Business Leadership: Founders Versus CEOs - Douglas E. Castle

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Business Leadership: Founders Versus CEOs

By: Douglas E. Castle

Published In: The Taking Command! Blog

Founders tend to be entrepreneurial visionaries, who strive to put their future imagery of success into a machine which we refer to as a business. Founders are largely iconoclasts, rebels and disruptive types with the gifts of imagination, intuition and planning. In contrast, most hired CEOs (many of whom are hired by founders of companies in conjunction with those companies' respective boards of directors) tend to be best at turning intangible visions and printed plans into reality through management and tactical skills. In many cases, founders are excellent strategic thinkers, but are not well-suited toward coordinating all of the moving parts necessary in order to bring a business to the point of achieving its most important objectives.

The way I tend to think about the startup or early-stage enterprise CEO job is fairly simple: In a startup, founders are typically responsible for laying out the vision for the products or services that the company offers, while the CEO is responsible for leading the company towards the execution of that vision. That execution path includes areas such as company protocols, go-to-market strategies, operational structure and many many other aspects that complement the company vision. Similarly, the most important job of a startup founder is to set up the right team and structure to take his or her company to the next level; oftentimes that team requires a new, professional CEO.

A founder may be a great assembler of wonderfully talented Human assets to form a team to fulfill his or her vision, but harnessing, positioning and coordinating the efforts of those assets requires the focused skills of a get-it-done CEO. Founders set a pace, a tone, an image and a corporate culture for the companies which they form. They tend to think outside of the proverbial box, while professional CEOs are used to performing their work within specified parameters, such as budgets, personnel, and other key business variables.

In many cases, particularly in early stages, the roles of founders and CEOs overlap, but this doesn’t imply that the situation must remain that way throughout the lifetime of the company. Certainly, in very early stages, the company founders are in the best position to execute in the original vision of the company. However, after the company reaches certain level the founder-CEOs need to objectively evaluate the best path and team that can maximize the chances of reaching the next set of goals.

NOTE: You can train a CEO but you can’t train a founder….

This is very true. As a startup founder, if you are convinced you are the best person to serve as your company CEO, you have the talent and the desire to make it work there are certainly plenty of resources at your disposal to help you become a world class CEO. Having the right advisors and consultants to support your efforts can be a determining factor in this stage. At any point, you have to be convinced that your role as CEO is the best thing for the company and is not based upon personal ambitions or a need (usually born of insecurity) to control every aspect of your creation.

NOTE: As a founder, you already hold the most important title there is…

In the startup world, there is no greater or more rewarding achievement than founding a company that makes its way to success and to changing the world. As a startup or early-stage business venture founder, focus on always doing the right thing for your company; it is counterproductive to obsess about remaining as CEO if there is a better person to execute on that role. Always remember that you already hold the best tile someone can have: Founder. Without founders, there would never be companies... and without companies infused with the vision of their founders, there would never be any purpose or job for a CEO.

Founders can give the company a Human face and personality. They may be become a charismatic component of the company's branding identity. And very importantly, founders ofttimes make excellent chairpersons because of their ability to conceptualize in "big picture" terms, to remain true to their original vision, and because of their parental dedication to nurturing the company as their minds' offspring.

As always, thank you for reading me.  - Douglas E. Castle
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You Are Always "On The Record."

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If anyone should introduce or preface a question to you (especially while the two of you would seem to be alone, and away from the crowd) with words to the effect of "Could you tell me, off the record...," or, "Just between the two of us...," "Level with me...,"or, "In the strictest confidence...," or, " What did you really think of that?" -- You should immediately (and invisibly) become acutely suspicious of that individual's reasons, intentions and trustworthiness.

These very common but manipulative "comforting" statements are attempts to get you to reveal information that: you would not want to go any further; could be damaging to you or someone else; could be overhead; could be repeated out of context; could actually be used to gauge your trustworthiness or credibility (i.e., where you are being 'tested' by a third party); or which could be recorded, broadcast and utilized by those whose interests conflict with yours. This "invitation to confide" could actually be an invitation to unwarranted personal bonding, or to self-incrimination

Warning:

• Take your time to choose your response very, very carefully ;
• Do not speak ill of anyone;
• Do not divulge any secrets, or betray any confidences;
• Speak euphemistically and innocuously (dictionary.com);
• Say very little of any substance;
• Be brief with your answer, and try to say it with a smile -- you are creating a friendly, harmless, bland soundbite;
• Preface your response, after a brief pause, with "Why do you ask?" and wait for a slightly surprised uncomfortable answer before proceeding;
• Once you've made your brief, harmless comment ("Well, the coffee was a bit cold."), let the other individual (your interrogator) do all of the talking, and then listen carefully.

