CEOs often get asked the trite question: “What keeps you awake at night?” The macho but equally hackneyed reply invariably revolves around the company’s internal weaknesses and the threats to the business.

This answer is neither wrong nor dishonest but it is incomplete. It makes out the CEO to be exclusively wired for business and totally devoid of life outside the corporate suite.

Why doesn’t anyone admit that he stays awake until his teenage daughter comes home from a late night party with the boys?

CEOs are human.

Inside them is a child suppressed, an artist inhibited, a loving husband unexposed, and a doting father concealed.

My good friend Leo, a CEO par excellence, is all these.

New assignment

Several years back, he got home very late and inebriated from cocktails with a major client.

On the drive home, he excitedly looked forward to a much-needed rest after many late nights of chasing the business deal of his life.

As he walked into the dimly-lit dining room, he saw a handwritten note from his eight-year-old son beside a white illustration board and a crumpled bond paper on which was awkwardly drawn their family tree.

The note read: “Pops, our teacher told us to draw our family tree on a white illustration board. The assignment is due tomorrow morning. I tried doing it myself but my drawing is so clumsy and laughable. My classmates are having their dads or older brothers do it for them. Mama says you draw very well. Can you please save me from sure embarrassment by drawing on the illustration board what I did on bond paper?”

He peeped into the master’s bedroom where he saw his son and his wife sound asleep hugging each other. His son apparently went to bed unworried about the unfinished assignment, trusting completely that his father would come to his rescue. Leo’s heart melted. All at once, the alcohol left his brain and his tiredness disappeared. Guilt overcame him and he felt like yanking his son out of bed and hugging him till he choked. A flood of “what if’s” inundated his mind. What if he came home too drunk and too sleepy to even notice his son’s note? What if he got home agitated and seething from the nasty corporate battles of the day? Would his son’s request even merit some space in his egotistic head that was preoccupied with mega-deals and pretentious corporate rubbish?

As he drew on the illustration board with the same intensity that had always distinguished him as a professional, he realized how liberating and enriching it could be to apply oneself to endeavors driven by motivations other than corporate pay or social recognition. Within an hour, he beamed with pride as he put the finishing touches to his obra. He neatly laid it on the table for his son to gleefully view the next morning. He was confident that his work was going to be thoroughly appreciated without anyone doubting his motives.

How wonderful it was, he mused, to work in a place like home where people had no hidden agenda, where the players freely and trustingly gave of themselves, and where everyone knew his unique role enough to essay it with gusto.

CEO of the house

After that night, he re-inducted himself into a role he had previously abandoned: CEO of the house. That moment of rediscovery would later be followed by many other milestones at home that eventually helped him redefine his larger persona.

One early morning, while preparing for a golf game, he got one message after another from his playmates canceling out for a variety of reasons. “No big deal,” he told himself.

Like many golfers, he played for business and not for fun. So without anyone to play with, he changed into his boring house clothes and went to his daughter’s room. His daughter was at the tail end of her slumber so he sat at the edge of her bed and just gazed lovingly at her.

A few minutes later, she awoke with a wide smile in her face. It was one of the sweetest and heart warming smiles he ever witnessed. She took his extended hand and got up. Together, they went downstairs to the kitchen and chatted animatedly while she took her cereals.

For the first time in many years, he enjoyed being up early in the morning. That brief episode would later be his biggest reason for not wanting to play golf again. The game just took too much time from small pleasures at home on a precious Saturday.

Leo felt he was one lucky chap for having discovered these little joys. Some completely miss out on them or are simply oblivious to these thrills. But the discovery of one’s larger self does not come only with the enjoyable occasions. Important realizations poignantly hit people during very difficult situations.

Overprotective as he was of his family, Leo always made it a point to hide from them the emotional scars of his corporate battles. But his wife did not just have a sixth sense; she had a seventh and an eighth. There was no hiding from her the turmoil that he was going through every time he would run into adverse headwinds in the corporate arena. But his wife never tried to pry him open. Unbeknownst to him, she would gather their young children in prayer every night where their biggest petition to God was to protect their father who was naive in corporate politics from his wily and scheming detractors who were jealous of the immense credibility and respect that he enjoyed.

Every time the pressure of work made him lose his cool, his wife and children would take the brunt of his fearsome temper. His terrifying outbursts were known only inside his home. Elsewhere, people knew him as the coolest guy in town.

Transformation

Every CEO has a Leo in him. He may be the fiercest beast in the white-collar Colosseum, but he transforms into a completely different being the moment he steps into his home where relationships are edifying and the rules of engagement are truly humanizing.

(The article reflects the personal opinion of the author and does not reflect the official stand of the Management Association of the Philippines. The author is chair of Maybridge (Asia) Inc. and president of the MAP. Feedback at map@globelines.com.ph. For previous articles, please visit map.org.ph.)