Does Your Title Match Your Duties and Responsibilities?

If you are in business for yourself, when you gave yourself your title….CEO, President, Operations Manager, etc. did you consider the duties and responsibilities that match the title?

Earlier this week I met with the officers of a Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) chapter and one of the most important parts of the meeting was ensuring that each officer understood their duties to the organization. FBLA is the largest and oldest business student organization in the world.

As the new school year is underway, this year’s officers are excited about getting in and leaving their legacy (oops, using the word “legacy” with high schooler’s makes them think of kicking the bucket, lol), I mean leaving their mark on the organization. 

I was thoroughly impressed with each officer’s knowledge of what each position should bring to the organization. My tweaks and suggestions was more about perception and overall intention.  Here is what I felt should be the intention of each position: 

• President – It is the President’s role to steer the ship (el capitan). It’s this position’s ultimate goal to empower those that are around them with the resources and confidence to perform their duties. Strategic delegation is the key for this position. It is this position’s primary responsibility  to ensure the tasks and climate are indicative of the overall goals you’ve set forth in your plan. As a business strategist, when I visit companies, this is the position that is normally misaligned. Many people have assumed the title but have not assumed the role. They lose focus of the “empowering” duty and many times begin micro-managing those that are charged to work with them. 
• Vice President – This position should know and understand the role of the President in case of the need to step in. Most critical with this position is the responsibility to ensure the “tasks” that have been assigned are followed up and are getting completed on schedule. The most critical difference between these two positions are macro and micro – President is taking a “macro” approach and Vice President is “micro”
• Secretary – I know record keeping may seem boring…but this role is critical. If done correctly, isolating bottlenecks in your plan and execution, analyzing what’s working and what needs to be re-thought, etc. is so much easier when the record keeping is done correctly. Many think the formality of “old business” and then “new business” is really just old boring structure and really don’t understand the how powerful it can be. Just think, if an item continuously is showing up meeting after meeting in your “old business” that is the perfect time to re-evaluate. 

All of the other positions are just as powerful. I was delighted to help guide these excellent young business professionals.

I know many of you that are in business for yourself are the “chief cook and bottle washer”. But I’m wondering, do you make time to fulfill all of the roles? 

If not, which one is sacrificed?

If you are the President, CEO…are you empowering or a micro manager?

I would love to hear your thoughts!