Brenda Newberry was so
serious about planning for
future growth at The Newberry Group Inc. that she
created an employee stock
ownership program and implemented it until the IT consulting
company was 100 percent
employee-owned.
“An owner has to ensure they
have a solid succession plan,”
she says. “Some people start
companies just so they can sell
it to some buyer, make mega-bucks for themselves and leave.
Our goal was to ensure we created something that had a legacy beyond us.”
Newberry is founder, chairman and CEO of the company,
which posted 2007 revenue of
$19 million.
Smart Business spoke with
Newberry about why it’s important to start planning early for
your departure and the keys to
effective leadership.
Q. What are the keys to
effective leadership?
Read, feed, lead and proceed.
You have to read, and you have
to be learning constantly —
leadership books, the Harvard
Review, books on technology in
our case and periodicals.
Then feeding, which is trying
to make sure you give your
team as much information as
you can, from a coaching standpoint as well as handing them
copies or sending them e-mails
of the articles that you read.
Then, leading by example.
Make sure you have strong
character, that you are willing to
make difficult decisions. We
actually have walked away from
contracts because they were
not being executed in an ethical
fashion. In one case, it was a five year contract, for $5 million per
year. Walking away for the ethical reasons spoke volumes to the
team. Leading means you take a
look at what is going on — you
try to coach, you show by
example to the greatest extent
possible. And you don’t violate
basic values and character.
Then proceed — that is basically expecting execution. Executing those things you are
responsible to execute and assisting your team in moving forward to executing on their own.
Q. What pitfalls can stop
leaders from being effective?
One is thinking that it is
all about them. Some
executives view their
team as subjects instead
of educated, capable
adults that have insight if
you use it.
If you allow people to
use their brains, they
would probably prefer to
do so.
You can avoid that pitfall by remaining humble
and remembering where
you came from. You have
to understand that you
are human. It’s just like
when I was talking about
ESOP — denying that I
was going to one day get
old and sick was not a
way to ensure the company was in a solid position
and had a great foundation for
the future. When you first do
something like an ESOP, you’re
going to have some challenges.
It would have been ridiculous
for me to wait five years to do
this and then say, ‘OK, see ya.
Bye!’ without helping them
through that transition.
When you are a leader, it is
critical to take your team
through the transition.
