All CEOs have fears regardless of whether they lead a start-up company or a growth-stage company. Fears can become amplified and debilitating when the results of major decisions are known to lead to the success or failure of your companies. The decisions rest on your shoulders and your shoulders alone.
If you have no fears, you are not pushing yourself hard enough and your company is stagnating. However, fears must not become so crippling they block you from taking risks and making necessary, tough decisions required to grow a successful company.
Are you asking yourself:
- “Do I deserve to be a CEO? Will I be seen as an imposter? What if I fail? When will I know if I have succeeded?”
- “Do I have the correct employees for my company? How do I know? How can I fire a bad employee? How do I manage and develop employees? What corporate culture do I want compared to the culture I am getting?”
- “Do I have the correct business strategy? How do I know if I am making the right decisions? Will I disappoint my employees, customers, investors?”
Being solely a fearless CEO is not a realistic answer to these questions. However, ignoring fears is not a realistic answer either. Fears are a normal part of growing a company.
But you need not be alone. A good coach will help you prioritize and then reduce fears into manageable action items. A good coach will help you understand and hone the skills that will make you a better, more confident, and effective CEO.
In the upcoming 3-part series, we will analyze each of these broad categories of fears.
The key is possessing the Leadership skills to lean on. If you are asking yourself the “fear” questions, Yarger Executive Coaching can help. In founding and successfully growing 2 startup companies, we were once exactly where you are now. How might we serve you?
