Name: SAP CEO: More Leaders Need to Just Be Themselves
Uploaded: 2016-05-24
Duration: 3 min 52 s
Description: Bill McDermott explains that it's the key to successful leadership.

Everybody talks about leadership these days. Whether it's in Washington, or whether it's in Corporate America. To you, what do you think ar the key characteristics of a great leader? The on common denominator of all leaders, and they come in lots of different sizes, shapes, and backgrounds. They have followers. So then the question is, what is it that drives followers? You have to be courageous absolutely selfless, the team has to absolutely come first, the customer has to always win. You have to be known for that and you have to have a vision for way you wanna go And a strategy that helps you get there. Bill, you were running your own business when you were 16 years old. Yeah. You were in high school. You ended up buying the delicatessen in your neighborhood. What was the most important leadership lesson that you learned from that experience? Small businesses have to do things that big businesses either structurally. Cannot do or simply chose not to do. So everything I built with that delicatessen was about doing what my largest competitors either structurally couldn't or philosophically didn't want to. Whether it was delivering to senior citizens, giving blue collar workers like my dad credit. Or building a game room on the store to draw the kids in to play video games. So you have to treat your customer so special and know who you are, you know, the authentic part of our business model was all about service cuz we couldn't win on any other dimension We were just too small, but we sure did love our customers. Well long after you had that delicatessen, you were at Xerox and you rose up through the ranks at Xerox holding many different jobs. What do you wish you knew back then with your first leadership job that you know today. I think the idea of being really vulnerable. Cuz I think that Somehow, people when they follow a leader and you are a leader you sometimes can be put on a pedestal. And that pedestal creates a distance between you and the people that you love the most. And I think the more human you can be with them the more vulnerable you can be The closer and the more intimate the relationship is, and also the impact. So I probably would've been just a little bit more vulnerable. What is the hardest part about being the boss? Especially the leader of a $ 20 billion enterprise. The hardest part of success is fighting the complacency disease. So I am in an ever- present battle in my own leadership mind of making sure we don't let complacency set in because I know full well that especially in the technology industry if you allow complacency to take a major role in the culture and you find That you're not keeping it anxious and tense and a little bit wow, what's going on today. You'll find out that you're going to get surprised, and your competition'll run past you and you won't meet your customer's expectations because you got too comfortable being good. Over your very successful career, I'm sure you got a lot of advice along the way. What would you say is the best leadership Advice that you ever got? Best leadership advice that I ever got, by far, is from my mother. Because she convinced me that the best part of me was me. And the most important thing a leader can do is be authentic and be true to yourself. None of us are good at everything. And that's why you have to create an environment where none of us is as smart as all of us. So you really bring people together which is beautiful. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

SAP CEO: More Leaders Need to Just Be Themselves

Bill McDermott explains that it's the key to successful leadership.