Delegation & Management: A New CEO’s Guide to Increasing Productivity in a Rapidly Expanding Company
Entrepreneurs put in a lot of hard work toward making their startups successful. They network, speak to business owners, and go to trendy workshops that use sleek presentations, all with the goal of learning how to make it big.
However, many forget that it’s only the best that manage to find a footing and continue to remain productive. It’s a competitive world where only the biggest sharks survive. Some luck out with a novel idea and experience sudden success. This can make a person with limited experience become the CEO of a rapidly expanding company. That’s dangerous.
Why?
Because this is when they get eaten up by the big sharks.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor & Statistics, there are about 200,000 CEOs as of 2021. That puts you as one among 199,999 other top-level executives of the country in a field that’s rife with high-stakes decision-making and risks.
A single wrong move can send your company crashing down the stock market and shareholders leaving in droves. For this reason, knowing how to keep productivity high can mean the difference between the life and death of your company.
The Importance of Delegation for Productivity
Delegation can increase productivity by allowing a CEO to focus on higher-level tasks and decisions that require their expertise and experience. By delegating lower-level tasks to employees who are skilled and trained to perform them, the CEO can free up their time and mental energy to focus on more strategic and important initiatives.
As we know, some people are born with all the skills that make them successful, while others achieve the same result by delegating. We want you to read the following scenario and think seriously for a moment about which option you would pick.
You are in charge of a large company. Hundreds or even thousands of people will be affected by every decision you make. Each decision has complicated factors that you don’t fully understand since they aren’t your area of expertise. Some concepts are so deep that you can barely grasp them. What do you do?
- Option 1: Wing it and make decisions based on your limited understanding, and hope you’re right.
- Option 2: Delegate the task of assessing risks and advising you on the proper approach to someone that has more experience than you in the field.
- Option 3: Take time and learn more about each of those fields until you can make informed decisions.
If you choose option 1 and luck is on your side, your business or company may keep running for a while. It might even be years before anything happens, but it just takes a few wrong decisions to suddenly lose everything.
When you choose option 3, that was a mistake. As a CEO, while you do learn from experience, you don’t have the time to sit around and learn about every factor until you are competent enough to make a decision.
This leaves option 2 as the most sensible one out of the three.
1. Learn to Delegate: It Reduces the Amount of Stress You Face
Some large companies have a dedicated department that focuses on the analysis of factors and creates advisory reports to make better decisions and manage the company better.
Other companies contract this work to a third party with a lot of experience. This frees up valuable time of yours. Such risk management companies have a lot of experience in critical infrastructure.
Critical infrastructure refers to aspects of a system, company, or business that when damaged or malfunctions, bring the entire operation to a halt.
For example, if you are the CEO of a data-management company that deals with many cloud-based services, the data servers are your critical infrastructure.
Contracting with a third party like them allows a CEO to focus on more important tasks and empowers them to take on more responsibility and develop new skills. This boosts productivity in the long run.
Also, as a new CEO, when you are responsible for every aspect of your organization, you are very likely to be overwhelmed and stressed by the amount of work that needs to be done. By delegating tasks to others, you alleviate the constant stress, which can stop you from burning out rapidly.
2. Stop Having Pointless Meetings Throughout Day
Meetings are an important aspect of any business, but they can also be a major time-waster and tank productivity if not managed well. Pointless meetings are those that do not have a clear agenda, purpose, or outcome or those that could be handled more efficiently through other means of communication.
You don’t need a morning meeting, a “progress check” meeting in the afternoon, and a “touch base” meeting at the end of the day. Wasting valuable time in this way is extremely unproductive. It doesn’t add any value to the workflow and instead hinders it more than anything.
Instead, consider communicating via a slack channel or even emails.
Pointless meetings can also negatively impact employee morale and motivation. When employees feel that their time is being wasted in meetings that do not have a clear purpose or outcome, they begin to feel disengaged and demotivated. This can lead to a lack of commitment and a negative impact on the overall productivity of the organization.
3. General Tips to Increase Productivity with Leadership Skills
Leadership is a crucial aspect of any organization, and the role of the CEO is particularly important in setting the tone and direction for the entire company.
As a CEO, you have the power to shape the culture, drive growth, and inspire your team to achieve greatness. Below are some useful tips for improving productivity with leadership skills.
- Build a strong network: Building a strong network of contacts in the industry can be invaluable for new CEOs. This can help them to stay informed about the latest trends and developments in the industry and also provide valuable connections for future business opportunities, thereby raising productivity.
- Be adaptive: The world keeps throwing challenges and oddballs at you. Having the flexibility to deal with them is key. For example, the Covid-19 pandemic brought radical shifts in the way offices operated. Good CEOs were able to adapt and maintain productivity while others fumbled like a fish out of water.
- Be decisive: New CEOs need to be decisive and make quick, informed decisions. They should be able to weigh the pros and cons of different options and make a decision that is in the best interest of the company. Indecision and lack of clarity in one’s vision hinder a company’s productive workflow.
- Embrace technology: New CEOs should be familiar with the latest technologies and how they can be used to improve the productivity and effectiveness of the organization. Being familiar with the latest advancements gives you the edge against your competition.
- Be a good listener: New CEOs should be good listeners and actively seek feedback from their team members and stakeholders. This will help them stay in touch with the needs and concerns of the organization leading to better decisions and more productivity.
- Lead with integrity: New CEOs should lead with integrity and act in an ethical and responsible manner. Integrity rallies an otherwise demotivated team towards working with passion, and there’s nothing that leads to more productivity than a passionate workforce.
Concluding
Improving and maintaining productivity as a new CEO can be a challenging and exciting journey. It requires a combination of leadership, management, and strategic skills. It’s easy to focus on the wrong priorities because they often look important.
The skill of discernment is a powerful tool not just for CEOs but for anyone in a position of power.
Delegating tasks that aren’t in your field of expertise and trusting your hand-picked team makes you a more effective leader and gets you ready for the future as your company continues to be productive with constant growth.
LUXAFOR HELPS PEOPLE TO ACHIEVE THEIR GREATEST PRODUCTIVITY LEVELS WITH A WIDE VARIETY OF OFFICE PRODUCTS. LET’S BE PRODUCTIVE TOGETHER!
