BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Lessons Learned From Selfless Leadership

Forbes Technology Council

David Roberts is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Verra Mobility, a leading provider of smart mobility technology solutions.

As business leaders, we’ve seen a recent cultural shift in how work gets done but also a shift in how CEOs view their own impact on how teams grow and succeed. It’s important that as the workplace transforms and a new generation enters the workforce, leaders not only cultivate their own leadership philosophy but learn how to grow and evolve it.

A key underpinning of my own personal leadership philosophy is the idea of servant leadership, and it’s expressed by a personal motto that I like to call “unself yourself.” It’s the idea that one of your main roles as a leader is to think first about what your employees need and how you can help them grow and succeed.

I wrote about developing an others-first mindset in Forbes in 2019 in the article, “First Rule Of Leadership: It's Not About You.” Since that article was published, I’ve discovered that not only is it more important to adopt an “others first” mentality but to evolve and build my own leadership competencies.

Since publishing that article, we’ve seen the rise of remote and hybrid work, a more uncertain global economy and an overall shift in the perception of the ideal work-life balance driven by the global pandemic. I, like other leaders, need to respond to these shifts. Although the others-first mentality is crucial, every leader needs to determine what competencies work best for them and their teams.

Look To Your Past To Establish Principles

I had to jump into a leadership role not long out of college. My dad was an entrepreneur at heart—in fact, he was one of the pioneers in the time-management industry—and his priorities at home were very clear. While other families were reflecting on the past year at Thanksgiving, my dad was asking about our goals for the coming year. At the age of 13, he gave me a copy of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen Covey. He was a big fan of the phrase, “Leaders are readers.” Admittedly, I wasn’t an immediate fan (hey, I was only 13), but this preparation served me well when my father passed shortly after graduation, and I had to take over our company. I wasn’t ready for it, but I knew how to set priorities, and these habits kept me on the right track.

My experiences at this age had a direct impact on my leadership style today. Many leaders perceive their own corporate success as a direct indication of their value as a person and a leader. But instead of worrying about the perception of success, leaders need to support their teams first. Helping others has a much more powerful impact than focusing on the next quarter’s numbers. Lead with grace by treating people how you would like to be treated.

“Borrow” From Your Mentors

One of my first mentors shared what we now call the four F's of leadership: be fair, firm and friendly but not too familiar. Being fair means giving an employee the benefit of the doubt; show them grace. Being firm is being unequivocally clear on expectations. In my mind, being friendly is to be affable and approachable but not too familiar. You need some emotional distance and perspective to focus on what the company or the team needs overall. This distance enables leaders to be more objective and neutral.

Move Beyond Your Comfort Zone

When the initial quarantine happened in March 2020, I dedicated myself to responding to the impact on our business. But I soon found myself flustered with the new concept of remote work. As a leader, when everyone is scattered, it’s harder to tell if things are going smoothly. I like to work in the office—I get energy from my teams. But I also had to realize that this style might not work for everyone.

As we emerged from the pandemic, it became clear that hybrid work was here to stay. In order to "unself myself," I had to listen to what my teams needed and trust that my business leaders could manage through the disruptions. We embraced video conferencing, enhanced our internal communications, adjusted our work processes and created new ways to share information, from a more structured OKR process to quarterly leadership gatherings to something we call “Meeting Week,” for which leadership teams schedule operating reviews, brainstorming and future planning to get a critical mass of brainpower in the same location.

Increase Clarity

Looking back on my career, the biggest "misses" usually had one thing in common: There was a lack of organizational clarity. To drive success, it’s critical that every member of the team knows exactly what's expected of them and, as a CEO, how can you measure against those expectations.

Since publishing that leadership article in 2019, I’ve overseen major acquisitions that transformed our business and expanded us into new markets and geographies. I realized that I needed to ensure everyone was aligned with the company’s vision and understood what was expected of them. I added to my own toolkit by putting a greater emphasis on creating clarity and communicating more frequently and transparently.

We’ve rolled out new guidance to our leaders throughout the organization about what's expected of them and what competencies will help ensure their teams’ success. To my own "others first" mindset, we’ve added "future focused," or championing change and thinking long term, and "playing to win," or continuing to drive results and challenging the status quo.

By evolving my own leadership philosophy, creating more clarity for my leaders and "unselfing myself" when it comes to leading as CEO, we’ve seen our teams perform better, people are growing their careers and we’re getting positive effects on our internal engagement scores and external financial results.

These results tell me that even though people are looking to me as a leader, my company will do best when I focus not on myself but on what people need to get the job done.


Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?


Follow me on Twitter or LinkedInCheck out my website