Reflection: Leaders Impact on an Organization

Throughout our analysis and further understanding of leadership styles, as a group we have discovered and learnt so many new and interesting styles that impact an organization. 

The top leadership styles and skills that stood out to us were the following; 

Adaptability. In order to be a successful leader you must be  able to flex and adapt to any situation that comes at you. Leaders need to understand how to flex and adapt to meet any given situation. Leadership is not a ‘one size fits all’ proposition, and the best leaders are those who understand what is needed and can then pivot to provide what will make a difference. 

Transparency. The best leaders are transparent with you in every shape or form. The best leaders admit mistakes, ask for forgiveness and make bad situations right. These “failures” aren’t signs of weakness, but rather strengths. This leadership style reflects on my previous point in which “in order to be a successful leader you must be  able to flex and adapt to any situation that comes at you whether that means you made a mistake you make those situations right. 

Self-Awareness. Effective leadership means being aware of your full potential as well as the areas you need to further develop. Self awareness requires you to consider your presence: how you show up and what you convey both emotionally and energetically. In leadership, awareness of your presence is the most overlooked detail, yet it is invaluable to your leadership success. A leader must accept that there are things that they have yet to learn. It then becomes their responsibility to learn these things and develop their leadership skills further to benefit himself and his organization.

Stanley J. Sutula III - Chief Financial Officer

The next leader that we want to talk about in the post is Stanley Sutula III. He is the current Chief Financial Officer in Colgate. He has been recently added to the company board of directors just a year and a half ago. 

Stanley is originally from New York and around 1988 he got his Bachelor’s Degree in Science in Finance & Management from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. This double degree clearly shows his motivation about business and the combination of leading and managing teams, with a strong background in finance. 

It was a few years later, when he decided to do a little step up in his professional career and apply to some business schools to improve even more in the world of business. He finally was admitted to pursue an MBA that would teach him useful skills for his future.

In 1992 he graduated from Fordham Gabelli School of Business with an MBA. These kinds of masters prepare you with knowledge, connections and experience to solve real problems and to manage large departments in a business environment. With it, he started his career in IBM where he worked for 28 years. According to Colgate-Palmolive, he is a skilled and experienced executive with an extensive background in corporate finance, financial planning and operations, tax, strategic planning and risk management. While at IBM, Mr. Sutula championed the use of technology and data analytics within the finance organization, which in turn, helped deliver three consecutive years of constant-currency revenue growth. His tenure at IBM included financial management roles of increasing responsibility, culminating in service as IBM’s Vice President and Controller. At IBM, he led large, global, corporate and business unit teams and honed his extensive background in finance, accounting, treasury, financial planning and analysis, audit, risk and compliance.

As we can see, he was a great executive in IBM bringing a lot of value to the company. The financial background and his analytical skills were important to the job, but the management and leadership required to be in charge of big departments with big responsibilities is also outstanding. One technique mentioned in Colgate-Palmolive is that he increased the responsibility of his employees. That technique of leadership gets the best from your team or department by making them feel that they are an important part of the organization. The responsibility is sometimes correlated with another kind of benefit such as a bigger salary, but the goal was that Sutula was looking for ways to make the employees more motivated and proud of their position, so they could perform at a higher rate. 

References

Colgate appoints Stanley J. Sutula as chief financial officer: Colgate-Palmolive Company. Colgate. (2020, October 30). Retrieved May 8, 2022, from https://investor.colgatepalmolive.com/news-releases/news-release-details/colgate-appoints-stanley-j-sutula-chief-financial-officer 

Reuben Mark - Retired CEO

Reuben Mark was the longest serving leader in the history of the Colgate-Palmolive Company. He served as chief executive officer for two and a half decades, leading the company through a period of extraordinary progress and growth, global expansion and ever-increasing worldwide market-share leadership, resulting from a sharply focused business strategy. He graduated from Middlebury College around 1962 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. A few years later he obtained an MBA, master’s in business administration by the prestigious Harvard Business School.

Mr. Mark was a champion of the distinctive Colgate culture that sustained this success with a deep commitment to managing with respect, developing all Colgate people and instilling them with Colgate values and ethics.

