For the Strategic Management course I’m teaching at Ohio Dominican University, I recently presented the topic of “Conscious Leadership”. One of the learning outcomes was “exhibiting an appreciation for the importance of integrating ethical concerns with business objectives and strategy”. There was a lot of great reading material, information about various leadership styles, examples of great leaders, really, a wealth of good information.
As I often do, I took my own road. I thought back and found some great speeches illuminating leadership that culminated movies I loved. Some examples:
- Kurt Russell giving his motivational speech to the Team USA hockey team right before they stepped on the ice to play the unbeatable (well, maybe not!) Russian team in the 1980 Olympics memorialized in “Miracle”.
- Keanu Reeves in the huddle for the last play of “The Replacements” giving his teammates that last bit of inspiration they needed to win the game. I love this movie, and one of my favorite all-time movie lines, “Winners want the ball, when the game is on the line”.
- Robin Williams breaking all of the rules and teaching his students what they really needed to know in “Dead Poet’s Society”. “Rip It Out!”
- Al
Pacino in his epic rant at the end of “Scent of a Woman”, allowing Charlie to
stay in school rather than get expelled.
“When the shit hits the fan, some guys run and some guys stay!”
OK, maybe I got more out of this part than my students, I tend to believe great cinema is lost on the youth, they have too much information bombarding them all day to appreciate great drama. As usual, I digress.
What I thought
might be more useful for them and might impact them more was to hear some of my
experiences regarding great leadership. I
worked in the business world for about 40 years, and I saw my share of great
leaders, and not so great. I think each
of us has our own perception of great leadership. There are many types of
leaders, and not all of us view a leader the same way, but I gave them examples
of what I believed great leadership looks like.
I started with someone famous, I’m sure not familiar for them, but still
a famous person from our country, who personified great leadership:
Dwight Eisenhower
I’ve read about
Mr. Eisenhower before, but his story is compelling for several reasons. He started out growing up very poor in a
small town in Kansas, where most of the children never made it through high
school. His early military career wasn’t
much better, and no one would have ever imagined where he would end up in
life. He ranked 125th out of
164 men at West Point and was constantly in trouble for misbehaving. One of his most important lessons was to
smile even at adversity. After a knockdown from a boxing coach, the
coach said, “If you can’t smile when you get up from a knockdown, you’re never
going to lick an opponent.”
This comment resonated with
me, I often had situations at work where I was deep in thought or worried about
something, and my personnel would see me looking this way. Within a short period of time, rumors were
flying about what was going wrong in the business. People watch you; people see how you are
acting. As Mr. Eisenhower said:
“I firmly determined that my mannerisms and speech in
public would always reflect the cheerful certainty of victory – that any
pessimism and discouragement I might ever feel would be reserved for my
pillow. To translate this conviction
into tangible results, I adopted a policy of circulating through the whole
force to the full limit imposed by physical considerations. I did my best to meet everyone from general
to private with a smile, a pat on the back and a definite interest in his
problems.”
After his inauspicious beginnings, Eisenhower went
on to the Command and General Staff School where he finished first in a class
of 245. He became the Supreme Commander
of the Allied Expeditionary Force in World War II, a Five Star General in the
US Army, and the 34th President of the United States from
1953-1961. One of his key attributes was
that he always gave credit to his people when things went well, and he always
took the blame when things didn’t go well.
He fully supported those who worked for him.
I think I found Mr. Eisenhower’s leadership style so compelling because it so closely matched the leadership style of the greatest leader I worked for:
Jim Crane
Jim did more
for my career than anyone else, even me.
He saw something in me, that others probably didn’t see, and I also
didn’t see. Early in my career at Barco,
I served in various divisions as a Controller.
I would have probably spent my life as a Controller, but Jim kept
encouraging me to look higher, grow my career into something more. While there is nothing wrong with being
“just” a Controller, I was excited, and scared, to strive for something
more. Jim put me into a role at Barco
Simulation as an Operations Manager.
Eventually, I was elevated to the position of Site Manager, and
eventually General Manager. None of this
would have ever happened if Jim hadn’t seen something in me.
Jim was undoubtedly a “Servant Leader”. Jim had so many traits similar to Mr. Eisenhower, but some key ones that made him such an incredible leader were:
- Similar to Mr. Eisenhower, he passed out credit to his personnel when things went well, and he absorbed the blame when they didn’t.
