Key Thoughts on Leadership
Q: How would you distinguish the difference between a manager and a leader?
- “It’s a nuanced difference. If you take a look at a manager – they manage people, processes, and procedures.”
- “A leader is one who has a vision, with short term solutions and with long-term goals and visions in mind… not only from a people perspective but also from an organizational perspective. They have the ability, skill set and talent to see things the way they are today and envision how they could be down the road.”
Q: Under what circumstances is it most important to demonstrate strong leadership?
- “In a lot of instances, people want to exert strong leadership when times are tough. And they should. But even when volumes are good, revenues are up, plans are being met or exceeded, your key personnel are succeeding beyond expectation – that’s when you also
need to have good, strong, solid leadership. It’s 24 hours a day, 7 days
a week.”
Q: How has your leadership style matured over the years?
- “Initially, you want to do everything yourself. Over the years, I’ve moved from hands-on to more of a mentor relationship.”
- “When we have things that fall through the cracks, I ask our team “What do you think about this?” or “How could this be improved?”, “How could we become a better company?”, “How could we become a better partner?”
- “And I don’t do that simply to butter somebody up. I do it from a sincere mindset because as smart as I think I am sometimes, everybody has ideas and everybody has opinions. I don’t necessarily say that you lead or manage through consensus, but you take the best ideas that you can get, and you move forward from there. So, I’ve evolved from “I have to do it my way” to “Hmm, there’s a ton of different things we could be doing that make more sense than what I wanted to do.””
Q: When they say it’s lonely at the top, what does that mean as a leader?
- “Running a successful organization takes a leader that is comfortable in their own skin, and it takes somebody that’s thinking, “You know what – I really want to bring in and surround myself with the best possible people that I can because that will help increase our chances for success.” And at the same time, if I can cultivate an atmosphere of trust and honesty, and confidence in me with fellow workers, then when things are going great, everybody shares in it. I think that a leader who isolates himself at the top is not only hurting himself, but the organization – the people that look up to him for leadership.”