When you Google the word “Leadership,” approximately 737,000,000 results come up in the search. You can read articles and opinions for days about the psychology of a leader, leadership skills, leadership styles, the qualities of a great leader, determining whether a leader is born, teaching leadership qualities, etc. The options are never-ending. There are countless leadership training programs, educational courses, seminars, conferences, workshops, videos and speeches … you name it. Each promises to create leaders, boost sales, change lives, assemble teams, etc., all with the purpose to ultimately help you achieve leadership greatness.
It makes me wonder: What is our obsession with leadership? Our society idolizes, glorifies and vilifies our leaders. All it takes is a few moments of watching the discussions on the evening news to see it firsthand, especially in the year of Presidential Election. Our politicians glorify and vilify one another right along with the public. People love to be inspired by great leaders and innovators, such as Steve Jobs. When he was living, we highly anticipated his next revolutionary idea. People waited in lines for hours, even days, to be the first to purchase whatever product that was offered at the next Apple unveiling. Now that he has passed away, we read his biography, view his TED talks, repeat his quotes and watch the movies that Hollywood produced about his life. We idolize him as a great leader, a hero of information technology. He’s truly fascinating to a large portion of the population.
Then, you take someone who posed himself as a great leader, such as Bernie Madoff, who turned into a villain. He schemed, plotted and lied his way to the top, all the while, leading people through one of the largest financial fraud cases in U.S. history. Both Steve Jobs and Bernie Madoff have changed many lives and made a profound impact on our society, obviously for absolutely different reasons. And, in these extreme cases, it is clear to see why we are obsessed with their stories.
But what about the everyday leader? The small business owner who employs a handful of people, the teacher shaping the adults of tomorrow, the chief of police at the local station keeping neighborhoods safe … do they possess the same skills as the famous leaders? My guess is, yes, to some degree, but it also depends on who you ask. In my opinion, leadership is hard to define and it means different things to different people. In the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, leadership is defined as, “A position as a leader of a group, organization, etc.; the time when a person holds the position of leader; the power or ability to lead other people.” Those are pretty basic definitions for a subject that is extremely complex and far-reaching. No wonder we have a fascination with trying to define it, grasp it, bottle it and teach it. Leadership is a commodity and those who possess it are quite often held in high regard when they use it wisely.
A question that arises in regard to leadership is what are the qualities of a good leader? One of my favorite quotes is from former President Dwight D. Eisenhower who said, “The supreme quality of leadership is integrity.” While there are many opinions on the qualities of leadership, I completely agree with the importance of integrity. Growing up in a small farming community in the heart of the Midwest, my parents owned a multigenerational plumbing and heating business, and integrity was a way of life. In order for the family business to prosper, there was no question we had to be honest and fair and conduct ourselves with integrity. In a small town, you could not thrive, let alone survive, any other way. Later in life, when I was building my career in the mortgage industry, that value stayed with me. When I made my way to Wallick & Volk, I was immediately struck by the core values that the company was founded on, in 1932: Operate with trust, speak with good purpose, strive for mastery, conduct ourselves with integrity, encourage personal responsibility. There it was again … integrity. I have used that value as a building block for my achievements and I attribute it to my success as an effective leader for Wallick & Volk to it.
As a leader, you must demonstrate integrity in every aspect of your business, regardless of the industry. This sets the tone for how your employees will conduct themselves within the organization. It becomes the foundation of the culture of the company. I believe a leader doesn’t create the culture of a company; a leader creates an opportunity for the culture to be created by the sum of its parts. The people create the culture. By bringing the people together, the culture creates itself. That being said, as a leader, you must look to hire people with integrity that will uphold the standards that have been set by the organization as a whole and build upon the foundation you’ve created. It comes down to the people in the organization working together for the common goal of the company, which obviously is different in every firm.
I think Richard Branson says it best, “If you look after your staff, they’ll look after your customers. It’s that simple.”
Maybe it is that simple after all.
Michael Groff is president and chief executive officer of Wallick & Volk. He may be reached by phone at (307) 771 8397 or visit WVMB.com.
This article originally appeared in the April 2016 print edition of National Mortgage Professional Magazine.
