It was during his stay in Dnipropetrovsk that he met Leonid Brezhnev, a future leader of the Soviet Union. Tikhonov joined the All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks) in 1940 and by the end of the decade, had secured a job as a plant director. As a director, Tikhonov was able to show off his organisational skills; under his leadership the plant became the first in the region to reopen a hospital, organising dining rooms and restoring social clubs for workers caught up in the aftermath of the Eastern Front. Tikhonov was quickly promoted, and started working for the Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy in the 1950s. Between 1955 and 1960 Tikhonov became a Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy, a member (and later chairman) of the Scientific Council of the Council of Ministers, and finally, a deputy chairman of the State Planning Committee. At the 22nd Party Congress Tikhonov was elected to the Central Committee as a non-voting member. At the 23rd party congress in 1966, Tikhonov was elected a member of the Central Committee. Tikhonov was awarded the Hero of Socialist Labour award for his first time.