We often talk about how lonely it can be at the top. As a CEO and indeed as any kind of recruitment leader, it can all too often feel as if you’re on your own. Running a business — particularly a small one where there’s only a handful of senior people in the team — often leaves you in a situation where you have no one to turn to for the advice and insight you really need. Or the honesty to tell you what you’re doing wrong.

This isn’t a new phenomenon, but in today’s fast-paced environment where staffing companies are up against economic fluctuations, evolving employment legislation for themselves and their clients, and much more, it’s understandably more widely felt. In fact, it’s becoming such a hot topic that it formed the focus of my presentation at Recruitment Agency Expo recently.

Striking the Balance

The challenge, of course, is that you need to be able to find a balance between being in your business on top of everything that’s happening in the company while also being present in the recruitment community. It’s simple human nature when we’re in scenarios where there’s a lot of pressure from all sides to overcompensate for one area that we think is the core priority. For a recruitment leader, that will almost always be the business — or more notably, sales.

When times are tough, our fight-or-flight senses kick in. We might be torn between getting far too hands on with work, meaning that others in the business aren’t given the chance to thrive, to the polar opposite where leaders bury their heads in the sand and wait it out in the hopes that things will get better on their own.

Finding the right middle ground takes some doing and it’s not always achievable without a good, objective sounding board in the form of an individual with the knowledge and courage to tell you what you need to hear. For those with few other c-suite professionals in the business, this person may not exist in the business, but that’s where the value of networks really comes in to play.

Expanding Your Network

You’d be hard-pressed to find a good CEO who hasn’t already built up a network of connections in recruitment. While it’s important to lean on these when needed, expanding your contacts to include more leaders will be valuable.

There’s a range of leadership networks to tap into, but one thing that our members have always found valuable is the ability to get together — often in person — with others in similar positions to share and collaborate. It might seem unusual for potentially competitive recruitment leaders to support one another or share honest insights into their business, but in the right environment, it does happen, and it adds value.

What is important when building out your network of fellow CEOs, though, is to find the honesty you need from a peer. The higher up the chain you work, the more likely you are to be confronted with people who will only say what they think you want to hear.

This will only add to the feeling of loneliness. You’ll be aware that something isn’t quite working, but no one is giving you the insight into why or what. Having a no-nonsense person you can turn to will make you feel far less isolated.

Challenge Yourself to Grow

As part of my preparation ahead of Recruitment Agency Expo, I picked up a copy of Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO when I was travelling with the APSCo team to and from the US for our latest trade delegation. If you haven’t read it, I’d highly recommend you do. The reason I bring it up is because of the interesting anecdotes used throughout, including one of my favorite lines: “Comfortable and easy are short-term friends but long-term enemies. If you’re looking for growth, choose the challenge.”

That’s what today’s recruitment CEOs and other leaders do. It may be lonely at the top, but it’s a challenge we all signed up for — and one we can leverage to help us grow professionally and personally.