What are the things that keep CEOs awake at night? Well, if the company is a publicly traded company, then the answer becomes more complex. I would say however the top four things are the bottom line, maintaining a clean public image, complying with accounting guidelines, and preventing the company from becoming obsolete due to outsourcing.

There is always pressure for CEOs to deliver positive results especially with our culture of immediate returns. This is tough with competition from all angles, globalization and rising costs.

Maintaining a good public image is equally difficult. The workforce is now more diverse and with companies at risk of a litany of lawsuits over various issues it is difficult to maintain good corporate citizenship. The Don Imus situation comes to mind. More and more companies are quick take action to show to the public that they discourage certain types of speech and behavior. It is difficult to police this without trampling on the rights of employees.

Complying with the accounting guidelines is tricky more now than ever,. In the wake of the recent scandals including Enron, CEOs are spending more money keeping up with the Sarbanes Oxley rules and even then there are more and more restatements of SEC filings.

And, of course there is the risk that the company may become a victim of globalization. The company may have to move its operations to a foreign country or risk seeing its competitors produce the same products for half the cost by taking advantage of cheap foreign labor. The cost benefit analysis on this is more than enough to drive a CEO mad, let alone keeping him or her up at nights.

Learn more about this author, Mushtaq Maxwell.
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