Five Lessons I (Re)Learned As A CEO In 2022...

And just like that, another working year begins. 2022 was the year I navigated the biggest challenges of my CEO-ship yet. Until this year, I don’t think I really felt like a CEO, I still felt a bit like a journalist masquerading as a CEO and the truth is I still have no idea why. Surviving a living crisis and making some tough economic decisions to protect the future of the business have taught me or maybe more accurately, reinforced so much, much more than any business book I’ve ever read. So I’ve decided to share these lessons. To some, these lessons may be super obvious, but as a first time CEO, I often think it’s important to reflect and document the lessons no mater how obvious they may be to some. So here are the five big lessons I learned in 2022 as a CEO.?

Being able to show up even when you don’t feel up to it.

Like most of you in manager/founder/entrepreneur positions this year has been a rough year on us all. Businesses we admired and loved have closed down, cut staff, fought inflation in our business costs, which has been pretty demoralising. At times, I’ve questioned if I still have the motivation and ability to steer a company, but those fears and doubts have no place and can’t be shown to your team as you provide both the foundation and North Star of the business. It’s something that is not said enough or out loud, but part of the job of being able to turn up and turn it on even when you feel at your worst.?

You can be fair but you can’t always be liked as the boss.

The hardest decisions I’ve made in my career have required me to put my personal feelings aside in order to make them. In an ideal world you want to make your team happy all of the time but it isn’t realistic and you end up making decisions in the interests of people and not the company - that is a recipe for disaster.

Rest adds to your productivity, it doesn’t take away from it.

This year I took nine annual days of holidays and that just isn’t good enough to rest and recharge. For the first time in forever, I did not work over Christmas. I enjoyed the festive period with my family abroad (for the first time) and it felt so good to give my family especially my husband and children. I was speaking with one of my younger sisters who is training to be a barrister and we said that taking this time away from work and completely switching off has helped us both have refreshed outlooks on our careers. Not thinking and talking about the strategy of Black Ballad has helped me clarify a lot of things on my mind and helped me feel assured on decisions I will be making in 2023. Ultimately, I have a renewed sense of energy towards work and it was needed after the challenges of 2022.?

Hire slow, fire fast.

When I was raising investment, an investor gave me this advice when hiring and it stuck with me and I should have executed it this year. You know when an employee gets it and when they don’t and for some reason I didn’t listen to my gut when I knew I didn’t get it right as an employer but hindsight is a wonderful thing as they say.?

It is fine to change your management style when needed.

I absolutely hate micro managing and due to my personality, I’m a very hands off manager. But with Black Ballad entering it’s ninth year and the plans I have for it’s 10 year anniversary, the company and team require me to be more hands on across every area of the business. No doubt, this will be an adjustment, especially for me, but this change in management style is the right thing to take Black Ballad to the next level.?