Lessons on Leadership from the Best in Banking
November 20, 2013 11:00 PM
What does it take to be an effective leader? Here's some insight from our bankers of the year, John Stumpf, Simone Lagomarsino, Joseph DePaolo and Johnny Allison.
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Good leadership is not about being the boss
"My philosophy is that I work for them, not the other way around," Joseph DePaolo says of the employees at Signature Bank in New York City.
"If they need me to go out on a client call, I will be there, and if they just need to let off some steam, they know they can talk to me not as the CEO, but as a person they work with. I have to let them call me up and be frustrated. I have to allow them to get mad at me instead of getting mad at somebody else."
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Always credit the team
"This is simply not about me," says Wells Fargo's John Stumpf. "The star of the team here is the team."
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Be generous with your employees and share the wealth
"We are cheap in some respects, but we do reward our rainmakers who make it happen," says Johnny Allison, who describes Home Bancshares' stock incentive program as "life changing" because it helps employees pay off their homes and send their kids to college.
"I've made more money than I ever thought I'd make in my life. I'm enjoying sharing it with those who helped. I didn't do this by myself. I led it. They did it and I want to pay them back. How many steaks can you eat and how many airplanes can you fly?"
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Put people in the roles that best suit their talents so they can excel
"You get the right people on the bus, you get them in the right seats and you get the wrong people off the bus," says Simone Lagomarsino of Heritage Oak Bank in Paso Robles, Calif., quoting, as she likes to do, from Jim Collin's best-selling book, "Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap
and Others Don't."
"It takes time and in some cases that's why the middle part is important. You may have the right people that are not in the right seat. You can have the most talented players, but if they don't work well as a team, you'll still lose. We're only as strong as the people around us."
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Recognize missteps as the learning opportunities that they are
"Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment" is a signature quote of Allison's.
This linewhich Allison credits to Kemmons Wilson, founder of the Holiday Inn chainoften punctuates talk about how Home took its losses in Florida and used the insight it gained to make smarter bids on bank failures.
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Work hard
DePaolo says he has had a number of mentors in his career, but the person who influenced him most was his father, who laid bricks for 30 years before becoming a doorman in an upscale Manhattan apartment building.
"My dad worked decades in construction without ever missing a day; as a doorman he worked double shifts and then he would bartend on weekends," DePaolo says. "That work ethic stuck with me."
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Strengthen the team by letting go of people who aren't a good fit
"I love John Wooden. I love using sports analogies as a good example of teamwork in an organization," says Lagomarsino. "You can have the most talented players, but if they don't work well as a team, you'll still lose. The hard part is how do you help people who shouldn't be on the team, leave? And sometimes it's easier to think in terms of sports. If a team trades players, they may not be a bad player, and they can go off to another team and have a better fit. When we have someone leave, we try to help them transition to a place where it's a better fit. I've had people come back and thank me saying it's the best thing that ever happened. It helped me unstick."
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Keep the focus on the customers above all else
"I'm a tight son-of-a-gun on a lot of things, but you never hear me fuss about taking care of our customers. You take care of those people because they are our lifeblood," says Allison.
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Have a clear understanding of what is most important about your job
You might be surprised to know that our bankers of the year didn't talk about the bottom line when identifying what they consider to be the most critical part of what they do.
For Stumpf, it is making sure Wells lives its "vision and values."
"If I have any one job here, it's keeper of the culture," he says.
Similarly Allison sees being a "guide" as his primary mission.
"My people run the bank. I direct, guide and lead. That's my job here."
