The Role of a CEO

I often think about the nature of my job.  What does it mean to be a CEO?  Last month, during A Pass's regular board meeting, I asked the two members of my board, Chuck Amos and Michael Ross, what I am supposed to be doing with my time.  What does it really mean to think about the big ideas?  What does it look like to be a leader?

My board members said several things.  First, they recommended that I constantly be learning as many different things about A Pass and business in general as possible.  Second, the role of a CEO is to parachute into those areas of a business that need the most support and help fix things.  Third, I should be thinking about things that A Pass could be doing in the future.  They tried to explain this third element of a CEO's role by mentioning Apple, Steve Jobs and Tim Cook. Cook's role at Apple can only begin to be evaluated now.  Has he been doing things that are leading Apple in the right direction?  His work could not have been evaluated in the first week, month or year because his work was about the future not the present.  (This is very different than a writer, for example.  A writer's success can be determined immediately.  Has the writer written a coherent sentence or article?)

Shortly after this discussion with my board I began to look around for new learning opportunities.  I enrolled in an educational program for CEO's and business owners offered by Oakland County, Michigan.  The program, a set of ten classes, is called FastTrac Growth Ventures.  It is supported by the Kauffman Foundation.  The program actually finished last night with each participant making a presentation about his business.

As a result of my thinking within this course and tangential activities, I recognized a couple of important ideas.  First, A Pass's strategic advantage is that we use our easily expandable and very diverse group of writers, editors, subject matter experts, and instructional designers to implement our clients' visions.  I learned how to think about A Pass's SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats).  I'd say that the greatest threat to our work is quality.  How do we ensure that we submit the highest quality work when we have a virtual company and those doing the work are usually freelance associates?

This last question leads into a brief discussion of the leadership role of the CEO.

A Pass has a team of content area development directors who are responsible for ensuring quality of work.  These individuals work for our Chief Instructional Officer.  As the leader of A Pass, I had a vision for this group.  The group was established.  Now that the group has been established I need to let them do their work.  A leader holds his people accountable.  This group is accountable for high quality.  However, a leader also empowers his people.  This group is empowered to do what is necessary to ensure high quality.  In a future blog post, I may share the kinds of insightful steps that this group is taking to ensure quality.

As the leader of an educational development company, I think it is essential that I am always learning.  This blog post represents the current stage that I am at in my learning process.  It is quite possible that a comment will prompt me to see something in a different way.  If a comment does not do this, an article or book that I read in the future will most definitely do this. As a CEO, I have time to think and I will take advantage of this time.