Leader excellence asks for a distinct, shared leadership philosophy
Christel Fourie
GT Ferreira, Laurie Dippenaar and Paul Harris were the founders of the FirstRand Group. They had a remarkable partnership that endured for more than 30 years, whilst providing executive co-leadership to the Group they founded. A partnership like the FirstRand founders’ one is not born. It develops. At times they battled together, but the end game was always more important than who got the credit. The cohesion was stronger than the conflict. It did not fragment on the back of personalities.
The founders’ leadership philosophy is intricately linked to their business philosophy. The essence of their shared leadership philosophy pivoted on ten distinct axes.
1. Be who you are
As a leader, be who you are. It has to be how you are naturally. The founders applied a leadership style that was natural to them. A lot came about intuitively; from a real honest place. They did not copy from textbooks. They are quick to point out that there are different strategies that can bring about success. The important thing is to know which team you are playing on.
2. Love what you do and have fun
Do something you love and have fun along the way. A shared perspective is that if you enjoy what you do, it takes you further. Financial results are important. But of greater importance is whether people want to come to work. It links to what keeps exceptional leaders engaged. When they enjoy what they do, when they grow in their roles, when you let them get on with things and pay them well, that is when they stay. What is hard to achieve, is made to sound simple.
3. The right partners
Handpick partners: like-minded people and future leaders who are similar, but also different. How GT handpicked his business partners initially, set the scene. Look for someone you trust, who is honest and works hard. All three were inherently entrepreneurs; were equally hungry and keen; and, importantly, did not take themselves too seriously.
The three partners are also very different. In a nutshell, GT is a strategist, a diplomat, a world-class negotiator and a people’s person. Laurie is the numbers man, embodies strong values, is a big thinker and excels at follow-through. Paul is a risk taker, a creative thinker, brings passion, a dealmaker at heart, and new ideas make his antennae go up. The biggest success factor of their partnership was that they complemented one another. GT thinks they were very lucky that their skills and temperaments complemented each other so much so that it landed them in the fast stream.
The founders made it known that they look for a certain kind of person. Like-minded does not mean sameness. What matters greatly is attitude and performance. Essentially, it has to do with ‘Do you fit in?’ They surrounded themselves with the strongest people and were not intimidated by this. FirstRand’s leaders are typically picked young, picked on merit and do not ‘run’ for short stretches (= stable leadership). GT, Laurie and Paul were able to spot talent a mile away.
4. Being an architect
A leader is an architect. The founders brought a specific approach to business, rooted in empowerment and innovation that turned out to be highly effective in starting new businesses. A crucial mindset is that you do not have to be dishonest to be competitive. Outsmart competitors with ingenuity. Also, work harder than your competition. No matter what you do, you will not achieve the pinnacle of success if you work from 8 to 5.
Furthermore, if you want to cultivate innovation, be prepared to tolerate mistakes. The founders were disruptors, and disrupted long before it had earned a ‘name’. Then they actively encouraged others to disrupt. Making bankers and professional managers think like owners formed part of their considerable legacy. They lived the owner-manager philosophy one hundred per cent. It was rooted in the belief that if you treat the business as your own, you care more. It asks for high competence and maturity in leaders.
5. Model the organisational culture
A leader cannot fake culture. The values of an organisation stem from the way that senior leaders behave. It sends a message to others as to how they should react in certain situations. Values, or in FirstRand’s language ‘the things your mother taught you’, are lived and practised. It comes through prominently in RMB’s slogan that has not changed in 30 years: Traditional values. Innovative ideas.
The founders maintained that if the organisation continued to choose its leaders in the same way, the Group’s entrepreneurial culture will prevail. The word ‘trust’ permeated the founders’ story and leadership. If you have trust in an organisation, it leads automatically to a good reputation.
6. It is about the ‘We’ not the ‘I’
The role of a leader is not to make all the decisions, but to facilitate good decision-making. Leadership is not solo work. There is no ‘I’ in leadership, only ‘We’. The message, ‘We did not do this on our own; we have been surrounded by brilliant people’, was reiterated time and again. In business, the egos can be bigger than a building. A leader has to work with that. If you can get the team focused more on the importance of scoring and winning as a team, and less about who gets the credit, it creates a ‘We’ mindset.
7. Being a talent magnet
The founders epitomised an ethos and a culture that attracted talented individuals to working with them. What people sensed around these three was: ‘Here you make your own future’. Paul framed it as: “You are your own Pty Ltd. You make your own destiny.” Due to humble beginnings, the founders were not into the hierarchy side of things. They just wanted to get things done. They always worked with people rather than ordering them around. Essentially, they created an environment that they wanted to work in.
8. Grow people
Be generous and commit to growing people. The founders spent a considerable proportion of their time developing potential. They were generous in sharing their knowledge and experience.
They were incredibly happy about others’ successes. They listened; asked questions to challenge; raised the bar; sparked ideas; offered intellectual support; and gave people wings. They inspired others through their example. The potent combination of youth and grey hair was not lost on them. They created an atmosphere of success.
9. Seamless succession
The most important responsibility of a leader is that when you leave, there should not even be a ripple. Aim for a seamless handover. Leadership succession can be compared to running a perpetual relay. As a leader you take the baton and you run your best round and then you hand over to the next runner in the best possible way. Give those runners who need to take over the baton time to establish themselves, and then get out of their way. If you get the right people on board, succession is not really an issue. Laurie maintains that in a succession race, there are more candidates who can be ministers than presidents. A statesman is a leader who can take the right decisions not for own gain, but puts a business or country’s interests above their own.
10. Be humble, confident, courageous and passionate
In the founders, we have a fine example of leaders who had a natural humility combined with being confident leaders. They conducted themselves with chutzpah and demonstrated courage and a work ethic hard to equal. They have always wanted to make South Africa a better place. They are leaders who are not just passionate about business. They are passionate about life.
In 1977 GT Ferreira, Laurie Dippenaar and Paul Harris founded Rand Consolidated Investments Ltd (RCI) from which FirstRand Group and its offshoots developed. At present the Group owns well-known banking brands such as First National Bank, WesBank, Rand Merchant Bank and Ashburton Investments. The founders have since retired from the Group but still hold various Board chairmanships and directorships. They all have post-graduate qualifications.