To honor the passing of William "Bill" Kennedy, we're re-running this blog post from March 2013.
Is work ethic becoming passé? It seems much of today’s “leading” business thinking focuses only on working smarter not harder.
Well, one person determined to keep “work ethic” alive is William “Bill” Kennedy. He’s the owner and leader, of Hartson-Kennedy Cabinet Top Company, in Marion, Indiana.
I previously wrote about how important it is for leaders to live and lead by their organizational vision. Couple this with an unwavering commitment to organizational values and there won’t be much that gets in the way of achieving that vision.
Still you will undoubtedly face moments that require great conviction to stay the course. Many of the examples of extraordinary leadership from Jim Collins’ Good to Great involve leaders who made huge “bet the farm” decisions on the future of their organizations. I imagine those decisions, and risks of that magnitude, came with moments of great self-doubt. I know they have for me.
“A leader without a vision can't lead. And their followers will be lost. Therefore, effective leaders must have a clear vision, they need to be able to articulate that vision, and they need to engage and empower others to define and implement tactics and action plans to achieve the vision,” says my friend and business coach Bruce Gobdel. Bruce had a long career at a national public accounting firm and now spends a lot of his time mentoring and coaching emerging leaders.
I couldn’t agree more with Bruce. In 2011 our executive leadership team began the process of developing and clarifying our vision for the future at Gibson. We ultimately involved a number of key people – internally and externally – in this process to:
As a business owner, I find my thoughts often gravitating to an area I feel very deeply about – taking care of others. At Gibson, we take care of our clients every day – it’s our core business to help them Protect What Matters Most. As CEO of Gibson, Ialso feel paternalistic in my responsibility to provide a great opportunity for our 100 employees. The other executives and I spend a great deal of time considering how our decisions might impact the long-term connection we strive for with our team.
I was chatting with my partner and Gibson’s CFO, Keith Stone. He’s also the lead trustee for our ESOP - GESOP as we say in “Gibson speak”. I asked him what he thought about the subject. Without hesitation, he said “You know what, I feel really good about the way we consider our employees in all we do. Creating the GESOP in 2010 was probably the best thing we could have done for our people over the long haul.”
Recently Jerry Scott and I were revisiting some of the concepts from our blog last August on Level 5 Leadership: Do I Have Fierce Resolve? In that blog we talked about some of the research from the Collins book Good to Great. I always enjoy getting Jerry’s perspective froma twenty-plus year career managing people.
A Level 5 Leader recognizes that “Who” comes first. It’s about getting the right people on the bus and in the right seats and getting the wrong people off the bus. It’s about creating a culture of discipline – disciplined people, thoughts, and actions. Finally, it’s about a fanatical devotion to excellence and execution with the courage to confront reality and make the big “all or nothing” judgment calls. And with a total disregard for the CEO’s personal wants and needs, Jerry reminds me!
There are so many leadership theories about what makes a good leader – is it traits, competencies, skills, natural abilities or a combination of all of these? Can leadership be learned or are leaders just born to lead?
I was talking on this topic with one of our partners (and a great leader herself) Liz Misenar. She’s very passionate about it. The optimist in both of us believes that it can be learned or at least nurtured and improved.
We are committed to teaming at Gibson. Perhaps more than any other firm in our industry.
By now it’s certainly no surprise to anyone who reads my blog that I am passionate about leadership. It fascinates and inspires me and I spend a great deal of time and effort trying to learn everything I can about the subject. I am blessed to have the opportunity to lead a great organization that is striving to be better each day.
We have an outstanding group of people that are the best in every way. So, I want to be a student of the game: to learn and constantly be striving to master the craft of leadership. Frankly it’s part of the responsibility of my role to give these folks my very best.
“I can’t do this. I really can’t. I’m done,” I somewhat coherently muttered to myself. The temperatures were soaring. I had run out of water and energy bars a few hours before. I was bent over with my hands clutching my dusty knees, swaying back and forth as I couldn’t seem to find balance. I noticed my shirt was almost dry and I had stopped sweating. At that moment, with less than a mile to go, I would have paid any cost and dealt with the ridicule sure to follow if I could have quit. But I hadn’t seen any pack animals for quite some time. And there was no way a helicopter would come for me this close to the top of the South Rim.
I would have to continue. But I couldn’t. At that moment, a friend of mine named Jim Holder who had joined us on the hike, was coming up the trail and offered me his water and a Cliff Bar. “Just rest for a few minutes,” he said. “It’s not like we can leave without you.” Maybe he was right I thought. So I took some of his water and ate a little; although nothing tasted very good at the moment.
One of our Core Values is: Integrity Matters - Always Do the Right Thing. It seems elementary to ask why integrity matters. The answers are all too obvious, right? Yet all too often there are examples of integrity issues in our world, in business and in our personal affairs.
