Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Host Scott Lollar is a 35-year veteran of the painting industry and founder of Consulting4Contractors. The 'Success Beyond The Brush' Podcast serves as a touchpoint to painting contractors who have hustled, sacrificed, and worked hard to get their business to where it is today. Now, you need the guidance, expertise, experience, and team to make it into the multi-million-dollar company of your dreams. You'll hear stories and interviews from "Brothers of the Brush" and "Sisters of the Sprayer" who have been where you are and are charting a new course for their company's success. Listen in and go beyond $1,000,000!
SBTB Ep. 14 | Leadership Is a Mirror: Why Your Company Reflects Who You Are
===
Company Mirrors You
---
[00:00:00]
Mark: I learned within the first year how my lack of leadership was reflected in my company.
Rick: you can't lead two lives. You can't live your life as an individual this way and think your company's going to live this way.
It is such a reflection of who we are. And it's weird because as you grow a company, the company is you, and you are the company. And then as the company gets to a certain size, then it's, I've got to be a certain leader for this company that I've built. And that's when things start to change a little bit for the, and it's not a bad thing, but it's, but they do change.
Welcome To Success Beyond The Brush
---
Welcome to Success Beyond the Brush, the podcast where we go beyond paint and profit to talk about the leadership systems and personal growth that truly build a successful paint contracting business. In today's episode, Mark Black sits down with Rick Holtz to explore a powerful truth. Your company is a reflection of you.
They unpack the evolution from brute force leadership to servant [00:01:00] leadership, the difference between being nice and being fair, and why discomfort is often the price of growth. So if you're building a business and becoming a better leader along the way, then this episode is definitely for you.
Mark: Welcome back everybody, to another great episode of The Beyond the Brush podcast. I'm your host, Mark Black. Here again today with Rick Holtz, HJ Holtz, and Sons Painting. Welcome Rick.
Rick: Thank you, Mark. It's a pleasure to be with you again today.
Mark: We're really excited to have you on this podcast again. We got great feedback from our last conversation. I am really anxious to dig into your mind and your brain on some other important topics and just find out if my experience matches your experience and uh, see what others may glean from both of ours collective failures and successes.
Rick: There you go. That sounds like a winner. I look forward to it.
Leadership Development Begins
---
Mark: Today the topic is this broad idea of personal development and [00:02:00] how that equals and is mirrored by our leadership, or maybe it morphs into our leadership. You've been in this business a long time. I have not been in this business that long. I'm in my 15th year of business and I also would say I'm in my 15th year of leadership development.
Because I'll be honest, before I started this company, I had never considered my own leadership trajectory or learning or educating myself on the matter. I don't know. Certain personalities maybe are born natural leaders. Others tend to follow us or we're by force of personality, we just pushed to the front of the pack.
I guess I was always one of those people, but I never took my own leadership development seriously until I started a company and I started to realize two things. And I'm really curious if you felt this way in your company as well. A, I learned within the first year how my lack of leadership was reflected in my company.
Have you ever seen that in [00:03:00] yours?
Rick: Absolutely.
Mark: Was that ear early on in your company, in your growth?
Rick: Yes.
Second Generation Lessons
---
Rick: Like right when I got involved with my dad, it was, you know, you're the boss's son
Mark: Oh, that's even and there's all kinds of stuff to unpack and I think when you're young, especially back 30 years ago, it was, you think brute force, right?
Right.
Rick: That doesn't work.
Mark: No, it very rarely works.
Rick: No. No, it doesn't work with our children and it's certainly not going to work with people that we want to follow us.
Mark: And I hadn't even considered the fact that you were a second generation. Tell me more about that and tell our listeners a little bit more about your dad's maybe style and his leadership style versus yours. Was that a change?
Nice Versus Fair
---
Rick: My dad was non-confrontational. He wanted to keep the peace. He would bend over backwards. My dad was a great guy, incredible guy. But he kind of bordered enabling, like he would enable [00:04:00] things. So,
Mark: Because
he is a nice guy.
