I guess I was lucky growing up in a family business with around 50 employees. My dad first hired us to clean up the garbage and litter people dumped on the property, when we were children during the summer.

As we reached middle school, he hired us to clean the men's restroom. Essentially, he had us doing the dirtiest jobs at the company. Eventually, in high school we got to work alongside the factory workers first in the warehouse and loading trucks and later as furnace operators.

After college, several of my brothers went to work as executives at the company. I sought my own path and started at the bottom after graduating college. The message my dad and other mentors taught me was to remember two things:

Every job while it does not "pay the same" is important.

The example used was, who earns more the garbageman or your dentist? On the other hand, who will you miss more, if they don't show up for the next year and do their job?

The second lesson was remembered how you felt when you were "at the bottom". Be the person, that employees want to lead them, not the asshole that treats people like trash.

Throughout my career, I have been accused by union representatives, Board members, and peers of treating my employees in ways I would want to be treated. On the other hand, it seems to have worked pretty well and years after I moved on... employees would contact me and give me updates on their lives and ask for help finding new jobs. I found the impact I was able to have on helping good people along with their careers was one of the most rewarding aspects of being "a boss".

As a boss always remember what it was like on the other side of that relationship and treat people the way you want to be treated.

I can't speak to what CEOs are really like. My experience though is that "bosses" that joined the workforce out of graduate school and never worked at the bottom make poor leaders. But that is about as far as I can generalize.