Bill George | Hiring Executives and Authentic Leadership: From a CEO and Board Perspective
Bill George | Hiring Executives and Authentic Leadership: From a CEO and Board Perspective
Bill George, former Fortune 500 CEO and past member of boards such as Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobile, Target and multiple others shares insights into the qualities you need to land a C-suite role and how CEOs build their leading teams. Executive openings are most times part of the hidden job market. The criteria that CEOs and Boards of Directors use to fill those roles also can be a bit mysterious. There is a combination of intangible qualities executive leaders must have to equate to profitability and Bill details how to draw those out in the interview process and how to use them lead your current teams.
How are CEO’s building their top teams?
How do you find a candidates “true north”?
Is your candidate authentic?
When to use an external recruiter to assist in your executive search.
Non-traditional ways for candidates to get noticed.
What if you aren’t on the radar of executive recruiters?
Leading with your heart.
What leads to profitability?
If you are starting the executive search process, why you need an external source to support your endeavor.
Corporate Boards; experiences and recruitment.
What does a Board look for in hiring a CEO?
CEO aspirations; how to prepare?
The power of the referral.
Discover Your True North
Additional Resources Mentioned:
Discover Your True North is the best-selling leadership classic that enables you to become an authentic leader by discovering your True North. Originally based on first-person interviews with 125 leaders, this book instantly became a must-read business classic when it was introduced in 2007. Now expanded and updated to introduce 48 new leaders and new learning about authentic global leaders, this revisited classic includes more diverse, global, and contemporary leaders of all ages. New case studies include Warren Buffett, Indra Nooyi, Arianna Huffington, Jack Ma, Paul Polman, Mike Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg, and many others.
Top Talent Advocates remains committed to philanthropic efforts. Each guest is asked to suggest a nonprofit of choice for our support:
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[00:00:00] Richard: Welcome to hiring insights. The podcast that provides insight into the executive hiring process and experience. Whether you are a job seeker, a people leader, a recruiter, an executive coach or simply interested in talent, there is something here for you on Hiring Insights. Today's episode is presented by Top Talent Advocates, where we advocate for executive and legal talent.
You can learn more about Top Talent Advocates, listen to other episodes and hire great talent by visiting www.toptalentadvocates.com and clicking on podcast. Now here's your host for hiring insights, Mosah Fernandez Goodman.
[00:00:44] Mosah: I'm joined today by Bill George, Bill George is a senior fellow at Harvard Business School, where he has taught leadership since 2004. He is the author of: Discover Your True North and The Discover Your True North Fieldbook, Authentic Leadership, True North, Finding Your True North, 7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis and True North Groups.
Mr. George is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Medtronic. He joined Medtronic in 1989 as president and chief operating officer, was chief executive officer from 1991-2001, and board chair from 1996-2002. Earlier in his career, he was a senior executive with Honeywell and Litton Industries and served in the U.S. Department of Defense.
Mr. George has served on the boards of Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil, Novartis, Target Corporation, and the World Economic Forum USA. He recently concluded his term as a trustee of the Mayo Clinic, and has been board chair for Allina Health System, Abbott-Northwestern Hospital, United Way of the Greater Twin Cities, and Advamed.
Bill, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for joining us today.
[00:01:59] Bill: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Timing is perfect.
[00:02:02] Mosah: What do you think CEOs should look for in people who join their executive team?
[00:02:08] Bill: It's funny, you should ask because this is a favorite class that I teach at Harvard two to three times a year to new groups of CEOs. How are you going to build your top team? And these are people that are just taking over and they inherited somebody else's team, but they're thinking now what's the team I want to go forward with?
And so this is really critical and I can tell you it's changed dramatically. In the last 10-20 years, it used to be, they're looking for somebody who's really smart or that fits into a perfect resume category. Now they're looking for people who can lead with their hearts that are inspiring leaders that have good values, good character.
They know they can't teach that. They have to find people who can do that. And they may have to move some people out on their team that don't have that, or aren't really good team players. They’re looking for team players, more than they are individual stars. And so I see CEO's talking very directly about that.