Rick: ' cause he is a nice guy and he wanted to help people out and he was always doing stuff and doing stuff. Well, then it's hard to switch gears and set the tone, set boundaries, hold people accountable. That's not the same.
Mark: I relate to it a hundred percent because that's exactly how I was as a young leader. I was the nice guy. I wanted everybody to like me, and I didn't know your dad, but I guarantee that everybody from employees to customers adored him.
Rick: Loved him.
Mark: Partly because he was a great guy and they respected what he did.
And then I'm sure there's some people who liked him because he wasn't hard on them. Or if maybe a customer used him as a doormat and he just would do whatever they wanted,
Rick: yeah, he was, easy. He would go, above and beyond, which I'm all about above and beyond. I don't want to say that I'm not. You know and I know the leadership that we need to grow a company and make a company successful looks a little different.
Mark: I think it's a great part of the [00:05:00] discussion because a lot of, first of all, the difficult part of having a podcast is we're talking to so many different types of companies, styles of companies, personalities of companies, cultures, and then of course sizes. That it's hard to target everybody, but usually you can learn anything from anybody if you're listening.
And so we're trying to I don't know, talk about our own experiences hoping that other people will connect with those. And I guarantee we have some listeners right now who are the nice guy in their business. And I do want to state upfront the point of this podcast is not to talk about leadership as if it's some predefined, like you're going to attain leadership and it looks the same in every company.
It doesn't. Can nice guys be good leaders?
Rick: Absolutely. Yeah. I think that's the thing, when you own a company, I feel like you've got to step back and say, what are the values of this company? And then what are my values? And you've got to get them to line up with each other.
if you want a [00:06:00] company that's really regimented and you're not regimented, it's not going to work.
Mark: A great point. Yes.
Rick: So if you want a fine tuned, well-oiled machine, but you're making exceptions for things all the time, it's very confusing to the people that we are hoping to lead.
Mark: Ah that's very true. So you haven't said yet, your dad was the nice guy. How were you different from that as you were coming up into the business?
Brute Force Fails
---
Rick: When I was young, I would hear my dad at the end of the day and talk about his issues with employees and such like that. So in my mind, when I got into the business with my dad, I was young, I had energy, and I was going to save the day, so to speak. I was going to right all those wrongs that had been done to him.
So I was going to make sure those guys worked eight hours a day and I was going to make sure they thought ahead and I was going to make sure they were working all the time and they weren't out [00:07:00] taking smoke smoke breaks. I think one time I threatened one of the painters and was like, I'll go out, let's go outside now.
Let's just go out in the front yard and have it out. And that's like, I'll never forget that day. And I'm like, that's never ever going to work. And I think about it now and it's almost it's so immature, right? And, but that's where I was with leadership, that I just thought I could use brute force just because of who I am. You're going to listen to me.
Mark: And some of that was well placed, like protecting your dad or maybe protecting the image of the company or making this guy be accountable for his actions. Your heart may have been right.
Rick: My heart was in the right place, but my delivery was absolutely And I'm lucky that the guy didn't go out there because maybe he would've, hurt me or something. I don't know.
Mark: Well, I, I'm, just guessing a wild guess that particular style of leadership didn't yield a lot of results?
Rick: No. And I was like, this is, something's got to change.
Mark: So
Rick: And my dad had six employees when I got into the business with him, and a [00:08:00] couple of them quit and left because they didn't like the direction things were going. They knew that I wanted the company to be different, that I was going to hold them accountable and that wasn't what they were used to, and it wasn't what they liked their freedom, they liked kind of the way things were.
Mark: remember
Rick: It was change. I was I was the symbol of change. And you know and I know we don't like change. Humans by nature don't like change. We want to be safe. We want to be, we want predictability, we want all that. So
that's what happened.
Mark: so so where did you start? I guess the question would be better put. When did you start to change your style of leadership for better results?
Growing Into Servant Leadership
---
Rick: I think as we started hiring people that came into the business after me, it was much easier for them to adapt to it, to my style because they knew nothing. They didn't know anything from the history of my dad. So it was starting fresh. So that, that [00:09:00] helped a lot.
