(upbeat music) - Hi everyone.

Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program talking about my favorite subject, leadership with a leadership guru.

He's Curt Weeden, leadership expert, president of business and nonprofit strategies, and author of the book, "6 Pathways."

Lemme get this right, "6 Pathways to Leadership and Organizational Success", Curt.

- That is correct.

- All right, let's jump right into it.

I read about these six pathways, let's go through each one.

Character, character and leadership, go.

- Yeah, character.

We actually to do this book, Steve, we surveyed about 200 leaders in both the nonprofit and the for-profit sector.

Interestingly enough, both sectors came out with the same six attributes or behaviors for successful leaders.

Character being, interestingly enough, one of the more important traits that people look for in a leader that they might select to move up the line to lead an organization.

- Craig, lemme follow up on that.

I'm curious about this.

As we do this program, president Trump's taking office, his cabinet secretary's being nominated, being vetted, and it's interesting, does the issue of moral turpitude, weird word, I know.

Character and someone's, someone's personal relationships who had an affair on their wife who did, who was involved in this or that, is that character or is that private life?

- It's character as reflected in an elected official in this case.

And it is surprising that the American public would sort of put that aside in regard to other issues that led them to make a decision at the ballot box.

But I'll tell you this, Steve, that character, ultimately when a leader gets into the position that in this case, Trump will be in, it will prevail and trickle down through the entire organization based on his leadership behavior.

So we have some deep concerns about what the country may look like based on what Trump actually does.

- I appreciate what you're saying, but also I wanna make it clear, since this isn't a segment about politics, someone might also say it's an issue of character that President Biden, when President said, I would not pardon my son, Hunter, and then did.

Character is also being consistent with your words and your actions.

Just putting that out there.

- Absolutely.

- I love this one.

You have this all over the place, Kurt.

Curiosity is a huge component to being a great leader, explain that.

- So that's the number one behavior that came out of all of this research that we did.

And it basically says that if you have a leader that's stuck in place and not curious enough to go to the next level or the next step, that's not the leader you want.

- Okay, there's a couple of others here.

One of them I find fascinating and people who know our series lessons in leadership know this well.

Communication, in my mind as a leadership coach, I don't separate being a great leader from being a great communicator.

And that doesn't necessarily simply mean a great speechmaker, a great communicator.

Can you be a great leader, Curt Weeden, in your view, if you're not a great communicator, listener, engager, can you?

- Very difficult to do, as you all know in your world, Steve, that knowing your audience or audiences, if you break 'em apart and being able to talk to them directly and effectively, can make a huge difference, not only in your leadership style, but your outcomes.

So the answer is that they're pretty much intertwined, - By the way, the other ones are commitment, competence, collaboration.

But can we do collaboration real quick.

Partnering with others.

Getting others on board who have the expertise that you don't have.

A big part of our not-for-profit organization, we collaborate with other not-for-profits.

We coordinate and work with institutions of higher learning.

All sorts of different folks.

People who believe I'm the smartest, I've got the answer.

I don't need to collaborate with other people.

They cannot succeed, can they?

- No, there's obviously exceptions to the rule, but generally speaking, if you take that kind of isolated position, you know best, and you're gonna stay where you are, I don't need the other guy, generally what happens is you fall back.

You just can't move to the front of the pack.

- You know, there's another issue you raised in researching you that brings up something I'm fascinated by.

I'm gonna go all the way back to the 1980s.

You were connected to Johnson & Johnson, right?

- So yes, I was brought in, actually, Johnson & Johnson acquired my little consulting firm in the year in 1990.

- Okay, so here's the question.

I, along with so many others, I wrote a book years back called, "What Were They Thinking?"

It was about crisis communication.

And I did a case study on James Burke, who was the CEO of Johnson & Johnson at the time of the Tylenol scare when people were frankly poisoning Tylenol bottles.

They were somehow, I think it was with a syringe, putting something in there and people were dying across the country.

And I did a case study on Burke being not just competent, but candid, honest, empathetic, compassionate, upfront leader.

You point him, point out Burke, James Burke, as being the kind of leader we need.

Talk about Burke.

- I read your book by the way, and on that chapter I agreed with everything you... - Oh, so you're the one that read it?

- Yes.

- Go ahead.

- No, he was, I worked for him.

- Directly?

- Yeah, through another guy that you know well, John Heldrich back in the day, and Jim was, that Tylenol decision was one of the most incredibly gutsy moves I think any CEO had to do.

Think about Tylenol being such an important part of a multi-billion dollar corporation.

You pull that product off the shelf.

- Pull them off, tell everyone, took 'em all out.

At no risk, all gone.

- And you potentially threatened the ongoing capabilities of that business.

Or do you just forsake that possibility and say, look, we can't have this out in the public and risk other people's lives.

So he made the decision to pull it and he became so famous for that one judgment, but it was really reflective of his overall leadership capabilities and he was elected to the Businessman's Hall of Fame as a result of that.

he was just a, an extraordinary poster child for what a good leader should be.

- 100%.

And Curt, the fact that he worked with him directly, I personally and professionally, I can appreciate that.

Curt Weeden is a leadership expert, president of business and nonprofit strategies and author of the book, "6 Pathways to Leadership and Organizational Success."

Curt, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thanks so much, Steve.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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