Celebration of Leadership
"Leadership is Developing Other Leaders"
Phil Cox, President and CEO Cox Financial Corporation Cincinnati, Ohio
What we so often see today is the results of a lack of leadership. True leadership has its distinguishing marks. These include the recognition and bringing forth of others —our own people—our associates and colleagues—with leadership potential. In this day where we and our organizations must be smaller, faster, fiercer, that’s a must for leadership. Andrew Carnegie once said, "Take away everything else I have and leave me my people and within three years I’ll have it all back again."
BBM International says it must hire 18,000 people by 2000 in hopes of keeping 12,000. The root problem is that we just don’t value education anymore. Young people are refusing to take advantage of educational opportunities that are there for them.
Call it downsizing or rightsizing. It’s only cutting expenses so far. And most of the personnel cuts are affecting people who are around the age of 55—people at the time of their lives when they are ready to give their maximum contributions to the company. With all of this lost loyalty we will be unable to remain a world power.
I sit on the Federal Reserve Board. There are twelve people on the Board. Chairman Greenspan recently asked each member whether they felt productivity was up. Before me, every member said productivity was up. I said it was not. Technology gives us only the illusion of being more productive. People now spend , on average, six hours per week on the job not working. The American work force is not what it used to be. People no longer come with a company and stay. Their pay increases and promotions come about largely due to their moving about in the work force. This adversely impacts employees’ corporate loyalty.
It has been said that capitalism unequally distributes its bounty while socialism unequally distributes its misery.
How we got here? Often we fail to understand what the problem is. We got here because we decided it was easier to treat things than prevent them. We’ve lowered the bar, not raised it.
Let’s say that there’s a 17-year-old black person with a child and her career objective is to get a job with Cincinnati Bell. We’d likely applaud that, but who would applaud that for their own child. We must raise the bar for all children.
We have lost a sense of absolutes in values. There are things that are wrong and we must stand up and say so. We are plagued with a woefully low stock of ideas. We pay others to do for many others that which they cannot do for themselves. And children are the most unprotected people in our society. Worst of all, the police are now our first line of discipline.
Our youth out there have in large numbers just given up. "Hope cannot be without fear; fear cannot be without hope," the saying goes. But they don’t hope; they don’t see many reasons for hope.
The only thing wrong in America is the same thing that’s wrong with you, and in your own home.
What’s the likely outcome? America will become second rate. The specter of class warfare looms. Discipline has been lost. There are now only 2.2 workers in America for each retiree. By 2000 that will be closer to 1.7 workers per retiree—and that ratio will only get smaller as the Baby Boomers retire.
The lines have been or will be drawn: Haves versus have-nots. Educated versus the uneducated. Young versus old.
I am a patriotic American. As such, I say that anyone who doesn’t understand the lasting and preferential differences between a hand up and a handout just doesn’t understand what America is all about. "Throw-aways" condemn us to be less than we can be.
The basis of all civilization is family unity! Often we think these problems are someone else’s. The best, the perfect place for us all to lead is our own homes.
Seeking luxury, we forgot that it was our adversity that brought us here. Doing to one another, we forgot the positive value and benefits in doing for one another. We gave everything to our children. They’ve lost the "stick-to-it-ness" we were taught. They’re impatient—wanting immediately things we work years to get. We’ve created "a generation of leaners."
My own daughter, Kimberly, was living in Chicago where she shared an apartment with another girl. When the other girl moved out, Kimberly thought she could no longer afford the apartment, even to stay in Chicago. She called me. "Can I come home, Dad?" "No," I said, "you’ll work it out." She did not come home and she did work it out on her own.
Leadership is developing other leaders. If it all falls apart when you’re gone, what good did you really do?
And, again, the process starts in our own homes.
Somewhere we forgot that if better is possible, good is not enough. My advice is that we must be modest as a giver; we must show others how to acquire for themselves that which they need .
We have confused substance with the shadows of substance. "Substance" means to me discipline, a sense of urgency, accountability, and vision. Those are the substantive things that support and sustain us.
Leadership is motivation and example. As leaders, you allow them to believe through you. Example is the visual manifestation of what those who follow you believe.
When I had to be "replaced" during my mother's eulogy, my daughter, Erin, stepped forward and did so magnificently. Afterward, I asked her how she had done that. She said, "I've watched you all of my life. I knew what you’d say." Indeed. You see, they see the example, the integrity. Then, they know what to do.
We've been inoculated with so many small doses of leadership that we've forgotten what it is. We must be the example to show what it is. We must help those who are willing to learn. And in education haven't we learned that to be just sometimes it means being severe?
At work, haven't we learned the best way to achieve individual goals is to first help our organization meet its goals? Yes, the whole is greater than its parts. We have in our own organization Cox Financial Corporation, "The Contract." It assures each member job security as they flourish and grow. We will help each one to achieve what they want—or if they can’t find that with us we’ll help them go to another organization where, hopefully, they can.
In most organizations, we hire ‘em, but nobody’s developing them as leaders. We must get them "on board" for leadership. It’s not "great" simply impacting the needs of those immediately around you. As United Way president, I said to our 136 United Way agencies, "We need less agencies but more results!"
My leadership challenge to you is: Pick six of ten people in your immediate group who you can help. You’ll save no one if you try to save everyone. Do it within your homes, your schools, and your companies.
Leadership is quality people! It's stock and trade is high intervention, sincere effort, and skillful execution. It’s about being visionary. Without vision people only think but do not do. Some things have to be seen and not just "believed." Leaders are visionary people.
In my closing story I want to tell you about the Masai. When members of the tribe have not seen each other in a long while the proper greeting is, "How are the children?" The proper response is, "They are well." That’s the mantle that falls to each of us as leaders.
We stand at a crossroads. One road leads to wide open mediocrity. The other leads to untold greatness. Either destination can be fulfilled depending on which route we choose.
We can choose to lead. We can choose to have better marriages. We can choose to be better workers. We have to say, "I am responsible. No body else is to blame if the results are less than desired; I am the person to alter that."
In the years to come we’ll be viewed as those who brought our people to greatness! … Or not?