You know, then there were people that worked for my dad that they were happy to see new life come into the company. They were happy to see somebody who wanted to make it better, make things better, improve upon it, breathe new life into it. My dad ran a very, nice, predictable business, and that's what he liked.
But I wanted a little bit more, I wanted more stability for my employees. I wanted to be able to hire people and say, we're offering you a career. And to do that, we had to be a different business, and I had to lead totally different than he did.
Mark: I'll remind our viewers that in addition to you being a new person, second generation, new face, different from your dad, your, the business was growing by leaps and bounds. As you just said, there was a fairly small business, half a million-ish at the time that your dad exited the company.
Fast forward to today, we're in the 6 million, $7 million range. The business was growing where your dad had [00:10:00] never taken it from, no offense meant to him simply that the style of business was very different as well.
Rick: Yeah, so, so my grandfather started the business, so I'm the third generation of the business. My grandfather had a bigger business than my dad.
And then when my dad, when my dad bought it for my grandfather, he got rid of a lot of
the employees and he wanted a core group that just did residential painting.
He didn't want to do commercial and all that stuff. So it was kind of like an evolution. It was bigger, then it was small and predictable and safe and careful. And then I got into it and I wanted to take it to a point, to a point where I could offer employees a career. I can remember the flyer that I put in our vans when we were looking for people, because the demand started to grow a little bit and we wanted to grow a little bit.
And I said, I put "Career Opportunity" and one of the employees that worked for my dad and then was there during the transition came to me and said, career, what? I'm a painter. And I [00:11:00] said, yeah, but you've worked for my dad for over 10 years. He's never laid you off. You get a check every week and you get vacation, you get your birthday off with pay.
I said, I don't know. I think that's a career,
Mark: Yeah.
Rick: But he didn't see it that way because he was an hourly employee. And then as time went on, we just, we didn't jive and he ended up going in another direction. But when you promise people things, it forces you to grow.
Mark: Well, tell me more about your transition because you, you admitted as a young man, it was brute force. You were out there with the stick rather than carrots. So when did that start to change in you? When did you realize I can't keep leading in this fashion?
Rick: I think when you realize that people aren't following you, right? When you can't get things done effectively and you can't carry out promises and commitments you've made, it's like, what am I doing wrong?
Mark: Mm-hmm.
Rick: And I think, I'm sure there was people, maybe my grandfather and probably my dad too, [00:12:00] that would give me advice and tell me that I had to grow as a person if I was going to try to grow a company to be, bigger than it was.
Mark: Yeah. So what did you morph into from there? Were you more, did you pull out the carrots and start to try and incentivize people that way? Lead them that way, or,
Rick: I was trying to be more lead by example, in the first several years if there was hard or difficult work, I wanted them to see me do it.
Mark: Yeah.
Rick: So that in the beginning it was, the brute force and then it was, wait a minute, maybe I need to lead by example so that they'll respect me. So So that when I'm not in the field working side by side with them, they know that I have a good work ethic. They know that I'm willing to get my hands dirty. They know that I'm willing to do hard stuff. And that I would be with them on this journey. It's not, I'm up here and you're down there.
So it's more of, what do they call it? Like a servant leadership. You know, I'm there for all of us to do well, not just for me to do well at your expense. It's a very different [00:13:00] philosophy.
Mark: And our employees know the difference instinctively, whether they've been with you long or it's their first week, they can sense that,
Rick: yeah. And I think you still have to help an employee when they need help, let's face it, because then they start to trust you. And I think the good employees are not going to take advantage of that. They're not, and they're never going to forget that. And that creates loyalty. And that's how we keep, I have over half a dozen employees that have been with me for over 20 years now.
And I think they know I would do anything for him and in turn they would do anything for me.
Motivation And Developing People
---
Mark: I think the word here is your motivation. Why do you do what you do? And I think our employees sense that. I'm thinking of a local business in our town, not even a painting company. The owner wants to retire. And he's quite loud about it. Our whole community knows, because he's, within a year or two he, he definitely wants to go away and he's got these plans, he's moving out of state.