So-and-so is an extraordinary CEO, but you know what? He's not on the team and he's had a terrible way with women. I'm just going to have to move it out. But I want somebody that I can count on to be my partner. I want a partner in my CFO, my Human Resource head, my General Counsel and the business heads.
I want people I can trust. And I can then delegate to and not worry what they're going to do, that I know that they're true to what they believe and true to our company's mission. And so that's the big change. And so a lot of CEOs are looking today for someone who has a passion for the work, who has empathy. Satya Nadella talks about who has courage.And this is the one that's hardest to measure. Do you have the courage to make the bold decision? You know, if you're going to invent something, do you have the courage? It may take you five, 10 years to do it. Are you going to have the courage to follow through on that? So I see CEOs, including my own views, as changing dramatically on that and getting away from the previous way of finding the person that's right.
Perfect profile on paper and were looking for the human being inside.
[00:04:12] Mosah: Before I ask you about the red flags that you look for, I'd like to know a little bit more about how you pull that out of a candidate. How either in the interview or in the sourcing of someone who you're building your team with or around, how do you get to understand that person's true north, if you will, or understand where they're coming from in those areas?
[00:04:34] Bill: I like to ask people, tell me about the toughest time you've ever faced in your career or your life. Tell me about the things that influence you as a young person. And a lot of times those are transformative. And what are the things you don't want to talk about? Tell me about a time you faced a really uncomfortable situation, maybe in an overseas experience.
Talk to me and I want to see how vulnerable they're willing to be. Today leaders need to be vulnerable. The old days, like I said, I had to put on armor and not be vulnerable. Today leaders need to be willing to be vulnerable and share their mistakes. And what I’ve learned is that if a leader is not willing to share his or her mistakes, then their subordinates surely are not.
And then there's no transparency. There's no truth. And so trust begins with the leader, extending that by sharing their vulnerability. That's how you build trust. And then people will trust you to share back with you their fear.. And even share your own fears and say, I need your help. Will you help me? I'm not as good in this area.
We/ve got a big problem over here. Can you help me solve it? I think that honest talk, that two way discussion and having an in-depth interview and taking your time, not rushing into a job offer, going out to dinner and talking for three hours over dinner, bringing in the spouse, is often very revealing. Just find out who's the human being inside.
I have a colleague who took it further than I would. She was hiring the next CEO of her company and she said, tell me about your soul, but it's kinda like, who are you? And so I think what I'm trying to say is what's important today is more who are you then what are you? Can you play as part of a team or are you just an individual star that you could work anywhere?
You're mercenary
[00:06:16] Mosah: I'll put that in the Sage advice category. So thank you. So that's some great insight into what CEOs are looking for and maybe what people should aspire the qualities in people that they should aspire to bring onto their team. How do you look for the red flags, the people who might be presenting as such, but not be that way in reality, or in a genuine fashion, or what are some of the things from someone's history or experience that would jump out at you as sort of the non-negotiables the things that you would recommend people never look to bring onto their team? The qualities that they'd look to never bring onto their team?
[00:06:52] Bill: Well, I think a lot of people in their forties and fifties get very good at interviewing. And so they've got an answer for everything. Why did you leave this job? They had an answer so-and-so is against me. So and so didn't do me well, if they tend to externalize all their problems and not internalize, hey, that was a two way street between me and my boss and I share responsibility for that. They don't take responsibility for difficulties they face. I want people to face difficulties and fail and bounce back. Do they have resilience? Because they're going to face tough things ahead. And so I would look for qualities like that. So ask them. The red flags are people that always have the perfect answer.
Everything always went well. And any problems they had in a resume, it was always somebody else's fault. It was never their fault. They always got pushed aside or something rather than taking some ownership. So I want that person that's learned from getting knocked out today.You have to be really resilient.
You're going to get knocked out if COVID comes along. You're going to get knocked down. You're going to run into problems. It's not a question if you've never run into a problem. I want to know, can you bounce back on that ? Do you have the resilience to do that? Do you have intestinal fortitude? Do you have the grit to kind of say, hey, we can get through this. This is hell but we can get through this and pull people together as part of a team. It's like being on a sports team and you're down 21 to seven at half time. Guys we're getting our butts kicked, we have to have the resilience to come back and we're going to do it. And then people pull together and everyone's got to pull together as one team.
