CEO Identity Shift: From Peer to Leader

Technical leaders that become CEOs have to push through the discomfort of a new role they have to become a CEO with their team. One of those identity shifts is to go from being a peer to being a leader.

1. Clarify Roles
So first it’s really important that everybody understands that you have a different role. Often in a technical startup or even in your career, you’ve been a peer, you’ve been working with a team, and even if titles are slightly different, you’re all in it together and you all have a similar purpose or remit what you’re out to do, which is create the product or deliver the performance or capabilities. As CEO, you need to set yourself apart. And that is, it’s so important that everyone agrees on that. So don’t let it just be something that you think people assume, because people can have different ideas about what that means and whatever it is, you need to clarify that for your team.

2. Lead Transparently
But just because you’re the boss doesn’t mean you have to be authoritative or tell people what to do without telling them why. Lead transparently share just as much as you did before, but from your role as the leader. This will help everyone own for themselves that purpose and that vision that you own primarily, but it kind of plants that seed in them as well, so they can drive forward even when you’re not around.

3. A New Kind Of Respect
And then finally, you are used to, as a technical, as expert, a scientist, a policy wonk, whatever it is, you’re used to gaining respect from what you achieve in your, in your field domain success. You need to shift that as the leader. Your respect comes from being the one that, uh, is the keeper of the flame, right? You’re the one pointing in the direction of where you’re going. Keeping everybody pointed in that same direction and dealing with the things that are getting in the way of the team, achieving the things rather than you achieving the things. Sometimes it’s a thankless job, so that respect sometimes is self-respect. Now, it has to be, but that is an important shift for you as a leader and no longer a peer.

B2B Clarity
Set yourself apart, not in an egotistical way, but in a way that helps you drive the rest of the team to the destination you’re going. Someone has to lead the team and you’re the right one to do it.