Bill Gallagher explains why founders need to stop doing everything themselves when they become CEOs. You have to shift from hands-on doer to leader who builds and trusts a team, communicates vision, and empowers others to do the work.
Entrepreneurs can make great CEOs. So I want to be clear about that, because a lot of people, a lot of entrepreneurs question, should I even be the CEO? Should I exit? Should I sell? Not necessarily. That might be the right route for some in the short term or long term. But entrepreneurs can make great CEOs in many cases, right? But you have to realize that the skill set, the way that you did things in the beginning is very different than how you have to do things moving forward. You have to change, you have to transform. You have to make the shift from entrepreneur to CEO. And Bill, this even ties back to a conversation you and I had, I think, on our podcast, where you talked about, when you're a parent, you, You, You. You exert a lot of control in the early stages of parenting. Why? Because you don't want your kid to run out into the road and get hit by a car. You don't want them to put their hand on the stove and get burned. But as they grow, if you continue to exert that level of control, they will resent you. They will. You will break relationship and trust with them. And good luck getting them back when they're older. And I think the same is true in entrepreneurship. When an entrepreneur truly realizes that I have to actually change my identity, my identity can't anymore be that the business is my baby and the business is built around me, and I get my value from being the superhero who saves everything and shows up and catches all the balls when they drop and has all the good ideas. When. When the entrepreneur has not just the mindset shift, but the identity shift, that now I'm actually ascending to become a leader and empower of other people, of somebody who goes into the future and creates vision for a company and then brings it back before it ever gets executed to a team they can trust. When they make that identity shift from entrepreneur to CEO, I think it's just. It's just pivotal.
