How to grow as a COO: self-awareness, delegation, and work-life integration

Executive overview

Most COOs plateau because they stop treating their own growth as a priority. Just as great athletes constantly work on their game, COOs need coaches, mentors, and honest self-assessment to keep improving. Entrepreneurs also routinely sabotage their operators by dumping half-formed projects without context.

Great COOs invest in their own development, give their CEO room to brief them properly, and manage life as a dynamic balance rather than a fixed state.

Growing as a leader

• Every quarter, list 3 things to get better at and 3 things to keep doing.
• Ask direct reports and peers to identify your blind spots — don't rely on self-assessment alone.
• Use coaches, mentors, conferences, and books as development tools.
• Peer networks (e.g. COO Alliance) accelerate growth through shared experience.
• Staying green means staying in growth mode; stagnation is decline.

How entrepreneurs should delegate to COOs

• By the time a CEO delegates a project, they've already been thinking about it for days — the COO hasn't.
• COO questions aren't pushback; they're the COO catching up.
• Give the COO space to ask about the who, what, when, where, why, and how.
• Clarify the people, time, money, and expected ROI upfront.
• Dumping a project without context forces costly follow-up loops.

Work-life integration over balance

• Pure work-life balance is a myth — the goal is integration, not perfection.
• Think of it as an elephant on a teeter-totter: the aim is rough equilibrium over time, not constant stability.
• Write a personal vivid vision — a 3-year description of all life areas (family, fitness, faith, finance, relationships, hobbies).
• Each month, consciously pick 2 areas to focus on; accept that others will temporarily recede.
• Stop measuring against an impossible standard of always being balanced.