Working to Be a Leader

Keneth Chenault, CEO, American Express, was the subject of The Colvin Interview in the C-Suite Strategies series in Fortune Magazine’s October 26, 2009 edition.  Geoff Colvin, senior editor at the magazine, started his profile by writing, “American Express CEO Ken Chenault is one of the few Wall Street chiefs who have come through the financial meltdown and recession looking good.”

Colvin’s article describes how Chenault lead his company through the worst economy since the Great Depression when, in the CEO’s words, ”The reality is that we were on the verge of an absolute disaster and collapse.”

During his first year in the job, Chenault learned and used crisis management skills on and after 9/11 that he could apply to the economic crisis.  Although the article focused on the financial challenges he faced and his outlook for the new economy, it also includes insights from the CEO that other leaders might find of interest.

1.  Leaders should continue to deal with the basic issues of their companies while planning for long- and short-term growth based on future obstacles as well as opportunities.

2.  Chenault feels that “the hardest time to bring about change is in good times.”  In other words, leaders need to be focused and decisive in good times to be ready for the less-than-good times.

3.  Transparency.  The CEO used that word in reference to proposed new financial services regulation and the impact the government’s intentions could have on the economy.

4.  On the topic of executive pay, Chenault said that he believed not in short-term packages to compensate executives but multiyear packages.

5.  After the company and growth opportunities, his third reason for staying at AMEX even though he was considered for a leadership role at another financial services company was “I like the people.” 

I liked what I learned from this article and suggest you might find it of interest yourself.

On Monday, I had a two-hour dental appointment scheduled.  Going to the dentist is not my favorite thing to do and listening to the drill or the scraping of tartar not my favorite past-time.

Maybe that was the reason that I chose to wear an orange plaid shirt, orange pants, and my lime green faux seude jacket to the dentist.  To use colors to brighten my day.  To not be afraid of what others would think of me. 

Sitting down on a bench in a car on the R train at 9:30 a.m., I saw a few people noticing my color combination.  And, as usual, I looked around to see theirs.  In a car when all the seats were taken and many passengers were standing, I saw only one other person who was not wearing a solid black or dark colored jacket or coat.

The other person was a woman wearing a dark blue or black jacket covered with bright colored flowers.  Lovely, I thought.  And looking closer, I saw a few bright colored sweaters, shirts, and other clothing underneath the ’standard’ New York outer garmets.

Wearing black coats or clothes is standard for New Yorkers.  It’s a color that wears well (dirt and stains aren’t as obvious) and goes with almost anything.  Also, it’s the choice for the severe look popular in fashion, design, and other fields.

Growing up in Los Angeles, I remember that my mother didn’t want any of her four girls to wear black.  Since I was a size 18 when I just 12, I would go with my mom to Lane Bryant or the large size women’s section of department stores to try to find clothes that fit.  About 98% of those clothes were black.

 My older sister Alice made many of my clothes on a then old pedal powered Singer sewing machine.  Ten years older than me, she chose to work her magic with bright colored cloth, never black.  There was one exception.  One year I was a witch for Halloween and my sister Alice designed and created a fantastic costume for me complete with a homemade hat.  That costume won a prize at a competition held at our local park.  Alice created many costumes for me and another sister; we always won ribbons at local events.

A few years ago at the urging of a close friend, I went to a color consultant and was told that I should never wear black.  He said that my color was a ”bright spring” and that I could wear shades of brown but not black.  Going through my closet, I purged a lot of the dark clothes that I thought would slim me and help me fit in.  I kept one black 2-piece top and skirt for evening or special occasions.  One occasion was Alice’s funeral in 2003, when, over my mourning clothes, I wore a yellow jacket.

Writing this a few days after what turned out to be a pretty painless trip to the dentist, I realize that the colors on the subway car on Monday struck a memory chord.  The memories of the many homemade prize-winning Halloween costumes Alice created.  Memories of the choices my mother and sister made for me as a child.  Memories of the encouragement to not be like all the other girls but to be fearless about standing out by wearing a bright color combination, a combination I’ll wear as a leader in professinal groups, educator in front of audiences, coach who sits across a desk from her clients, passenger on a subway car.

