Eddie Lampert became the CEO, chairman and principle shareholder of 120-year-old Sears Holdings in 2005. At the time, the retail company had a dozen iconic brands (including Sears, Kmart, Land’s End, Kenmore and BLACK+DECKER, among others) and 3500 stores nationwide. Although Sears got through the Great Depression in the 1930s, and both World Wars, it could not survive online shopping. Over Lampert’s fourteen-year ownership of the company, it dwindled to just over 200 stores and declared bankruptcy in 2018. Critics blame Lampert’s management. Instead of investing in the company, creating a competitive online platform and rebranding to attract a younger customer base, Lampert used capital to buy back shares in the company (inflating the per share price), and sold pieces of it for hundreds of millions of dollars. The sales benefited him, as the company’s largest shareholder, and offset Sears’s (and his) debt.

Lampert owns a real estate investment fund, Seritage Growth Properties, that Sears stores paid rent to, essentially paying millions to himself. Lampert will benefit again when the company’s remaining assets are liquidated in a fire sale. Experts estimate that in all his machinations, Lampert stripped the company of $2 billion. In 2018, while top Sears executives petitioned for millions in bonuses, thousands of employees were losing their jobs, benefits or severance payments.¹ Due to mismanagement, greed and cultural change, a once great company was brought to its knees, and only the man at the very top will come out okay.

Another great, 100-year-old American company, the Campbell Soup Company, was led by Denise Morrison from 2011 to late 2018. In her seven years as CEO, she transformed the stodgy brand into one that focused on its customers’ health and on social responsibility. She launched initiatives to fight hunger and childhood obesity; fostered a culture of volunteerism by having employees volunteer at soup kitchens to feed the poor; encouraged and supported women’s rise in the ranks; and called for mandatory labelling of genetically modified organisms on all food product labels. She acquired other companies that would appeal to younger, health-conscious consumers, like the juice company Bolthouse Farms and organic baby food company Plum Organics. Morrison tried new marketing ideas that didn’t always work – like selling soup in pouches – but, as she once said, ‘The world of marketing has changed. You can lead the change or be a victim of change.’² Unfortunately, her tenure as boss ended in 2018 after a three-year stock slump. But during her last year at the helm, she was named by Forbes magazine as one of the world’s most reputable CEOs.³

One leader grabbed as much as he could for himself while his company collapsed at his feet. The other tried to drive social change and engage both her employees and customers while experimenting to save the brand. Morrison landed safely and comfortably on the board of directors at Visa after her time at Campbell Soup ended. In April 2019, Lampert, still owner but no longer chairman of Sears, was sued by his own company which sought repayment of ‘billions of dollars in value’ that they claimed Sears had ‘looted’.⁴

Lampert embodies the traditional, BS, stereotypically more ‘male’ leadership style of a winner-takes-all mentality that’s driven by short-term gain. The BS boss is master, and everyone in the company is there to do their bidding and be at their service. It’s all about taking everything for oneself at the expense of everyone else.

Morrison represents the kinder, responsible, no-BS alternative, an ideology called ‘servant leadership’. A servant boss uses their position to benefit and engage the company’s employees and customers in a long-term gain, a one-for-all-and-all-for-one egalitarian meritocracy of people working together towards a common purpose. In Morrison’s case, she was driven by the purpose of bringing an old-fashioned brand into the present in its products, social environment and office culture. That’s the no-BS brand of leadership I try to learn and practise, and continually aspire to.

Of course, this is not to say that every man has a ‘male’ leadership style or that every woman has a ‘female’ style. Every person, regardless of gender, probably has a mix of both aggression and passivity; of being motivated by competition or collaboration; of wanting to crush or help; and of looking for quick wins or long-term strategies.

The future of corporate success depends on leadership shifting in a nurturing, caring direction, of having a purpose larger than just one’s own greed and ego. To be completely honest, I practise ‘servant leadership’ because it works. When you have a reputation for being a decent human being who cares about people and the world we live in, clients want to do business with you and employees want to work with you. They’ll return the good vibes and behaviours to the benefit of all. You don’t command respect, ever; you earn it slowly, carefully and over a long period of time.

Bully bosses might believe that yelling and threatening is the best way to motivate employees, but according to research, being an abusive supervisor does not lead to greater employee productivity.⁵ It makes no sense for a leader to rule by cruelty and fear. Why undermine and rattle the very people you need to get the job done?

There is a big discussion going on in brands and in business about the value of kindness. Traditional competitive-style leaders might think kindness is a kind of weakness, but it costs nothing and adds so much value to every interaction. Even when I have to do tough stuff, I have always tried to be kind.

A good leader practises kindness and patience to gently encourage workers to do their best work. I’ve used these same tools to defuse bullies who might’ve taken a look at me and decided I was an easy target. On one occasion, a client, the CEO of an apparel company, was trying to bully me into doing more work for less money, and he was relentless. It got to the point where I struggled not to show my frustration whenever I was in his presence. You know that feeling when you have a lump in your throat or you think you might cry, but bite it back because you’ve been told you should never show vulnerability? Bursting into tears in a meeting is not deemed to be professional. I got it in my head that if I cried in front of him, particularly as a female, I’d lose my dignity, my upper hand and reveal my weakness.

While struggling to stay in the discussion and not break down, I realized that I could never make my case in an emotional state. I had to separate myself from my immediate emotional reaction in order to find my wiser, more rational self.

The next time this client started to berate me, I said in a perfectly calm, quiet voice, ‘Excuse me, I’m going to take myself out of this conversation. I don’t accept or appreciate the way you’re speaking to me, and I think I’m about to cry.’ Then I got up and left the room. No drama, no emotion, just fact. The reprieve gave me a chance to collect myself before I went back in.

When I returned a few minutes later, he was chagrined and begged me to forgive him. Then he opened up about the pressures he was under and how he might have been trying to transfer some of that to me. Because I showed my honest vulnerability, he then showed me his stresses and strains. He felt horrible and wanted to know what he could do to make it up to me. Suddenly, he was the vulnerable person at the table. I’m not saying it was like magic… but, actually, it was. Truth and honesty prevailed. Once we’d both expressed ourselves, we could work together with a new understanding and trust.

Leaders are not impervious to emotion. They’re not made of stone. A wise leader is brave enough to express their feelings to reclaim authority over them. To be human.

Part of our leadership at TCS is to set clearly defined, reachable benchmarks for each employee, on a daily or weekly basis, as well as a biannual to-do list. Every six months, we meet with each employee to go over whether they’ve hit their six-month objectives. If somebody clears their goals, pay reviews and promotions are reviewed annually, sometimes even every six months, particularly for newer, younger members. If they don’t clear those goals, we know about it. (Really, there’s nowhere to hide. In huge corporations, you can organize by committee and just muddle through. Our company isn’t big enough for people to coast.)

He said, ‘If you are a Baron, you get to treat every single person, whether they are a tramp or a King, in exactly the same way. That is your duty and privilege.’

I took the Baron’s principle to heart and have since done my best to treat everyone I work with, be they the rich and famous or young staff, with the same respect and politeness. I’ve noticed that all really great leaders do this.

In 2007, I flew to Dublin for the day to meet with our client Bryan Meehan. Bryan is a serial entrepreneur, he owned Fresh & Wild market, sold it to Whole Foods, then founded skincare brand NUDE, with Ali Hewson, incredible wife of Bono, and then bought the Blue Bottle Coffee Company, to name just a few of his business interests.

In our meeting, we discussed how TCS could help publicize and market NUDE, and we all got along quite well. Towards the end of the meeting, we learned that a major storm was coming in, and unless I left immediately to catch an earlier flight...