Authenticity key to true leadership

Northwestern Financial Review, Nov 1, 2001 by Bengtson, Tom

Q:

Q: How do you define leadership?

Good leadership is somebody who provides vision and values to their organization, creating a climate whereby people are motivated, energized and enthusiastic. This is an environment where people come together and work together as a team, transcending their individual limitations. It all stems from authenticity.

Can a person learn this kind of leadership or do you have to be born with leadership skills?

You don't have to be born with it. What it takes is the confidence to finally step up to the plate and do it. I didn't have the confidence my first 16 years in the Navy. It's not DNA. The most effective leaders are people who come across as being authentic. People warm up to authenticity. People are looking for strong leadership. People follow someone because they trust them. You don't have to have charisma. You don't have to have GQ looks. It's how you interact with people and how you create that sense of purpose and trust.

What would you say to a banker who comes to you and asks How can I be a better leader?"

I would tell them this story: We were doing a terrible job of indoctrinating new members of the crew whenever they came onto the ship. We were losing them within the first couple of days. I asked my second-in-command, "How are we treating our new arrivals?" We discovered it was awful. So I said to him, "design a program that you would be proud to have your daughter be a part of, if she were joining the Navy"All these kids are somebody's son or daughter. They are somebody's husband or wife. How would I want my daughter, how would I want my wife, treated in this organization? And we designed the climate to reflect our response to that question. And what I am talking about is not touchy, feely, soft stuff. This adds to the bottom line. This generated millions of dollars in savings for the U.S. Navy, and it increased our combat readiness. Technology, marketing plans and new products can only get you so far. It is the people who take you to the top. And many of us do a poor job of helping people to grow but that's what this is about. It's making our people grow as a means to make our business grow.

What do you do with unmotivated employees?

I think that very few workers wake up in America today deciding they want to screw up at work. Yet they do because I don't think we connect with them as organizations. Whenever I didn't get the results I was looking for I always turned inward. I looked at my own actions. Did I clearly articulate the goals that I was trying to achieve? Did I provide the training and resources that people need to accomplish the job? And did I give them enough time to get the job done? And 90 percent of the time when I didn't get the results I was looking for it was my own fault. I could have articulated the goals better. They didn't get the training they needed. They didn't have the time and resources to get the job done right. So if people are disconnected from work, the leader has to look inward first before blaming other people. I think probably 4 or 5 percent of American workers can't be motivated. But when I would confront an under-performer, nine times out of 10 I found out there was a personal problem that was preventing them from doing their work. Where I could help, I did, and that caused them to reconnect. As managers, it is a question of how much time and effort we want to expend on the people who are not performing. Most everyone can be turned; it's a question of whether you have the time and energy and stomach to do it.

Are team-building activities worthwhile?

It's worthwhile if the people at the top are motivated to change as well. If you do an off-site and then you go back into a rotten culture at the office, people are going to revert. You lose credibility when you say this is what I want you to do, and then in your personal actions as a leader you don't conform to your words. People are very perceptive. No matter how old they are, no matter what their level of education, people need to see that your words match your actions. When there is a mismatch, any amount of training is worthless.

Are there things businesses can learn by studying the military's way of doing things? Does authoritarianism have a place in normal business operations?

You have to change your leadership style to fit the situation. Most of the time command and control is not the right ticket in business. However, there are times of crisis when the head guy or gal has to stand and say: "you do this, you do that." But if it is not an extraordinary situation, the way you are going to get to the top is through motivated employees. And you don't get motivated employees by practicing a command and control style.

Recent bank and thrift failures generally have resulted from strategies that deviate from those of a traditional community bank. Examples are subprime lending and credit card operations that were generally funded through brokered deposits, not core deposits or wholesale funding.

A community bank must meet credit standards to access the wholesale finding system, whereas the brokered CD market is much easier to access. The larger banks pose a much more complex examination risk (derivatives, servicing rights, large national and international credits) and do not pay deposit insurance commensurate to the risk they pose to the system because of the "too big to fail" theory.