How To Become A CEO

Becoming a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is no small task.

And even if most of the knowledge you’ll need to become a company leader will probably be learned on the job itself, it can be tough to get that knowledge without a framework of goals in place helping you get there.

That’s where we come in.

As your friends in the job market and beyond, we here at Zippia have put together a guide to help you take some of your first steps down the path of becoming a CEO.

Key Takeaways:

• Getting a college degree in your field of choice is the first step in becoming a CEO.

• Some skills needed to become a CEO include:

  • Excellent communication

  • Visionary skills

  • Effective decision making.

• Becoming a CEO can take a long time, so it’s best to start making a 15-20 year plan for your future.

What Does a CEO Do?

A CEO is a company’s Chief Executive Officer, and they are at the top of the corporate hierarchy. A CEO expresses a vision of the company’s future, makes big-picture decisions that affect the company’s direction, and acts as the “face” of the company when communicating with the public.

• The scope of a CEO’s responsibilities depends on the size of the company. While a CEO of a large company is unlikely to involve herself in the day-to-day happenings of various departments, the CEO of a small company might regularly meet with every employee and have a direct hand in important projects.

• A CEO also acts as the liaison between a company’s upper-management and its board of directors. The CEO is ultimately beholden to the stakeholders of the company, as the board of directors typically elects or has a big say in who the company’s CEO is. In some cases, the CEO might even be the chairman or at least a member of the board of directors.

  While the CEO is at the top of the company, the board of directors usually has the power to remove him or veto his decisions. It’s no small task to get investors, stakeholders, managers, and other high-level executives all on the same page.

• One common stereotype of the CEO is that they don’t really “do” any actual work. You see, while many CEOs no longer have to do the kind of day-to-day work that people on the lowest rungs of the company do, they have to oversee basically everyone employed by the company.

  That can range from 10-15 people to several hundreds of thousands. You can see how that kind of thing might come with a bit of a busy schedule.

Sure, there are plenty of CEOs out there who don’t do very much in the daily running of their company and basically live like monarchs on their exorbitant salaries — but if they do, that just means that their CEO responsibilities are being foisted onto some other (probably very stressed out) person, who is certainly high enough up in the company to be compensated pretty well themselves.

The point is that, in any case, a CEO is responsible for the well-being of an entire company, and their very job hangs on its success.

So while those lazy CEOs do exist, they don’t typically last long. Most are workaholics out of necessity — it’s how they got into their positions in the first place, and its how they managed to keep things going ever since.

How to Become a CEO: A Step-By-Step Guide

The path to becoming a CEO is rarely a straight line. It’s an often circuitous and hard-to-follow trail that requires constant dedication and improvement to stay on.

That being said, we can look at the experience of the CEOs out there right now to see what trends are common between them. With that in mind, let’s take a look at a rough step-by-step guide to becoming a CEO:

1. Get a college degree. There are no job postings for CEO positions, so there’s no rule out there explicitly saying that you must have a four-year degree to run a company. However, it’s nearly impossible to take all the requisite steps to become a CEO without at least a bachelor’s degree.

   • For starters, many of the roles that conceivably lead to a CEO position have educational requirements. On top of that, going to an especially prestigious institution naturally puts you in the room and network of the movers-and-shakers of the world.

   • As for your classwork, courses and degrees related to organizational leadership are especially useful for aspiring CEOs.

   • Many CEOs also have master’s degrees, and MBAs (Master of Business Administration) are especially common. Depending on your course load, an MBA program will teach you everything you need to know about business fundamentals, from operations to finance, from management to macroeconomics.

   • Of course, if you start your own company, then you can be the CEO without any education at all. But it’s still helpful to have all that college book-learning to have the chops to successfully navigate the world of business./p>

2. Build up your leadership experience. A CEO is the company’s ultimate leader, and for a board of directors to trust you with such a role, they’re going to want to see that you’ve succeeded in leadership positions in your career.

   • CEOs also need a wealth of industry knowledge and experience, since it’s tough to formulate a coherent vision without a broad-scale understanding of the challenges, risks, and opportunities at hand.

   • Aim for supervisory and management positions to start. Even entry-level candidates can work their way up to some level of supervisory role with a bit of hard work and ingenuity. Even if you’re not in a management position yet, look for opportunities to take the lead on projects and express a vision that your team can get behind.

     Becoming a CEO typically requires years of climbing the corporate ladder and slowly gaining more trust and responsibility.

   • CEOs are often chosen from within, so if you become the go-to person who’s always able to handle whatever is thrown at you as you rise up the ranks, you’ll be in a position to reach the C-suite (so named because the titles all start with “Chief” — think COO, CFO, CIO, etc.).

     If you can make it to the C-suite level of your career, then you’re one step away from taking the big seat of CEO.

3. Go above your paygrade. The best way to quickly make a name for yourself is to go beyond the duties of your current role. Envision, implement, and manage a project from start to finish — when things like that end in success, the higher-ups are bound to notice (and start becoming your peers).

   When the opportunity arises to make a big impact, don’t shrug it off and say “well, I’m not really paid enough to care about that sort of thing.” You need to put in 100% effort, 100% of the time if you want to rise to the very top of the corporate world.

