Chief Operating Officer - Relationship With CEO

Relationship With CEO

Because the COO is often responsible for serving as an information conduit to the CEO, it is essential that the relationship between COO and CEO be a positive one. Trust is the most important ingredient necessary for a CEO-COO relationship to thrive. The CEO must have full confidence that the COO is not making direct passes for their job, can get the work done, and shares their vision (rather than using their trusted spot and access to information to undermine the CEO’s strategy or implement his own vision). When a relationship built upon trust is created between the CEO and COO, firm performance is improved and shareholder results are strengthened. Seven strategies that are key to building trust in the CEO-COO relationship include:

  1. Communication—The CEO has to be comfortable sharing information with the COO and regularly communicating the strategy and any changes to it. Similarly, the COO has to be comfortable regularly providing status updates to the CEO. When communication breaks down, mistrust and/or misunderstanding is likely to crop up.
  2. Clear Decision Rights—The COO role appears to work the best when the roles and responsibilities of the COO have been clearly delineated ahead of time and the COO is allowed to make the final decision within pre-agreed upon scope.
  3. Lock on the Backdoor—The CEO must not undermine the COO’s credibility by continually reversing decisions. When employees learn that they can get a different answer by going directly to the CEO as opposed to the COO, the COO role quickly becomes impotent.
  4. Sharing the Spotlight—In effective CEO-COO relationships, both parties are comfortable with how much “credit” they receive for their work internally, externally, from the Board of Directors, and from each other.
  5. Fit between CEO & COO—The two individuals must respect each other and effectively partner together. This is not a partnership that can be forced.
  6. Fit Between the COO & the Position—The selected COO must have the right credentials to carry out the purpose for which the COO role was created (which can include everything from operations expertise to change expertise to having a complementary skill set to the CEO).
  7. Transparency of Succession Expectations and Timeline—Both parties must understand whether the COO desires the CEO job, whether the COO is in consideration for the top job, and what the timing might be for such a transition.

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