Sometimes, giving up control is important for ensuring the general continuity of a business. A piece for Chief Executive recently examined some of the fundamental things that CEOs need to do to encourage their successors. This includes delegating tasks to others in order to give c-level staff the experience they need to be better leaders later on.
While forcing others to do CEO duties just to avoid them is a bad habit, CEOs who give other employees a chance to shine plant the seeds for professional growth.
As a result, the article discourages CEOs from doing too many things themselves out of a distrust for other workers. Giving someone else the chance instead is a risk—but as long as you start small, it's one with benefits in the long term.
"Delegate tasks that have low risks and low consequences," the source states. "An engineering CEO was scared to death to delegate sales to a project manager even though he demonstrated strong selling skills. By documenting the sales process with scripts to keep the project manager on point, he was able to sell a $450,000 engineering project."
Of course, this takes time and proper organizational skills for business leaders to coordinate successfully, as well as the humility needed to review past performance and correct mistakes. Executives who have a sense of which CEO responsibilities are worth giving to others, at least temporarily, are more valuable. This trait also shows other high-level employees that the chief executive has the company's best interests in mind.
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