Leaders with heart are smart, and they are looking at the connection between the heart and a proof of concept. Today, I’m super excited with our guest. He is one sharp leader. Also, I like his ability to make things more objective, including his focus on measuring success.
I’m doing this episode with Robert Glazer, CEO of Acceleration Partners, an affiliate marketing firm. Robert shares his unique ideas around separating from employees, his leadership philosophy and ways to be clear about who you are.
Key takeaways:
- Leadership is not a summit, but it’s a dance, and the moves change.
- In order to have integrity, we should be aligned in what we do, think about, and say.
- Fly your flag so that others know exactly who you are and choose to come towards you or not.
- Make tough decisions fast.
- If struggling in leadership, peel back the core to make sure it’s aligned with where you want to go.
Listen in on this informative and energizing talk as Robert shares some different ways to think about our purpose and way to retain our superstars.
Bob Glazer is the founder and CEO of global performance marketing agency, Acceleration Partners. He is also the co-founder and Chairman of BrandCycle, an affiliate platform. In addition to being a serial entrepreneur, Bob has a passion for helping individuals and organizations build their capacity to outperform.
Under his leadership, Acceleration Partners has received numerous company culture awards both locally and globally. Bob was also included in the Top CEO list in the US. A known columnist, Bob writes on topics ranging from performance marketing and entrepreneurship to company culture, capacity building, hiring and leadership.
Bob is a strong believer in giving back. He is a sought-after speaker by companies and organizations around the world, especially on topics related to business growth, culture, mindful transitions, capacity building and performance. Outside of work, Bob can likely be found skiing, cycling, reading, traveling, spending quality time with his family or overseeing some sort of home renovation project.
Leadership Evolution
For Bob, he thinks he is always evolving.
I think leadership is not a mountain that you summit. I think it is an evolution. You change, and the game changes. It’s sort of a dance.
For anyone, the key is getting down the right leadership path– going all the way back to the beginning, figuring out what you want and what you value. Then, build everything from there. That is the foundation. If you don’t get that right, then you’re building a house on an unstable foundation.
Having gone through the actualization process of figuring out my values and my purpose, I am driven to figure out a way to make things better, and then share them.
Leading is my way of making a contribution. #leadershipwithheart Share on X
I never liked doing what other people does. For me, I am always trying to improve it. But it’s not for my own benefit. I enjoy it when other people get the benefit of whatever that improvement is. This is the stuff I love, where the idea I said made a difference and it helped someone run their company better or get a better outcome.
Integrity is Subjective
The universal definition of great leadership is just being authentic. #leadershipwithheart Share on X
I’m a big believer of integrity. I think there are some subjectivity around integrity, particularly as we’ve gone global as a business. I could tell you there are real cultural differences in integrity. You might think that not turning in your son for a crime is integral, and someone else might think the complete opposite. For me, being authentic is just that alignment between someone who, “What they do is what they say, and what they’re thinking,” and they’re consistent. Whether you like it or not, they are consistent. And I think that’s how people can decide which leaders, missions and visions, and stuff, they’re interested in and they want to sign up for. I don’t think everyone’s a great leader for everyone.
Let’s think of company A, and it’s started by this competitive athlete. The culture is really about competition, and 80% of the bonus go to the top 20% of the people. They have high growth and they come up with new products. Their company retreats are all about competition. They are growing 40% a year, and they ask the bottom 20% of the people to leave.
Then you have company B, and they’re a family business. They’ve been around for a hundred years and they grow 5% a year. They’re in the community. They’re valued for their stability and people work there forever. Both of those are great companies. They might have great leaders, but I would argue that people from company A probably hate people working at company B, and vice versa. But those companies are just consistent between their leadership and their behavior.
Super frustrated people who come in with a bad experience were usually from the company where they have values on the wall. They talk about it, but no one ever actually acted or behaved like that. For some companies that don’t talk about values and just—I would always say they have them by default not by design. But the ones that really upset people are the ones where they have these stuff on the wall but no one actually acts or behaves that way.
Employee Investment and Culture
Constantly, we ask a hundred different ways to get people to talk about problems, opportunities, or issues. I try to kind of zoom up and down into certain issues and dive into one of them. Then, we work with teams while continuing to meet with different groups of people. We are always asking for and collecting feedback in just a wide variety of ways.
Figure out your true north, your authentic self, and you start rebuilding from up there. #leadershipwithheart Share on X
There are two ways. One is retention of our best people—our superstars. When every manager does their checking, it is like, “If this person left, would I fight to save them? Would I not?” These are people that you really want to keep. I don’t look at overall turnover, because like any company, we make mistakes. Things change. Sometimes, the right thing to do for some people is to move on, to take a different role, or to do a transition. But I look at our retention, which is very high. If our best people stay, that drives our business.
Two. We are focused on this concept of building capacity in people, holistically. If we focus on making them better people, better time managers, have better health, better learners, we get the work benefit of that. Their families get the life benefit of that. That’s really a win-win. And all these stuff becomes the reason why people want to work here.
We don’t get it right all the time. And sometimes they’re not clear about what they want. How do we get to be good, respectful human beings while not compromising the business needs at the same time?
The people who have most of the answers in your organization, and understand most of the issues are in the frontlines. #leadershipwithheart Share on X
The reality is, people are not going to work at your company forever. #leadershipwithheart Share on X
How do we get people to start honest conversations? How do we create the psychological safety, and tell them that if they talk about problems, we will not walk them to the door? #leadershipwithheart Share on X
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