- He had a great deal of patience and allowed people to work their way to a solution rather than dictating how to get there.
- He emphasized celebrating success; he wanted people to feel good about our accomplishments
- He would allow personnel (me) to vent their concerns, express their displeasure about decisions, and would hear them out, but you also knew when the conversation was over. It still felt good to at least get to air your feelings.
- He was very forgiving of mistakes, even when they were monumental mistakes. You knew what you did was wrong, but once it was done, it was done.
The other
great leader I had the pleasure to work for was completely different, but great
just the same, he was larger than life:
Michael Gerster
As noted,
Michael was larger than life, in so many ways.
Michael is relatively tall, and he has this presence about him. He would briskly walk through the building,
stopping everywhere to talk to anyone and everyone, he always wanted to hear
what people had to say. He talks in a
deep, booming voice, and to be honest, when I first started working for him, I
didn’t think I could do it. He was
always yelling at me, and I couldn’t figure out why he was always yelling. It wasn’t until we had a meeting with our
auditor, Jan Fischer from Roedl, that I understood. We were leaving the meeting, and Jan was
laughing, and I asked why. He said,
“typical guy from Cologne (Germany). They
always yell when they talk”. I finally
figured out Michael wasn’t yelling at me, it’s just how he communicated.
For those a bit older like me, we had this phrase, mostly related to sports. We’d say, “I’d run through a wall for him.” Michael was one I would run through a wall for. He was a great leader, and our people would do anything for him. Some key traits Michael possessed:
- Michael is probably a Transformational Leader, he is always looking to do whatever he can to improve the processes and the business. We would complete a week-long Kaizen event, we’d be exhausted, and Michael would say, “What can we do better?” He never was satisfied, but it was really in a good way, he just wanted us to be as good as we could be.
- He is comfortable with business leaders, but he is also very comfortable with people on the factory floor or anywhere within the business. Michael would walk the factory floor, talk to the people, find out what was going right or wrong, and then he would come to our Senior Management meetings and tell Klaus and Erich, our Operations leaders, what he found out by talking to the people on the shop floor. Our people loved Michael, with good reason, he cared about them and cared about what they had to say.
If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say
….
OK, I have worked for two poor leaders, but I won’t mention names, that wouldn’t be appropriate. But I will note some of the behavior that I found distasteful in their leadership styles:
- They were habitual liars. In one of the cases, I really believe he was a pathological liar, he would lie to me about the financial statements that I prepared.
- They treated employees like indentured servants. They really showed very little value for the people that worked for them.
- They spent the company’s money like there was no tomorrow, at least spending it on themselves.
- They ran the business individually, rarely involved senior leadership in any important decisions.
- Neither of them had any regard for women, particularly in any type of leadership position.
- They were both unethical, no moral compass whatsoever.
As I went through this process, teaching my class about what leadership looks like, I came to a conclusion or feeling about it, at least for me. I think you can see, Jim Crane and Michael Gerster were completely different in their leadership styles, but in their own way, they were great leaders. In the case of two poor leaders, I’m not sure if it’s my value system that is guiding me or that poor leaders have common traits, really not sure.
From my
perspective, I really struggle when people are dishonest. I had a difficult time working with, or even
talking to, either of these individuals, they had such a propensity to lie. The other for me is how you treat those
around you. My Dad was a truck driver,
and he always taught me, no matter what someone does in an organization, you
value them. Everyone is important. I didn’t appreciate the way they treated
others, putting them in a caste system or ranking based on where they fit in
the organization.
I’m really
not sure there is a formula for being a great leader, it comes in many sizes
and shapes, and besides the two great ones I’ve noted, I’ve seen some really
good ones, throughout the organizations I worked for. Maybe at the core is the antithesis of the
poor leaders I identified. Honesty,
valuing personnel, no matter where they are in the organization or what they
look like, those are the critical aspects, and how you display your leadership
is a matter of personality or style.
The good
news is, I learned so much from all the leaders I’ve encountered, but
specifically, these four. I learned what
great leadership looks like, and I’m so grateful I had the opportunity to work
for Jim Crane and Michael Gerster. In
the case of the other two, I learned some valuable information also. I learned how I don’t want to be treated, and
how I won’t treat people who work with me.
All in all, great lessons.
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