Learning to lead
It’s lonely at the top, company presidents and chief executives will often admit. But authentic leadership means constantly learning, adapting and being willing to change, several CEOs and presidents told the Upstate Business Journal. In other words, a leader’s education never ends.
Many Upstate business people have sharpened their skill sets and grown as leaders through continuing education programs that bring top executives together in unusual setting and take them out of their comfort zones.
Rick Davis, managing shareholder of Elliott Davis Decosimo in Greenville and chair of the firm’s executive committee, and Matt Madden, managing shareholder of the firm’s tax department, say they learned valuable tools from the Battlefield Leadership program, which offers training based in history.
Davis attended the program’s Normandy leadership session in July, while Madden spent three days learning the hard-won lessons of Gettysburg, including time on the hallowed grounds.
Other local leaders have turned to the Young Presidents’ Organization, or YPO, which is a global network of young chief executives.
In various meetings, members share experiences, not advice, to see how those relate to topics company leaders are confronting within their organizations.
Lessons from the battlefield
Davis keeps his leadership skills tuned by developing good relationships with other leaders in accounting and other industries. They discuss what’s important and float ideas among each other, without giving away competitive secrets. At Normandy, he mixed with other chief executives to do just that.
“We’re all seeing the same changes and we’re all dealing with the same pace of change, so having people that are seeing that day in and day out, and having the ability to reach out and draw upon each other, has been a fundamental strength for all of us,” Davis said.
He augments those discussions with readings and research about how to apply certain skills and new approaches to doing business.
“Going back and just keeping a core, central component of what you know your strengths are, and knowing when to draw upon those and knowing when to draw upon others who are going to supplement your strengths by doing the things they do best, is really the ultimate key,” Davis said.
In a company, a top executive’s ability to make tough decisions that affect employees is a competitive advantage “because very few people are good at it,” Davis said.
His firm recently went through a realignment that involved leaving some markets. About 80 people in five markets lost their jobs. Some moved to other jobs within the firm and others were placed with other firms.
“That exercise and the ultimate decision process that we went through there strengthened our team, strengthened our firm, gave us a lot of confidence that we could make those decisions at the scale we made them,” Davis said.
Leadership involves understanding and embracing that “what got us here won’t get us there,” he said.
For Madden, “The most recurring takeaway I had from the Gettysburg experience was how big of a challenge communication was at the time and how big of a role it had in the impact of the battle and ultimately the war,” he said. “It taught me that one of the most important responsibilities for a leader is to effectively communicate the goals, direction and measurements of success for the group they lead.”
Asked what one thing changed him, Madden said, “A crucial lesson we learned in Gettysburg was that the leaders that were indecisive and reactive often failed.”
Before the trip, he would find himself sometimes delaying tough decisions.
At one breakout session at Gettysburg, the quote, “The only thing wrong with nothing is happening is that nothing happens,” was shared.
“After returning from our trip, I’ve often reminded myself of this quote and the lessons we learned from the battle tours when tough decisions need to be made,” Madden said.
Sharpening skills with YPO
Jon Good, president and CEO of NAI Earle Furman in Greenville, said a good leader is someone “who is a trained listener.”
“Simple as that,” he said.
To stay sharp, he points to the Young Presidents’ Organization, or YPO.
“Staying sharp is certainly spending time with other leaders in formats to where they’ll be open and honest and share how they’re doing things,” he said.
John Uprichard, president and CEO of Find Great People International Inc., an executive recruitment and talent management firm in Greenville, said YPO can be a critical tool.
“With CEOs, the most important thing is it is lonely at the top,” he said. “You focus a lot on developing the people within your organization, but you don’t slow down enough to really look in the mirror and say, ‘What am I doing to make myself better? What am I doing to continue my professional growth and development?’ That’s really important because if you want your company to grow, part of it is you have to grow as well.”
For YPO, a new applicant must be approved before his or her 45th birthday and hold the title of president or CEO.
The candidate must have at least 50 full-time employees, or the equivalent, under his or her control. Or, total employee compensation, including that of the candidate, must exceed $2 million and the prospect must have at least 15 employees.
Those who run sales, services or manufacturing corporations must have at least $13 million in gross annual sales.
YPO has 50 members in South Carolina, and 473 in the Southern 7 regional chapter. Many come from family businesses or are entrepreneurs.
“As a CEO, you’re never off. There is no five-day workweek. You’re always on,” Uprichard, 47, said. “You’re unbelievably committed to your company and to growing the company and adding value for shareholders. But you also have a family.”
YPO encourages family members, spouses and children to attend various meetings to help CEOs maintain balance, he said.
“If you can maintain balance, then you’re going to be better at home, but you’re also going to be better from the company standpoint as well,” Uprichard said.
In YPO discussions, members explore troubling business or personal issues and ask others for feedback. Confidentiality is insisted upon, he said.
“It’s your issue. You own it,” Uprichard said. “If you ask us to help you with it, we’ll help you with it. But then we won’t talk about it again unless you bring it back up.”
YPO “teaches you to look inwardly first,” he said. “The other thing it does, too, with authentic leadership is get you to really focus on not the past, but how do I make things better moving forward.”
At the end of the day, what counts is the ability to use what you’ve learned, Davis said.
“You can go read any book you want to and find most of the stuff I just mentioned out there,” he said. “If leaders today don’t have the ability to use those concepts with the ever-increasing pace of change, then it doesn’t matter if you grasp those and understand them or not, you’ve got to be able to move quickly.”
