8 Leadership Questions

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VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Page 1© University of Phoenix 2010 Good Leaders Are Authentic Leaders

Why is there so little trust in today's business leaders? William George explains the role authenticity plays in effective leadership and what it takes to find one's way "home."

ID: 50V101231002216712 Good Leaders Are Authentic Leaders

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2004-2010, 50 Lessons Ltd.

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Ever since the fall of Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and Qwest, and on and on and on, business breached the trust with people. We were following the dictates of the neo-classical economists that the only thing that mattered was the shareholder of the last five minutes. This is nonsense.

What happened is, people in leadership roles lost the trust of their customers, their employees, and ultimately, their shareholders. Today the Gallup poles show that only 18 percent of the American people trust the values and ethics of business leaders. The only ones they are ahead of are politicians.

Why is that? It's because we're not behaving in authentic ways. We got caught up with the charismatic leader, and we chose charismatic leaders instead of character-based leaders. We favored people with a great image instead of people who had practiced integrity all their lives. And we favored style over substance. Well, if you put the emphasis on charisma, on image, and on style, why are you surprised when you don't get character, you don't get integrity, and you don't get substance?

I think we need to change the criteria we're selecting leaders for because people know who is authentic and who is not. In our study of 125 leaders, which led to my book True North, they were very authentic people. People know they're authentic when they meet them. If you're working for a leader you can't trust, you'll never give them your heart, you'll never do your best work. So authenticity becomes key because you have a sense of a person's purpose, why they're leading, and where they're leading. They practice their values every day. If you can't trust the values of someone on and off the job, you don't want to work for them.

Also, they know how to build long-term connector relationships. You know you can count on them. They have the self discipline to show up, to be there, to deliver against their commitments. My father was a consultant who thought he should have been a leader. He saw himself as a failure; I thought of him as a darn good consultant. And so he said, 'Son, I want you to be that leader that I never was. You could be head of a major company.' I'm a little boy, and he's telling me, 'I've held this stock in The Coca-Cola Company since 1937. That'd be a great company for you to lead. Or how about Procter & Gamble. Or there's this emerging computer company out in New York called IBM. If you could head up one of those, it'd be great.'

So I had this ego idea that I'm going to head up a major corporation. I spent 10 years creating the microwave oven business that led in industries. Then I go to Honeywell. I'm on my way to the top. I've been president of Honeywell Europe. I get a two-step promotion. I'm turning around all these businesses.

You know what? I'm miserable. But I'm in total denial about that. I'm traveling 70-80 percent of the time. I have two young boys, and a wife who's working part time. One day I'm driving home; it's a beautiful day. I look into mirror, and I'm miserable. I don't like the businesses I'm in; I'm not passionate about that. But most importantly, I don't like myself because I'm losing it.

I'm chasing so hard that ego idea my father set up of being CEO that I'm no longer Bill George. I go home and talk to my wife about that, and she says, 'I've been trying to tell you that for over a year. You've been acting, you know, not yourself.' (Also) I had a men's group that I went and talked to. I've been working with them for about 15 years, once a week, and they told me the same thing.

So I was really becoming inauthentic. I was even doing things like wearing cufflinks on my sleeve because that would impress the board of directors at Honeywell. This is nonsense. So I finally got a hold of myself.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

At that time I had had three opportunities to go to Medtronic as president and chief operating officer --going back 10 years before-- and I had turned them all down. I called Medtronic back, as I had just turned them down about 4 months before, and said, 'Is that job you talked to me about still open?' They said it was about to get filled, but to come out and talk to them.

When I met with the founder of Medtronic and the top management, I realized that this is where I should have been all along. This is the authentic me. I remember walking into the company for the very first time as president and chief operating officer, number two role, and I'd never been inside the building before. And yet I felt like I was coming home. As my favorite folk singer John Denver says, 'Comin' home to a place he'd never been before.'

I don't know if you've felt that, but that's when you can be the real you --the real person, the really authentic person. When you're there and have that feeling, you can help the people there; you know they can help you; and you know that it matters.

The mission of Medtronic to restore people to full life and health really matters, and is something I can get passionate about. You can be that authentic you. I feel like I really came out of that dark period into the light. If I had not had the dark period, though, I'm not sure I would have appreciated just how important that level of deep authenticity is.