Name: What makes a great leader?
Uploaded: 2015-03-12
Duration: 3 min 39 s
Description: Fortune’s Susie Gharib sits down with Gerald Hassell, CEO of BNY Mellon.

Well, you talk about leadership. It's one thing to become a great CEO, but what does it take to be a great leader? You know a great leader is one who inspires the people around him and, and collaborates with the folks around him. Him or her. And, and really tries to get the best outcome from the collective wisdom of everyone. You know, it's never one person. I have this really strong belief it's never one person who really drives an outcome. It's the collective wisdom of a team effort that dr, drives the outcome that you're looking for. So. Great leaders have to inspire. They have to drive. They have to hold people accountable. They have to have vision. And they have to see where the future's going and inspire people to get there. Obviously there's no formula to be a. There's no formula. To be a great leader. But is there a right way to lead an organization? Well I think the right way again is listening to the people around you. Listening to your clients in our case. Trying to formulate good answers and a good vision on where to go. And inspiring the people to get to that common goal. And if you don't set the bar high enough and shoot for something extraordinary, then you're not gonna be a great leader. You talk a lot about inspiring and motivating oth, other people. And I'm sure there are a lot of these up and comers at the bank that you want to turn into. Leaders. So what are the leadership messages that you convey to them? Well, th, the main message is, hold yourself accountable. Step forward. Own it. Grab it. Seize it. And then try to build a great team around you. So you can, you know, really drive the outcomes that you're looking for. The other thing that I like to do, and not all leaders do this, but what I try to do. Just give all the credit in the world to people around you because that will inspire them to do things beyond their own capabilities and they will get credit for it, and they'll get notoriety for doing it. And they'll wanna do it again and again and again. You know, many people say that the real test of leadership comes in times of crisis, and you've certainly had a good dose of that during the financial crisis of [ UNKNOWN ]. [ UNKNOWN ] What was the most important leadership lesson that you learned from that experience. Stay calm. Don't panic. And, because if you look panicked, everyone around you will be. And so you have to feel like you're in control, even though everything around you is in the state of chaos. And you just have to go through all of the issues, one by one, in a logical fashion. And come up with a direction and a direction that the people around you can believe in. But if you panic and you look out of sorts then everything's going to go to hell. Well, how do you motivate people during a crisis, especially one that lasted for so many years? What did you do to inspire people so that they just keep on going? Well I think the main thing again, it's breaking the problems into pieces. Solving those individual pieces. Letting them know that there, there still is a bright future ahead of us. We will get through this. We will overcome. In our case, we felt we were very strong, healthy, liquid, well capitalized institution. Our clients were under enormous stress. Help them get better. Help them get through it. And by helping others, you're gonna inspire yourself to, to get through it as well. You've been talking a lot about leadership lessons. What's the best advice you ever got? I, I guess I'd go back to stay calm, stay focused. Because everyone is gonna look to you. Everyone's gonna hang on every word you say. Everyone's gonna watch your every step and every action, so stay calm, stay focused, and, and lead through. Lead through the challenges.

Fortune’s Susie Gharib sits down with Gerald Hassell, CEO of BNY Mellon.

What makes a great leader?

Leadership

Fortune’s Susie Gharib sits down with CEO of BNY Mellon.