So that's what I'm looking for. I'm not looking for that individual star. I don't looking for someone who has all the winning qualities, but really wants to be part of a winning team. If you're not interested in that, you just want to start for yourself. Not on my team
[00:08:39] Mosah: That's tremendous. So I'd like you, if you would be willing to, to put yourself in the shoes of an executive who needs to hire someone in the near term, right?
Not days, but weeks or months, when would you use an external recruiter to assist with searches for leaders? When, in your experience, would you have done that? And then what other methods of identifying talent would you use?
[00:09:03] Bill: Well,I like using external search firms to help me find people, but then I'm going to give them some guidance that this is not just trying to fill a job in a hurry.
I want to find the person that has the right character, the right qualities. That's a good fit with our culture. So you can show me 20 candidates on paper. They look perfect, but maybe they wouldn't fit in our organization. And so we have to find people that have that character that we're looking for.
And so I want search firms to be probing for that or looking for that out of the kind of person that could really resonate with the rest of our team. And when come on board and be a team player. And so again, I'm not looking for the perfect resume. I'm looking for the person that's going to really have the quality of the character.And if you will, the moral leadership and the value is necessary to make them a good part of the team. And it will be committed. It's not just a job hopper, that's you know, three years here and you move on. And so that's what's really important. If I find it on the first person I meet, great. And I find it on the 15th, yeah, I'll hold out and to find the person with.that character.
[00:10:08] Mosah: At Top Talent Advocates we’re constantly working with executives to help them pursue and secure leadership roles and many times we do that in non-traditional ways. Over the time that you were an executive, were there specific methodologies or tactics that you saw candidates using to help get noticed and what were some of the things that grabbed your attention or allowed you to consider people that were coming to you in non-traditional ways?
[00:10:40] Bill: I found that recommendations, word of mouth, people that worked with people before. Honest feedback, people that know me and my organization and what we're looking for can be extremely valuable. And I also want to find somebody to play to their strengths not their weaknesses because everyone has weaknesses.
Fit is important. So if people can help me find that person, I don't mind people that have weaknesses, we can work around that, but we have to find how the person fits. So I would say that's the best source I know of, recommendations from people you trust. They will give you honest recommendations. And then, coaches, there's a whole coaching network out there.
There are people now that are helping people who have lost jobs, helping them find jobs that are really terrific. Helping the individual get ready and then bringing them to us and saying, here's someone, you know, that would fit really well with the kind of organization you have. Let's see if we can find a place for them in your place.
Maybe you don't have the perfect fit, but let's find-let's see if we can make it work.
[00:11:39] Mosah: What advice would you give to a candidate or an executive who wanted to join your teams? How would someone be able to position themselves who is searching to join an executive rank, but might not be on the radar screen of some of the major recruiting firms?
[00:11:53] Bill: When I was interviewing people from Medtronic, or even for boards of directors now, which I've done a lot of. Finding people that have done their homework, that they have studied the organization, they know what it's about. They know what we stand for, and they know who we are and not just trying to impress me or anyone else, but they find that there is a cohesion and a link between what we're trying to do and what they offer.
And that they've thought enough about that to say, here's how I think I could really help. And I know I can help them by offering the job, but I want to know how they can help us achieve our objectives. So then they have to understand what those would be, they have to read up enough. So do your homework, go on every call, don’t ever do an interview where you haven't done your homework.
You didn't really know those things and you know, the people and you studied the people today. You can go on LinkedIn, you can Google them, you can get all kinds of information on people. Well, did you do that? Did you take time to figure out who it is you're talking to and what it's all about?
That's what I would recommend
[00:12:48] Mosah: What advice would you give to an executive undergoing a job search today? If you were looking for your next role and you were starting with the world is your oyster kind of approach, what would be those tactics or hallmark of a search that you would deem to be successful and fruitful?
How would you recommend someone get started?
[00:13:07] Bill: Started? Well, if you're the executive looking for a job, find out, do enough homework on the organization, find out where you fit and then answer the question for yourself. How can you help? How can you help this organization be better? How can you help the person in front of you, maybe your next boss and how can you help them be more effective in the organization?
