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There are three ways to becoming CEO:  Start your own company, be promoted into the CEO post at your existing company, or, as an outsider, take over as CEO of an existing company.  Pretty simple right?  It is much easier becoming CEO of your own company because the only person you must convince of your skills and a match is you.  Being promoted to the CEO post isn’t quite as simple but you have the advantage that people in the organization know you and your transition into the CEO’s office is sometimes seamless.  Accepting a CEO appointment from the outside is much more tricky than either of the other two.  Assuming you have experience with all aspects of a business and of leading teams, perhaps even as CEO, there are several important factors to consider in finding that new CEO post, most of which have to do with knowing thyself. 

Know Your Goals

Knowing why you want to be CEO of a company is critical.  Do you have proven leadership skills in seeing the bigger picture and helping others to succeed or are you only looking for fame and fortune?  Why you want to be CEO is important but more importantly, what do you want from life.  You may want to begin by writing down your most important life goals and then why you want to be CEO.  See how your life goals match up with why you want to be CEO and begin to develop a picture in your mind’s eye about what kind of organization might fit with those goals. 

Know Your Skills

I was looking for an organization and people who would benefit from my rounded skill set.  My experience in sales and sales leadership would be a good match for a company that has great growth opportunity but lacks a strong sales structure.  My experience in legal contracts are a good match for a company with a strong culture of utilizing legal contracts but perhaps where most of that expertise lies within their law firm and not internally.  My experience in developing complex software systems will be useful in a company with smart individuals but where methodology is lacking.  Examine your leadership skills and refine that picture in your mind’s eye about what might be a good match between your skills and an organization.

Know Your Values

People have differing values and knowing your own values will help to match you with cool people like you.  What you value guides your behavior and within a company, behavior defines culture.  Knowing your own values will help you tremendously in matching up culturally with a company.  If your values differ significantly from a company, you will more likely fail in your new role.  It was more important for me to find a company where the current leadership and board matched my values than to find, say, a cool company. 

Open the Rolodex

Armed with your inventory of goals, skills and values, you are ready to look for that company which is a match.  Executive recruiters who know you already are a good place to start.  Think about other people you’ve met over the years such as people involved in private equity firms, venture capital firms, and other local CEOs.  Call them, meet with them, tell them about your goals, your skills and your values.  Sharing yourself with them will help you to find the right opportunity, not just any opportunity.  Get on LinkedIn and other sites to both look for open opportunities and to extend your network.  For me, networking with people I know produced significantly greater results than working through executive recruiters.

The Choice is Yours

I began my search in January by meeting with leaders in my full local network.  Through January and February, I met with roughly two people per day.  Towards mid-March, there were four opportunities that became mutually interesting.  Three of them matched my skills, two matched my goals and two matched my values.  Only one company matched all three.  I’ve been at my new post nearly two months now and thoroughly loving it. 

Many people choose to work in a company that’s cool and others choose to work with cool people.  For me, the choice of looking for a match to my goals, skills and values led me to a cool company with cool people.  Lucky?  Remember, it’s always your choice and remember to Know Thyself!