The Rule:

Always speak as if you were being recorded and broadcast to the universe. Assume that everything that you say to everyone is "on the record," regardless of what they might want you to believe. Observance of this command rule is one that will stand you in good stead. Many persons with otherwise great career trajectories have been caught in this trap.

Use the intuitive filter of your good political sense instead of your natural inclination to blab, insult, confide and to backbite.

You may safely assume that you are always "on the record".

Douglas E Castle [http://aboutDouglasCastle.blogspot.com]

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Entrepreneurial Business Planning - Tactics Versus Strategies - Optimizing The Blend

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Every Entrepreneur, Project Manager, Leader and Small- to Medium-Sized Business CEO (or other C-Suite dignitary) must understand the difference between tactics and strategies, and learn the way to think about each. Just as importantly, each of us needs to integrate them to achieve real results and to avoid walking a needlessly random path governed by the sway of outside forces. Welcome to Entrepreneurial Business Planning - Tactics Versus Strategies - Optimizing The Blend.

Here's a preliminary explanation of the difference, and an example:

Understand the difference between Tactics and Strategies -- Strategies are the longer- term plans you make for achieving your ultimate goals and objectives, in accordance with your ambitions, desires and inclinations. You have a roadmap or blueprint to either get you there or to create the finished product.

A strategic plan might cover a span of time from several months to an entire lifetime, but its destination is where you ultimately and passionately want to be.

Tactics are short-term initiatives (spontaneous adaptations) for dealing with the impediments, complications and situations which you encounter along the path to achieving your goals and objectives. They often involve palliative measures, adjustments in timing, a slight detour from the map -- but they are merely immediate accommodations, and should never keep your ultimate focus from your goals and objectives.

The simplest analogy is in a situation where you are planning to go to a supermarket, and your ordinary route is blocked off by Police Crime Scene Investigators, a fallen tree, a picket line of anti-government protestors, an oily chemical spill, or an inoperative traffic light; while you will navigate a new route (the tactic), you will still be heading for the supermarket (the strategy to appease your hungry children who are suffering from serious Taco-Bell Gastritis/ Single Dad Syndrome).

Don't ever lose sight of strategy when engaged in a tactical maneuver. Keep your internal compass set on your destination. Occasional rests and positive visualization can be very helpful in getting you safely to your rendezvous without having you fall prey to careless mistakes, or endless, labyrinthine detours.

Blending these two tools is very much like going back and forth, looking into a telescope (strategy, the big picture, a macrocosm), and then looking into a microscope (the incremental steps needed to get there). You must switch back and forth between pragmatic detail and your vision.

Terrible, Gratuitous Metaphor:

If you are climbing a mountain, you must focus on your objective (the peak), while you constantly look down and along side you to avoid tripping on roots or being hit by branches in your path.

This constant refocusing is a necessary leadership skill. It enables you to always know your destination (and how you intend to get there in terms of your mapped path), but to change the incremental steps, as may be necessary to navigate around quicksand, crocodiles, and bandits who may be in the middle of the road.


If you are well-practiced at this, you become a powerfully adept problem-solver -- you will take many a detour, but you'll always wind up back on the main road to your stated objective, and to the successful achievement of your mission. You'll understand, viscerally, that goal attainment requires the ability to shift in and out of perspectives.

Business is inherently the solution of problems. Business is, by its nature, an obstacle course, with a prize at the end. Problems are not aberrations -- they are absolutely to be expected, remedied or circumvented, and then, if you have solved or side-stepped each and every one of them, if you've managed to maintain your most important sense of direction, you'll find yourself at the mountaintop.

Douglas E Castle
Chairman
TNNWC Group, LLC - Management Consultants to Emerging Enterprises 

Tags, Labels, Keywords, Categories and Search Terms For This Article:Business plan, Entrepreneur, Strategy, Project Manager, tactics as detours, staying on track, Douglas E Castle, TNNWC Management Consulting, blogs about leadership, visualization, problem-solving, navigation, negotiation, command, control, communications, alternating perspectives, tenancity, passion in pursuit, formula for achievement, eyes on the prize, macroscopic vision, microscopic vision, achievement by increments, flexibility and innovation

NOTE: This Article Was Published in its Original Form by Douglas E Castle in TAKING COMMAND!. You can find this blog at http://TakingCommand.blogspot.com.

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