CEOIng 4 - The fine art of ass-kissing

Ass Kissing is an ancient art/science form skill and great mastery is highly required and sought after by CEOs of growing businesses...

I have recently come to the realisation that you may be CEO but if you are at the stage of business where I am currently at, you have approximately (give or take a few) 118 bosses at any given time divided into 4 main groups:

Bosses 1 CEO of businesses you work for, aka the client, My favourites tbh, usually very easy to deal with because they have all been there and done that, but are also the bosses most likely to randomly call you at any point of the day or night and you have to (you absolutely must) leave everything you are doing and pick up to hear a new idea they have, (I love it) but sometimes it could be how the client service or PM assigned to their project was 3 minutes late to deliver, and you have to be sufficiently enraged at your staff, threaten to sack them and extremely apologetic to the client. Your ass-kissing skills here must be EPIC.

Bosses 2 Head of MCC and their MCC teams - Although for the most part I have been extremely lucky with these set of bosses, there are a few that still “shine through” - who expect (read demand) the same level of respect (read ass kissing) that you give their bosses, because to them ‘Vendor’ equals “I finna talk to this one as I see fit because my company puts food in their mouths” - So you as CEO are constantly alternating between kissing ass (because who will chase your payments for you or give you new briefs?) And reminding yourself that you are “a confident black woman CEO who don’t need this kind of attitude” 😭 it’s a thin line and a delicate art of dancing Awilo Logomba on that line and if you are me, and every once in a while you let accumulated shit hit the fan, aka 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 carry👏🏾 your business 👏🏾 and go,👏🏾 ah ahn, no be me kill Jesus 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 you must quickly follow with the “can we please talk this out email,” or even better, you hire an awesome Head of Client service like I did.

Tip: Hire your weakness so that shit won’t hit the fan.

Bosses 3, Your board & your investors, who (in my case) do the Big Sis/ Big Brother thing, encourage you to go for 'more', advice you on how to go for 'more', provide guidance on the route to 'more' and then reprimand you when you need to be reprimanded about the “more” that you may or may not be going for, then promise to help you get more but get too busy, that they often forget to help, so you may most likely do this more thing on your own until the next board meeting when you will be reprimanded again if you don’t reach more or praised for ALL the more you did achieve, it’s a hard cycle, you will never get used to it. At least so far for me.

Bosses 4: Your team mates, staff and even your COO, who may for stress or (mental) health reasons, all VALID, are sometimes prone to work breaks that further increase your workload and you are want to scream- “having a business is like having a child, you don’t get breaks from that!” But you work with what you have, make magic and then ensure to share the credits round to everyone. These bosses thrive with credits, so give your boss 4s their due.

On some days though, you wish you had one boss and was working full time somewhere where your biggest worry is how you are going to make your salary work and not have to deal with 118 bosses. 🤦🏾♀️🤦🏾♀️ sigh. It is sometimes a lot.

But we gats this. We are CEOing this thing whether the devil likes it or not.

Oh, for real, this past week has been quite interesting, we got to create a documentary for Transcorp in less than a week, shuttling between Lagos and Abuja, submitted final copy yesterday that was played at this huge Aura by Transcorp event, I was at Tony Elumelu’s to interview him, also interviewed some of my favourite women, Owen, (Group CEO / President), Dupe, CEO Transcorp Hotels.

I am Ized Uanikhehi, CEO, Loose Media, A (data/insights driven) strategic marketing company committed to building brands that consumers will love, use and talk about. Hit me up at ceo@loosemedia.com

Wait, wait, wait first, you didn’t really come for naked pictures did you?? Lol. 😂😂😂