When is the right time to tell your CEO story?
Some might say that a CEO can’t tell their story until after they’ve reached success? Which by all means is true, there has to be some kind of success to even become a CEO after all. However ‘success’ as a benchmark for when to tell isn’t very helpful, because who decides what success really looks like. When do you call yourself a success? Surely that marker is different for everyone, and from what I’ve seen is often used far too late.
The time to tell your story is now. Trust me.
Every Stage of the Journey Matters
It can take decades for a CEO, especially a women CEO to tell their story, because they never felt like they were successful enough to share it. That they still had miles to go and many things to learn before they could summarise that learning into a book or even just to share online on a blog.
However, that is a big mistake in our opinion because once you’ve travelled that far down a road, can you truly remember what it felt like at the beginning? When you perhaps didn’t have all the confidence you do now, or the clients and revenue flow. Do you remember how it felt when you hired those first employees? When you landed that big contract? When you had to let go that first hire?
All parts of a journey are worth hearing about and I implore all CEOs, all women CEOs especially, to start sharing where they are as soon as possible. So these nuggets of golden knowledge will not be lost. So they can inspire who comes next sooner. And ultimately, they can also see just how far they’ve come themselves.
Imposter Syndrome can leave the building
Another big reason why many women CEOs take so long to share their story is because of the fear of what others will say. That to open up your words with the world is to invite commentary on you, your choices and be in the line of judgement from others. That in doing so, you have allowed them to see the very thing you fear the most that you are actually an imposter and only playing at being a CEO.
Did you know 75% of women executives experience imposter syndrome in the workplace?
And that includes CEOs because it can be easy to fake it to some degree when you’re at the top. After all, you’ve pushed yourself that far already, which can’t be an accident (as much as your brain might try to tell you), but with a business you can hide behind it. You can remove yourself from the line of fire. Many people become responsible for different areas in the business. It’s still personal, but it’s not just your face, so why tell your story and put yourself in the line of fire? Why step out? Why share the truth about your experiences and what you’ve faced on your journey into the role?
It can be so easy to sweep those experiences under the rug. Saying I’m just an imposter, no-one could learn from me or simply being afraid to be seen, but it’s too important not to do so. There are people waiting to read and hear your story, to understand the truth of what it takes, to feel inspired by what drove you to get to where you are, to feel those feelings with you and learn how to move through them without letting them drown you. When we share our story with others we re-find our humanity, and allows others to believe they can do it too because you’re not some guru, or idol, or an unreachable person, you are just like them.
Your Story Matters
Your story matters so much to the world because it’s how we can affect true change at the grassroots level. It’s how we can create more women CEOs in the world, putting their beliefs and passions out into the cosmos and building a world together with all that exist here.
I suggest you find a safe space to let out what you already know and have experienced, and I think you’d be very surprised by just how much story there is to be told today.
