The Positive Impact of Being a Servant Leader

WD-40 Company has one of the highest employee engagement rates in the world (93%). And no wonder, at its helm is Garry Ridge, Chairman of the Board and CEO. 


Garry has been with the company for almost 33 years, having worked his way up through the managerial ranks to the top position, he knows what great company culture looks like, so much so, he not only practices what he preaches, he teaches it to the next generation of leaders too. 


Having realised that micromanagement as a leadership technique isn't scalable, if Garry wanted to take the blue and yellow can with the little red top to the world, he knew he’d have to set his employees free, to give them freedom to do their best work. So when he became CEO, he went back to school and worked hard to create an extraordinary workplace culture in WD-40 Company. 


“In 394 BC, Aristotle said, ‘pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work’. And I really believe that that's something that we need to do, to build an economic environment for our companies that firstly serves the people in the organisation. And if we take care of them, they will take care of our customers. So that's where the journey began.”


In this podcast:


  • Why being a servant leader pays dividends
  • Business has the opportunity to change the world
  • Our values grant us freedom to make autonomous decisions yet still act as one 
  • Why honesty and integrity aren’t values
  • Why technology is forcing us to behave unnaturally
  • The attributes of a bad CEO
  • Why we need more love in the world


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