How to Be a Classy Leader
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Historian David McCullough is every inch the courtly gentleman. When I met him last year, I found him imposingly tall and beautifully dressed, in a fine dark suit set off by a crisp white handkerchief tucked into the breast pocket. He’s a white-haired reminder of an age when education, behavior and deportment really mattered.
Having long studied the great leaders in American history, McCullough has lot to say about old-fashioned, classy leadership qualities (link to the article here). These days -- when too many CEOs feather their own nests at the expense of their employees and shareholders -- McCullough thinks classiness is pretty rare.
A classy leader looks, in part, like Harry Truman – a humble man who, McCullough says, was thoroughly grounded. Like Jim Collins’ Level 5 leader , such a person “doesn’t need the limelight, doesn’t need a big fancy car, and isn’t hungry for power.”
Here are a few more points I extrapolated from this wise man, and which you can incorporate into your leadership style:
• Have a nose for talent. Don’t be influenced by pedigrees or politics. Take the full measure of the person you’re hiring. Hire someone who is smarter and more talented than you are, and who complements you rather than compliments you. And make sure he or she is ethical to the very bone.
• Don’t expect your people to do anything you wouldn’t do yourself. This is a version of leading by example, laced with the Golden Rule. To get your people to follow you, walk in their shoes. Listen to them. Find out what bugs them. (I’d even suggest spending an hour a month on the lowest-paid rung of your company. Go work on the loading dock or the checkout counter. You’ll learn a lot, you’ll inspire people, and word of your interest in them will get around fast.)
• Compete honorably. Sure, it’s tough out there, but being cutthroat isn’t necessarily a smart long-term strategy. Competing on smarts, innovation and ethics will take your company a lot farther.
Finally, McCullough suggests dressing the part. “Appearances matter,” he says. “Washington felt very strongly about that. You have to be in character with the role, consider how you stand, how you look at people, how you shake their hand.” In McCullough’s case, I understood that the elegant suit and pocket handkerchief reflected the fine quality of the inner man.
What about you? Do you know someone who is a classy leader? Should “classiness” be a trait we aspire to and look for in our hires?
Read Bronwyn Fryer's interview with David McCullough at Harvard Business Review Online.
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A regular dispatch from the front lines of management by the editorial team at the Harvard Business Review. 
Comments
Great! How about accepting when you're wrong and maintaining integrity. I think hiring people that have integrity first and like making people around them better are traits you want to have. Yet I can count with one hand the number of people I know who do show this everyday.
- Posted by Jorge Barba
February 27, 2008 10:26 PM
"Finally, McCullough suggests dressing the part. “Appearances matter,” he says. “Washington felt very strongly about that. You have to be in character with the role, consider how you stand, how you look at people, how you shake their hand.”
I believe Sinatra said something similar....... either way, very true indeed. It all comes down to class & confidence. If you can achieve both, people will buy/believe just about anything. Nice post.
- Posted by Brent
February 28, 2008 10:20 AM
Brent,
Thanks for the comment. When I spoke with him, McCullough also rather pointedly mentioned something about the importance of a professional uniform -- for example, if you board a plane and see the pilot wearing a backwards baseball cap, it hardly instills confidence in his or her skill. I couldn't include this point for lack of space, but I think he was suggesting that it's disarmingly easy, especially in workplaces where casual dress is not just overlooked but encouraged as a sign of happy bonhomie, to forget that we need signals that tell us we can trust in the professionalism of co-workers and leaders, both inside and out. McCullough's view sounds a little quaint on the surface, but he really has a very strong sense of what true professionalism means.
-Bronwyn
- Posted by Bronwyn Fryer
February 28, 2008 11:19 AM
Many years ago, I visited a company in Japan that cleaned buildings and shops. It was a large company and a huge success. The CEO and other high-level leaders with whom I met were excited because later in the week they were going to perform an annual ritual, a ritual they treasured.
They were going out to clients to clean toilets and restrooms. They had just been re-trained in the latest toilet-cleaning techniques, techniques that apparently are refined several times each year. The executives had been practicing their techniques in the company's own restrooms and had received coaching and critiquing from their employees who did this every day. Toilet cleaning was what we would call a core competence in that company but they referred to it as their special responsibility.
These leaders were revered in their company. I don't think you can blame it on some sort of cultural reverence for elders or authority.
- Posted by E Gordon
February 29, 2008 5:06 PM
Great article,I firmly agree with him, hiring talent is a great skill and is a specitists job ........a mix of science and art..............how much science and how much art is the competence of leader in the given situation.
Sunil D.Sharma
- Posted by sunil
March 2, 2008 12:40 PM
I agree with everything but the appearance bit. We've evolved past that. I'm 31 and my respect for someone's authority is based on their integrity, the respect and trust they show the people who work for them, their decision-making abilities and their knowledge of the industry/subject matter at hand. I don't care if they're wearing a 3-piece suit or a speedo.
- Posted by Amanda
March 3, 2008 11:55 AM