An Interesting CEO

Have you ever gotten a chance to interact closely with a CEO? I’ll definitely like to hear your experience, and here is mine. Whenever I hear about a CEO, I always imagine this cool dude (or woman) who is making a lot of money, with a bright smile, fancy clothes and well-loved and appreciated by everybody, they always look like smart persons we’ll all like to meet, what's the most amazing about CEOs is that despite the fact that they are so successful they still speak in a way that every person can relate to and understand clearly. Depending on their sector of work, they might even use a non-formal language to express themselves, dress casually or even act in different ways. I think it's common knowledge that any person who has achieved that level in society will be considered really smart, and so there is that intrinsic fear which makes us think we might not be able to understand or relate to them.

I had the opportunity to work closely with a CEO of one of the biggest companies in my country (Top 100) during an internship, I got to observe him and see what lies behind that public character, see the things that the public doesn’t necessarily see. I’ve worked in other companies before which all had CEOs, its not because you do have a CEO on the top floor of your building that you necessarily understand their character, very often you just get to interpret what transpires through their decisions and public speeches but aside from that, you don’t have an insight on their character. This experience was different because I got to observe this CEO closely and see how he was able to accomplish all what he did, I hope this shed some insight on all the aspiring CEOs out there.

Preconceived Ideas

Personally I always thought they were more of decision-making persons who spent most of their time just reviewing projects and ensuring that the right choices were being made, in some instances they aren’t even that much useful, it's just their signature which matters, they are used as the public face of the company and just have to carry the message to the public. There are some CEOs who don’t even show up to work for months, leaving all the operational work to someone else. Since the company is divided into multiple departments, with each having a head, the principal role of the CEO is to validate huge spending and manage the overall company. Depending on the sector in which the company operates, this might come down to either signing 2 or 3 papers every month or working 24 hours every day, but for a company to be that big, it must have already full proof methods to manage all of its activities and give the CEO enough sleep.

I never imagined that the CEO would have to work the hardest in a company mostly because he has to make sensitive decisions, and he also has thousands of people already working for him, so he should effectively delegate most of his tasks. I think ideally, you want him to be the most well rested person in the company with the least amount of stress, considering that each decision he makes decides the future of the company.

Punctuality

The first thing I noticed about this CEO was his punctuality, they guy literally showed up every single day at 5Am, no kidding. He was at work before everybody else aside from the gatekeeper who had to open up for him, it was easy to see that because his car was always parked at the same place whenever I arrived, I don’t recall ever coming and not seeing his car parked there unless he was on a trip. I didn’t believe how serious he was with his punctuality until I challenged myself to come in first, I arrived to work at 4Am (yeah I know, that's a little crazy) just to find him arriving just at the same time. Just to make things clear, this isn’t a time sensitive company, most projects last for months and nothing is done in a rush pretty much, yet he was showing up before everybody else and leaving the last after everyone was gone. He was so dedicated and committed to a point which surprised me, I have to mention that he wasn’t new in this position, he had been in this position for more than a decade already and yet kept such a strict work ethic.

I think when most of us imagine being CEO we imagine it being that point in life when we wouldn’t have to work that hard, we could show up at any time and definitely leave whenever we want without fearing getting a ticket. I certainly didn’t imagine a CEO as being that person who has to work 7/7 days and show up at 5 Am unless it is a new startup which was certainly not the case here. I don’t think there is anything that urgent which will require the top management to show up that early every single day, yet this guy was there before everybody else.

Character

Like you can imagine, he was a very serious guy with a polished character, not smiling a lot but not angry either, a refined posture with a soft walk. His expensive suits are what would identify him instantly wherever he went, an imposing character in every hall he entered, with the body guards really building up the tension too. You might feel intimidated when you see him from afar but when you get closer to him, he definitely feels more approachable. You can imagine, I didn’t get to speak to him directly, but I did get to hear him speak during meetings and public appearances. A very work driven person who rarely made any jokes, he seemed to have very little tolerance for them too. Managing a Million-dollar company, you can imagine he was taking his job very seriously, there was no hesitation to call out errors whenever they happened, wasting his time was a felony and making a mistake was even worse than that.

That's not to say that he didn’t make jokes or like them but in a public setting he couldn’t afford to make light of the work people had to do, this was no social media company, it was dealing with real issues with lives at stake. There was very little room for mistakes, especially considering all the funds he had oversight over. I liked his seriousness, and it was definitely an inspiration for me and everyone else, you just knew you had to give your best if you wanted to survive in that industry, there was no faking your way to the top.

Lifestyle

His lifestyle was all centered around his work, he literally lived in the office. Imagine coming to work at 5Am and leaving by 9pm every day (aside from the weekends) there is very little else you could possibly do. For the months I spent there, I saw him maintain that routine consistently even through the holidays, Christmas, new years and public holidays. I know you can be working out of passion but “c’mon”, how much love could you really have for something to be doing it so much, I was honestly puzzled. It wasn’t like he was working hard for the money because he has been there for a decade and was certainly a millionaire(100+), it wasn’t like the job was new, and it wasn’t like he was aiming for a higher position, that was the best it gets, yet he had so much passion and drive to do it to the point it scared me.

Purpose or Obsession

Till date, I really haven’t figured out the guy, was it purpose or an obsession with his work? I think after making a few hundreds of millions, anyone would certainly consider slowing down the pace a little, at least not go home at 9pm, c’mon we are not trying to go to Mars here. This guy was so buried deep down into his work I wondered if he even had a life out of this place, what was his family like, what were his kids like, didn’t he have anything else aside from signing papers and dealing with budgeting all the time? I like playing videos games, for sure, but I will absolutely get bored playing them non-stop for weeks. I’m not exaggerating when I say he had a strict routine, like the guy knew my name personally (an intern). Do you know how much oversight you should have in order to know down to the intern’s name, thats really a lot of work.

I can’t say for sure how he is able to keep up with so much of a work ethic, but I don’t think I can do that, if the goal is to make money then most of the tasks can be automated, if the goal is to stay in this position of power then you can do things to ensure that, I feel like he was stuck in a state of paranoia where he felt like he had to do everything by himself to ensure that nothing went wrong. In modern society a lot of technology now is in place to really help simplify tedious tasks, so people don’t work themselves out anymore but I think he wasn’t up-to-date with all this and still lived with the work ethic of the past. He had a particular obesession with cross-checking every single expense, keeping track of each projects and looking for the loopholes in every single side of the company which is justifiable because there are always people who will try to take advantag of any money generating system but he had to do this all manually since he was from another era where technology wasn’t that advanced.

Productivity

He was most certainly productive in all sense of the term, its no doubt he was able to keep that position for more than a decade, I mean the guy was breaking records every year in terms of profits, he surrounded himself with the most talented persons and was quick to fire anyone who tried to do things crazy. He was well respected in all the community, and his leadership skills were one of the best I’ve ever seen. What's funny is that we always imagine leadership as being that kind of smiling CEO who listens to his employees and does everything to solve their problems, but sometimes leadership is that person who never speaks, forces you to do what he knows is best and leads exclusively by example. I didn’t need to talk with him to get inspired and motivated by him, his personality and character said enough through his actions. It was a great experience and I did enjoy the time I spent there, depending on where you are in the world, success will come after great sacrifices, and he showed me that practically. Success might not always be having a brilliant idea but sometimes success is coming to work at 5Am and leaving at 9Pm.

Thanks for reading!

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