Cameron Herold discusses how CEOs and COOs must develop a close, trust-based relationship—comparing it to a marriage—so the CEO can mentor, coach, and understand the COO’s needs. He emphasizes hiring a COO who matches the CEO’s "DNA" and firm growth trajectory, and lists key COO strengths: people skills, communication, collaboration, conflict management, situational leadership, coaching, delegation, and project management. Short case examples (George Sink, John Barry, William Matar) illustrate how different CEO personalities require different COO fits.
Chapters
Spend time with the coo, away from the rest of the kids, away from the rest of the leadership team. They need to spend time listening to the coo. When the COO is struggling or frustrated, they need to be there to mentor and coach them and really have strong trust and communication. It's very similar to a husband and wife getting married. You could have an amazing wife who's a perfect match for her husband, but she'd be a terrible wife for 12 other husbands. Right, because she's a good match for that person's DNA, that person's personality, that person's hobbies, maybe the stage of life that they're at, the age that they're at. So very similar to a CEO who's looking to hire a second in command. We need to understand the growth trajectory of your firm right now, right where you're going to be over the next few years. We need to understand the DNA and the style of leader that you are, whether you're going to be kind of removing yourself from the day to day or really deep in it. And then we really need to understand the strengths of that entrepreneur. So I've coached a number of people in the law space. I'll give you a couple examples. You know, you've got a George Sink who's, you know, 85 years old, he's very stuck in kind of the 1970s and 80s methodologies of running a business. And then you've got John Barry from Barry Law, who's type triple A, former military, he's looking for a. And then you got, you know, William Matar from Rochester who's like a YPO or a little bit more refined, softer spoken. All three of them are CEOs. All are very, very different in terms of the DNA that they're looking for as their exact match as their second in command. So it's all understanding yourself as the entrepreneur first. But every good second in command or COO needs to be very good at the soft side of business, very good at the people issues, very good at communication, very good at collaboration, very good at getting good healthy debate, very good at managing conflict. They've got to be good at situational leadership and coaching and delegation and project management, kind of all of the good, solid executive functioning skills. And then they just need to be good at the stuff their CEO sucks at. So if the CEO is good at finance and marketing, maybe they don't have to be good at finance and marketing, but if their CEO is really good at legal and ops, maybe they have to be good at marketing and finance, but all the people stuff, they have to be great at, for sure. Strangely, it's very similar, again, to it to a normal personal marriage. It's about date night. It's about listening. It's about seeking to understand the other person and spending time with the other person. Right? So the CEO needs to spend time with the coo away from the rest of the kids, away from the rest of the leadership team. They need to spend time listening to the coo. When the COO is struggling or frustrated, they need to be there to mentor and coach them and really have strong trust and communication. So that's just very, very similar to this, this kind of strange dynamic that we have in a, in a marriage. So stay ahead of the curve as a CEO. This next video is packed with great leadership lessons for you that'll really help you as you continue in your growth.
