Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 47 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Leadership skills from Sam Walton
— From Building on Bedrock: What Sam Walton, Walt Disney, and Other Great Self-Made Entrepreneurs Can Teach Us About Building Valuable Companies by Derek Lidow
Derek Lidow, is one of my favorite entrepreneurs. He was the CEO of a USD $2-billion public company, and left because he saw a need in the market. In truly entrepreneurial fashion, he decided to fulfill that need, founded iSuppli (a leading market research firm), grew it successfully and sold it for $100 million. Today he gives back by teaching, mentoring and writing. In his latest book, Building on Bedrock, he shares his insights on what it takes to be an entrepreneur with detailed stories—warts and all—of well-known and not-so-well-known entrepreneurs to illustrate the who, what, when, where, how much and why of their successes and failures.
One of the known leaders that he focuses on throughout the book is Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart. Lidow analyzes 5 core skills that Walton had—and that every leader must have—in order to accomplish their goals. We can all learn so much from this!
- Self-awareness. “Sam always listened and watched to see what could be improved… as soon as he realized he had a gap, he acquired and practiced the requisite skills. Self-awareness is itself a skill, not something you’re born with. You can learn it—learn how to identify your capabilities and your personal modes of learning and self-improvement.”
- Relationship building. “Sam was highly skilled at building relationships—creating strong, shared objectives with others. It’s a skill that you can learn and master, whether you are an extrovert or an introvert. […] Sam most likely mastered relationship building by deliberately practicing with people to whom he wanted to get closer. When he set a goal of getting to know somebody, he accomplished it and then figured out how he could do it better the next time.”
- Motivating others. As most leaders, Sam was charismatic. Contrary to popular belief that this is an inborn trait, Lidow says, “the ability to motivate other people is a skill that you can learn and practice. Sam’s technique is classic: he made people feel good about themselves in the context of doing something important [whether for Walmart, church, a sports team, etc.]… You can imagine him saying something like, ‘it’s amazing how well you penetrated the defense in last night’s game; what’s your new technique?’ People on the receiving end not only feel good about themselves, but also want to rise to the occasion again.”
- Leading change. Lidow states that most change is confusing because it’s usually poorly envisioned and poorly aligned, and I would add to that poorly communicated. However, in the case of Sam Walton, he was constantly changing things to improve them. “The associates and managers of Walmart expected change, embraced change and viewed change as positive… because Sam explicitly let them know why each change was important, what was expected, and how they could benefit from it. […] Not that there weren’t surprises or mistakes, or disappointments, but Sam’s weekly meetings meant that adjustments and mitigations were made quickly.” By having weekly meetings, outlining the changes to be made, and receiving feedback and suggestions on what went well, what didn’t, and what needed improvement, Sam was continually engaging in intentional and deliberate practice and, thus, honed in his change leadership skills that way.
- Enterprise basics. “This too,” says Lidow, “is a learned skill, not one you’re born with… [Sam] created simple routines (i.e., processes) that made repetitive tasks… as productive as possible, so he and the organization could focus on relentlessly implementing improvements (i.e., projects). He diligently created a culture of people who loved to undertake projects and use processes to make customers happy…” While this last skill may seem to apply solely to entrepreneurs, I would respectfully disagree: I think finding ways to operate effectively, productively and using our time wisely is the best that we can do for ourselves, our workplace and all our efforts.
ACTION
TODAY: Think about how you apply these 5 leadership skills from Sam Walton on a daily basis. Rate yourself and figure where you need help. Figure out how/where/what kind of help you will get.
FUTURE: One of the most important things as a leader is to develop your relationships: practice deliberately. Set up a goal to meet and get to know one or more people, and then go about doing so. I’m excited for you—let me know how it goes!
Know someone who could use some help to sharpen their leadership skills? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!