the skill to forecast trends in technology and demographics will ease the growing pains.
 
Tough decisions are constantly made by the chief executive to ensure growth is healthy and sustainable. In a competitive environment, CEOs are forced to squeeze as much as possible out of every resource—whether it’s money, people, or assets. As CEO, if you let go of your focus on the future, the current will sweep you backwards. Stayed focused and keep rowing.
 
This article was originally published by ExecutiveCoachDC

Filed Under: Best Practices Tagged With: Growth, Leadership, Mike Harden, Team

Mike Harden

Mike Harden

Mike Harden is the CEO of Clarity Group, offering top-level executive coaching to CEOs, COOs, Presidents, and business owners. He is a seasoned international executive who has worked for companies including Bank of America, CitiCorp, Sterling Software, BancTec, and Fiserv, with 20 years at the CEO/COO level. With Fiserv, Mike built the company’s government contracting division from one employee and no revenue to over 1,000 people and revenues of $50-60 million within 14 months. Mike is a trusted source on industry events for news organizations, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and CNN.

Related Posts

  • The Power of Collaboration: Why It’s Essential for Small Businesses
  • 13 Top Growth Hacking Tips For Small Businesses
  • 12 Ways To Grow From A One-Man OpTo An Enterprise

Primary Sidebar

Random

Why Is It Important To Tell A Story In Your Marketing?

May 26, 2023 By Dan Alvin

The Power of Collaboration: Why It’s Essential for Small Businesses

May 25, 2023 By SmallBizClub

startup-budgeting-for-small-business-owners-and-entrepreneurs

How to Maintain Your Financial Health as a Small Business

May 25, 2023 By Andrew Deen

it-pays-to-be-neighborly--franchises-building-relationships-with-the-community

Small Business, Big Impact – 6 Advantages Small Businesses Have Over Big Box

May 25, 2023 By Andrew Deen

5 Easy Steps to Grow Your Accounting Firm Online

May 24, 2023 By SmallBizClub

Footer

About Us

Small Biz Club is the premier destination for small business owners and entrepreneurs. To succeed in business, you have to constantly learn about new things, evaluate what you’re doing, and look for ways to improve—that’s what we’re here to help you do.

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2023 by Tarkenton Institute, Inc. All Rights Reserved | Terms | Privacy