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Role of a COO (Chief Operating Officer)

Dawn Rosenberg McKay, a certified Career Development Facilitator shares her thoughts about the professional aspects of a chief operating officer, COO with The Balance Careers. She is also a former The Balance Careers writer.

Dawn believes in simple words that a chief operating officer is a member of a company’s executive team lineup that handles day-to-day admin and operation of an organisation or a business. The proper training, experience, and skills can make an individual fill this COO role in varied organizations, such as a for-profit business or a non-profit organization or governments and schools. The COO has overall supervisory responsibility for all of the organisation’s operations. Few of roles and responsibilities of the COO include:

  • Executing strategies developed by the top management team
  • Leading a specific strategic imperative
  • Grooming the organization’s next CEO or testing the individual to make sure he or she is right for the job
  • Promoting someone they don’t want to lose.

Often it happens that a company may turn responsibility for all areas of business operations over to the Chief Operating Officer which includes production, sales and development. In some firms, the chief operating officer’s job is to be internally focused, while the CEO is externally focused. In other firms, the COO’s mission is focused on a specific business need.

Dawn adds that some of the chief operating officer skills and competencies are leadership, strategy, completion-oriented, delegation and Communication which are highly essential for any COO. Chief executives often need to work many hours, which includes weekends and late weeknights. According to the BLS, in 2016 about half of chief executives spent more than 40 hours per week working. Dawn finally adds that the job of a COO is challenging and has a huge scope for growth and learning.

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