We celebrate the business founder who becomes a successful CEO – especially those high profile individuals who have successfully transitioned from the role of founder to CEO and built companies that dominate the world of business.   The five leading companies of the internet era – FAANG – as they are referred to Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google have or had founders that became successful CEO’s.

Hard to argue that Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg or Reed Hastings have not handled the transition well.

Are they the exception to the rule? Or are they just the most recognized because they succeeded at such vast scale that all other founder/CEO’s became lost in the long grass?

The skills and the personality traits required to make the transition from founder to successful CEO are not inherent in everyone. And it’s actually rare to have a founder be able to leverage that first-mover advantage to a successful role as a CEO. It takes some special sauce. A bit of pepper, a touch of salt, a pinch of Tabasco.

And of course, it takes some luck. But it mostly takes an ability to HyperLeverage. To proactively look for ways to leverage what they already had and bend these advantages to their benefit.

That is the topic that this episode will focus on. – How a Founder becomes a successful CEO

I have a conversation with Todd Uterstaedt who has interviewed hundreds of founders and CEOs over the past four years for his popular podcast From Founder to CEO Podcast

Topics Covered in This Episode:

• Why isn’t it a slam dunk that a founder can or should become the CEO of their company.
• What does it take to transform from a founder to a successful CEO?
• Why do some founders flounder and some flourish?
• When should a founder absolutely NOT become the CEO?
• What are the core traits of a successful CEO? Is this an innate skill set or can it be learned (beforehand)?
• What do most founders leverage in their journey to being successful CEO’s
•  

Final Thoughts/The Leverage Insight        

The importance of creating a roadmap based on a clear vision of where you want your business or career to go is a critical cornerstone. If only it was as simple as asking Siri or Alexa on how to get there.

The key leverage insight for this episode is that business owners, executives, and career professionals should always be leveraging the assistance and expertise of other people. Surrounding yourself with others that can help you achieve your objectives and proceed down your roadmap is the sign of strength, not weakness. Whether it’s hiring talented and incentivized employees that you can delegate responsibilities to or finding a coach or an advisor who has the breadth of experience and wisdom to hold you accountable.  

It comes down to having people help protect one of your most important assets – your time. 

Resources/Links

1. Traits that CEO’s share – https://www.inc.com/stephanie-chung/10-personality-traits-every-ceo-should-have.html

2. What sets successful CEO’s apart – https://hbr.org/2017/05/what-sets-successful-ceos-apart

3. Becoming a CEO https://execed.economist.com/blog/industry-trends/becoming-ceo-unexpected-traits-top-leaders-share

About My Guest – Todd Uterstaedt

Todd’s wildly popular and influential podcast From Founder to CEO is his brainchild and passion project. Its mission is to help you scale up your startup, by helping you scale up your ability to lead. He shares the real, authentic stories of Founding CEOs like you. develops practical development resources designed to accelerate growth, host events that strengthen your mind and inspire your spirit, and invite you to a growing community of like-minded Startup CEOs so you can learn to lead while you build your company. We help you scale your company, by building the confident CEO inside of you.

From Founder to CEO Podcast

LinkedIn – Todd Uterstaedt