Becoming a CEO does not mean turning up everyday and doing your number.  Doing your number is "table stakes", it's doing your job.  Recruitment, forecasting, coaching, working cross line of business (XLoB), gaining consensus.  These are all also "just doing your job".

Being CEO is about being visionary, where does the business need to be in 6 or 12 months time.  If you are worrying about that now, in six months to 12 months time, the company will be there.  But of course, you will be ahead of the company.  For me it's a continual balance between thinking about today and tomorrow.

Being CEO also requires you to take brave decisions.

As CEO, I told our Board that to grow as a Business we needed to cut our salesforce by 50%.  Our clients were telling us they wanted our social selling programmes delivered globally, but by local teams.  So to meet our clients requirements, we took our top two sales people out of selling and into building a global reseller / partner network.  Did it work?

We now have a partner network right across the Northern Hemisphere and are able to deliver our programmes as if I were delivering them myself.

As a Sales Leader, to become CEO, you need to grab the opportunities when they present themselves.  You won't get opportunities from the past, you have to create them for the future.

Where does your company need to be in 6 or 12 months time?

Management Teams don't like problems, they want solutions.

Be brave.  Tell your Management Team your vision and how you will get there.

Do the same as what you are doing, does not provide you with change.

It's time to take those steps and show people you can really lead!