Amy Eckerley
Corner Office Article
1/13/2014
CSR 309
Many influential leaders have their own ideas and ways of leading their teams and gaining respect of their employees. In Adam Bryant’s interview with John Duffy in “What’s your 100 day plan” John talks about his leadership approach and how is creates a healthy environment of respect in the workplace. The main aspects of this interview are the importance of consistency, being coachable, and creating a healthy culture as a work environment.
One of the first things John Duffy talks about is that consistency is important in the workplace. He goes more in-depth and says that it is important because if a person is consistent the employees can easily communicate with him and they don’t have to worry about assessing his mood to approach him. He continues in saying that being consistent means congratulating people when they do well and also letting them know when a mistake has been made (without yelling). It is my personal belief that being consistent is an important quality for a leader to have because it creates a more comforting and good work-environment. John Duffy continues on to talk about that importance of being coachable. During my internship, my mentor often stressed that he would rather have someone who knew nothing about the field but was coachable than someone who already had a lot of background information on the particular field. John Duffy seemed to agree with this. I enjoyed his example of being a bad player on a good team so he could grow and improve rather than being the best player on a bad team. Finally, John Duffy talked about creating a feeling of safety at the workplace. The biggest way to do this was by creating an environment of respect. In the interview, John Duffy said, “That’s (respect) what creates the positive culture. That’s what attracts amazing talented people.” This type of environment that John Duffy strived and successfully achieved was what keeps the business growing and continuing to hire the right people that fit into this culture he has created.
Overall, John Duffy seems like the type of leader I would want to work for. He understands that creating a safe and respectful environment is necessary and seems to want the very best for his employees.