BUSINESS LEADERSHIP

Nov

2020

Learning from A Small Business Leader

We were sitting in the lobby outside of Holder Mattress in Carmel, IN. I was learning from the third-generation leader of this family owned business. A woman who had grown up around her family’s mattress factory in Kokomo, IN.

When she had volunteered seventeen years ago to take over the leadership of this struggling business from her Aunt and Uncle, she had many challenges on her hands. As a young, but determined, leader she refused to allow the business to close while she was leading. This determination paid off. Within a few short years of taking over a business that was being protected by bankruptcy at the time, she made decisions that quickly made it into the profitable family owned small business it has become.

During our time we discussed some of the principles that guided and continue to guide her leadership.

Build the Best

All industries have varying degrees of competition. Instead of focusing on the competition, Lauren learned from her grandfather the value of building the best. As a small company in a big industry that manufactures their own product they are able to control quality. When you focus on being the best you can be, then everything else takes care of itself.

In his book Wooden on Leadership, John Wooden and Steve Jamison state:

“When you start thinking about winning, you stop thinking about doing your job.”

This mindset of focusing on doing your best will help leaders build the best. We can’t control the competition or the market or other situations. Just like John Wooden focused on his team being the best they could be, find what you are best at and excel. This is a significant reason why Lauren was able to turn around the business when she took over.

Treat People Right

I have been reading leadership expert John Maxwell’s book Ethics 101 and he made the observation that the golden rule of treating others as you would want to be treated spans across all belief systems. This was the foundational guiding principle Lauren learned from her grandfather. Watching her grandfather build a small town, family owned business taught her to treat everyone like a neighbor.

When we treat all people right, we get positive results. If we treat others with respect and care they often will do the same. Leading in the retail business Lauren learned from her grandfather that sometimes letting a person leave, with respect and care, is treating them right because you may not have what a customer is looking for.

Put the Needs of Others Before Your Ego

Through an early experience with a customer Lauren learned the negative impact of her strong will and ego. She had a customer whose needs she did not think would be met by the product they purchased. Instead of discussing with them possible modifications and having an open conversation she decided to have her manufacturers make the modifications she thought would be helpful. . . . a few weeks later the customers returned dissatisfied.

She regularly shares with her team how she realized she needed to learn to listen to people well and above all be honest. We can easily think we know what is best for another person, but when we listen we are able to serve others and do what is best for them and not what we think is best.

After looking at these three principles, which of them do you need to grow in? Do you need help thinking into this? Contact me for a thirty-minute thinking partner session at no cost to you. Lead Well.

Jun

2018

Three Leadership Principles from a Small Business Leader

As I sit in a comfortable orange rolling office chair I am across from the CEO of Imavex which is an Indianapolis area based technology and digital marketing organization. Gerald Stanley and his business partner Steve Burzynski have allowed me to invade their day to learn about their company, but more importantly, to me, how they lead it well.

Gerald is a man of many hats. He is the CEO of this organization, helps coach a high school football team, serves on the board of a faith-based non-profit organization called Hands of Hope and is the father of he and his wife’s four children two of which they adopted from another country. With all that and the family friendly travel baseball organization Orange Baseball as well as One Orphan Foundation that he and his business partner founded I think he is either crazy or a great leader. By the end of our conversation I realized he was definitely the latter.

As we talked Mr. Stanley explained to me three foundational principles that guide not only his leadership, but the organization as a whole.

Entrepreneurial – As an established organization that has been serving clients since 2001 they do not want to get stale and apathetic so they strive to take appropriate risks to help the organization grow. At times those risks do not work, but from my observations during our conversation these men learn and grow from mistakes instead of letting them define them and get them stuck. In true entrepreneurial fashion he understands the process of risk, fail, learn, change, and do it all again.
Servant Leaders – Both Gerald and Steve model servant leadership which is demonstrated in how they treat employees and structure their organization. Steve entered our meeting and I asked him what his three key leadership principles were and each principle defines what both men model as servant leaders: be genuine because it earns respect, be consistent as it earns credibility, be empathetic because it helps you connect and builds trust. These are not just theory, but practice for these two men and are foundational to their business culture.
Ownership – When he explained how their organization is structured this ownership idea was clearly evident. In their company three values drive their strategy and they have flattened their structure in a manner that these values are driven not by them, but by the employees. In each area an employee leads the growth and is equipped to bring results. This ownership is evidenced in another way. Both them as leaders and those they lead are accountable to each other and when there are mistakes in projects they have an organizational culture that expects people to take responsibility for their actions and make the appropriate adjustments.

One last question I asked them was how they develop leaders in their organization and the answer came in the form of an expectation: bring solutions not problems. I am not sure where you are in your leadership journey, but with those you lead are you a task master or servant? Are you still taking risks or is something holding you back and maybe even need help thinking into those challenges? Do you exemplify the traits of a servant leader and own what you have been entrusted with both when things go well and poorly? What is one way you can grow as a leader after learning these ideas? Lead well both at work and home and let me know how I can help you on the journey.