   Don’t just accept these projects with a good attitude — actively seek them out and make it known that you want to play as big a role as you can.

4. Fix a big problem. This is similar to the above step — whether you’re creating something new or fixing something broken, aim to make significant changes at your company. Take on those ugly problems that nobody wants to deal with or has any idea how to approach.

   When you’re able to turn a massive failure into a huge success, it puts you on everyone’s radar. A CEO is the company’s ultimate problem-solver, so it’s only natural that those who solve the biggest problems will rise to this position.

5. Develop personal and professional characteristics. This isn’t really a “final step” — it’s something you should be doing throughout all of the above steps.

   CEOs can come from all sorts of educational and departmental backgrounds — a CEO might rise from the accounting department, the marketing team, or anywhere else in the company. What they all have in common, however, is a strong set of soft skills.

   As you work through your career, work extra hard to hone and develop these skills and characteristics:

   • Communication. A CEO needs to be able to talk to a board of directors, the company’s upper-management, and the public. Being a great communicator in all of these arenas is positively essential for success.

   • Visionary. CEOs have to think about the big picture. As you go through your career, think beyond the scope of your daily tasks and figure out how your responsibilities fit into larger goals.

     Ask questions about what other departments are up to. The more curious you are about all the aspects of the business, the more you’re training yourself for a CEO position.

   • Management. CEOs usually come from management positions — after all, before you manage the entire company, you should have some experience managing a team or a department. Being able to work with diverse teams, give useful feedback to subordinates, and track results are all skills you’ll need as a CEO.

   • Decision-making. Start becoming more independent and making decisions on your own. CEOs need to be confident in their decision-making capabilities, and practice breeds confidence.

   • Extroversion. This one is hard to fake or practice — people are typically introverts or extroverts by nature. But you can still practice putting yourself out there, meeting new people, and becoming a great conversationalist.

Make Your Long-Term Plan to Become a CEO

The most important thing to remember is that anyone can become a CEO. Does it help to be already rich, white, and a dude? Sure. It helps a whole lot.

The point is that even if you’re not born a Koch brother, you can still become a CEO with a little luck, a lot of hard work, and little more luck. Okay, a lot of luck.

But in any case, any path to being a CEO starts with making a plan.

Here are some things to keep in mind while setting your ultimate goals to become a CEO:

• Think about the future. As concretely as you can, sit down and make a 15-20 year plan. It’s okay if the later years a little vague or even if they have branching paths, but your next 5 years should be specific.

  What kind of job do you hope to have by then? What kind of jobs will you have to have before then, and how long will you need to have held them? Are your goals reasonable?

• Get a lot of experience in different areas. You need to get different kinds of experience if you hope to become a CEO. That means that, over the course of your career, you’re going to want leadership positions as well the sort of jobs that put you in the thick of things. It’s tough to lead people if you have no frame of reference for the work they’re doing.

• Invest in your education. While education isn’t necessary by any stretch, it can be helpful depending on your industry. Consider going back to school at some point (or staying there a bit longer, if that’s still where you are already).

  Take the time to really figure out what sort of degree would be useful to your long-term goals before you go about getting it — school is a big commitment and takes a lot of time and money to undertake.

Things You Can Start Doing Today if You Want to Become a CEO

Of course, there are a lot of things you can start doing today in order to start yourself on your way toward your long-term goals.

These things can be simple, like talking with your boss or other experienced people over you, or they can be things that (while useful to you in the long run) are tough to implement.

It’s not easy becoming a CEO — it’s going to take you doing a lot of extra work that you might not be fully compensated for at first.

Here are some things to remember when you’re trying to figure out what you can do today to start on your path to becoming a CEO:

• Start being bolder everyday. The people who become CEOs are confident and assertive, but they’re also people-pleasers — so keep being nice to the people around you. But start jockeying for more responsibilities where you can find them, and when you can afford to take them on. There’s no sense in overloading yourself if it’s too much to handle.

• Look for opportunities to grow your skills. Remember that the biggest thing that will increase your likelihood of becoming a CEO down the line is to have experience in as many different roles as possible, so when you’re looking for additional work experience, look for things that are specifically outside of your wheelhouse. It’ll be tough at first, but gradually you’ll pick up new skills.

• Look for an environment where you can thrive. If you’re not getting the experience you need at your current place of work, consider quitting your job and finding the experience elsewhere — particularly if you can find a good startup. While they’re on kind of shaky ground, startups give you the flexibility to try on a lot of different hats, and upward movement can be as quick as designing your own responsibilities. It’s a risk, but a calculated one.

Final Thoughts

Remember that, more than anything, becoming a CEO is a long-term process, and it’s not one where you’ll necessarily succeed if you just work hard enough.

The business world is tough, and a lot of times it really is just a matter of who you know. That kind of atmosphere can stifle even the best-laid plans.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t aim high — doing so will give you some excellent momentum, and will keep you learning and growing as you move forward in your chosen industry.

But make sure you stop to smell the roses every once in a while. Appreciate where you’ve made it, because there’s always the chance that’s the highest you’re going to get — and there may not be anything wrong with that.

Author

Ryan Morris

Ryan Morris was a writer for the Zippia Advice blog who tried to make the job process a little more entertaining for all those involved. He obtained his BA and Masters from Appalachian State University.