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FROM THE FOUNDER
Being a real leader
I have my friend, Matt Lewis, vice president and general manager of Lewis Automotive, come speak to my small enterprise classes at the Walton College each spring. Matt came into his family business about 15 or so years ago and has been very successful. If you want to be an effective leader, you must help others, build trust, and set the best example every day.
He likes to tell the story about how, early in his career, he held a meeting with his salespeople, and then how afterward, he saw “the meeting after the meeting” out back – one that would be led by someone who was usually the person who had worked there the longest. Matt made it his goal to win that person’s support by helping them. Whatever it was they needed to facilitate a quicker sale, he did it. Wash the car, get the paperwork and manuals together, find the keys, anything necessary so the salesperson could move onto their next customer. He wanted that salesperson to know he was there to help. And then he hoped they would spread the word to the other people there that he wasn’t just an entitled family member. It was a good strategy, and it worked. I tell this story because it demonstrates what an intelligent leader does. They don’t just issue orders and expect others to follow them. They instead earn
the respect of everyone else. There are thousands of books out there on leadership – and probably millions of articles on the same topic. I won’t bother getting into all the names of one approach or another – some of which have turned into tired cliches (“level 5 leadership,” “servant leader,” etc.). But you can boil down the essence of leadership to three things. First, to win the support of others you have to help them achieve their goals (even if those are simple goals such as what they need to accomplish in a single day). Second, you have to build trust. And third, you must set a personal example for what you want other people to do. Skip any of these three and you will have problems. I have already given an example of helping others
Mark Zweig
See MARK ZWEIG, page 12
THE ZWEIG LETTER SEPTEMBER 26, 2022, ISSUE 1458
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