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Early in my career, I was promoted from my staff engineer position to a supervisor of people. I didn’t realize how things would change, specifically my relationship with others. Having only worked at McDonald’s and at two other jobs while at University, I had little experience as a supervisor, or what I think of the entry-level leader by title.

Not long after accepting the promotion, I walked into the mailroom of my old company to check my mailbox. As I approached the door to the room, I could hear the normal water-cooler talking going on with people I knew and talked with daily. After all the timing of my checking my mail was probably habitualized knowing it was time for visiting the normal group in the room. As I turned into the doorway, almost instantly the conversation stopped and a rather brief friendly exchange of recognition happened. After which everyone left the room. This had never happened prior, but it did now. I had a title of leadership. I was treated differently because of it.

While I don’t like this observation, I suspect it is true of most people who are promoted into leadership postions. As I continued throughout my career, I was able to lift others up over time and depending upon how they were handling their own transitions, I found myself more often than not pointing out that people will treat you differently because of the title. Of course the title does bare responsiblity that is differenet and at times can impact others around you.

Today I sit in the CEO chair and at times it gets lonely.

I still remember the day of the first time I was in the room, at the head of the table; the person who was responsible for everyone else in the room. It was my first meeting as a formal supervisor. I was responsible for the engineering teams along with the metershop. I was the youngest person in the room and all but one other person, I had the least amount of time at the company. It was an odd moment for me as I started to question who I was and how it came to be I was responsible for a group of people far more talented and knowledgable in what we do.

There was a conversation in my head, one that even today happens more often than not. How can I be a leader of a group of people that I do not even know how to do what they do. It is a transitional moment for someone who is formally being called a leader. That conversation that happens for me usually ends when I remind myself that I am not here because I know the ins and outs of how someone does what they do. For me, it is my goal to provide an enviroment that allows others to thrive. While everyone has the capacity to learn how to do almost everyone elses job, in my opinion a leader fails when they believe they need to know how to do a persons job.

As I sat in my first room, looking at everyone that was around the table, I let everyone know that I did not know how to do their jobs and it wasn’t my goal to learn; but I would learn what they wanted me to know so that we could continue to serve our customers. I don’t know if was the best way to start my first meeting as the leader; but it was the way I did.

It was my first room

at27

So to round out this exercise of past CEOs that I have worked with comes my final one. Honestly I have given a lot of thought what to share of this CEO. I have a great deal of respect for what this CEO was trying to do and what they came into. The organization had been under a lot of pressure from its customer base and changing community needs. A fricition between the founding ideals what made the community and new ones as people were coming into the community was being reflected into the the company’s boardroom. This CEO came in with an idea to move the company to a future that challenged a lot in the community. While I was in the that reality during this time, I did not understand the impact of it. I had not been sleeping before this CEO arrived, and did not sleep after. I was trying to protect while helping navigate through it. This CEO came as a relationship builder and power networker; at least that was the promise.

What did I find? I came to a reality that was going to test my talk and whether I could do the walk. I had always believed that I would be able to walk away from something that I found to be a place I did not want to be. I was torn with a desire to protect those around me. Trying to manage the marbles of those when I was losing my own. You see, it didn’t take long for me to realize that the leadership style of this CEO was not one that worked for me. I would like to believe I was putting others ahead of me, and this CEO was the opposite. It was time for me to walk my talk and it wasn’t long after I started to seek a CEOship for me. 26 years, I started to reachout and look for other opportunities; ultimatley moving on after 27. It was a hard walk to do and even to this day I worry about marbles of others that are still there; but I needed to start to sleep again.

Sleep I do now….

at27

While I still have sharings of lessons from yet another CEO I have worked for, I want to take a moment to reflect on the fact that a title does not make a leader a leader. We are all leaders.

Earlier this week I was in a monthly meeting of CEOs in my region. Each one represents their company. Previously before holding this uncomfortable title of CEO; I had been in other rooms filled with CEOs representing my CEO at that time. I will admit in that room of the past, I used to look around the room and question whether or not most of those CEOs were a leader I would follow and learn from. Yeah, I was and perhaps still am pretty full of myself. In this week’s room of CEOs, I saw all different types. Each their own style. Ones that speak at every meeting, share their views in a manner that inspires by just the choice of language they use. Of course, there are those CEOs in the room who never speak in the crowd, but at the lunch table in a smaller group, you will find them quietly expressing their thoughts. Each one of them leads in their own way.