What do you bring to it? What's the character you bring and be prepared to share that and have a good sense of what you can offer. And don't just look for the highest paying job. Look for the one where you're going to be satisfied and fulfilled, but then tell them why you're excited about this company
Why do you want to do this? That it's just another job? So I don't want to look at someone who I think is a careerist. I want someone to see us. Hey, this is, this is where I'd like to be. I realized maybe I wasn't in the right place before, but I think I could really add a lot to your organization.
[00:14:00] Mosah: I'm on the phone with my clients and my candidates all the time.
And they're always wondering, what is the CEO looking for? How can I prove that I'm the best general counsel or how do I even get noticed? Just curious if there's anything else that you would give to job seekers or perspective of executive team members?
[00:14:15] Bill: You know, if we look back 50 or a hundred years, we hired people for their hands.
And then we went to I'd say the last 40 years and we hired people for their brains, for their heads. We wanted the smartest person . Even people said that, Bill Gates said, I want the smartest person I can find. It's changed today. We want people for their hearts. There are a lot of smart people out there.
A lot of well educated people out there. There are a lot of we are going to do the job. And by the way, you don't have to be the smartest person, you can surround yourself with really talented people that make up for your blind spots. Let me give you an example. I went to Medtronic, I knew a lot about technology. I didn't know anything about medicine.
So I teamed up with a medical doctor and a technologist. And these people really taught me the business. And so I relied heavily on them. Every time I had to make a key decision. You have to lead with your heart today. That's what True North is all about. And so I really encourage people to show me your heart, show me who you are.
Do you have empathy? Do you have concern? Do you have passion? Could you have passion for this business? And I think the hardest one to measure of all, which is the most important, is do you have courage? Are you going to make the bold decision? Because as you go up it's a lonely job at the top, and you want people around with courage to say here’s what we’re going to do.
I'll give you an example. Corie Barry, the young 44 year old CEO of Best Buy. Eight months into the job COVID hit. At first she thought it was just supply chain coming from Asia. Then she realized, oh my gosh, it was here. It's here in the United States. And her predecessor had put out there, you know, lay off as the last resort, you know what?
She had to close a thousand stores and lay off 52,000 people-furlough. And she couldn't process it when they came back, she tried to make it as easy as possible, linking up with their government packages as stimulus. But, you know, that was a very courageous decision. And as a result of that, she rethought the whole business.
She couldn't send service people in the home, guess what? We can do it electronically. We can do tella service. And they rethought the whole business, maybe people like to pick it up outside the store and never come in. That's the kind of courageous. I've seen other retailers in the exact same timeframe didn't have the courage and now they're in real trouble. So it takes courage to make big decisions. And that's what it takes to lead. And not just the CEO. It takes a whole team with courage to make those bold decisions. And that's what I think people are looking for today. That's a matter of the heart.
You're not born with courage. You aren't born with empathy. You learn these things through life experiences. Is that just physical courage? I've known about moral courage, where you had to stay true to your values, or you're willing to walk away from a great job that paid you a lot of money because it violates your values.
And you said, no, I'm not going to do that. But that's the kind of, I think qualities that all the CEOs I know, I know a lot of them are looking for in building their teams today, not just at the top, but throughout the organization. When they're hiring first-level people, that's what they want. And they want to build that cohesiveness by coming together around that sense of passionate and leading with the heart.
[00:17:25] Mosah: Bill, you know, it's interesting. We've had a couple of conversations and we've been talking now for a little while and for the CEO of a company who grew their business 60 X over your time at Medtronic, I haven't heard you mention profitability. I've only heard you talk about the qualities of an individual's moral courage, a compass, having this sense of a true north and on top of all that, you're an engineer.
So putting all of that together,is it a safe assumption for our listeners to think that when you have all of these intangible qualities in line and the team is clicking that profitability and financial success or a business's success are one of the byproducts of that? And without it, you can't really optimize the economics.
Is that a safe assumption or correct me where I might be wrong on that?
[00:18:17] Bill: We've been having this great debate of shareholders versus stakeholders for like 40 years. And for a long time, the shareholder group was winning short-term value. I'll tell you it doesn't work. And organizations say, you know, we're going to make 391 a share. Everyone gets aligned around that.
