The COO role is one of the most misunderstood positions in a scaling company.
Many CEOs talk about hiring a COO as a way to get support, like someone to help or someone to take work off their plate.
That framing is where things go wrong.
A COO is not there to assist the CEO.
A COO is there to run the business.
When the role is positioned as “help”, execution weakens, accountability becomes unclear, and the CEO stays stuck as the bottleneck far longer than necessary.
Helping Creates Dependency, Not Scale
When a COO is positioned as support, the organization stays CEO centric.
- Decisions continue to flow upward because authority was never clearly transferred. Teams wait for direction instead of owning outcomes. The COO becomes an extra layer of coordination instead of a driver of execution.
- The CEO stays deep in operations, reviewing, approving, and resolving issues that should already be handled in the business. Strategic time disappears. Growth feels busy, but fragile.
This structure feels safe at first, but it is also expensive.
Momentum slows not because the COO lacks capability, but because the role was designed to assist instead of lead.
The COO Owns Execution, Not the CEO’s Inbox
A strong COO does not ask how to help the CEO. They ask what the business needs to execute at scale.
- The COO owns operational clarity. Clear priorities. Clear accountability. Clear decision rights. They ensure execution happens without constant escalation.
- The COO pushes structure earlier than most CEOs want it. Not to slow the company down, but to protect speed as complexity increases. Systems replace heroics. Execution becomes repeatable.
In companies that scale well, the COO is not an extension of the CEO.
They are the operator who makes the vision real.
When the COO truly owns execution, the CEO is freed to focus on strategy, culture, capital, and the future.
The Bottom Line
The COO role is not about helping the CEO feel less busy.
It is about ensuring the company can execute without the CEO in every decision.
If your COO is positioned as support, you are underusing one of the most powerful leverage roles in the organization.
To learn how elite operators define, design, and execute the COO role properly, explore the COO Alliance and gain access to proven frameworks, peer insight, and leadership development built for COOs who run the business, not just support it.