What makes a CEO: The responsibility with the role

Being a CEO may seem like the easiest job in the world, but in fact it is a position of great responsibility if you are doing it properly.

Even entrepreneurs as experienced and successful as Reuben Singh has had to learn the responsibility of a CEO the hard way. And they are not alone. Nearly every great business success was built on the foundations of failure.

Sometimes it happens at an early stage, other times it can hit you well down the track, perhaps as a result of too much diversification or trying to expand too rapidly. Even a very mature and apparently stable business can be brought to its knees by poor judgment. Enron is a great example.

And of course the example of Enron also serves to demonstrate why the position of CEO carries with it so much responsibility. To be sure, there were many bad apples in that particular barrel, but they couldn’t all have been bad. There must have been many innocents that went down with the ship. I can’t imagine any of the victims of the wreck of Enron being in a rush to include their time there on their CV when looking for a new position.

People moving straight out of college and into business have the potential to be successful, but it’s often very similar to somebody who has little experience sailing around in a dinghy at weekends being given command of an ocean liner.

So what exactly are the qualities of a good CEO? Obviously, you need somebody with vision and determination. It takes a lot more than that, though, to get a company to reach its full potential.

Certainly a CEO must be a passionate entrepreneur. Without this quality, a CEO can flat line a business in no time. A CEO must also be a brilliant manager. They must be able to quickly assess a situation and work out the best way to deal with it. They must be able to keep calm under pressure, and have the ability to look forward to the other side of a problem and see what lies beyond.

Above all, they must not have a negative attitude towards failure. It’s something they’ll want to avoid, but they also won’t allow it to define them or their business. Setbacks can be overcome. Difficult times can be ridden out until they become easier. A good CEO does not give up in the face of adversity.

Earlier in this article I mentioned Reuben Singh, and I think he is actually a very good example of the kind of quality that you would look for in a CEO. He’s got confidence without arrogance, knowledge without condescension and courage without recklessness.

There is actually a series of articles on the Huffington Post that Singh has authored, and they are well worth checking out for advice on how you can develop the mind-set of a great CEO.

Above all, a great SEO is aware of the burden of responsibility and embraces it willingly and mindfully. This is the kind of CEO you can trust, and in business trust is everything