John Ganem is the CEO of Kloeckner Metals Corporation.
When I first became the CEO of Kloeckner Metals, I thought I understood what it meant to be the leader of a company. Years later, I admit that I really had no idea.
New CEOs often find themselves unprepared for the reality of the job. There’s no playbook for this role—no guide to navigating the ups and downs. A successful CEO needs to be prepared for uncharted territory, massive mindset shifts and momentous highs and lows.
The Road Looks Different For Everyone
Every CEO brings different perspectives and expectations. They form these opinions early in their career while charting their unique path. A CEO running a business in an industry they have experience with will operate differently than a CEO coming in from an outside industry, but this doesn’t necessarily make one perspective more valuable than the other.
I took the latter route. I grew my career in the steel industry and worked my way up to assume my current role. Before becoming CEO, I was used to the detail-oriented tasks of keeping the company running smoothly on a smaller level. At some point, I think I had assumed that CEOs did the same job, but on a much larger scale. Looking back, I realize how wrong I was.
When I stepped into the CEO role, I was no longer in charge of the minute details. I had direct reports for that. Now, my job is to look at the bigger picture and oversee the organization’s health, culture, and long-term strategy. A big misconception is that CEOs are running the business, but in reality, your managers are handling the day-to-day operations. As a CEO, you’re still leading, but not in a granular way.
Adjusting to the new scale of responsibilities takes time. In my previous role, I managed the purchasing organization, which consisted of only about 40 people, all of which I knew really well. But day one as CEO, I was suddenly responsible for the livelihood of more than 2,200 people and their families. I was inundated with large-scale questions about safety, the number of accidents we had experienced, and other big-picture items I had never considered.
Adjusting to the gravity of a new role as CEO requires setting emotional boundaries to protect yourself from the burnout that can come with an influx of new responsibilities. When your company experiences a serious incident, the responsibility (and the blame) falls on you; it’s a harrowing reality that can be tough to accept and navigate.
To avoid becoming overwhelmed, take time out of each day to clear your headspace, but don’t desensitize yourself so much that you lose empathy. You have to find balance, which means understanding what you can realistically control and accepting when things are outside your scope of management.
The Role Of CEO Requires A Mindset Shift
When I became the CEO, I had to undergo a massive shift in mindset. It was no longer my job to question yesterday’s invoicing or last week’s shipment levels. My job was to look at the organization as a whole and, when things didn’t work as they should, to ask: Where is the root of the problem? What are we doing to fix it? This meant shifting my perspective from simply leading to being a communicator of strategy.
Assuming the role of CEO often means working on things that are not as instantly rewarding. You’re setting forth to build something on a grander scale. These major shifts take time, planning, resources and perseverance. And often, they don’t turn around instant results. Becoming the CEO means accepting these larger challenges and having the patience to see your hard work pay off.
On the flip side, when you are successful with a large-scale project, the rewards are more significant. You can tangibly see what you’ve accomplished as an organization and leader. Every decision you made, you made with your company in mind. As a CEO, there is nothing more rewarding than seeing your organization come out stronger on the other side.
CEOs Have Major Highs And Lows
The role of the CEO can be painstaking. It takes mental fortitude to deal with the pressures. If my company fails, it’s on me because I lead this team and organization. The buck has to stop somewhere, and it’s often with you. Adapting to that level of responsibility is undeniably tough.
But it’s also what makes being the CEO rewarding. I’m not doing my job for me. There are over 2,200 people counting on me. It’s about them. It’s about allowing our employees to grow and succeed and building the next generation of leaders who will make this business last.
Ultimately, being CEO is all about leading people. To become a successful CEO, invest heavily in cultivating the skills to lead other people in a positive, sincere way. Teams will follow leaders who earn their trust and respect by genuinely believing in them and looking out for them.
Reflecting on my own growth as a CEO, the most important skill I continue to work on is the ability to listen. It’s critical for CEOs to seek out other people’s advice, opinions and perspectives. At Kloeckner, I am lucky to have the support of an excellent team, and it has made all the difference. If you can cultivate a team you trust will care about the organization as a whole, it will make your job that much easier.
Of course, profit matters. A successful business is the ultimate goal, but a business is only as successful as the sum of its parts. As the CEO, you are at the forefront, and it’s your job, above all else, to motivate your team to perform at their highest caliber. Every CEO does it differently, but successful CEOs always put people first.
The life of a CEO isn’t always easy, but when you get to be a part of a company building future leaders, the challenges of the role pale in comparison to the victories you win as a team.
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