Leaders channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company. Its not that leaders have no ego or self-interest. Indeed, they are incredibly ambitious – but their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves.
An individual who blends extreme personal humility with intense professional will, is modest and willful, humble and fearless. Humility and Will, builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.
To quickly grasp this concept, consider the case of Colman Mockler, CEO of Gillette from 1975 to 1991. During Mocklers tenure, Gillette faced attacks that threatened to destroy the company’s opportunity for greatness. Two attacks came as hostile takeover bids from Revlon, led by Ronald Prelman, a cigar-chomping raider with a reputation for breaking apart companies to pay down junk bonds and finance more hostile raids. The third attack came Coniston Partners, an investment group that bought 5.9 percent of Gillette stock and initiated a proxy battle to seize control of the board, hoping to sell the company to the highest bidder and pocket a quick gain on their shares. Had Gillette been flipped to Perelman at the price he offered, shareowners would have reaped an instaneous 44 percent gain on their stock. Looking at a $2.3 billion short-term stock profit across 116 million shares, most executives would have capitulated, pocketing millions from flipping their own stock and cashing in on generous golden parachutes.
Colman Mockler did not capitulate, choosing instead to fight for the future greatness of Gillette, even though he himself would have pocketed a substantial sum on his own shares. A quiet and reserved man, always courteous, Mocler had the reputation of a gracious, almost patrician gentleman. In the proxy fight, senior Gillette executives reached out to thousands of individual investors – person by person, phone call by phone call – and won the battle.
Now, you might be thinking, “But that just sounds like self-serving entrenched management fighting for their interests at the expense of shareholder interests.” On the surface, it might look that way, but consider two key facts.
First, Mockler and his team staked the company’s future on huge investments in radically new and technologically advanced systems. Had the takeover been successful, these projects would almost certainly have been curtailed or eliminated, and none of us would be shaving with Sensor, Sensor for Women, or the Mach3 – leaving hundreds of millions of people to a more painful daily battle with stubble.
Second, at the time of the takeover battle, Sensor promised significant future profits that were not reflected in the stock price because it was in secret development. With Sensor in mind, the board and Mocker believed that the future value of the shares far exceeded the current price, even with the price premium offered by the raiders. To sell out would have made short-term share flippers happy but would have been utterly irresponsible to long-term shareholders.
In the end, Mockler and the board were proved right, stunningly so. If Share flipper had accepted the 44 percent price premium offered by Ronald Perelman on October 31, 1986, and then invested the full amount in the general market for ten years, through the end of 1996, he would have come out three times worse off them a shareholder who had stayed with Mockler and Gillette. Indeed, the company, its customers, and the shareholders would have been ill served had Mockler capitulated to the raiders, pocketed his millions, and retired to a life of leisure.
Mocker’s placid persona hid an inner intensity, a dedication to making anything he touched the best it could possibly be – not just because of what he would get, but because he simply couldn’t imagine doing it any other way. It wouldn’t have been an option within Colman Mockler’s value system to take the easy path and turn the company over to those who would milk it like a cow, destroying its potential to become great.
