Page 127 - Roy W. Rice - CEO Material How to Be a Leader in Any Organization-McGraw-Hill (2009)

108 • CEO Material: How to Be a Leader in Any Organization

Some people resent that you’re there and they aren’t; others are
intimidated by your new position. You’re the boss, so you become the
“collective enemy.” Your confidantes change.
Some people say that it feels lonely because you’ve lost old friends;
you have no one to talk to. And you don’t have time to develop more
friends, easily at least.

It’s rare to be able to share sensitive personal company information
that won’t get shared through the building. When you become first-
line supervisor, there may be 400 others in the company who you can
draw from on workforce issues. That’s how you learned—but that’s
cut off at the top.

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You can’t talk to a lot of people who understand your success. The
peer/mentor in the company as you go higher up at the top of the
pyramid is your competitor.

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They thought I had someone to shine my right shoe and someone to
shine my left. Not so. But I admit, for 15 years I never gassed my car.
One morning I woke up and had to relearn where to put the gas in.

Because the dynamics of relationships change internally, you have
all the more reason to cultivate relationships outside the organization in
your own networking and mentoring relationships, where you can hash
out problems without fear of exposure or negative consequences.
That’s why CEOs join YPO, Renaissance, or TEC or become a part
of peer groups and gatherings at Davos, Greenbrier, and Bohemian
Woods. They have someone to argue with, drink too much with, and
not get sued. They have an objective group like themselves who
understands issues they’re going through . . . and have a really trust-
ing relationship where they go to talk and get advice.
Leaders stand out. They have to be spotted by potential followers.
When you are in the spotlight and you turn it onto others, you will be
followed by the masses looking for someone to trust.