Transportation and Logistics
Balanced lifting
How to be a fair leader
By Brian Horn
Smart Business Detroit | May 2008
Dave Morse
President, Morse Moving & Storage Inc.
Don’t ever think you’re
better than anyone else,
advises Dave Morse.
The president of Morse
Moving & Storage Inc. says
that as soon as you start to
get the feeling that you, as a
leader, are more important
than your employees, bad
things will happen.
“Whenever you start, ‘Do as
I say, not as I do,’ then, in turn,
you can lose respect real
quick from your team,” says
Morse, who leads more than
200 employees at the company, which posted 2007 revenue
of more than $15 million.
He says that employees will
work hard if they see you
working hard, which creates
a fair environment.
Smart Business spoke with
Morse about how to lead fairly and why if you can’t
defend what you’re doing,
maybe it’s not the right thing.
Q. What are the keys to
being a good leader?
Being fair is a big part of it.
Being fair with the people
you are leading. Treat them
the way you would want
them to treat you.
Once you get to that point
— especially in a family business where you have to
make some tough decisions
that sometimes affect family
— when you are doing that,
if you are doing them fairly,
then the rest of the team
realizes that, and it keeps
your company strong as
you’re moving forward.
Q. How do you ensure you’re
being fair?
Before you make a decision, you think about it, and you
think how it’s affecting people. You think whether you
would think — if you were in
their position — whether that
decision was fair.
You’ve got to put yourself
in their shoes as you are
moving forward through it
and be able to come and talk
to them and tell them and
communicate that to them
that this is why you are
doing it, this is why you
think it is fair.
Q. Why do you think it’s
important to allow people to
express their opinions?
It brings a lot more
ideas to the team.
People are more open
to make suggestions,
bring ideas forward,
etc. Whenever an
employee feels what
they say doesn’t really
matter, they quit coming up with ideas. They
quit wanting to put
suggestions forward
because nobody listens
anyway. So it’s the
combination of having
[an] open door and, ‘I
want to hear what you
have to say.’
Q. What advice would
you give another leader
on how to be fair?
First of all, don’t try and
hide things. Business is really about us working together
and trying to get something
to the bottom line, all making a living, working together, having an enjoyable time
here while we’re working.
Each year, in each quarter,
I take our financials up, and
I’ll share them [with the] entire team, all the way
down to the warehouse guys.
They’ll see our business plan
this year. So, ‘This is what
we are planning on doing.
Here’s how we plan on doing
it.’
That starts opening the
door. That starts opening it
up for that communication
process. If you have questions, when I e-mail it to the
internal team, I say, ‘Hey, if
you have questions on this,
either ask me or ask one of
my managers, and they’ll be
able to explain because we
have worked hard to put this plan together. And, here’s
our budget for the year and
here’s what we’re planning
on doing.’
I think it starts there, and,
as you move forward, and
you keep from hiding things
from employees and you
work with them as a team, in
turn, I think that opens up
your whole company to
where everybody is more
comfortable in letting you
know their opinions and feeling like they’re part of that,
part of our common goal.
Q. Has being open ever hurt
your business?
I don’t think so. Usually,
when it’s a drawback is
when you are trying to hide
something. A prime example
is an employee says, ‘It looks
like you are making too
much here or you are spending too much here.’
If I can’t explain it, maybe I
am spending too much.
Maybe I need to look at that.
So, if you are open to be able
to look at things like that —
‘Why are you driving that
vehicle?’ I’ve even had that
come up when you’re showing financials to people.
Hopefully, I can defend
what I do and what I’m
working on. I think I should
be able to answer employees the same way I’d have
to answer my board of
directors and have a good
understanding on why I’m
doing it.
First, I have to be able to
feel comfortable with it.
Once I’m feeling comfortable with it, then I might
need to sell it to a couple of
people.
HOW TO REACH: Morse Moving & Storage Inc., (734) 484-1717 or www.morsemoving.com