Happy Halloween!  Hope your day is a bright one.  Now, I have to go and decide what I want to wear today.

Last week, I spoke on the topic of “Social Media and Your Job Search:  A Strategic Approach” on Jane Cranston’s “Great Job In Tough Times” tele-seminar. 

 The positive responses to my talk inspired me repeat the program—and to offer a series of tele-seminars on the four major social media platforms.

Please click here to see a full menu of courses listed on the Public Seminars page of my website.  The titles include:

LinkedIn 101:  The Basics to Realize Returns on Relationships

Facebook 101:  How to Establish Online Work/Life Balance

Twitter 101 and You Tube Basics:  How to Make Your Tweets and Videos Remarkable.

If you don’t see what you want here, contact me at Leigh@ltr-nyc.com to discuss a customized tele-seminar or in-person workshop for a group of individuals or your company (programs for business will be on the next schedule).

Truth:  I resisted getting into social media for a long time.  Why?  I like in-person or telephone conversations so I can see and/hear the person.  And I don’t consider e-mail social media, although you can carry on long conversations that way.  Note:  I don’t text or IM.

This year, I’ve moved on to see the power of the connections social media facilitates through LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and lots of other platforms.  Oh, I still see vultures out there mining my information and am aware of the addictive qualities.  But I had a moment during which I saw the power of social media.

In August, I co-led a presentation on “Social Media:  What’s the Return on Investment?” for the New York Providers Liaison Association (NYPLA), an organization of professionals who work at substance abuse and addiction rehabilitation centers.

When I displayed my LinkedIn profile on the screen, I went to the Recommendations section.  There was a recommendation from La Wanda Stewart, a student at the Zicklin School of Business who was in my “Employee Development and Training” class last spring.

“I know that person,” announced a member of the audience.  “She’s wonderful.  La Wanda worked for me at an earlier job.”

My co-presenter started to tear up.  She was deeply moved by the co-incidence but also the power of the tool that had facilitated this event.

In that moment, I, too, felt the power of social media. 

However, I, too, am one to raise caution about the addictive qualities of social media and to endorse the need to stay in touch by seeing people face-to-face.

Bruce Wasserstein, Chairman and Chief Executive of Lazard, died earlier this week.  Just 61, his career spanned worked on some of the largest high-profile deals during the past thirty years. 

Wasserstein’s style?  “He frightened people,” according to Felix Rohatyn, the former senior Lazard partner is quoted as saying in The New York Times.  Known for his hostile takeovers, the Brooklyn-born Wasserstein approached deals not from a relationship building perspective as Lazard had for more than a century; he approached a deal as war.

I left Lazard before Wasserstein was brought into Lazard as a partner and then navigated his way into taking it over in 2005.  Yet, even though I never met the man, I felt very sad to hear of his death.  Why?  His age?  It’s close to my own.  The fact that he was responsible for raising his sister’s child after the noted playwright Wendy Wasserstein died in 2006?  Yes, that touched me to see a young girl lose another parental figure. 

Steven Golub is the interim leader of Lazard and may be Wasserstein’s permanent successor.  A long-time member of the firm, Golub’s style was not one to frighten people.  My experiences as his temporary secretary—and observations of him on the 32nd floor—while Michel David-Weill ran the firm confirm that a new culture is beginning at Lazard.  (To read more about the Lazard culture when I was there, read “Temping with Tycoons”.)

I send my condolences that a chapter of the Lazard culture is passing into the history books.

Noel Tichy of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan spoke on the topic of “Preparing Your Leadership Pipeline for 2020″ during a webinar I attended offered through Linkage, a company that focuses on making people and companies great.

The topic interested me because not only do I coach leaders who are now a CEO or who are one step away from being a “C” level executive, I teach students who are the leaders in that pipeline.  Twenty percent of those enrolled in my course on “A Management Approach to Organizational Behavior” want to be CEO at an organization or their own companies.

Tichy, trusted adviser to CEOs around the globe and author of numerous books on leadership and organizational development, used selections from his new book to illustrate the ways to prepare for high potential employees to move into executive positions.  Co-authored with leadership expert Warren Bennis, Judgment:  How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls fills in what Tichy sees as the missing piece of great leadership.

