What a CEO should do...

By Mark Davis

I’m a believer that CEOs shouldn’t own workstreams. If they own a customer relationship, marketing plan or product function they won’t be available to invest time in supporting their team. You should be available to help someone on your team when they urgently needs a question answered in order to do their job.

When companies are first started, however, CEOs wear lots of hats and own workstreams that they should divest as the company scales. Owning legal tasks, HR to-do’s, office space procurement, accounting and others are all inevitable, but are roles that CEOs should work to delegate as resources become available.

But what roles should a CEO keep?

Here’s my list of roles that I plan to maintain as Kohort scales:
Strategic Alignment: Ensuring that everyone on my team is working toward the same macro objectives in lockstep, by facilitating communication.

Culture: Setting the culture of the company through office setup, policies and leading by example.

Talent Optimization: Working to maximize the talent of the overall team through hiring decisions and working to ensure each team members maximizes their potential through mentorship and active support.

Fundraising: Raising money to keep the company growing at the appropriate pace.

It’s worth noting that this doesn’t mean that CEOs shouldn’t do sales calls or engage in customer service. They should as long as those activities help their team succeed in their roles. Moreover, a CEO should do any task, no matter how menial, to help their team succeed. Take out the trash, pickup lunch and clean the office - whatever it takes to help your team win.

Also, all of these tasks that the CEO owns are cerebral except for fundraising – that’s the task you never get to fully delegate...