Continental Who's Who

The CEO (chief executive officer)

The CEO (chief executive officer) is the highest executive position in the corporate world. This officer controls the inner workings and actions of company departments and employees. The chief executive officer makes the most important decisions, like where to place budget cuts and what sort of direction the company should continue to go in or change to fit. In addition, they are responsible for supervision, communication, and motivation. This is obviously a tasking role, especially for large scale corporate offices. The in depth responsibilities and measurable  authority of a CEO is controlled by the board of executives, which includes the owner of the company and the top investors and shareholders. The CEO plays a key role and holds a considerable amount of power in any type of company.

The chief executive officer is one of three possible chief positions, each of which is usually filled in a corporation. The other two are the COO, chief operating officer, and the CFO, chief financial officer. Depending upon the status of these positions, the CEO’s job can be adapted to include more or less responsibility and decision making.

The first classified role of the CEO is as the communicator. The employees, each and every one, look to the CEO to be their leader. This makes it up to him or her to inform those on the company’s pay roll of any changes that may have an effect on the status of their job, or the goal of their business driven actions. An example of this would be a company that sells a slowly outdating product and decides to modify their product. For this instance, a hypothetical cell phone company will be used. The salespeople may be used to giving a pitch for a phone made in 2008. This would eventually become their norm, in the same way that the factory workers would become accustomed to assembling and manufacturing this 2008 model of the phone. When the new phone is created by the design experts to be labeled as the 2009 model, the workers will need to change their daily work lives. This is where the CEO comes in and decides how to slowly make the change to the new 2009 phone and generate the more income. For an actual cell phone company in the twenty first century, the CEO would use methods of delegation to assist in the transfer. He would pass the information down to regional managers or directors, who would then give the procedures and policies for the new phone to department heads, and the information would slowly follow the chain downwards until it reached the most basic and  numerous of the employees.  

During this act of delegating communication, the CEO also has the responsibility of being the supervisor. If the information delivered is flawed or construed in any way, the product or “2009 cell phone” for all intents and purposes, may be produced, sold, or distributed incorrectly. This will ultimately lead to a decrease in revenue for the company, so the CEO must play the role of the supervisor to immediately correct any potential flaws, therefore establishing their second responsibility. Lastly, the chief executive officer is usually in charge of motivation, to some extent. It is commonly up to the leader to keep the employees actively interested in what they are doing. At this point, the mission statement is usually emphasized, giving the most basic interpretation of the company’s purpose and intentions. To keep employees on track, they must constantly feel that they are progressively benefiting themselves. This is the first priority of all workers, as their personal pay holds the wellbeing of one or more persons. Next, it is important for employees to know or believe that their work, and the impact of the company, is affecting the world in a positive manner. Depending on what the company does, this can be a difficult role for a CEO. Fortunately, most people would not choose to work in a place they are completely ethically opposed to. While their responsibilities vary based on decisions from the executive board and owners, the CEO always has a full plate when it comes to work load. They need to be sure the company is in line, from the large scale managers to the small scale factory workers. When changes in the company are implicated, it is up to the CEO to explain and deliver the information necessary to adapt. The CEO is crucial to any company.