He made it a point to say that judgment is “no Blink decision” — a reference to Malcolm Gladwell’s best-selling book Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking. Gladwell’s description of how members of the New York Fire Department make decisions in a “blink” are actually arrived at by years of development, training and skills preparation.

The factors of making a judgment within an organization include people, strategy, and crisis.  There is no five-step process to how people really make a decision and Tichy stressed that there is no algorithm to make a good judgment.  Instead, it is a leap of faith.

The next CEOs are already in the pipeline.  To tap into the full potential of the future leaders of global or small companies, Tichy stated that the current head teacher needs to be the CEO.  A CEO can create an environment of ongoing learning and teaching.

In a teaching organization, everyone is expected to contribute to the organization’s knowledge base by teaching others across departmental and regional boundaries.

For instance, Tichy suggested that the $10/hour worker in a retail shop interacting with customers can teach management what their customers really want.  Around 80% of development happens on the job.  A teaching organization encourages employees to learn from each other across the rungs of the corporate ladder.

There is more information in my notebook from this webinar.  Please return and look for additional blogs on this topic of developing our future leaders.

What role does social media play in your job search?  Do you have a strategic plan for how you want to build your online presence by using the most popular social media sites?

On Wednesday, October 21, from 8:00-9:00 p.m. EDT, I will be speaking on the topic of  “Social Media and Your Job Search:  A Strategic Approach” with my long-time colleague and good friend Jane Cranston, executive career coach and author of “Great Job in Tough Times” and tele-seminar series leader.

While Jane moderates and contributes her wisdom, I will guide you through understanding the role social media plays in your job search, specifically addressing these topics:

• A strategy for creating your online professional presence.
• The basics of:

              LinkedIn:  Business attire

              Twitter:  Business casual

              Facebook:  Work/life balance

             YouTube:  A great video is worth a thousand clicks

• Managing your career with social media

If you’re sitting in front of a computer with Internet access during this call, that’s great.  We’ll show you some live examples.  If you’re not able to be in front of a computer, don’t worry.  We’ll talk you through the examples.

To register for this tele-seminar, please go to Jane’s website Great Job in Tough Times.  Aren’t available to be on the tele-seminar next Wednesday evening?  Register anyway so that you will have access to listen to the recorded session at your convenience.

It will be my pleasure to join Jane next Wednesday to talk about, “Social Media and Your Job Search” and share with listeners what we collectively know can help you in your job search.

MGT 3300:  “A Management Approach to Organizational Behavior” is one of eight courses that Tameka Vasquez included in her article on “Courses that feed your brain” published on October 5, 2009, in The Ticker, Baruch College’s student newspaper.

Ms. Vasquez says that students “find themselves especially attentive, although it is required for most of them.”

My students taking MGT 3300 are attentive, engaged, and eager to learn as much as they can.   One student had to very reluctantly withdraw from the class after he found out he would not get credit for taking the class since it was outside his major.  He complimented me on being ”humble and cooperative”—words that I will remember.

“I love your lectures” wrote one of my students included in an e-mail to me.  “I love this class,” commented another student who is being challenged to demonstrate her public speaking abilities.

It’s rewarding as a member of the faculty at the Zicklin School of Business within Baruch College to hear these words.  What is more rewarding is to see the growth of my students on their diet of ”brain food.”

Why are students so engaged?  The topics resonant with their own experiences of working at retail shops, financial services companies, pharmacies, food stores, etc.  Topics, as Ms. Vasquez points out, which include ”individual attributes, workforce diversity, motivation, leadership, organizational culture and organizational change.”  Topics that students know learning these will benefit them on every part of their career path.

Mine is an interactive class.  The technology in the classroom is limited to a PC, a projector and access to the internet that I use.  The interactivity comes from conversations, comments, interchanges of ideas.

There are 31 students in my class but during each one-hour fifteen-minute session I call on each person at least once.  I want to hear their voices, I want to understand what they know and think about a topic, I want to share my relevant experiences and I want to learn from their experiences.

 A diet of “brain food” is good for us all.