Leadership Lessons from Jack

Lead Like Jack

Considered one of the greatest CEOs of all time, Jack Welch passed away on March 1st, 2020.  Jack was the CEO of General Electric (GE) from 1981-2001.  He is known for changing the way leaders lead.  His style was to hire the best people, let the people do the work, and get out of their way.  

During his tenure as CEO of GE, the value of the company grew from $14 billion to $400 billion in just 20 years. In 1999, Fortune Magazine named him “Manager of the Century”. 

While he did have his adversaries and not every deal he made was a winner, in the end, Jack Welch is most noted for his management style that turned GE into one of the largest companies in the world while under his guidance.

In his “8 Rules of Leadership”, Jack’s Rule #1 says, “Leaders relentlessly upgrade their team, using every encounter as an opportunity to evaluate, coach, and build self-confidence”.

The lessons taught and used in a mega-company like GE can and should relate to all businesses of all sizes.

If you would like to see the complete list of Jack Welch’s “8 Rules of Leadership” as published in Inc. Magazine’s November 13th, 2017 issue, click here.

Last year my company had the opportunity to upgrade their team. Federated Media is a privately owned company based in Indiana with radio stations and digital marketing divisions.  When an opening for a new leader for the Fort Wayne, Indiana division of Federated Media was announced, the search began nationwide to find the person most capable of not only leading our team for the next year, but also for the decades ahead. 

After multiple candidates went through the process, our CEO selected Ben Saurer to become the VP/General Manager of Federated Media’s Fort Wayne operations.  Ben is no stranger to the company, he has been the General Sales Manager of my station WOWO for years.  Ben was also responsible for leading the sales teams of our sister stations WKJG (ESPN) and WBYR (98.9 The Bear). Ben was also the local favorite for leading us, even though those of us who worked for him directly were a little nervous about who would and could replace him as General Sales Manager of those three stations.

One of Ben’s first roles as the Fort Wayne VP/GM was to hire his replacement General Sales Managers. Again a national search was conducted and within 8 weeks of Ben officially in his new position, he filled all three G.S.M. seats with two people.  Initially hired to become the Sales Manager of our ESPN station and our Classic Hits station (BIG 92.3) Kassie Taksey in January, it was announced that she would also take on the General Sales Manager role for 98.9 The Bear.  Kassie is a Federated Media veteran, having worked for us before and is an excellent choice to lead those sales teams.

The same thing happened with WOWO Radio. After a nationwide search and interviews, Ben Saurer announced that I would become the WOWO General Sales Manager to lead our team.  Over the next few months my role is changing as I divest myself of most of the advertising partners I was personally taking care of.  We also hired two brand new team members to replace me and to move forward in 2020. As Jack Welsh said, “Leaders relentlessly upgrade their team…” and that includes adding the right people to our teams.

If you would like to be considered to work for my team or any or the Fort Wayne Federated Media radio stations, start here: https://www.federatedmedia.com/fort-wayne-market/ 

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