Updated June 8, 2023
CEO
CEO stands for Chief Executive Officer. A CEO is the highest-ranking executive or leader of a company or organization responsible for making strategic decisions, managing its overall operations, and ensuring its financial success. The CEO reports to the Board of Directors and is responsible for the company’s performance to its shareholders. The role of the CEO can change depending on the size and nature of the company. Still, they generally have a broad range of responsibilities, including setting the company’s mission and vision, developing strategies to achieve organizational goals, handling the budget and financial management, and representing the company to external stakeholders such as investors, customers, and the media.
Often, it seems that managing people is like rocket science. But why it’s so tough to manage people?
In this article, we will try to find the answer. We will talk about why a CEO finds it easy to manage people. We will also talk about how you can increase your organization’s productivity even if you’re not a CEO.
Why does the CEO finds it difficult to manage people?
The people who work for you don’t care what you know about. They don’t get bothered about how much money you make, how many degrees you have, or how eligible you are to run the company. The only thing they care about is how much you care about them. And that’s it.
People are not foolish. They know whether you only think about profits or want to add value. Even if you pretend to help them, you will not succeed. You need to care for them to become an extraordinary CEO truly.
Most people go to the store and buy books on managing people or biographies of any successful CEO, but if you can only learn to care about your people, they will care back. They will give their heart and soul to making you and your organization prosperous.
But how would you do that?
How to care for your people as a CEO?
No, there is no hard and fast rule to care for your people. But these are fundamentals of people management skills.
#1. As A CEO – Be A Good Human Being First
A good human being cares about another human being. Before you think of yourself as a CEO or someone with a better rank than their subordinates, know you are human. Ultimately, it won’t matter by keeping your ego, proving you’re better than your subordinates, and treating them like they don’t know anything. You need to be a good human by heart, and guess what? You don’t need to manage them. They will do the work for you. They will do it from their heart.
#2. As A CEO – Add Value To Their Jobs
Encourage them to develop interpersonal skills. Help them learn. Don’t scold or scream at them because they are working under you. Be patient with their pace of learning. We understand there’s a huge cost in teaching them skills; your time is valuable. But people are more valuable than profit. Your people will stand by you and generate profit by working harder, being more productive, and being generous with their time. And you won’t need to manage them ever again.
#3. As A CEO – Understand The Inherent Motivation
If you can understand every person closely, you will see that they all are motivated by one or two intrinsic values. Some get inspired by being in a group that helps each other. Some get their mojo by learning new skills. And some by being able to take more responsibility. Understanding each person in your team is crucial to managing them as a CEO.
As Dr. Stephen Covey said – “First understand if you want to be understood.”
#4. As A CEO – Don’t Treat Them As Resources
People are not resources. They are more than that. Organizations worldwide realize that which is why human resources are now termed human capital. They are capital to catapult the business. So treat them as you want to invest in them. Grow them. Care for them. As a result, you will get back benefits multi-fold.
#5. As A CEO – Add Value To Their Lives
They are human beings, and they have a life too. You will invest in your organization by ensuring that you care for them (not only for their professional development but for their personal development as well). If you manage a team, you need to know your team members through and through. You must understand their strengths, weaknesses, personal issues, and professional achievements. And you need to make time to help them in all these areas. You will never learn to become a good CEO if you are too busy to make a profit.
#6. As A CEO – Appreciate
Have you ever parented? Do you know why children develop fear and shame, and guilt? Babies are not born with all these negative emotions, but how come they develop these negative thoughts? When they grow up, their parents always catch them doing things wrong, and guess what? They develop a feeling that they are not good enough at anything. And they develop negative emotions.
If you catch employees doing wrong, you will develop negative emotions in them. No, you don’t need to support what they are doing wrong. You need to help them grow. And whenever you see that they’re doing something good, appreciate the employee in front of everyone. And you will see the magic. As a CEO, if you can do it for every employee you manage, you no longer need to worry about the organization.
#7. As A CEO – Be A Situational Leader
There is a lot of confusion and argument about what leadership style will suit a team or an organization! It mostly depends on the organizational culture. But moreover, not every situation is similar, and only one type of leadership will not be suitable. You need to go deep and understand why they are not working. Is there any personal issue? Or they are simply lazy. Accordingly, you need to devise a leadership style and act. For some situations, autocratic leadership and managing style will be helpful. For other situations, a more liberal attitude is suitable.
#8. As A CEO – Ask A Beautiful Question To Yourself
Ask yourself: What one thing can you do for your employees so that they will think twice before leaving the organization? We don’t know what situation you’re in or what you can do for your employees, but we do know that if you can honestly answer it and implement the answer for real, managing your people would be unnecessary.
#9. As A CEO – Create A Cooperative Culture
If you are in top management, you can help create an incredible culture for your employees. Yes, there will be few employees who will only think about themselves. But create an environment where everyone feels driven to help each other despite being selfish. It can be something like conducting a “helping seminar’. Generate new ideas like this. Use your ingenuity; you will see that the more cooperative the environment is, the better the coworker relationships and the better the organization’s results. Think about a troupe of an army. They have a common goal to achieve. If they help each other get closer to the goal, achieving it would become much easier. Implement a similar type of organizational culture.
#10. As A CEO – Find Key People
You will see that even though all the employees are in the same position, few do more than you ask them to. They are motivated by themselves. They want to go ahead and do something magnificent. Also, they are the change makers and cornerstones of the organization. Talk to them regularly. Especially when there’s a crisis, and the organization needs to transition. They will help you make that change easy. They will help you reduce the resistance among people and stand by you by helping other people who aren’t ready for the change. And guess what? Managing an entire team would become significantly easier.
#11. As A CEO – Deal With Disagreement
If only one thing can be removed from a relationship, every relationship will thrive. You’re right. We are talking about a disagreement between two parties regarding an issue. While trying to manage people, you have a relationship with your team members. Yes, a professional relationship, of course. But as a rule of relationship, there would be disagreement regarding something.
For example, you want your team to work on something right now as there’s an urgency, and you need to deliver the work by today, and your team is not agreeing to complete it today and calling it unrealistic. Instead of scolding or screaming, you can dig deep and try to understand.
Talk to them about what they feel is realistic and why they feel the work is unrealistic! And then, you can talk to the client and move the deadline. Here’s the deal. You always need to put your employees first, even before your clients. Why? Here’s the answer. You will not thrive among strangers if you don’t have the shoulders of your family members. Your employees are your family members; you must care about them first.
#12. As A CEO – Understand Their Fears
Fear is one thing that stops employees from taking action. Even procrastination is one sort of fear. To understand their fears, you must dig deep into their heart. Simply talk to them every week and get to know them better. The more you will speak to them, involve them in the brainstorming process, or let them contribute to any of the company’s issues, the more they will open up and trust you. Without trusting you, employees won’t share their fears with you. Once you understand their fears, help them eradicate them through books, training, arranging internal learning programs, and by counseling them. Managing people as a CEO is like building a home. It won’t always be easy.
#13. As A CEO – Send Thank You Notes
It is old school, you may say. But it always works. Just write a thank you, mention why you’re saying thank you, and send it to each employee. It will make them feel better about themselves, and managing them as a CEO will be easier.
Conclusion
Don’t just think about managing them. Build them in such a way that they can handle future employees. Train them, teach them, and recommend their books, blogs, materials, online courses, certifications, and programs. Act as a mentor so they know you’re concerned about them, and they will respond.
We only want you to understand that there’s no quick fix to manage people. As a CEO, you need to think about how you would implement these tips to manage better. You need to care for them and their growth truly. And that’s it.
Managing people is not rocket science. It is care given from one human being to another.
