‘With great power; great responsibility’
Jason Reiser, COO at Vitamin Shoppe
Some of life’s greatest lessons can come from the pages of a comic book. Take, for instance, Uncle Ben’s advice to his nephew Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man: “With great power comes great responsibility.”
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“When you dig deeper, what that really means is that when you lead a group of people, you’ve got a team that’s counting on you,” explained Jason Reiser — then chief merchant for Family Dollar, just a few weeks before he would be named COO of Vitamin Shoppe — at the Future Leaders Summit, co-hosted by DSN and Mack Elevation Forum, in May. “I get all my wisdom from superhero movies,” he quipped.
Reiser talked about why purpose matters to leadership.
“My personal leadership purpose is No. 1, about making someone’s life better,” he said, a calling he first felt as a boy working in his father’s pharmacy outside of Philadelphia.
“The second part is, how do I take a team and get results through other people that I — and they — never thought possible,” he said.
To get there, Reiser outlined the 12 key characteristics of a purpose-driven leader:
You must be willing to be unpopular. “I like to say, ‘Let’s talk about the tough decisions first,’” Reiser said.
Give and take unfiltered feedback. “Real leaders make themselves accessible,” Reiser said. “When the door is open, do you really listen, [or] do you bite people’s heads off? Are you really approachable?”
Don’t let data replace judgement. “Sometimes you have to go with your gut.”
Challenge the status quo. “You want to make sure that your organization doesn’t get complacent,” Reiser said. Quoting Barry Rand, former CEO of Xerox, “If one of the people who works for you is a ‘yes man,’ one of you is redundant.”
Always be involved in the details. “Ideas and visions mean nothing if you don’t see them on the field.”
If it ain’t broke — fix it. Purpose-driven leaders forecast how businesses will change. “If the category is not broken today, where is it going to be five years from now?” Reiser asked. “Complacency can be devastating to a business.”
Only the best people accomplish great things. “This is and always will be a people business. This is the thing that is killing millennials and [younger] people,” Reiser said, lamenting the reliance today on email and text messaging. “What’s lost is tone. God forbid you actually have a conversation with somebody,” he said.
Don’t get caught up with a fancy title. “’That’s not my job;’ my dad killed that for me pretty early,” Reiser said. “I used to call those people ‘MFNs.’ ‘Money for nothing.’ If you have a ‘money for nothing’ in your organization, get rid of them. They’re a cancer [to the organization].’”
Never underestimate enthusiasm and optimism. “I would rather have somebody [on my team] who is bullish and probably wrong, any day of the week — [being wrong] doesn’t matter,” Reiser said. “They’re enthusiastic, they bring passion [to the job], [they’re] infectious and they just might strike gold.”
Simple solutions. “Anything that has [too much] complexity to it is not going to work,” Reiser said. “Not only that, it’s really hard to communicate.”
Have fun. Sharing a highly personal story from his own life, Reiser urged attendees to remember the one rule that trumps all others — to have fun at what you’re doing and surround yourself with people who are able to laugh at themselves. Personal ambition might fuel you, but never lose track of the things that truly matter.
Leadership is hard. “‘Don’t tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and let them surprise you with the results,’” said Reiser, citing the late, great General George Patton. “I always say be crystal clear on what you want and when you want it done, but be completely vague on how. The stuff that comes back will blow you away.”