[00:14:00] But it's so known that as he is seeking to grow or motivate his own employees, I happen to know most of his employees, they're all just shaking their heads saying the reason he wants to grow is not for us. And it's certainly not for the end customer. It's so that he can get out, right? It's your motivator.
And I think as leaders, we have to constantly examine ourselves and then we certainly have to examine how that's being portrayed to our team. Hey, we need to grow by half a million dollars. You said it earlier in your story, you wanted to grow HJ Holtz & Son because you wanted to offer better opportunities.
I want either better benefits or I want to be able to pay people better. I want more PTO or whatever your motivations were. But your team must have sensed that this guy actually cares about us and he wants us to have good opportunities.
Rick: Yeah, and I wanted us to be the best.
Mark: Mm-hmm.
Rick: I did, in my younger days, and I don't feel this way now, but I wanted to be [00:15:00] a force in our industry, in our area to be reckoned with. I didn't want anybody, oh, that's Holtz. They're just let's small little company. They're really good and, not much opportunity there.
They can only do so much. I wanted to have the capability to be the best residential painting and wallpapering contractor in my area. And to do that, I had to grow people. When I got into business with my dad, we didn't have a wallpaper hanger on staff. My dad's wallpaper hanger had gone in business for himself, and my dad would sub work back to him.
I wanted it to be in house again. My dad knew how to hang wallpaper. My grandfather was a paper hanger. I never learned the trade, but I know the trade and I wanted to develop people. So that was like the next step. I wanted to be the best we could be, and I knew I couldn't find people that were already skilled and trained.
So I think that was my next kind of [00:16:00] version was a leader that could develop people to be the best they could be and give them opportunities and be willing to risk ruining something, risk ruining a wallpaper expensive wallpaper, maybe risk mo messing something up with paint.
But nothing was, anything that couldn't be fixed. It just, you would ruin money, it would cost you money.
And that's how we developed our team. I've two guys that hang wallpaper for me now. They're probably some of the best on the east coast, maybe you know, this side of the Mississippi. And they came to work for me not knowing how to do that at all.
Mark: Oh, that's good.
Rick: That's the stuff that, that like excites me like that. I love that.
Midroll And Growth Challenge
---
We've reached the midway point of our episode today of Success Beyond the Brush. Go ahead and take a moment to subscribe and share it with another contractor who is serious about growing their leadership. If this conversation is challenging you at all, you know what? That is a good thing. Growth [00:17:00] rarely feels comfortable, so be sure to check out the show notes or video description for additional resources and links related to our episode today, or check us out on the web at www.consulting4contractors.com and connect with us there.
Thanks again so much for listening. Let's dive into the rest of the episode.
Staying The Best Requires Change
---
Mark: And I think that's a common motivator in a lot of companies, probably people listening to this podcast, they're only listening because they want to be better. They want to be the best in their market. It's not unusual to find somebody who says, I want to be really good. In other words, they're customer focused.
I want a great experience for my customer. I want to be known as the best. And that is a great draw to a company from an employee perspective. They want to work for the best. They want to work for the winning team right.
Rick: Yeah.
Mark: If I have a chance to play for the 1992 Chicago Bulls, that's the team to be on.
Rick: Yes, but what's the challenge with that? The challenge is once you become the 1992 Chicago Bulls, is how can you [00:18:00] maintain that?
Mark: Yeah
Rick: And that takes a whole different of qualities in a leader.
Mark: How did you see yourself change then, over the years? How did you maintain excellence?
Rick: Well, I think just what you said, you've got to be willing to change. Like if you think you get to that point where, okay, I'm a really good leader, I'm effective, this is working, I can just rest now, that's the thing. You never rest. There's always growth that happens. There's always opportunities, As we age, generations of customers change, our customers that we work for, I'm sure you see it in your area too. What customers were like 15 years ago are not what they're like now. That forces us to lead in a different way.
Mark: That's true.
