Cameron Herold critiques the popular “visionary” and “integrator” labels (from Rocket Fuel and Traction), arguing they risk letting CEOs abdicate responsibility. He says CEOs must remain engaged in culture, people, metrics, customers, and exit planning, and should work closely as a team with their COO/second-in-command rather than delegating wholesale. Herold recommends using the clearer titles CEO and COO to emphasize joint responsibility.
Chapters
So I have a big fundamental issue with the term visionary and integrator, and I'm going to explain why. You absolutely, as the CEO, have to be the visionary, and as the second in command, you absolutely have to be the integrator. The problem, though, that I see being defined here is with the book Rocket Fuel and the book Traction is Gina Wickman and Mark created kind of this idea that the visionary can delegate everything except division. And that's actually not true. The visionary or the CEO has to care about the rest of the business. They have to care about culture, they have to care about people, they have to care about the metrics, they have to care about vision, they have to care about the customer, they have to care about kind of building or ensuring that the business is being built towards the exit that they have in mind, either selling the business or passing it to their kids, or transitioning into an operating team or what have you. But they have to care about all of those things. And they also have to work in areas of the business that fuel them up and that they can actually drive the most value. Now, the problem with the term visionary and integrator is it's almost given a bit of a hall pass to these CEOs, where they go, oh, I'm the visionary, I don't have to deal with that. Well, the problem is you end up abdicating instead of delegating those responsibilities to a good second in command or to a good CEO. It's almost like a husband and wife in a home. It would never fly in the year 2024 for a guy to say, oh, the. That's the woman's job in the house. Could you imagine ever saying that today? I mean, that was definitely a 1950s mentality. Oh, the woman's job was in the kitchen and the woman's job was in the home, and the man's job was in the yard or out or in the garage or at work. That doesn't fly anymore. Guys and women do different chores in the home based on who likes it, who's good at it, shared responsibilities, but they're both in it and building the family and building the family unit and building the home together as a team. And I think that's the core of the problem I have with the whole visionary integrator terminology from, again from Rocket Fuel and Traction, is they tend to simplify the role of that entrepreneurial CEO. So in my experience in having built real companies and having worked behind the scenes with companies in 28 countries, and even in writing the book, the second in command. The CEO and the coo, or the visionary and integrator, have to be a team, and they can't just completely divide and abdicate those responsibilities. So be very careful with the term visionary and integrator. That's why I actually prefer to use the real terms that everyone in business actually understands, which is CEO and coo, and it still connotates that you're still actively involved and actively engaged and actively working together.
