Your ears perk up when a speaker who grew a company from 900 employees to 20,000 quotes a Catholic saint and a Buddhist lama in a talk about leadership.
Santo "Sandy" Costa is the retired president and chief operating officer of biopharmaceutical company Quintiles Transnational Corp., a former board member at the former Glaxo, Inc., and author of the book Humanity at Work. At Quintiles he oversaw the employee growth noted above and a rise in annual revenue from $90 million (US) to $1.7 billion. His speech before the North Carolina Chapter of the Project Management Institute (NCPMI) last month was a departure from the normal useful but staid talks about risk management and schedule controls. Too often motivational speakers say wonderful things I wish were true, but know are not. Not this guy. Without trying, he lined right up with the research about team leadership for the most part.
"If we help the people around us to succeed, we will (succeed)," he said. His businessman father did not talk about being responsible for 40 employees, Costa said. He talked about being responsible for 40 families. As you move up in a company hierarchy, Costa said, more and more of your job is to help others. Prefer to do the technical side of your job? Don't accept promotions.
Costa said there are three things a leader must do:
- "Get things done."
- "Understand people, and everything about them."
- "Understand yourself."
This is a strikingly different list from the standard job ad for a middle manager. The ads always emphasize knowledge of this technical area or the other, and experience in the particular industry. Costa argues that two out of three job requirements relate to "soft" skills, and I note that around 70% of a typical company budget is for people. These combined suggest 70 percent of any manager job ad and manager's time should be dedicated to helping people get their jobs done.
The Catholic saint Costa quoted, Ignatius Loyola, was the founder of a monastic order known as the Jesuits. Costa said Loyola made sure his monks each day "reflected on their goals, how they saw themselves in the world." He wanted them to ask every day, "How am I doing?" Costa said Loyola trained every monk to be a leader because he did not want any to think of themselves as followers.
The best manager I ever had, Peggy Durbin, put this quote from the Catholic nun Mother Theresa in her e-mail signature: "Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person." As I have probably mentioned too many times in Teams Blog, a consistent finding in business research is that empowerment is one of the most powerful means of raising productivity.
However, Costa said, "You can't help others unless you help yourself." He spent a notable amount of time on being aware of your own attitude. Costa talked about an uncle who could sit down to dinner and in 10 minutes take you from a good mood "to looking for a sharp instrument to end your life." Costa's brother called the uncle, "Mr. Sunshine." Costa believes, "We are allowed to choose at any given moment how we will feel…" Quoting the Tibetan Buddhist leader the Dalai Lama he added, "‘Pain is inevitable; suffering is not.'" I know this is not always easy to accept in the moment. I'm having a rough week after a big work mistake and trying to remember, as Costa said, "Have mercy on yourself."
Regarding work, Costa's line that perhaps drew the most laughs was that no matter how many hours you work, "the number of people who attend your funeral will largely be determined by the weather."
Costa's definition of a team loosely fits the common scientific definitions: "a selfless group of people working toward a common goal." But he went further to say, "The reason we work (in groups) is human beings are intensely social." This brought to mind the idea of anthropologist Helen Schwartzman "that individuals in groups or organizations need to make decisions, or to develop or create problems or crises, because these are occasions for meetings, and groups and organizations… need meetings because it is through the meeting that the group or organization creates and maintains itself." Humans are social animals, both are saying, and despite all the aggravations of group work, most of us would rather work together than alone.
My only quibble with Costa is with his list called, "Traits of a Leader":
- "Humble."
- "Respectful of others."
- "Compassionate."
- "Understanding of ‘constructive' criticism."
- "Self-aware."
I don't disagree that these are valuable traits. But the scientific literature has failed to find any set of traits or qualities of a leader that improves performance in every kind of organization. And this set of traits is important for superior performance at any level of a company—that is, they do not differentiate a great leader from a great assembly line worker with no interest in leading. That makes the traits no less important, but they are not sufficient to define leadership.
Costa exemplifies what currently is called the "servant leader." Earlier in his career it would have been called "leading from behind," and before that the "reverse pyramid" (putting the workers at the top). He was also incredibly successful at making money for his corporation, creating compounded annual growth rates in revenue and net income of around 80%. I propose that the two facts are connected. If you think this is likely, I have a question for you: "How are you doing?"
Action Item: Do you want to be a top leader in a company? Go ask every teammate or supervisee what you can do to help them.
Sources:
- Costa, S. (2011), "Humanity at Work: Encouraging Spirit, Achievement and Truth to Flourish in the Workplace," speech to N.C. Project Management Institute, 3/24/11.
- Schwartzman, H. (1986), "Research on Work Group Effectiveness: An Anthropological Critique," from Designing Effective Work Groups, Goodman, P., ed. Jossey-Bass Publishers: San Francisco.
