Adam Bryant, Corner Office, New York Times; Interview of Niki Leondakis, chief operating officer of Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, "O.K., Newbies, Bring Out the Hula Hoops":
"Q. Do you remember the first time you were a boss?
A. I was in college at UMass, and I was promoted from a server to a shift-supervisor position at a restaurant called the Hungry U.
Q. How did that go?
A. I took that job pretty seriously. But I would say both in that job and in my first job out of school as an entry-level manager, I experienced what a lot of people experience, which is being too friendly with the people you manage and learning the appropriate boundaries and distances around certain things.
Q. And some people go too far the other way, and start bossing people around.
A. I think people fall into one of two camps. I think very few people become a supervisor or a boss for the first time and know exactly where the right balance is. Both with myself and all the young managers I see, people seem to swing to one end of the pendulum or the other — overzealous with power or, “I’m everybody’s friend, and I want them to like me, and if they like me maybe they’ll do what I ask and then it’ll be easier.”
Q. So how did that play out for you?
A. It was frankly just a long road of mistakes and learning and watching and trials and tribulations, really, about managing people, counseling people, hiring people, letting people go and learning through the actual process of doing all those things over and over again that there’s a middle ground that makes sense.
Q. Did the pendulum swing back and forth for you?
A. When I started advancing in my career, I swung the pendulum the other way. I was at a point where most of my peers were men and they tended to act and behave differently than I did and came across as tough-minded and more rigid, a little more authoritarian. I felt like, to be successful, I needed to do that, too, so I was acting a lot like what I thought successful leadership looked like. That was in the early ’80s. For women in general at that time, we all thought that to be successful or to be considered equal, you tried to really dress like men, act like men and ensure people knew you were tough-minded and could make the tough calls and be decisive.
So I was holding back on some of my leadership strengths — collaboration, inclusion and building and creating teams. I was trying to be somebody I wasn’t, until one day I had to do something disciplinary to someone I really liked and admired.
Human resources got involved and they wanted me to let this person go. I said, “That’s not fair.” So the negotiation between myself and human resources resulted in a week’s suspension without pay for this person. I was struggling with how to communicate with her what had happened, because I couldn’t reconcile for myself what the words were going to be.
The person I worked for at that time could see my struggle and said: “You know what, Niki? Just tap into who you are as a woman and relate to her with compassion, and you’ll be able to do what you need to do. You can still do what you have to do, but you don’t have to be a jerk about it.”
And that was sort of an epiphany for me, because I thought that being tough-minded and decisive and all those qualities and traits that I thought I was supposed to exhibit, that men exhibited, meant that I couldn’t show compassion. It was just a different experience for me to relate to this person with compassion and accountability at the same time, and balance the two. And the fact that it was effective was a huge learning for me.
From that point on, there was an awareness I had that there was this balance I could strike with being myself, being compassionate and holding people accountable. They were not mutually exclusive.
Q. How many years did it take before you found the right balance as a leader?
A. A good 10 years before I really found my center and learned how to be true to my values.
Q. So what advice do you give to new managers?
A. I would talk to a young manager about who they are, what they really believe in, and find the foundation or platform, if you will, to communicate consistently to the people you work with so they know what you stand for and what you believe in. And when they experience that from you, they understand the place that it’s coming from. Otherwise, they fill in their own blanks.
Q. What other advice do you give them when they become new managers?
A. I coach them to do a lot of listening. Listen first. I generally tell them that the best and most effective thing you can do is have both some group-listening environments, where you have employee meetings or department meetings with different groups of people, and one-on-ones and work your way through the entire team that you’re responsible for.
Before you start telling people where you’re coming from and what you’re about and what you’re going to do, listen first to what’s going on here, how do they feel about it, what are their views, what’s their input, what are their personal goals, and take note of all that they have to say, and then put together your version of “here’s where I’m coming from.” So, “listen and learn first” is a consistent piece of advice.
