Leaders should be lonely says Diageo chairman
Leaders need to be lonely to run their organisations effectively, according to ex-big pharma boss Franz Humer
Diageo chairman Franz Humer says that lonely leaders are more effective when it comes to running a company.
Humer, ex-chairman and CEO of pharma company Roche, made his comments at the London Business School (LBS) event ‘Leadership, Creativity and Culture’, where he talked about the leadership style that laid the foundation for his many years as a leading business figure.
One of Humer’s biggest career challenges came when, as CEO of Roche, he started selling off the company’s businesses. “To change the outlook of the board is a major challenge. The company didn’t have a strategy, so I set out as a loner to create the strategy. At the beginning I felt extremely lonely. That’s a big lesson for a leader.
“Leadership is not complicated,” he added. “Think KISS: Keep it simple, stupid. Do things that everyone understands and that people can repeat. Then repeat it yourself endlessly. There was a famous preacher in the middle ages that went around what is now Austria repeating the same sermon again and again and again. That’s what leaders also need to do. It took from 1997 to 2003 until Roche’s management and staff actually believed in the success of the strategy and bought into it.”
Shared authority is something that all leaders should avoid, according to Humer. “I heard a CEO saying the other day that he was ‘primus inter pares’ [first among equals]. This is nonsense. I’m a leader and I go into a meeting to discuss a topic, but I know the solution I want to come out with.”
Humer has worked in healthcare since joining ICME Zurich in 1971. He then moved to Roche, taking on the COO and CEO roles in 1996 and 1998 respectively. “I think the most difficult job of a CEO in a pharma company is to understand research and researchers,” he said.
When Humer was at Roche, the company would put 10,000 drug compounds together in a bid to treat a condition. Around 10 of those would make it into clinical trials, with just one finally reaching market. Only one in three drugs that made it to market generated a profit. “Researchers are driven to discover something that helps patients. That makes a difference in treating a disease,” Humer said. “Don’t talk to researchers about return on investment or share price – talk to them about what they do for patients.”