Rick: it we, our employees, like you said, what do we do about, we talked about hiring earlier before we got on the podcast, is like, how do you motivate young people today to get into our businesses?
It's [00:19:00] very varied. Yes. It's very different. And what our employees what our workforce looks like is very different.
Mark: Yeah.
Rick: So all of that causes you and I to constantly adapting, constantly
changing, because what was good 10 years ago, what was a good leader 10 years ago would never make it today.
Mark: That's true, I think men are especially susceptible. I know there's great women owned companies and I'm simply acknowledging that men generally are a little more concrete thinkers. We're hunters and so we're hunting. If we're hunting leadership, you know that there is this one path and I'm going to find leadership and that's the right way to run a company. And so we listen to podcasts and we listen. We devour books and we're seeking like, I'm going to unlock this thing and then I'm going to uncover that I have finally arrived at, perfect leadership. And the truth is, it's more like a relationship.
You're never going to be the perfect husband. You're never going to be the perfect father. It's always [00:20:00] dynamic and shifting and reacting to, like you said, certain headwinds. And we're in a different season of life now. The kids have left the house and so the relationship changes.
Rick: Yeah,
Mark: It can't stay stagnant. We never just arrive and say, now I'm a perfect husband.
Rick: Yeah, no, it doesn't happen. And I think it's interesting you brought up the subject of, for men, because if you think about women, women are mothers, they're nurturing, they have to adapt to a lot of things. it's different for us. That's not what we're, I think, programmed to be.
So you say, I think you said earlier in the podcast, sometimes there's natural born leaders and I think the tendency to be able to adapt, to be able to change, to be able to deal with the environment constantly changing is a plus.
Mark: Yeah.
Rick: to, to at least get you on your way to being the leader that you need to be.
Mark: If you'll allow me to fan girl for just a minute, one of the things that I've always been impressed about you from the time that I [00:21:00] met you, a, he's a succe successful contractor in my field. I would like to be like that guy, but also from the first day I met you, you treated me.
Like you treat everybody else. You were welcoming, you were kind. I would call you a natural born leader because you are truly relational. You like people, you like meeting people. You want to give. You're not a taker. Have you ever met the takers? From the first handshake, you can just tell.
A, it's all about them. B, they only care about you as much as they can use you. And as soon as they discover they can't use you, they have no use for you whatsoever. As humans, we instinctively understand that and we know it, and you're the opposite. I liked that even though I'm a nothing, compared to your longevity in the industry, you treated me like a peer. And I like that. And I've personally witnessed that in your own company. From the person sweeping the floors to your [00:22:00] head of operations, you treat people with respect and love, and we're all in this together. And you truly are a servant leader. And I, and that's why you're qualified to talk about this on this podcast.
Rick: Well, well, I appreciate that you're, you're really kind. And I, I really appreciate you saying that, Mark. That means a lot to me.
Authenticity And One Life
---
Rick: I had an employee from El Salvador that I hired. I guess he's been with me over almost 15 years now. He worked for a commercial contractor in our area. Okay. He worked for that contractor for eight years, and it was owned by an individual.
He said, Rick, I worked there for eight years and that man never shook my hand and looked me in the eye, and said my name and thanked me or said, hello, how are you? Or anything in eight years.
Mark: Ooh.
Rick: And that's just like the other extreme of what you just said. I never want to be that kind of person. I want to be humble, because it can change in a second. Our life can change in a second. And you and I both know that. I [00:23:00] want to be humble. I want to be relatable. And, I'm in it too. I'm walking, I'm leading beside you. I'm walking beside you. I'm not above you. I'm not way out in front, and I'm not going to hide behind you.
I'm not, I think if anything, I was very protective of my people almost to the fault where I had designers and builders telling me that I was too defensive.
So that was another stage in my leadership and it's like, wow, that's not good. It's good for my employees, but it's not good for my business.
So how can I find a sweet spot that I can represent my company and my employees appropriately, but not come off as being defensive. And I think a lot of that has to do with when we're in that mode of growth and maybe a certain season of our life that we feel like we have to prove ourselves. But once you, I don't know, something, just something happens.
