Leadership Strategies

Match Your Style to the Company's Personality
On a one-to-one basis, a savvy leader will frequently adjust his or her communication style to match distinctly different personalities. In a similar way, it's important to modify your approach based on the personality or culture of your company.

Examples: Home Depot's culture is action-oriented, so its leaders typically set tight deadlines to take advantage of employees' abilities to perform well under pressure.

Winnebago Industries employees are known for tackling anything new, exciting and adventurous. So, the company's leaders frequently refer to adventure and excitement when motivating employees.

Hallmark employees believe so strongly in doing the "right thing" that the company leaders know the best way to motivate them is to show how new initiatives will support the company's ethical, family-like culture.

Adapted from Companies are People Too, Sandra Fekete, John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Expect Excellence From Everyone
John Graham, the new CEO and president of the American Society of Association Executives, hates it when people do not perform up to their potential. While staffers say Graham is generally easy-going, they know he will be on their case if they have not at least tried to do their best.

"Whenever someone does work, [I always] ask whether that's the best they can do," Graham says. "If it is, then they're trying to achieve excellence. And if they're not, they're mediocre. And I don't have a lot of tolerance for people who are just trying to get by."

Adapted from "Coming Into Focus," Christine Cube, Washington Business Journal, washington.bizjournals.com.

Harrah's Customer-Focused Strategy
Keeping focused on customers can pay big dividends, but it requires strong leadership, the right talent and a shift in culture. Consider the case of former Harvard Business School professor Gary Loveman who was hired as the COO of Harrah's Entertainment Inc. in 1998. All bets were that he'd be back in Cambridge within two years. Loveman beat the odds with strategies that revitalized Harrah's, and his leadership was rewarded with the CEO's spot last January.

How did Loveman do it? With a customer-loyalty strategy that resulted in a 100 percent increase in revenues and earnings. Loveman made his plan work by:

• Hiring customer relationship management pros who developed a loyalty program that rewarded customers for returning to Harrah's and discouraged them from going elsewhere.
• Upping the ante on customer service and reinforcing the Harrah's brand.
• Transforming the Harrah's culture: every employee was expected and empowered to deliver a full-house.

To get the program up and running, Loveman hired marketers who could implement and manage a sophisticated system that tracks nearly every move of its customers. Once the program was launched, all decisions were based on data; no hunches or guesswork were involved. Loveman says the "hair stands up" on his neck if an employee says, "I think." Loveman's game is all about knowing.

Also critical to Harrah's success was a change in corporate culture from a "safe, family company" to a "meritocracy."

"I had a lot of bloody battles where I'd have to tell a general manager to fire this person tomorrow or I would do it myself," says Loveman. "It was ugly." But he believes that real safety comes in delivering results to shareholders.

Loveman used his position and forceful leadership style to focus the company on the "customer is king" philosophy.

Adapted from "Gambling on Customers," David O. Becker, McKinsey Quarterly, mckinseyquarterly.com.

Deirdre Hackett is the editor of Leadership Strategies, which offers hands-on advice directly from presidents and CEOs who are leaders in their industry. For subscription information, please call (800) 722-9221 or (703) 518-2343, or visit briefings.com/ls. Use Dept. Code: UTHCB.