…comes great arrogance.
At least, that’s my experience. It seems that the more powerful you become, the less consequences there are for your actions within your organisation, and therefore the more unpleasant you can be to your employees. I’m not saying that all powerful people are unkind and malicious by any means, but I think there’s a clear correlation between the power and how much you can get away with (if you want to).
So, the CEO of a multinational can get very comfortable lording it over the assorted minions at the lowest level of the company, who hang on every word and laugh at all their jokes. However, there’s a flipside to that coin regarding that guy’s behaviour:
They’re not actually funnier or more interesting.
I’ve seen the big fish syndrome, where the CEO bullies their employees. And guess what?
On the street, that guy’s just another person.
The CEO of a printer ink company may be famous in that world of their particular industry, but a local plumber doesn’t care about that (they may have even had a problem with the last ink cartridges they bought from that company).
And here’s what that all means to you, the poor sod who’s been asked to give a sparkling presentation on the slightly dull projected sales figures for Q3 2016:
You’re real. You know that when you speak to your workmates there’s a genuine connection. Crucially, there’s a mutual respect because you’re at the same level and have probably been through the same sh*t. Smart CEOs know that they have a different relationship with the people working for them at ground level, and that they should work on making that connection as natural as possible.
When speaking in front of your peers, comfort yourself with the knowledge that your audience see you as someone who has a normal life, and for whom this presentation really matters, because you don’t have the luxury and security of being at the top of the heap.