Maybe the top people get the big bonuses. I can tell you the troops don't get aligned at that. I could never say that in Medtronic because someone making a heart valve because all they care about is ensuring that valve is perfect because they know someone will die, but it's not. So I think the key to leadership today is serving your customers.
You're a servant leader. If you really believe you're serving your customers, well, then they're willing to pay you for that service. And they're going to, you're going to get good margins. You bring them innovation, you bring them your service model. Products. And by doing that, that's what inspires your employees.
You can't go talk to the scientists at Merck and say, you know, we want 391 a share, they'd laugh you out of the room. They want something that's going to save a life. But it's just in that area, people want, you know, on the sales floor of a retail store at a target store, they just want to help you. And that's what the service industries are about.
So you've got to focus on the customer and that's what inspires your employees. And when you do that, you're going to gain market share. You're going to get better margins because you're not just cutting prices. If you can manage your business reasonably well, that's going to result in higher profitability, which is going to create more shareholder value. But you have to take that profitability and re-invest, you have to invest in your people getting really good people.
It's ridiculous what we pay first-line people. Can you imagine anyone, even an 18 year old kid making $7.25 an hour? Ridiculous today. You know, people will wash dishes for $22 an hour because they don't want to live their life that way. So I think we have to find that common purpose of bringing people together and serve all our stakeholders and the shareholders.It's like a mathematical equation. If you do those things, profits will be the end. And then you reinvest, you reinvest in capital equipment. You invest in IT, you invest in research and development, whatever your business is. As a result you’re going to earn a lot of money. You’re going to do really well.
And I’ve seen this work in so many organizations, so many industries. So that's why I haven't talked about it because I've been very successful in generating that kind of shareholder value. But if it gets the result, it doesn't start with that as the goal
[00:20:33] Mosah: Bill, if an executive or an aspiring executive, wanted to get your guidance on how to best start their search or what tools or partners they might need in their search, would you recommend they reach out to a search firm? What kind of guidance would you give to someone as they embarked on that journey?
[00:20:52] Bill: I get a lot of calls from people who are going through a career change for whatever reason. They're unhappy in their last job. They went through a merger acquisition, whatever it is, maybe they lost their job. It was a political thing that got pushed out. What I tell them is find somebody who can help you; a coach, a mentor, a firm that knows how to help you present yourself to potential employers. Who knows probably what the employers would maybe be looking for
It's not just having a search firm. They are not representing you. They're representing the firm and their job is to fill that job. And you may think they have a lot of interest in placing you, they really don't. The bottom line for me is to find someone. A firm or someone who can help you get in position to go to the right organization for.
And present you. You know sometimes it’s a lot easier for somebody else to present you, then present yourself. You've got to present yourself well, but they're going to also be someone who knows you more intimately and what you can bring to the organization. That can make the case for you. The best cut agents in sports do know how to do that.
And so I would encourage you to find someone like that. Don't do it all on your own. Don't just kick around and send out resumes at 500 people. That's not going to get you anything . Find somebody who can help you and be on your team. You need a team at this time.
[00:22:11] Mosah: Bill, you've had the fortune of being on a number of different corporate boards and non-profit boards over the course of your career. Would you share a little bit about that background and those experiences with our listeners?
[00:22:26] Bill: I love serving on corporate boards. It has kind of been a next career. I actually put a limit on time. I was going to be CEO of Medtronic. I wrapped that up at 58/59. I'd actually been serving on smaller company boards. And I always tell people, never turn down a board because it's too small. It will be a great learning experience. The hardest thing is to get on that first board. I was serving on the board of Valspar, which is a paint company, which had very less than a business.
I learned so much from the chairman and CEO, about how to make acquisitions, I learned more from him. then I did at any point in my career. And so then I've had some amazing opportunities, but I only want to be on a board where there's a high level of transparency from the CEO. I wouldn't serve on a board where things aren't open because it's hard to pick out what's going on.
And so I've had the chance to serve on Target, Novartis, a Swiss drug company and Goldman Sachs, and Exxonmobil and the Mayo clinic. It builds just amazing experiences. And we went through CEO changes at every one of them and going through that process, finding who is the right leader coming up and really loving the people and caring about them.