By the way, it is my humble opinion that the best leaders are the ones who listen more than they speak; yeah I know not an original thought. While this is what is important to me in what I am trying to do, this might not be important to others.

This gets to my observation, it doesn’t matter if you hold a title of leadership; we are all in our own way a leader. Whether you are working on the front lines of an organization or sitting towards the top of its food chain, you are making decisions and sharing your thoughts that will inspire others to better either through the inspiration of doing or avoiding the behavior that they see in you.

In the end, I challenge everyone to recognize they are leaders and start to explore what type of leader they are today and what type of leader they will be tomorrow. There isn’t a simple answer, other than strive to be better and learn. After all in nature, there are basically only three states of being, dormancy, decay, or growth.

Next week I will come back to my first observation/lesson of a CEO I have not written about. It is a CEO that goes counter to what I believe is my style and frankly, one that I was hard for me to work for.

The Axe

It was a rocky time at my company.  There was a vocal group that was attacking the company, making claims against the leadership. The CEO during this time decided to leave and the board hired a new one.  From my point of view, the board brought in an axe man, even though to this day, that CEO believes he wasn’t.

I was still in a very junior position during this time, so my view into the executive wing of the company comes from looking in so even to this day, I don’t have a complete picture.  Prior to the CEO leaving, his executive team, being loyal to him started to push back against the board.  I was told by someone who was always in the room that one of the executives even went so far to insult individual board members during their meetings.  The board was unhappy, the executive team was unhappy, and the consumers were unhappy.

When the new CEO showed up, it didn’t take long for an “early retirement” package to be offered to the company.  It was crafted in a manner that qualified the normal group of people and most of the executive team.  Although two members of the team didn’t qualify.  When the offer timelines came up almost 10% of the company took advantage, most for the right reasons.  Oddly enough though, all those executive team members also took it; but there was a difference in the air.  For those of us looking in, it seemed they were told to take it.  Of those two other members of the team, one left after his position was no longer needed during a reorganization of the company and dispersed his people into other departments.  The other executive stayed and helped guide the company into a calmer period.

The axe man announced his retirement soon after, taking the employees and the board by surprise.  For me, this was a moment where I started to wonder what I could learn during the brief time he was there.  You see, while he was held in high regard by the board, many of the employees didn’t hold him to the same level.  It wasn’t his fault though and this is why.  He wasn’t leading the company long enough for his decisions and their outcomes to be fully measured.  Decisions that leaders make have an immediate impact and a long-term lasting impact, on the legacy.  The impact of early retirement was immediate.  A new executive team with new ideas after the stunning vacuum that was created.  The axe man was not at the company long enough to be measured beyond that one key activity.

For me, I put him in the top half of leaders I have worked with and met, but with a strong caveat that he wasn’t there long enough for me to see how he would have done over time.  Walking into a new organization or leadership role, we will be measured by our words and actions from day one and every day after; even after we are gone.

One day I received an email from one of my future CEOs, it asked if I wanted to join his table when he became king; and become a knight in his service.  He wanted my sword to slay the dragons.  He wasn’t the king at the time, and I was only a serf on the lands farming what I could for my kingdom. 

He was the CEO that opened my mind and helped me realize that I had more to give.  Many people ask me why I became a CEO, and I always share a story about him. Although, this is the first time I have shared the story of dragons. 

For a long time, I always asked why I was noticed by the future king.  Before he came along, I gave no thought to what I could bring beyond what I was at the time.  I never asked him why he came to me, perhaps because I crafted a story in my own head when I fought a dragon, a mighty dragon that was in direct service to another king at the time.

This dragon was known in the kingdom to take flight and scorch lands for the king and at times the dragon was allowed to cause havoc with the people of the kingdom.  It was during a meeting of the lords and nobles of the kingdom when this dragon put his gaze on me and attacked.  He erupted with flames and claws, attacking how I was tending to the crops I was charged with.  Instead of fighting back, I took the hits in front of everyone.  I was angry, and everyone knew it, but I kept my tongue.  A bit later in the day after the meeting had finished, the king, the dragon, and what became my future king came to my farm.  The dragon was not done, and he showed up with fires stoked in his belly, ready to scorch me again. The king held him back this time, but the dragon wanted me to bow my head and apologize for causing him to attack me.  I did not and told the dragon, the king, and my future king that they could go, I had fields to tend to.  It is this interaction that I believe the future king took notice of me.

