Peter Vosotas can’t recall
the title, but remembers a movie in which two captains
lead two sets of troops on a
long run.
While on a break, one captain
helps his troops and rubs their
feet, while the other captain
barks orders. Vosotas — chairman, president and CEO of
Nicholas Financial Inc., a company he founded with his wife,
Paula — says that he would be
the leader rubbing feet.
“I believe if I worry about
your feet — whether you care
or not and think I’m a jerk —
the majority of you guys will
care about me and my feet. You
might not, but that’s OK. I’m
not doing it so you’ll rub my
feet. I’m doing it because I
legitimately care about you,”
says Vosotas, who leads the
specialty consumer finance
company, which posted $50
million in revenue for fiscal
2008.
Smart Business spoke with
Vosotas about how to show
employees you care and how
to make decisions without
alienating people.
Allow employees to talk to you. I’m not so naive that I
believe that will ever really
happen — that I will become
so phenomenally godlike or
transparent that anybody
and everybody will open
their minds and hearts to me.
So, what I need to do is be
sure that I have excellent
lieutenants that think the
way I think and that have the
same moral compass that I
possess — that I can’t do it
all to everybody, and I need
them to help and do it all.
I need to show them that I
believe in them, too. What I
really need is to create like-minded disciples that I
become respectful of, that I
trust and feel good about,
unless they show me that I
shouldn’t. So, I have many
people in the company that I
entrust that way, and I like to
use the terminology that I
inspect what I expect.
As long as the various
department managers that
work for me are doing what
we agree we’re supposed to
be doing, then I don’t get in
the way. I want people who
are bright, who are able to
work independent of my
inclusion on a daily microscopic basis.
Lead with integrity. You have to
have tons of integrity. They
all say that, but people have
got to look at you and think
you are the real deal.
But you’ve just got to be
straight. For example, Carol
walked out on us — I’m just
giving you a fictitious name
— and gave no notice. But,
we still owe Carol for three
unused vacation days. Now, it
actually comes to me because
this is a small company —
because everyone knows the
answer in HR — which is
you’ve got to pay her, and
everybody knows that here.
You just have to always be
consistently honest. You just
lead by your actions, you do
things that are straight, and
you keep doing them that
way, and eventually, people
look up to you. I think that is
a terribly important thing that
you have to possess if you’re
going to lead the troops.
You really have to show this
quantitative and qualitative
commitment to them to whoever it is you are talking with.
‘I really care about you. I care
about your well-being. I care
about your health. I care about
your appearance. I care about
your job knowledge. I’ll help
you in your job knowledge.
What can I do to help you?’
But, whoever you talk to,
my suspicion is they are
going to feel good about
working with you, working
for you, if they really think
that you are working with
them as opposed to having
them in an indentured
capacity.