I just loved the experience. But if you're going to be on a board don't you be a visitor. Dive in with both feet when there's a crisis that they ask you to step up, you got to step up. I remember in 2008, right when the global financial crash and I was on a board of Goldman and Goldman actually navigated that very well.
But then a couple of years later, it's like Goldman became the face of evil. And the eyes of the media and a couple of senators are after Goldman. There was a lawsuit from the FCC, and I remember Willie the chairman called and asked me to chair a committee. It's called the business standards committee that he'd had appointed 150 senior partners to take the firm apart top to bottom.
And we did. And I remember it having 16 meetings for this committee that also included the past CEO of Walmart and Pricewaterhouse and Colgate. It was quite an experience, but when you're asked to step up, you've got to step up. Did it take a lot of time? Sure. But in a crisis you have to, so you can think of serving on a board and go to six meetings. Actually when there's a crisis, when you step up, if the CEO has to leave or leave suddenly, or gets fired, you step up as a board member and that's what good board members do. You don't just fade into the background. I find a lot of board members do fade into the backdrop. When that crunch comes, they don't step up.
I want people that will engage with the business, get to know the people, understand the insights and the nuances, not just the numbers. But when the numbers are presented to a board, you can't change it. I think the board resuming party results, a big waste of time. That's history. That's done.
It's the people. If you want to shape and getting the right people and helping the CEO get the right people in the right jobs and creating the character of the firm, that really matters.
[00:25:06] Mosah: Wyou help us peek behind the curtain? Becoming a board member I think you've said that getting your first is the hardest and perhaps it's got a positive snowball effect.
Would you share for our listeners a little bit of the insight in what a board goes through to recruit a new board member and how someone might get noticed?
[00:25:25] Bill: I get a lot of calls today from people who want to be on corporate boards. And again, I advise them don't ever pass up a board because it's too small.
You might pass it up because you don't like the people. And always ask the question, what can I contribute? And then look at what you got to learn. Every board has learning experience. Going to take a lot of your time, even though it's in a business, you never thought you'd ever be in. You're going to learn a lot. Like I learned on the Goldman Sachs board, you're going to learn a heck of a lot.
I learned more at Novartis on a European board about how things work in Europe. And so I look at it as a learning experience. And then share that with the people it's not just, oh, you bring these specific qualities or qualifications. It's more of the qualities you bring to that board and, and get to know the CEO.
And if you don't have residence and you don't resonate with a CEO, it’s probably the wrong place because you're going to have to have that rapport and you're going to have to want to help each other. So would
[00:26:20] Mosah: Would you maybe break down the process for us that a board goes through when they're hiring the CEO?
When they're hiring that top position. What does that process look like behind the scenes?
[00:26:32] Bill: I found that what boards are looking for that I have served on in looking for a new chief executive officer, their criteria has changed a lot. You can get a search firm to present 10 candidates on paper to look awesome, but you got to find that fit.
So I think that's what they're looking for. And they realize that what's past is past. That was the year before. What's the next 10 years going to look like? And so we need to find someone who has the adaptability and the fluidity and the resilience and the courage to adapt to changing conditions.
No one would ever predicted world is going to be shut down by a pandemic. I'm not sure many people predicted the financial collapse back in 2008. And so you want to look for people that have that ability to grow. So people on a growth track, that's just who've had every resume and done everything.
No, what have they done? Have they made a difference? And then find someone who could really come to our company and fit in and be a part of our culture that wants to be interested in learning that culture wants to be a learner, not a know it all, but a learner who's going to learn the business. We don't expect someone with me outside to know it all, but they can then have insights we don't have.
So that's what I would look for in trying to hire a CEO for our company.
[00:27:51] Mosah: if you were a CEO candidate or someone who is hoping to be a CEO at some point, what can someone do to either prepare themselves for that type of a position or what can they do to advantage themselves in that type of search.
[00:28:05] Bill: Do your job really well.
It's not about the next job and never burn your bridges. I tell a lot of people this. If you're unhappy and making a change, you want to leave, you never burn your bridges. So somebody's going to call the firm and say, tell me the downside on this person. Keep a good relationship, and what goes around in life comes around.
