What are the duties of a chief operating officer?

Managing people or departments. You'll take an active role in department operations, but you'll also manage people directly. That may mean coaching employees to help them develop professionally or strategically promoting talent to retain them.

Leading projects or initiatives. You'll constantly look for ways to improve the company's operations, making them more efficient, cost-effective, and performing better.

Communicating strategy and policy to employees. COOs increasingly spend a lot of time managing the company's overall culture. You'll create policies, incentives, and an environment that fosters the desired culture.

Supporting your CEO. As the right-hand person, you may find yourself showing the ropes to a new CEO, providing insight or perspective on ideas, or even being a partner on initiatives where the CEO can't take on everything alone.

Undertaking industry-specific responsibilities. If you're in healthcare, you may find yourself responsible for identifying new ways to deliver critical services to a demographic of patients. Likewise, if you're serving an insurance company, the CEO may tap you for advice on creating strategies that address major current events as they unfold.

Overseeing any business-related operations. In an interview of the COOs of Stripe, Infor, and Instagram, all three mentioned that they routinely oversee business functions as wide-ranging as marketing, advertising, and human resources, plus things like subscription revenues or services.

Working very long hours. Checking emails as early as 6:30 AM; Taking an overseas call at 11:00 pm. Consistently work more than 40 hours per week. This is life a COO for better or for worse.