Starbucks co-founder advocates servant leadership at MHCC

What does it really take to be the driving force of a multi-billion-dollar corporation in the twenty-first century? According to one veteran of such a company, it means knowing one’s individual core values, and building a team that is able to align with the values of the company.

Howard Behar, co-founder and former president of Starbucks Coffee Company International, visited Mt. Hood on Wednesday to talk about “servant leadership” and what it means to have a values-driven life’s work. He addressed several dozen staff, students and faculty in the College Theatre.

Discovering his personal values

Behar said his journey started by getting into personal development material, and using a process to discover the type of person he wanted to be. He wrote down his core values, and then simplified the list to eight separate values. He then realized that honesty was his “No. 1 core value,” he said.

“If we went a little deeper, each of us might have a different level of what honesty means,” he said. “What white lie might you tell, what wouldn’t you tell, and that’s all of us that’s human beings, and so I went through my core values, and I had to describe and sense what those core values meant to me.”

He followed steps from the personal development material, and got to a point where he took all of his personal research and put it “into a paragraph or some sentences that would inform how you do everything in your life,” he said. “I created a piece of paper that basically was a picture of Howard in 50 words or less.”

This journey of self-discovery encouraged him to learn about others. “It started me on a journey of trying to discover what made other people tick,” he said. He conversed with and learned about as many people as possible, and he read every book on personal development he could find. “That’s how I formed, and over time I formed this view of leadership.” It wasn’t about capital health, the office, or one’s position, he explained. “The most important person you’ll ever have to lead is you,” he said.

“That pain that you go through of self-development is the hardest work that you’ll ever have to do. Learning to lead yourself is the most difficult process, one of the most difficult train(s) you’ll ever be on. And the worst part about it is it never ends.”

Putting others first

The term “servant leadership” was coined by Robert Greenleaf, who was head of organization and development for AT&T. When Greenleaf retired, he looked back at his career and wondered why some companies thrived after their leaders left, while others collapsed. Behar said that when one looks at Greenleaf’s research, the answer to insuring a firm’s success after leaving is to be a servant leader.

“The ones (companies) that survived their leaders… were the ones that were led by a servant leader,” said Behar. “Someone that intrinsically understood, whether intellectually or not… that their whole role in life was to serve the people on their teams,” rather than simply themself.

According to Behar, to be a good servant leader one has to prioritize the needs of the individuals on one’s team – to help individual team members accomplish their personal goals. When the team supports the individual, the individual will find reason to commit to the goals of the organization. And company success will follow.

Going after something greater than oneself

What kept Behar driven and committed to his goal was knowing that there was something bigger than himself. “I needed something that drew me towards it that was bigger than making money, that was bigger than anything I would get,” he said. “Something that just drew me towards it – that had a cause to it, and it didn’t make any difference of what I was doing.”

Behar decided that he was going to use Starbucks as a means to bring people together. “We were going to use Starbucks International to build a bridge among people around the world; that no matter where we went, we were going to be bridge builders, and the vehicle that we would use, or the raw material that we would use, was Starbucks coffee and its stores and its place,” he said.

Finding people who identified with the message was a challenge. That grew clear when Behar needed to hire a top finance person. “There was this one guy, his name was David, and he was a bright guy, he had a Harvard MBA,” he said. When he interviewed him, he talked about “bridge-building,” but David’s first question was about his compensation and job title at the company, so he quickly knew David’s values didn’t align with the mission of Starbucks.

In contrast, when Behar described his vision to Troy Alstead, the latter’s first question was “When do I start?” he recalled.

“Troy became CFO of the organization, then president of the organization, ’cause that’s the kind of guy Troy was, he was a servant leader,” said Behar.

A look back

Reflecting on his work with Starbucks, Behar said that “no matter what you do in life, no matter how much you think you affect the world or affect whatever you’re doing, even your own children, you don’t own any of that. You’re just borrowing it, and life goes on and people make their own decisions.”

Upon leaving, it took Behar some time to adjust to life away from the company. “I had serious depression because, and I just tell everybody – Starbucks is not you, and you’re not it. And I was lying to myself, because when I left, I realized how much I had become enmeshed in that place.

“I had a tough time releasing, but I finally realized that my life’s work was my life’s work, and I was still Howard,” he said.