I don't know what it is. It could be a death, it could be a whatever that knocks you [00:24:00] down and then all of a sudden you don't feel like you have to prove anything anymore and then all of a sudden it just, it feels so much more comfortable. And I feel like that's where I am now. And it's not, I don't have anything to prove because I'm a certain size business or I have a certain amount of employees, or I make a certain amount of money.
It's just, I enjoy being with the people I work with and seeing them grow and develop and be successful. Seeing other people be successful is awesome.
Mark: I think again as, as men and usually as entrepreneurs in our industry most of us are entrepreneurial, we're scared of that touchy feely type of leadership. Well, I don't have time to shake everybody's hands and make sure everybody feels appreciated. Today, I'm trying to run a large company and we feel like it's an either or.
Rick: ' Because what's that old saying, Mark? You've heard a million times. It's a dog eat dog world. I've got to, I've got to outwork my competition, I've, you know, and you just visualize it being this big, huge competition when in fact it's all internal. It doesn't [00:25:00] matter what's going on out there, it's all internal.
Mark: I think that's kind of the point of today's discussion and a lesson that I had to learn a long time ago, and I guess in some ways I'm still learning it, but I always thought that leadership A, was a destination. I'm going to arrive at leadership and that leadership and my personal
character were two separate things, right? Like regardless of my life or how I want to live or the decisions I make or my morality, I can run an excellent company. And the truth is, I don't, I don't think you can. I think you can fake it. I've seen a lot of fake leaders doing an okay job at mirroring things or repeating or regurgitating things that they've seen or read.
But when push comes to shove and they shake that employee's hand or don't shake the employee's hand for eight years it comes out. And actually Jesus talked about that that the proof's always in the pudding. [00:26:00] Basically. It's like the tree won't produce fruit. It looks like a fruit tree, but in the end there's no fruit, and in the end it's going to come out of who you are or who you aren't.
And it is reflected in your leadership and that is reflected in your culture. And ultimately it can end your company.
Rick: Absolutely. You know, I think when you were saying that, the word I keep thinking of is authenticity.
You have to be authentic, you have to be true to yourself. You can't lead two lives. You can't live your life as an individual this way and think your company's gonna live this way.
Right? It is such a reflection of who we are. And it's weird because as you grow a company, the company is you, and you are the company. And then as the company gets to a certain size, then it's, I've got to be a certain leader for this company that I've built. And that's when things start to change a little bit for the, and it's not a bad thing, but it's, but they do change.
Mark: In my immature view of leadership, though I would often find myself crying, what [00:27:00] you just said is not fair. That you are the company and the company is you. And I would say that's not fair. Because I can't be in all places at all times. We have, 8, 6, 8, 10 crews all over southern Illinois in my area, and that's not fair to put that on me.
And I would play the victim game, or, blame and excuses. I still remember vividly we had an exterior project going on and we trampled their landscape pretty decently. And they had spent a fortune on their landscape. Lady was very upset and I showed up and in my mind I was being a good leader by protecting the image of our company.
And I'll, to my shame, I'm going to tell you what I did. I went up there with our policies and procedures manual. I showed her the training, like, here is how we train our guys. And what I was doing was covering my ass and I, in my mind, I was protecting our image, men In White, we, we teach guys better than this, and this is never, but what I did was throw my guys under the [00:28:00] bus.
How do you think that worked out for me?
Rick: Yeah, not good.
Mark: Not good. Not even to the customer. She didn't even respect it.
Rick: Yeah, it's not good. I went to a restaurant this summer with my son and it was in a hotel and we were in a hurry and wanted to eat breakfast really fast and the waitress would kept coming over and blaming the cook. I'm so sorry. I know you need to leave. It's not me. It's not me. It's the cook. I don't know what's going on.
I'm, it's not me. It's not me. And it just made me cringe. Because I'm, as a business owner, I'm like, I hope nobody in my company ever makes a customer feel the way I feel right now
right? So, we all need to be on the same page. We need to lead by example, and we need to help people continue to improve and grow by the examples that we set.
