What’s Your Job Description?

I recently met with my Life Coach, and we were discussing the upcoming fall season, and she asked me about what sort of things are in my position description. I replied, “I don’t even have one!” So, here begins my journey to recognizing that I could gain a lot of clarity around creating an up to date and accurate job description for myself as the CEO of my businesses. For many Studio Owners, we create jobs for others and many human resources functions are not applied to us, but I think my coach had it right, take the time to write a job description for yourself and it will help guide your decision making and how much time you devote to various projects.

So, what’s in your job description? If you start at the top, you’d figure out how much skill, knowledge and experience you’d need to have to fill your shoes. That alone could take a bit to write! Let’s dive a bit deeper into the role of a Studio Owner, though, what are we responsible for, and what things ought to be delegated or shared with other team members?

For many of us, the hiring, training and supervision of staff is included - but perhaps you have managers, directors or coordinators. Do all your direct reports have position descriptions that support your role? Do you need to transfer some responsibilities or knowledge to team members to allow them to do their job to the fullest?

Another important aspect that many of us are responsible for is the overall artistic direction of your studio’s programs. Who decides what songs, shows, themes, brand, and performances? Making this clear to yourself, staff and parents can help mitigate issues along the way when people ask questions or make suggestions about what they’d like to see. If you do this by committee, then, who has the final say? Do you put things up to a vote? What about tie breakers?

Fiscal responsibility is also top of mind for Studio Owners, who does what, and who is ultimately responsible for the health of the studio’s finances? The CEO is responsible for ensuring that the bills are paid, debt is being paid down, savings are occurring, and money is set aside for emergencies. Many of us neglect this from our roles in favor of more artistic endeavors, but we shouldn’t put finances on the back burner.

For me, writing my own job description is a point of clarity - providing written details of what I’m supposed to do and how my time would be spent. I know many of us report to no one - have no overseeing body, and can do as we please, but this is still worthwhile. And, once your description is completed, share your responsibilities with your key team members to help them gain clarity on your organization chart, and what “the boss” does with his or her time so they can better understand that you’re focused on the vision and the big picture. We can also use the descriptions to check ourselves when we are spending too much time working on tasks assigned to other people, or getting too far into the weeds with projects when we have other responsibilities. Job descriptions work best when we keep them updated, so be sure to update your team members and your own at least every other year to keep things fresh and accurate.