Stan Friedman learned
early on that if you’re not
taking care of your people, your people won’t take
care of you. And he’s applied
that lesson to grow RetroTax
— which helps business owners obtain tax credits and
incentives — into a company
that posted 2007 collected tax credits of
$20 million.
Friedman, the company’s
co-founder, president and
chief operating officer, says
executives need to take care
of their employees and make
sure they feel engaged in the
company’s direction to keep
them with you.
“Give them opportunities to
grow a career in a path that
will enable them to never have
to leave you, to be able to
grow and advance, stay where
they are and continue to
enhance their career right
here,” he says.
Smart Business spoke with
Friedman about how to set
your company’s compass and
how to set an example for
your employees to follow.
Q. What are the keys to
effective leadership?
Being an effective leader is
having a compass, then reading it and following it. That
compass can encompass some
internal things that are instinctive. It can encompass some
external things like being able
to correctly navigate and see
where you are and know what
to do about it. Being in the
right place at the right time for
some people is all it takes.
That’s a good start, but then
you have to know what to do
about it, have the resources to
get it done, and put your head
down and get it done. All of
those things are traits of a
good leader, along with earning the trust of the people who
put their trust in you. Be true
to those people; you’ve got a
lot of lives in your hands.
Q. How do you determine
what direction the company’s
compass should point?
Some of that is internal. You
have to have the right moral
fiber to begin with. Be true to
that moral fiber. I’m a believer
in Stephen Covey and
his ‘Seven Habits.’
Begin with the end in
mind, then if there isn’t
a win-win in a transaction, it probably should-n’t occur. I don’t care if
that’s a business transaction internally or externally. You’ve got to put
that moral fiber in place
and be true to it.
