054: Leadership

What exactly is leadership and what does it mean to be a leader? Leadership is thrust upon those who, through the strength of conviction and moral character, lead through personal example.  [Note: If you are reading this via email, click here to access the on-site audio player]  [l-r Barbara Hulit in 2nd grade, Barbara Borson Hulit, Senior VP Fortive]Today, Andrew and I are talking about Leadership … but we are going to cover it briefly from the 30,000-foot perspective, but then we are going to zoom in on the experiences and lessons learned throughout the unimaginably successful career of today’s guest – someone whose track record suggests that she will have a far better chance of understanding what leadership means and looks like and help you with your own career. Barbara Hulit serves as Senior Vice President of the Fortive role leading Advanced Sterilization Products and Invetech. She also oversees Fortive's information technology (IT), data analytics related to our innovation incubator, known as “The Fort”, and Fortive’s work in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Barbara originally joined Fortive as President of Fluke in 2005 and was appointed Danaher group executive and corporate officer three years later. Since 2013, she has held roles of increasing scope as Senior Vice President with company-wide responsibility for the Fortive Business System (FBS) office, procurement, IT, high growth markets and innovation. Barbara serves on the board of the Pacific Science Center and the Dean’s Advisory Council of the Kellogg Graduate School of Management. Named one of the top women in STEM for her role in establishing the Washington STEM Center, she is passionate about driving STEM education from an early age, particularly for girls. She earned her BBA in marketing from the University of Texas, Austin, and her MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern. While all of this is certainly impressive, she really developed and honed in on her leadership skills during her childhood in her role as my slightly older sister. [l-r playing with garden hose, Barbara's intense stare and my incredibly sexy pose]What does Leadership mean to you? jump to 3:08 It is possible that this world has various meanings depending on who you are speaking. Our guest thinks that this word is overused because if everyone is leading, who is following? One of the most important things leadership means is a change of trajectory. If the world just goes on and no changes implemented, you don't need leaders because things will naturally evolve to the way they are supposed to be (i.e. water will run downhill, you don't need someone to lead it there). Leadership is about changing the trajectory of what would have happened during the natural course of things. Can anybody be a leader? Is it something you can train for or is it about harnessing natural talents and abilities? jump to 5:33 It's a combination of a couple of different things - not everyone is cut out to be a leader. There are natural characteristics that get honed over time. Leadership training becomes important at this time because when you are a new frontline leader what do you need to be successful in managing people for the first time? A common mistake of managing everyone is leading others the way you want to be lead. People respond to different types of leadership. The value of executive leadership training jump to 7:30 Architectural firms don't seem to do leadership and executive training with the same intensity, frequency, or veracity that more traditional corporate businesses. There is a model that Barbara likes a lot called "Situational Leadership"; it says that any given person at any given time in their career will need something different from their boss or their leader. It speaks to how well equipped that person is to do the job, do they know what it is, have they done it before, do they have competency in this role? It suggests that you've got someone who is a great person but the...