So keep those relationships with people. And then when it comes up for you to make a change, you'll have a network of people who are your supporters. Not everyone's going to be a hundred percent, but you'll have people that really believe in you and they'll give you the right reference or recommendation, or they'll open the door for you.It’s something you never even thought of . So listen to those people.
[00:28:44] Mosah: Can you give some examples of that door opening? I think that's something that candidates all too often just are surprised by, but it really does come down to those relationships. How have you seen or perhaps even experienced that door being opened for you or for others in your network?
[00:29:00] Bill: I remember it back in my years as president of Honeywell, Europe. I get two different letters from people that say, do you want to meet this person? I think you would really like to hire him. We had no job openings at the time. I asked him to come. And he had worked before at a parallel organization.
I did bring him in, I actually created a job for him and he went on to become CEO of a major company. He’s just a fantastic human being. Well, I only did that because I really trusted the two people who recommended him, that they had my best interest at heart, as well as them. They weren't trying to con someone off on me, but they really saw it here as somebody with potential that you ought to take a look at. It's that intimate knowledge of the individual that I resonated with.
[00:29:48] Mosah: Bill. I want to talk a little bit about your latest book and the associated field book. And the discovery of one's true north. What, from your research and your shared experience, has discovering one's true north really taught you about leadership? If you could summarize it for listeners, what has it taught you about the hallmarks or fundamentals of leadership written?
[00:30:11] Bill: When I was actually leading in the eighties and nineties, I just saw a lot of bad examples of bad leaders and I was pretty turned off. And so when I got into an academic role as a practitioner at Harvard business school, I did a lot of research on leaders. I went out and talked to 125 initially, and then another 50 for the latest book to find out what it was all about because people in those days were looking at traits and characteristics.
Leadership's not about your traits and characteristics. It's about your character. As my mentor, Warren Bennis told me-leadership is key. And so, I think there's been a huge change in my whole goal. The last 18 years has been to try to change leadership so that we get people with character who know who they are.
That's their true north, their north star, their purpose of their leadership. Why they're leading and know how to bring people together as coaches, if you will, not as bosses, to create great organizations. And that's what I'm trying to do. And I think it's today, we're seeing an awful lot of emerging leaders, the gen X, the millennials, the gen Z, they’re stepping up to leadership. All organizations need leaders. There's no such thing as a successful leadership organization. I think that what we need to do today is to give people the opportunity to open the door, to let them show what they can do. So I've tried to inspire them to do that and inspire the people, working with it, to give people those opportunities.
And if we can do.that, we need leadership. Leaders make such a difference in organizations. We look at Satya Nadella, totally transformed Microsoft from a totally political, very difficult place, into an amazing growth story. And it's paid off for him. But there are a lot of leaders like that out there. Look at Mary Barra who has taken a company like General Motors and transformed the whole place.
And there are a lot of people with smaller organizations, they're doing the same thing. So the leader matters. And so I just want to inspire people at all levels. We need leaders at all levels. So you have people with no direct reports that are really thought leaders in the organization. So that's what I've been devoting myself nonstop for the last 18 years.
[00:32:20] Mosah: Bill on every episode of the show, we ask our guests to suggest a nonprofit that we should make a contribution to as a thank you for their participation in the episode. And I'd like to know what non-profit we're supporting today and why that's important to you?
[00:32:35] Bill: Very generous of you. I would like to suggest the contribution go to the Penny George Institute at Atlanta health. It's named for my wife. She doesn't work there, but it is an organization that's trying to look at the whole person, mind, body, and spirit in healthcare and help restore and renew whole people, not just give them surgery or do a test, but it's helped them be whole people. And so that would be wonderful if you could support that organization. I'd be very thrilled if that happened and she would be too
[00:33:04] Mosah: Thank you so much Bill, really appreciate having you on the show today and looking forward to your next book, which I'm sure is in the works.
[00:33:15] Richard: Thank you for joining us on Hiring Insights. Remember, you can learn more about Top Talent Advocates and listen to other episodes by visiting www.toptalentadvocates.com and click on the podcast. You can also email us at tta@toptalentadvocates.com.Description text goes here
