On the Business Journal Daily’s BrainGain Youngtown Leadership Series podcast, Portman Talks Leadership Style, Elevating Future Leaders
During an interview with Jeff Herrmann on the Business Journal Daily’s BrainGain Youngtown Leadership Series podcast, Senator Portman discussed his leadership style, which he described as empowering people and trying to set people up for success, by giving them responsibilities and holding them accountable.
Portman discussed his inspiration growing up – his father – who cared and was invested in the people who worked for him, something that Senator Portman has tried to emulate throughout his time as a leader, whether that be in Congress or the private sector.
Portman also stressed the importance of passion in one’s work, offered advice to emerging leaders, and discussed the Mahoning Valley, in terms of leadership and the future of business and employment opportunities.
Excerpts of the interview can be found below and you can listen to the interview here.
PORTMAN ON HIS INSPIRATION GROWING UP:
“It was my dad. And my mom. They were both awesome entrepreneurs. My dad was a veteran, a World War II veteran, who decided after working for somebody else until he was like 40 years old that he was going to start his own thing, and he took a big risk. He lost his health care and all the security, pension, and that sort of stuff, and he just went out on his own. He had five people in the business, my mom was the bookkeeper, and he lost money the first few years. And so I watched him struggle, but I also watched him find his niche, and his leadership style was to empower people and to help lift people up. He sold forklift trucks, so it was a dealership for forklift trucks and other material handling equipment, but it was never about that for him. I remember asking him when I was a teenager, ‘Dad, why do you love lift trucks so much?’ And he said, ‘Actually, I don’t, I am fortunate that I was able to get this dealership and sell these products, but to me it’s all about people. And it’s about watching people grow and develop and taking someone, teaching them how to be a lift truck mechanic or how to be a salesperson, and watching them succeed in life and helping to empower them to be better.’ And I thought that was interesting. It wasn’t about the product, it was about the people. That is the reason he was my model. He treated everyone with respect also, so that is what I grew up with.”
PORTMAN ON HIS LEADERSHIP STLYE:
“I try to empower people. When someone comes to me and says, ‘What do you think about this? What should we do here?’ I say, ‘Well what do you think?’ I just had a conversation with my communications team a minute ago about being proactive and challenging me, not waiting for me to challenge them. I am, as a senator, leading this team of about 40-45 people and then a larger group of people on the Committee and then also my colleagues, I’m the Republican leader, again, in this group of 20 that are putting together this infrastructure plan. But I think some people try to over-lead and at least that’s not my style, it’s a more laid-back style, where you try to lead by example and you try to work harder than anybody else, and you don’t want to ask someone to do something you wouldn’t do, and treat everybody with respect, and empower others to take responsibility. And by doing so, you can accomplish so much more, in my view. And at least in our little team and the work that I’ve done in the private sector, it seems to me that those are the most effective leaders.”
PORTMAN ON HOW TO IMPLEMENT AN ACCOUNTABILITY CULTURE:
“You may have heard recently at a hearing, where I accused the federal government of having so many people in charge that nobody’s in charge, in the context of cyberattacks on our country. I believe that strongly. I believe that people have to be accountable. In my office, often it will be suggested, well these three people are going to be in charge of this issue and my answer always is, ‘No, who is in charge?’ ‘Well, these three.’ And I say, ‘No, one person is in charge and one person is accountable.’ I think that’s really important. There may be exceptions to that rule in a large organization, but I think even in our massive federal government, when I was the Office of Management and Budget Director, which is a cabinet-level job where, in theory, you are responsible of oversight of the entire federal government. Even with that huge number of employees, I felt like somebody needed to be accountable. I mentioned the issue of cybersecurity because right now it is a huge problem in our country, where you have these ransomware attacks and cyberattacks in general. The government has so many people involved in that, sometimes you get this, fingers pointed at someone else. That was the National Security Council. That was OMB or that was Department of Homeland Security. Or now we have a new position, which we just confirmed somebody for at the committee level, to be the new Director of Cybersecurity, in essence, and where does that person fit in? Again, it’s got to be about accountability, so you align responsibility and accountability and I think that’s an important leadership trait as well.
“I think if it’s done properly, people take it as a challenge and they like to be held accountable, assuming you’re fair in terms of your measurement of what their success is. In other words, if you are setting someone up to fail, it will have a demoralizing effect on the entire organization. But if you are setting people up to succeed by giving them accountability at a time in their career when they can handle it, you get a certain amount of fulfillment from that and the dignity that comes with that and the self-respect comes with that, I think is an important part of leadership as well. I think being clear about what the lines are and allowing people to stretch but to ultimately succeed, really builds a team and that’s what I try to do.