And it is a responsibility and it can be a heavy burden at times, but I guarantee you eventually you get to a spot when you've been doing it long enough that it almost becomes [00:29:00] effortless and it's just what you do.
Mark: Well, and I've witnessed that in your company. My company has not arrived at that place yet, but I'm looking forward to getting
Rick: I bet you're closer than you think. You're
Mark: Well, I love what you said though, because I know that reflects truly in your company that you care very much about the growth of your team. And I'm not talking about size of your company, I'm talking about their personal growth.
You want to make that guy from El Salvador, you want to make him a better person and more valuable. You want him to make more money and to grow even his leadership and our team knows, when they're just a number and you just need me to achieve a monthly budget number, by the way, subs know that too and then they know when you actually care about them, and I want you to grow.
I want you to have a better business. I want you to take more vacations. I want you to buy a better house, or whatever it
Rick: Yeah. Have a better quality of life. I can help you get a better quality of life. Yeah.
Mark: You cannot fake that long.
Rick: No, you [00:30:00] can't.
Mark: I don't believe so either. It's been a great discussion. I love the subject, Rick, and I love that you exemplify this subject in your company. I've personally witnessed it. I think you're the perfect person to talk about this subject. Any last thoughts?
Accountability And Discomfort
---
Rick: I'm still learning,
Mark, I have not reached the promised land. I have not, I see things differently than I used to. There's a sense of responsibility now for me to show people where they can grow, whereas before I would be timid because I didn't want to hurt their feelings. You know, And that's a switch in my leadership style.
It's all in how you deliver that kind of message. But I was actually keeping people in my company from growing because I didn't want to have hard, what I perceived as hard conversations with them. So that's something we can talk about on another podcast. But yeah, it's very interesting.
Mark: One last question for you. If I were a up and coming painting contractor, I'm somewhere around the half a million dollar mark, but [00:31:00] I'm wanting to grow a company, but I'm a nice guy. What would your advice be to me as a leader?
Rick: I think my advice to you would be, you can be a nice guy, but you've got to have boundaries and you got to hold people accountable.
And it's up to you to do that. And you could still do that and be nice, as nice and fair are two different things. I think. You need to be fair to people and people need to have boundaries.
They need to have processes and they need to be held accountable.
To do what you asked them to do.
Mark: I would add onto that, that at every level of leadership journey for me has been uncomfortable. So the nice guy may find himself uncomfortable because he's stretching, he's growing outside of what comes naturally. None of us will ever grow as leaders if we stay in that nice, comfortable little bubble.
This is how I react and this is how I naturally am. [00:32:00] That's fine, but you'll never, ever grow unless you're uncomfortable.
Rick: Yeah. And it's funny, when we're uncomfortable, Mark we think everything's, everything's bad. It's not good. It feels terrible. We're having a bad day, and then a week later we can look back at that bad day and go, oh my God, look how much I grew in that one day. And then all of a sudden it's, it was a great experience.
It's just, it's funny how it works.
Mark: It really is. Love your perspective, sir. Thank you for your time today. Thanks for the talk on this subject. We'll look forward to many more great conversations in the future. Thanks
Rick: I hope so. Yeah. Thanks for having me again. Appreciate it.
Mark: Of course. Talk to you soon.
Rick: Thanks.
Final Takeaways
---
Thank you again so much for listening to today's episode of Success Beyond the Brush. Remember this: leadership is not something that you arrive at, it is something you are continually growing into. So if today's conversation challenged you to examine how your personal development is reflected in your company, then you are on the right path.
Being nice and being fair are not the [00:33:00] same thing. Boundaries actually do matter. Accountability matters and authenticity matters most of all. If this episode resonated with you, share it with another contractor who's building not just a business, but a legacy. And as always, check the show notes or description for additional resources and links from this episode.
Or check us out on the web at www.consulting4contractors.com. We'll see you next time on Success Beyond The Brush.