Over the past several years, CEOs have faced mounting uncertainty and 2024 is proving no exception. Each year, CEOs are responsible for establishing the top priorities for their companies. It’s the responsibility of the entire C-suite—including CFOs, CHROs, and CIOs to work together to ensure the entire organization is aligned on achieving those priorities.
The role of a CEO is a complex and essential one; individuals with the title often come to the table with a unique blend of skills, strategy, and vision. With such an all-encompassing role and capacity for impact, for CEO knowing top focus areas becomes important for their company toward success.
Top CEO priorities
Lets look at what a CEO should focus their efforts on and what should be their business strategy or key concerns in order to allocate their time most effectively and stay in their zone of genius.
Importance of growth
Growth is a high priority for most CEOs. CEOs should focus on finding new ways to grow, including new products or services, customer relationships, pursuing innovation, geographic expansion. While traditional growth strategies still lead the way, inorganic growth strategies are on the rise and will continue to fuel merger and acquisition activity.
Strategic Planning
Business strategy for CEOs should include regularly set aside time in their schedule to engage in planning. This critical activity involves reflecting on the company’s long-term vision, mission. CEOs should hold regular strategy meetings with their leadership team in the pursuit of effective strategic planning.
Strategic planning is an ongoing process. It requires dedication, focused time, and the flexibility to adapt to a rapidly changing business landscape.
Effective decisions making
At the heart of a CEO’s role lies the responsibility to make swift and effective decisions related to the firm’s market presence and strategic growth. As such, it is essential for a CEO to set aside intentional time to address pressing concerns and make thoughtful, sound decisions.
Handling the number of decisions CEOs have to navigate on a daily basis can be overwhelming. The ability for a CEO to make sound decisions isn’t just a task, but a competitive advantage for the entire firm. By taking the time to ground in the company’s mission, vision, and goals, a CEO can improve the quality of their decisions, which can significantly impact the strength of the entire business.
Lead by example
CEOs are responsible for building and leading high-performing leadership teams. CEOs must do more than simply oversee their employees, but lead by example to set the cultural tone for the entire organization and provide opportunities for employees to reach their full potential within the company.
With that in mind, CEOs should prioritize regular activities that foster collaboration and growth. This includes holding frequent leadership meetings to ensure alignment and open communication among team members. CEOs should also take time to provide guidance, support, and opportunities for skill development, in an effort to create a culture of leadership excellence and professional growth.
Take risk
CEOs believe they need to be more aggressive about taking on risk. With the pace of business continuing to accelerate, CEOs need ways to remain compliant without allocating a disproportionate amount of resources toward understanding new regulations and updating systems and processes to account for those changes.
Communication and relationships building
It is crucial for a CEO to make time to build relationships with prospects, customers, partners, investors, and industry peers. Nurturing these relationships also includes activities such as delivering presentations, participating in meetings and events, and engaging with the media.
When communicating with employees, clients, and strategic partners, a CEO must be intentional, with the knowledge that they represent the company as a whole when they speak on their firm’s behalf.
Leveraging technology
Technology is a critical differentiator, regardless of what industry or segment they work in. Technology is the avenue for reaching additional
markets, gaining market and customer intelligence, and better engaging with talent, and is seen as a way to find growth, not cut costs. It’s almost impossible to overstate the impact that technology has had on business.
Innovation
Transformational innovation within companies must be a high priority for CEOs, especially in an environment where new market entrants can quickly rise up and challenge existing business models.
Increasingly, transformations need to happen simultaneously across multiple parts of the business, requiring organizational agility, a willingness to change, and embracing innovation as a core competency. CEOs view innovation as a long-term strategy, not a short-term way to “fix” parts of the business. Forster a culture where innovation is rewarded
Finance
Understanding an organization’s financial health is a critical aspect of a CEO’s responsibilities. However, in the midst of all the essential tasks CEOs must prioritize, certain financial aspects can be efficiently managed with the help of key strategic partners. This will ultimately save the CEO time, energy, and resources.
Putting the focus on the above critical areas impacts a broad range of teams throughout an organization. C-level executives, and those who report to them, need to examine the weaknesses and strengths within their organizations, identify opportunities to make a difference, and then take the necessary steps to help their organization’s CEO execute on these leading priorities.
What a CEO does today shapes the organization’s tomorrow. That’s why defining which business activities and priorities matter most is critical.