Q. Any big influences when you were younger?
A. My first leadership model as a young child was my grandmother, who ran a diner in western Massachusetts. My grandfather had died, and she single-handedly ran this 24/7 diner, and I used to spend a lot of time hanging out at that diner. I’d watch how she’d make tough calls. I’d watch how she’d handle difficult situations, and she always handled it. She never shied away from it, but she always did it with grace and poise. I just saw her handle so many difficult situations so well; it was a great example for me.
My second leadership example was my father. When I was a teenager, he was a district supervisor over a lot of grocery stores, and once a year he had to do performance reviews. He couldn’t type, and he would ask me to type those performance reviews for him on this old Smith Corona electric typewriter.
So for weeks once a year, my dad would come home from work and we’d sit down for a couple hours at night with these forms, and he would articulate what he wanted to say, and I would type for him. And sometimes, because English wasn’t his first language, I would help him say it in a way that I thought would work better. But I also learned through typing performance reviews for my dad every year a lot about having a lot of heart and compassion and giving clear, direct, accountable feedback. I saw the balance of those in him, too.
Q. How has your leadership style evolved?
A. One of the things that has evolved is learning to listen first when there’s a problem or a situation that needs to be addressed. Rather than sitting down with someone and telling them what’s wrong or what needs to be addressed or what needs to be fixed, I ask how this came about and what’s happening here, and listen to the back story. How’d we get here? Why does this look like this? And then, when I have understanding about it, I can then turn it into a coaching moment rather than a moment of judgment and fear and intimidation for the person on the other side of the table who’s listening to what’s wrong with their performance.
Q. How does that contrast with how you would handle it in earlier years?
A. When I was a younger manager, my anxiety about what wasn’t right drove me to confront things quickly. The faster I confronted it, the more quickly it could get fixed. It would get changed, and while that’s a good thing, the manner in which I did it frequently left people feeling defensive. So by listening first and trying to understand how we got here and their story, I think it allows them to then hear my point of view. And then we can move into solutions. When people feel judged right out of the gate, it’s hard for them to open up and listen and improve.
Q. How do you hire?
A. Let’s assume they have the technical skills, which is sort of the price of admission. Then I’ll look at who this person is as a human being in leadership style and in cultural fit, and I will try to have, if it’s a direct report, a variety of types of conversations with them — phone to face-to-face in an office environment to a meal.
Q. Why a meal?
A. I think people get a little more comfortable, and I can observe how they walk through a restaurant and whether they barrel through or let other people go first. Or when we’re sitting down and the server comes to take the order, do they respond by looking them in the eye, or do they talk to them without looking at them, as if they’re invisible? It’s very telling to me how someone treats the service staff.
Q. What are your key questions during the interview?
A. One key question I always ask is, “What are you working on developing within yourself right now?” If someone can’t answer that honestly and rather quickly, if you have to think too hard about what you’re working on developing, are you really working on it? I’m looking for a commitment to self-development and personal growth.
Q. Tell me something unusual about what it’s like to work at Kimpton.
A. One of the important aspects of working at Kimpton is having fun. For leaders, the ability to laugh at yourself is key, so we use Hula Hoops to demonstrate that.
Q. Give me an example.
A. Every year at our annual meeting, we have a general-manager meeting. About 250 people, along with our corporate team, get together for a couple days. This has been a ritual for about 15 years now. Anyone who’s a first-timer, we call them up to the front of the room, and we play the music to “Wipe Out,” and we do this hoop-off. So five people at a time hoop and then there’s a winner. There are usually four to six new teams of people. The winner of all the newbies, as we call them, then has a hoop-off with last year’s reigning champion.
Q. That could go on for a long time.
A. The entire thing takes about an hour. I also go around the country with our other senior leaders throughout the year and do what we call the “road show” at each property. The road show has a Hula Hoop component in it, and I will demonstrate the hula technique.
Q. You’re the Hula Hoop coach?
A. Now I am. I didn’t used to be. I used to be someone they laughed at, but now I actually go, “O.K., here’s the technique.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/business/13corner.html?pagewanted=2&sq=corner%20office&st=cse&scp=2
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