Mr. Mark’s wide-ranging career at Colgate gave him experience in all geographic areas of Colgate’s worldwide business. He had the opportunity to work in Europe, Latin America, Asia, the United States, and Canada. He joined Colgate in 1963 as a marketing trainee and, in 1984, he was named chief executive officer and then chairman of the board in 1986, a position he held until 2009.

Over his career, Mr. Mark has been a director of a number of major U.S. and overseas companies including Citigroup, Time Warner, Inc., Toys “R” Us, International Can Company, Cabela’s, Inc., and Pearson plc. In 2009, Mr. Mark was named one of the “Twenty Best All Time CEOs” by Portfolio magazine. All the achievements that Mark has during his successful career in Colgate have a common denominator. As mentioned above, his management was conducted with values such as respect, ethics and integrity with people. When you have appreciation from your employees or your team, you can get the best from each one of them. Of course Mark had great performance in the company, great skills to develop his job but the team would not trust him as they did if there was no respect. I think that is what made him great, the clear and precise style of leadership and management that he knew how to explode in order to manage the teams.  Another great example, presented by Columbia Business School, Mark founded The Reuben Mark Initiative for Organizational Character and Leadership leverages the intellectual capital of Columbia Business School and Columbia Law School. The goal was to design courses and programs that teach the leadership skills and strategies necessary to create an optimal organizational culture.

  Here we can see his passion for great leadership by trying to teach his style and strategies for being a successful leader. His honest values made him great not only in Colgate, but in Columbia University as a professor.

References

School, C. B. (2019, January 29). About Reuben Mark. The Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics. Retrieved May 8, 2022, from https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/leadership/reubenmarkinitiative/aboutreubenmark 

Podcasts, & America, N. (n.d.). Colgate-Palmolive’s Reuben Mark: On Leadership and “Moving the Bell Curve.” Knowledge@Wharton. https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/colgate-palmolives-reuben-mark-on-leadership-and-moving-the-bell-curve/

Noel Wallace - CEO

Noel Wallace has been Colgate’s President and Chief Operating Officer since July 2018. Wallace joined Colgate in 1987 and progressed through a series of senior management roles all around the world. In 2002, he became President and General Manager of the Global Toothbrush Division (Colgate-Palmolive). He then led Colgate Mexico and Colgate U.S. and, in 2010, became President Colgate North America, also leading Colgate’s Global Sustainability strategy (Sustainability Strategy). In 2013, he became President, Colgate Latin America and, in 2016, was named Chief Operating Officer, Global Innovation & Growth and Hill’s Pet Nutrition (Colgate-Palmolive). With his extensive background in this business and with this company for 32 years, he is extremely prepared to lead Colgate to further success. Noel Wallace, President and CEO-elect said, 

“With our innovation and growth strategy generating renewed momentum and a highly energized team of Colgate leaders around the world, I am extremely excited about our future. I look forward to working with all Colgate people as we enter a new phase of growth, taking full advantage of our longstanding strengths and developing new ones to seize emerging opportunities." (Colgate-Palmolive)

According to Comparably.com, a company/leadership review page, Noel Wallace received an overall rating of 77/100 from colgate’s employees, 80/100 from its managers, and 79/100 from its executive team (giving an average rating of 77/100) (ZoomInfo). This ranks Noel Wallace among the top 10% of CEOs of companies of comparable size and a grade rating of an A. Why is this? This is all due to his leadership skills, behaviors, and styles. Wallace approaches his leadership with three key aspects: Listening and learning, self awareness and coachability, and the power of mentorship. In an article from Prep for Prep, Noel Wallace, Dana Medema, and Ruth Jergensen dive into why this is their approach to leadership. Noel notes that “Leaders have to be highly self aware of their impact on others” (Jergensen, R.). Self awareness has been cited as one of the most important qualities that a leader should possess. The one constant factor that you will always endeavor is yourself; that being said, self awareness is one of the core components when it comes to emotional intelligence. This is true for both the leader and their employees around them. Being self aware allows a leader to listen to its employees and learn from them, whether that’s learning what they can improve on, what an employee is experiencing, or how they can create a better environment for the company overall. Taking the time to listen and learn about the environment and culture in a company is vital for its success. Wallace listens for the places where he can make an impact. With him being the CEO of Colgate, there is a lot he can do. Self awareness also comes into play when it comes to coachability. Dana Medema, Vice President and General Manager of Oral Care, states “When you think of really great athletes, they are all coachable. Coachability is key to being a good leader. Don’t react in the moment, listen, and then do something with it” (Jergensen, R.). Lastly, the power of mentorship is very important when it comes to Wallace and his leadership. It can be difficult to find mentors, those that you can trust at work, school, or elsewhere. Ruth Jergensen, Prep for Prep CEO, describes her experience in the workplace:

“It was very challenging to be a Black woman in a predominantly white space. Work as tirelessly as you can to get to that place where you can be authentic... You will always find, if you are open to it, people who can see for you more than you can see for yourself. That’s what Prep does. We need people to see us and amplify the best in us, and offer us opportunities to be leaders. That’s the only way I became a leader” (Jergensen, R.). 

All in all, Wallace preaches and exhibits all of these great and essential qualities that it takes to be a leader. This has been the biggest force to Wallace’s success as a leader and rich career in Colgate.

References

Colgate-Palmolive. (2019, February 11). Colgate elects Noel Wallace president and chief executive officer and a member of its board of directors effective April 2, 2019: Colgate-Palmolive Company. Colgate. Retrieved May 8, 2022, from https://investor.colgatepalmolive.com/news-releases/news-release-details/colgate-elects-noel-wallace-president-and-chief-executive 

ZoomInfo. (2022, May 7). Noel Wallace Colgate Palmolive CEO rating. Comparably. Retrieved May 9, 2022, from https://www.comparably.com/companies/colgate-palmolive/ceo-rating 

Jergensen, R. (2021, November 11). In conversation: Prep for prep CEO Ruth Jurgensen and Colgate-Palmolive chairman, president & CEO Noel Wallace. Prep for Prep. Retrieved May 8, 2022, from https://www.prepforprep.org/news-detail?pk=1448324&nc=12339&fromId=254866&siteId=1137 

Colgate-Palmolive Description

Colgate-Palmolive company is an American broadened organization that makes and distributes household and commercial cleaning products, dental and other personal-care products, and pet foods in the United States in excess of 200 different nations and regions around the world.Their headquarters are located in New York City.

Colgate-Palmolive's set of experiences follows back to the early nineteenth century when William Colgate started selling his products in New York City under the name William Colgate and Company. After his death in 1857, the company was controlled by his son, Samuel Colgate, under the new name Colgate and Company. In 1890 Madison College in Hamilton, N.Y. was renamed Colgate University in acknowledgment of the Colgate family's long-term monetary help. The ongoing corporate name was taken on in 1953.

Colgate and Company sold the first ever toothpaste in a tube, Colgate’s Ribbon Dental Cream, in 1896. In 1928 the firm was purchased by Palmolive-Peet Organization, whose founder, B.J. Johnson, had fostered the recipe for Palmolive soap in 1898. At the turn of the twentieth century, Palmolive — which contained both palm and olive oils became the world's best selling soap. 

In addition to toothpaste, Colgate-Palmolive manufactured a number of successful personal-care and household products in the United States and other countries, including Palmolive dishwashing liquid and Irish Spring bar soap. The association's acquisition of an assortment of organizations from the 1960s forward empowered it to grow both its market share and its product lines in the United States, Latin America, Europe, and East Asia. In 1976 Colgate-Palmolive acquired Hill’s Pet Nutrition, a worldwide leader in veterinary and pet-nutrition products, and in 1987 it purchased Softsoap liquid soap. From the 1990s Colgate-Palmolive was a major producer of all-purpose cleaners, wipes, and sprays.

Following quite a lot of criticism and blacklists by basic entitlements, Colgate-Palmolive laid out a ban on creature testing for its grown-up private consideration items in 1999. Significant item classifications remain toothpastes and mouthwashes, toothbrushes, antiperspirants, bar cleansers and fluid cleansers, dish cleansers and dishwasher cleansers, floor-and surface-cleaning items, and pet food (Encyclopædia Britannica). 

References

Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. (n.d.). Colgate-Palmolive Company. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved May 8, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Colgate-Palmolive-Company