“The other issue you mentioned is passion. I think you have to show that there is a bigger cause, whether it’s selling forklift trucks and doing it in a way that’s providing the best service of any dealership in the country, which was my father’s approach. He had a motto, which was about providing the best service and the best products, so ‘Total reliability in people and in product,’ was his saying. That’s a passion, and there’s nothing wrong what that, and that’s an important passion. In government, it’s a little bit more of a passion about our country and our patriotism and who we can be as a country. And that’s important too. And whether you’re president or whether you’re an average citizen in our country, you want to have that passion for our country and our success. I think that, in whatever line of work you’re in, government or business, having that sense of passion and trying to make people feel like they’re part of something bigger, which we all are, is important as well.”
PORTMAN ON HOW BEST YOUNGER PEOPLE CAN ACCEPT ACCOUNTABILITY AND HOW THE CAN OWN THEIR WORK:
“Sometimes the millennial generation is given a bum rap, that they aren’t interested in accountability as much or even working hard. I frankly don’t find that. I do think that there’s is a little different attitude about things like teleworking or taking time off, and maybe the work ethic is a little different, but I think frankly that those young people that I work with who come through my office – and we have a lot of interns who come here, we just had our breakfast yesterday with our internship class, finally we have got interns back, I’m so glad we are beyond the worst of the COVID – but I think accountability is something that they actually look forward to, because they want to be responsible for something. Again, as long as they are not set up to fail, and they have to have the skill set and the knowledge and the help to be able to be successful. But I find that young people prefer to know that they have a piece of the pie, and it may not be the biggest piece, but it’s an important piece. Every part of our little office that we have here is critical. I often at our staff retreats talk and so on about the people who answer the phones, and a lot of those people are young people, some of them are our interns in fact, and we get a lot of phone calls – we also get along of emails, and some letters. I say that’s the most important job in the office….”
PORTMAN ON MAHONING VALLEY AND LEADERSHIP:
“I think we have to have a vision for what the combination of the LG-GM joint venture on batteries plus all the suppliers that are starting to come to the Valley to support that, and also what’s going on at Lordstown Motors – which is both exciting and discouraging depending on the day. But we have to have a realistic vision too, and we should not be overpromising the workers of the Mahoning Valley in terms of what can come out of this. I focus a lot on LG and GM because these are jobs that are already being created and I think that they have a track, because we need battery technology that they have so badly in this country, to be able to be quite successful and even double the workforce in five or six years. So I think that’s part of the vision here. I did a call this morning with the Youngstown Chamber … we talked about this issue of how to get the next RAISE Grant, used to be called the BUILD Grant, but it’s basically a grant for infrastructure development and it’s to try to help make the Valley become more of a Voltage Valley by creating smart technology – even to the point of having faster broadband laid throughout not just the Lordstown area but broader in the Valley. And eventually having automated vehicles be able to travel on certain roads… so you have to be thinking about the future and where it’s headed….I think the Valley has a ton of potential....there’s a lot of great stuff going on.”
PORTMAN ON INFRASTRUCTURE AND TRANSPORTATION IN MAHONING VALLEY:
“We achieved the grant a couple years ago – it was called a BUILD grant – for the Youngstown area. It was kind of a connector. We brought together the business community, the hospital, and YSU – it’ll be great for Youngstown. This next one is more about smart technology, and we are kind of a gateway to Appalachia, too, so there’s a lot of reasons for us to have a strong application here. Last time, I think we applied three times, and the third time was the charm…finally we were able to convince DOT that we were for real, that we really had a vision and a plan that was going to create a lot of employment, and help to deal with some of the long-term challenges that we have had in the Valley… By the way, one of the huge challenges right now is getting enough workers to fill the jobs that we have… Let’s be sure that we are providing the training and incentives to fill those jobs.”
PORTMAN ON DIFFERENT QUOTES THAT ARE MEANINGFUL TO HIM:
“There are two. One of them is Winston Churchill. I have a poster that says ‘Never, Never, Never give up.’ Never give up. There’s a story – my grandfather was an innkeeper for 50 years in the town of Lebanon, Ohio, and that restaurant and hotel is still in our family, and I’m still involved in it. But there are a couple guys who were there from England visiting, and this was back in 1939, and they had these English dueling pistols and they said ‘We are going to give you these pistols if you agree to put them up over the fireplace of your hotel, because we think the English empire is gone’… they are still there today, so if you go to the Golden Lamb in Lebanon, Ohio, you’ll see these dueling pistols. Nobody knows why the heck they are there… but here’s what happened these – two English guys did not anticipate the leadership of Winston Churchill. And that story one person saying, ‘You know what, I’m going to rally a Nation, rally a free world, and we are going to turn this thing around,’ and he did. This was the same grandfather who taught me my saying, ‘BEKAT – Be Ever Kind And True’… so being kind to people, being honest with people – to me leadership falls down to that. Ultimately, it’s about showing respect for others and being honest with people – and just following that guideline, you can make a lot of progress in life.”
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