Chief executive officers (CEOs) of companies seem larger than life. They’re giants that have learned how to manage their finances, how to create wealth, and, arguably most importantly, how to deal with people.
The path to becoming a CEO has just as many rewards as it does challenges, but it’s the weight of those rewards that makes the journey worth traveling.
To understand why becoming a CEO of a major company is so rewarding, you first need to understand what it takes to become a CEO.
What Does a CEO Need?
The formula for becoming a CEO can be simplified into just three things that each require a respectable amount of hard work, dedication and skills that can only be acquired from perseverance.
The qualities that a CEO needs are:
Wits: These can come from a formal education or an informal understanding of how markets, business and other fields work. The more able a person is to recognize, to understand, and to manipulate certain key factors, then the more likely that they will succeed.
Communication Skills: Every person who has managed to become a CEO has had the skills required to communicate with employees, customers and even other businesses. Their skills in communication are honed so well that they gradually become charismatic figures that other people want to emulate and to follow.
Perseverance: The path to becoming successful has its share of things that seem like dead ends. People who have become CEOs have learned how to work around these problems while standing back up when they fall. Even when they have obtained the position of CEO, they know how to climb back up if they ever lose that position.
How Do You Become the Wealthiest CEO?
There is a fine line that separates the average CEO from the wealthiest CEOs in the world. Understanding not only how to run a business, but also knowing when to take risks and when to invest in opportunities is vital to achieving the most success.
Sukanto Tanoto is one of the wealthiest CEOs in the world, and he’s an example of someone who seized opportunity when it was presented to him.
At the age of 17, he took over his family’s business that mainly dealt with selling machine parts to oil and gas companies. As his business grew more profitable, he was able to redirect it into building gas pipelines for companies in the Indonesian area.
This allowed for his company to experience rapid growth during the opportune 1972 oil crisis. The growth was so pronounced that his conglomerate, Royal Golden Eagle (RGE), now owns multiple companies that deal in everything from crude oil production to paper making.
What is important to realize is that Tanoto’s wealth does not stop there. He has done more than to simply amass riches that he holds in some bank or vault; he created the Tanoto Foundation around ten years ago to support education and healthcare in remote areas that need them the most.
Summing Up What Makes a CEO Rich
With the right qualities, anyone could become a CEO. You need only to know how to work with people, when to seize opportunity, and when you should give back to other people in need.
While you may not have the same opportunities or the same amassed wealth, you can still start to make your life richer simply by following the numerous examples that the world’s largest CEOs have created.
