Consumer Products
Learning to lead
How to hone the skills for successful leadership
By Carolyn LaWell
Smart Business Akron/Canton | March 2009
Page 1 of 3
Harvey Nelson
co-founder, Main Street Gourmet
Harvey Nelson defines leadership as the energy that
creates the future. Finding that
energy, though, is the key.
As co-founder and co-CEO of
Main Street Gourmet with Steve
Marks, Nelson says one of his
greatest leadership challenges
has been finding the energy to
push himself to be a leader. He
says that, at times, the responsibilities attached to the job title
come naturally for him, while at
other times, he needs extra
motivation.
People have a propensity to
be leaders, but the necessary
skills must be analyzed and
developed, Nelson says. To be a
successful leader, you have to
possess self-awareness, know
when to push and when to back
off, and allow others to lead.
Nelson has used those skills
over the last 20 years to grow
Main Street Gourmet from a
muffin shop to a custom manufacturer of bakery products with
110 employees.
Smart Business spoke with
Nelson about how to develop
the skills to be a successful
leader and how to maintain
your drive.
Know yourself and stay flexible.
First of all, you have to know
yourself — have self-awareness.
Do a lot of introspection. I
try to always put myself in
another person’s point of
view. I look at what my reaction is, and I think where is
that coming from.
Is that something someone
told me sometime and I took
it as truth? I really think about
where is that coming from.
You’ve got to have the ability to adapt and evolve. It gets
back to knowing yourself —
you’re trying to be aware of if
you’re stuck in a pattern of
thinking. The other way is trying new things as you push
yourself. You typically need to
adapt as you push.
You pretty much can ask
(employees), ‘Is there a way
for me to improve? Is there a
way that I can help you? Is
there something I need to do
to change?’
When you ask them those
questions, they’ll give you a lot
of information on how to adapt.
Prioritize and focus.
A lot of
times when you’re leading
someone, the one skill you
need is some sense of urgency
but with a sense of humanity,
so you’re not just pushing to
push. You’ve got to be willing
to work with people.
You have to do that pushing
and backing off and find that
timing.
A lot of times, that’s customer-driven. It comes from
really prioritizing and focusing.
The timing is if we don’t get it
done now, and it’s not going to
happen, that’s when we need
to push. This is an issue we’re
always dealing with, when we
push and we don’t really have
to [because] the customer
doesn’t really need it. We haven’t asked all the right questions, and we’re pushing to get
something out when, if you
talk to the customer and they
say, ‘Well, we don’t need it
today; you can give it to us in
three weeks.’
You can’t be doing that all the
time. When you push and you
have that sense of urgency —
when there’s really no urgency
—- that can hurt. Then it’s like
the boy who cried wolf.
Listen to your customers’
needs and be aware of the
employees’ needs. That comes
back to self-awareness and
awareness in general. So you
know what’s going on around
you so that you can adapt.
