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A Conversation With Marshall Goldsmith: Leadership and “The Earned Life”
In his latest book, “The Earned Life,” Marshall Goldsmith uncovers the source of today’s existential crisis: regret.
George Morrow, a recently retired Executive Vice President with Amgen, Inc., identifies four, key characteristics of successful leaders: vision, motivation, execution, and coaching.
Welcome to The Center for Leadership Studies podcast, an exploration of contemporary leadership issues with experts from a variety of fields and leadership backgrounds. In this episode, George Morrow shares his thoughts on four critical elements of effective leadership.
George Morrow
There’s no one leadership style that’s known to be the most effective. There are a lot of different leadership styles, and maybe different situations call for different leadership styles. I’m not here to say that because I may gravitate towards one style that makes it any better than another style. I think there are some elements in leadership that you pretty much have to have if you’re going to get the job done. And leadership is all about getting the job done and leading change, typically. So, the first thing you have to have is vision and not vision in an ethereal way. Vision is, okay, we’re a group of people. What are we committed to do?
I was fortunate to work for two companies with Merck and Amgen, where our mission was all about helping patients, and what’s best for the patient was oftentimes used as an aligning principle. What’s best for the patient?
The second thing a leader has to do beyond the sort of vision is motivate people. I’m not saying that you have to be the cheerleader. I think most people are pretty well self-motivated. I think it’s easier to demotivate than to motivate sometimes. But I think what’s really motivating to most people that I worked with over the years is giving their job meaning. Are you really making a difference, or are you just here to get a paycheck or here to get promoted?
And I think anything you can do to help people understand what the ramifications are of what they’re doing, to me, that’s a very motivating thing. It’s the greater good; it’s the bigger purpose in life that you’re trying to fulfill. Fortunately, I’ve worked for companies that had that kind of mission, and we had leaders who spoke to me in those ways, and that was very motivating for me. Now, all that’s great, but you actually have to get the work done. And you can give great speeches, and a lot of leaders get by on just their speeches alone. But a really great leader is an execution animal. It’s the kind of person that, when you’ve got to get something organized and done, they know exactly where to intervene, what the pressure points are, and how to structure things.
They also know when to back off and let people get things done. So I think a great leader has to be excellent at execution and getting things done. I think the last dimension, being a coach, is essential to being a great leader because everyone needs feedback, authentic feedback, and needs to be directed and informed about what things they need to improve upon. A lot of people shy away from giving that kind of feedback. A great coach is with your interest in mind, going to tell you what you need to hear and going to help you find ways of improving whatever it is you need to improve upon. So the vision thing is hugely important, knowing how to motivate people and, very importantly, not demotivate them. Being an execution animal and a great coach, to me, that’s sort of the soup that makes for a great leadership recipe.
As an Executive Vice President at Amgen, the world’s largest independent biotech company, George Morrow led global commercial operations, the division responsible for the commercial activities of approximately 3800 staff in over 50 countries. He also oversaw global government affairs, which manages Amgen’s policy and strategies with various government agencies. Before joining Amgen, George had 20 years of commercial pharmaceutical experience, with 10 years at Merck and 10 at Glaxo.
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