When the future king became the new king, I was knighted and found myself at his table.  He was the leader who looked to raise those around him.  He valued the success of everyone.  He was a mentoring CEO; my first.

at27

PS.  Oh yes, we had many emails that were written in a world of kings, dragons, and wizards. 

With an anchor in place in our exploration of leadership styles I have experienced and learned from, I want to share a story about one of my favorite CEOs I worked with.  Before I do it would be a good exercise for me to share with you my thoughts about his style.  He was ex-military.  There, enough said.  Ok, there is a bit more. He was the CEO and I learned that CEOs are people.   The first time I met him, I was in awe.  Here I am meeting a CEO, a titan of industry, a person who leads an entire enterprise.  I had never considered that in the end, he was a person.  He led with a tight command structure.  His executives were his lieutenants, and those lieutenants had their sergeants, and I was just a corporal; a foot soldier.  At least that was my first takeaway.

The biggest lesson I took from him was delegation to those who care.  It was almost opposite to his chain of command. We all know a lot of good leaders delegate, but he would forgo his own chain of command and delegate to those who demonstrated a passion for the work topic at hand.

Here is the story.  Once a month, the entire staff had a meeting.  At this meeting, I asked for a status update on the planning of what was going to be our first all-employee annual meeting.  That meeting came out of an employee survey that asked for more communications.   The promise was made and there I was, an engineer.  I was building things for the company at the time. I worked with things, not with people really; at least not with people who were not also of the engineer mind. In my desire for him to meet the promise that he had made, I was managing up to him; asking him what was going on.  Yes, I suspected the promise was lost.  The loss wasn’t him, but one of his lieutenants.  I was a lowly corporal in the organization, pushing on the general in front of the entire command staff.  

He looked at me, at within a few moments of pondering, he said; you will let me know once you get something started.  In that very moment, he saw (perhaps before I even knew it in myself) that he cared not just about him, but all the employees who were looking for something better.  At that moment, I was an engineer, being asked to plan and deploy a human relationship-building function.  He had delegated a task of some importance to someone who was invested in its success.  Along with a team of employees, I planned and executed many years of employee meetings before handing it off to our human resources group.  

As leaders develop, it is my belief that we tend to gravitate toward what is our strengths along with what was modeled in our environment.  At that moment, I learned the power of delegation; not just to anyone, but to those who have a strong investment in the task regardless of the specific role they have.

Over the next few weeks, I would like to share my experiences working with four different CEOs, dedicating a week to each one without following any specific order. Each of these CEOs brought a unique leadership style to the table. One adhered to a traditional top-down command structure, another sought to empower each team member, and yet another placed their ego at the forefront of their leadership approach.

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So when I left my previous employer of 27 years on the 27th of January back in 2020, I attempted to launch this endeavor. A blog to share my thoughts on leadership using my experiences in the rear view mirror while looking out the windshield. Let’s say the launch was only successful in its failure.

Having managed large scale projects on the bleeding edge, failure is a friend. It is the friend that teaches.

I am back and let’s see how this goes…

at27.

As I mentioned before, I have had the privilege to witness 4 different types of leaders come into the top leadership role. Three of those leaders came from outside the organization and the community in which my company was serving. The other was an internal promotion. One thing they all had in common was they had a 1st day and whether they choose to or not, they all had to show up.

Some will show up taking time to learn, some will show given a mandate by those who hired them to solve a problem, and others will show up wanting to prove themselves to those who brought them into the organization. There are many ways different people show in the role of leadership.

I am now the 5th leader I know who has shown up in an organization. I am outsider to it and the community it which it serves. I am choosing to take my time to get to know the organization and the community to who I am outsider, it is how I am showing up.

Ultimately in the end we all show up and we are being watched and measured. All leaders, no matter what, show up everyday. We have good days and bad days, but we all have to show up.

The first day and how we show up will be the first step in our long term success. If we mis-step, it isn’t over; just harder. There is no right way, just different ways.

In the end, it doesn’t matter if you are the leader who is CEO, a supervisor in the middle, or even the people on the front lines, we all have to show up every moment.