Follow the Leader … Or Let the Leader Follow You

I have spent the last 25 years working on how to be an effective leader. I always knew that integrity and honesty mattered to me more than anything, but I wasn’t sure how to build those into a corporate culture based on collaboration rather than fear. An inspiring recent interview in the Times helped me crystallize some of my thoughts and got me thinking more proactively about what I believe. The article can be read at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/business/bill-flemming-of-skanska-usa-building-on-leadership.html.

 

Here’s what the years have taught me:

 

There is, as Bill Flemming notes in his interview, a great distinction between being a leader and a boss: a leader helps people figure out what to do while a boss tells them what to do. This resonates strongly for me. People will often come to my desk looking for solutions. Increasingly, I am out of the solution business. I try to ask “What do you think is the best way out of this situation?”  I am a guy with a lot of opinions, but these days I try to bite my tongue. More often than not I find that people already know the best solution. They are looking more for affirmation than problem solving.

 

An important corollary of this is the discovery that people solve problems in different ways. My agents and managers often arrive at solutions I wouldn’t have thought of. Sometimes I think my solution would be better but usually I find that this interaction can be a significant learning experience for me. I often don’t have the best answer. My job, I increasingly understand, is to bring out the best in those around me.

 

This brings me to another great statement of Flemming’s: “I work for the people below me.”  I think this notion lies at the heart of the management philosophy of any successful leader. As the president of Warburg, I am only as successful as the agents and staff working for the company. And their success, in turn, depends on my leadership. How well do I empower them to make good decisions? How well have I communicated my vision for the company? How good am I at listening to suggestions and complaints? Do I facilitate teamwork?

 

I did not set out to be a business owner; as I have noted before in this blog I began my adult life as a musician. I never went to business school. I am pretty bad with Excel and PowerPoint and my main arithmetical skill is a lightning-fast ability to compute 6% of any sales price! But over the two plus decades during which I have led Warburg Realty, I have learned that this business, probably like every business, is a people business. I strive every day to NOT be the leader who feels entitled because my name (or my middle name, actually) is on the door.  I know today that respect may or may not accompany a title; if it does it is only because it is earned. And I know that while I may be impatient, if I lose my ability to listen and really HEAR what my colleagues are telling me, my organization suffers. I may not agree, I may not do what is suggested, but I need to pay attention to it.

 

I don’t much like being criticized or having people disagree with me. I can get my back up. But it is my obligation, and that of every leader in my firm and every firm, to get over it. We work for our agents, and they often know more than we do. We cannot continue to do what we do because we have always done it.  I trust my team: staff, agents, and managers alike. With their guidance, I know Warburg will move confidently into the future.

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