Cameron Herold says a CEO's core job is growing people. Coaching needs to balance direction, development, and support, adjusted by role: directors get more hands-on guidance, C-level executives get quarterly check-ins. A clear org chart and defined responsibilities let you focus on building skills, confidence, and connections instead of replacing people.
Don't get frustrated that you're coaching people because a leader's core job is to grow people. We're always growing their skills, growing their confidence, and we're aligning them regardless of how senior they are. When I was running the hundred million,$1,800 got junk. Brian and I still met on a weekly basis, still drove each other crazy, still kind of applied coaching and conflict management with each other. There was constant check ins and that was all okay.
My COO I actually brought in as my director of sales three years ago, realized our sales skills are way different. I'm flows now, understand it all. He's hardcore nurture. We realized through the time that he was the. He loves everything. I hate, I hate SOPs, I hate details. And oddly enough, two years ago I'm like, you're the COO. So he took over exactly what you said. Everything that drains me, he takes off my plate and he does it proactively. One thing I've always been worried with, or not worried, confused on is we've got finance, we've got it, we've got marketing, we've got sales, we've got operations of two companies. And they all report to Doug right now, our coo. And I've always wondered, is it okay for me to be him, have these five departments to him and then finance and sales report to me because that's what I am.
It's exactly the way you set it up. And then you want to make sure that you have a very clear org chart so that people in the company understand who reports to who, who to go to for certain areas, what the communication channels are and also who's responsible for which metrics. My brother and sister live up in Canada and they call them pink jobs and blue jobs. But the pink jobs and blue jobs just mean the pink jobs are hers, the blue jobs are his. But he does the gardening. She likes cutting the grass, he likes shoveling snow, she likes washing dishes, he likes loading the dishwasher. So they just divided up the house into who likes to do what. It's exactly the same as your company. There's not a single CEO out there that has the same responsibilities as other CEOs. And there's not a single CEO that has the same responsibility as other CEOs. But it's important to get their title and their comp correct. It's important to get them focused and it's important to keep them in check in terms of knowing what they're working on. Right. I always talk about in coaching, it's why? It's one of the core modules my invest in your leaders course. Coaching is the balance of three things. Direction, development and support. So the direction is making sure that they're working on the right stuff. With C level, true C level people, you can do that quarterly, but you still want to make sure that they're working on the right things for the quarter. If they're vp, you want to make sure they're working on the right things for the month. If they're director, you want to make sure that weekly you know what they're working on. I used to have my direct reports come to my desk and tell me they'd written their top three for the day. Didn't even matter what their top three were. All I wanted to know was are you focused? So then the development is you give them skill development. That's why I apply situational leadership and coaching and delegation. All this kind of bundled together in the coaching module. The skill development you have to give them on a project by project basis. That's one of your roles. So in some cases you might have a COO or a director of operations that you're always coaching them on something that's cool. You're supposed to coach people and if they're more of a director, you shouldn't be frustrated that you're coaching them because you hired somebody who is probably needing to be coached in some areas. But when they're a vp, you don't need to coach them as much. And when they're a coo, if you try to coach them, they're going to roll their eyes at you. Imagine if you told your 17 year olds how to fold their laundry. They'd be like mom. And then you give your youngest more direction than you give your 17 year old. So as someone's title increases, you're going to adapt your leadership style to them a little bit. So that's another reason why you want to make sure you have the conversations with people is to kind of level set. And also for yourself, don't get frustrated that you're coaching people. Because a leader's core job is to grow people. We're always growing their skills, growing their confidence and we're aligning them regardless of how senior they are. When I was running the $100 million1,800 got junk. Brian and I still met on a weekly basis, still drove each other crazy, still kind of applied coaching and conflict management with each other. There was constant check ins and that was all okay, right? Even him helping me align with my mentor. I had a mentor for two years that I was a CEO. Brian got me into strategic coach when I was a CEO. Like, there was always ways that he was trying to grow me. He was never frustrated with that. It was because the company kept growing. But if the company's going through a growth curve, you're going to grow by 50%, then all of your people's skills need to grow by 50%. So. So we shouldn't be getting frustrated because they don't have the skills yet. They didn't have them last year, so we got to grow them. It's worse to have to replace people. I assure you that when you have to replace people, it's much harder than having to spend time growing their confidence and their connections and their skills right now. So those are the three things you're growing their skills, their confidence, and their connections. And then you're making sure that they're aligned and working on the stuff that you want them working on. Any entrepreneurial company that starts with the vivid vision, aligns their team with that vivid vision, and then focuses on the critical few projects that start making that vivid vision happen. And then you build it like you're building a home. The foundation you put in the walls, you put in the electrical and the plumbing. Entrepreneurs get all distracted. They want to put in the beautiful stove and the nice.
