The Titan Fireside Chat series, expanding the legacy of Reginald F. Lewis through candid conversations with black leaders from across the globe. Hi, today we are talking with Ken Chenault, managing director of General Catalyst Partners and former chairman and CEO of American Express. Ken served in the role of chair from 2001 to 2018. And when he was named chairman of American Express, he was the third black CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He is also a co-founder of 110, a nonprofit committed to unlocking career opportunities for talent without four-year degrees. Ken, thank you for being with us today.
Well, Terry, it's a real pleasure to be with you.
Great. Well, let's just jump in. I think let's start by talking about the incredible journey that you have had. It was interesting in reading your background that you started with a history degree and you ended where you were and that's very encouraging I think for a lot of students out there or at least the parents of students who are history students and what you can accomplish. So when you were leading American Express, you led through really difficult times. You led through September 11th and you led through the financial crisis of 2009. You've often said leaders must define reality and give hope. What leadership practices helped you maintain trust internally and externally during those pretty difficult defining moments?
Well, I think Terry, you really highlight to me the key requirement for a leader, and that is to create trust. Trust for the people that you work with, trust with your customers, trust with your investors. And so one of the things that's very important is I talk about the need to always demonstrate integrity. And for me integrity is the consistency of words and actions. And the reality is honesty is of course critical but that's the minimum requirement. People need to understand, are you the type of leader that is consistent? Do you in fact follow through on what you say? Do your actions align with your words?
So first and foremost is integrity. Second that's very important is I think the best leaders, leaders who in fact are enduring leaders, understand what they need to do to capture the hearts and minds of people because the reality is you have to appeal to the rational side of people but you also have to appeal to the emotional side. You need to in fact demonstrate that you have a vision, that you in fact have values that are important, that you have courage. I think the best leaders have courage that they're willing to make the tough calls even at times when those calls mean that they are going to upset a range of people.
But what they shouldn't do, and I really believe in this very strongly, that the best leaders understand that if you want to lead, you have to be willing to serve. So I am a strong proponent of what's called servant leadership because at the end of the day, it's not about me. It's about what are the objectives of the organization.
How do we achieve those objectives? What am I doing to help people on their career journey? Because back to the hearts and minds, if people are convinced that not only do I have a plan, but part of my plan is to help them, they're going to develop an emotional attachment to me because I'm delivering not just on objectives for the organization, but I'm also delivering on objectives for them.
And that's very important.
Wow. I think I feel like I'm getting a lesson in leadership just talking with you. Trust, integrity, consistency, vision, values, and courage being critical to a good leader and their ability to lead the people and lead the organization. You are consistently cited as one of the most respected Fortune 500 CEOs of your generation, and I can see why. From your perspective, what separates some truly great CEOs from merely competent ones? And how did the fact that you are black impact you in the role?
Well, those are two great questions, Terry, and obviously, I think very important. I mean, number one, I think it's very important as a CEO that you are an authentic leader. And part of my authenticity is that I'm black and I'm proud of that. I'm not going to say don't consider me to be a black CEO. I'm saying you can consider me to be a black CEO. I'm proud to be black. But I think what is very important is that a CEO, and I think the best CEOs, are those that either come up with really creative ideas or they can spot and identify a good idea and then they can support people and give them the tools and the help that they need to achieve and execute on that idea because the reality is, as in life and business, good intentions are not enough. You have to execute, you have to drive outcomes, and you have to be relentless about the achievement of those outcomes.
I think secondly is the best CEOs understand how to build a strong culture, and part of building a strong culture is what are the values that the culture should exemplify, and the reality is sometimes adhering to those values are painful. And sometimes those values have to serve as guard rails.
And one of the things that I found throughout my career in high-performing companies in the long term is what you see is a very strong culture. And so the reality is American Express is over 175 years old. There was a very strong value about service, that we were in the service business, and one of the things that we set was a mission for the company that we wanted to be the world's most respected service brand. And you might say, well, wait a minute, I thought you were in the credit card business. The reality is that I always tell people and this is important for the CEO is what's the soul of your company? What's the core? What I always say at American Express is the core of our company, the soul of the company was we were in the service business. We had to serve people well. And I think that's important. One of the things I ask CEOs and sometimes I get a strange look is I ask them what is the soul of your company because that goes to what's the mission? What's the core of your company?
And I think what's critical for me is ideas and really transforming ideas, building a strong culture, building a performance-based compensation culture that's focused on driving outcomes.
That's absolutely critical. And creating an environment where people are proud to be associated with the company. It seems like it's quite the balancing act in a lot of ways with regard to what you have to try to keep your eyes on. And I wonder, have you seen things like focusing on values or developing values or trying to exact values actually trip people up because they're not genuine, I guess, is what I would ask.
Oh, yes. I think Terry, one of the things that you can see and this is important is that there are some people in organizations that try to play the political game and there's some organizations that tolerate that and there's some people that mouth the values. At the end of the day, the key thing that you got to focus on, no matter what level you are in the organization, is are the values real? And I can remember a situation where I had an executive that really performed at an incredibly high level. But what I found out was the way he was treating people in his organization was with a high level of disrespect. So here's the tension. Someone who's a very high performer and in many organizations people would have said Sam or Sally they're high performers. I'm just going to tolerate it. What I said I can't tolerate that and basically it was clear to me that that executive was not going to change. I asked him to leave the company. That sent important shock waves through the company because people were saying, well, this person was a really high performer. But at the end of the day, the question is not just the achievement of the objective. It is how you achieved those objectives. And what this person was doing was having a negative impact on our culture. That's what I mean by values and action.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. And I think I'm sure that that did send quite the message because it meant that you meant what you said. Not you didn't just say it, but you meant what you said.
You know, I'll give you one other example, Shirley. Okay. was an important one and particularly in a world where people are challenging diversity. I had a white executive who was very committed to diversity and he went to one of our offices and he looked around. He didn't see many black people in the office and he said to the head of the office, 'How come you don't have any black people here?' And the person said, 'Well, I just haven't found any.' And this person went back and said, 'Well, could you I'd like to meet with the black employees that you have.' And he said, 'All right, I'll get back to you.' And there were only like two. By the end of the day, after this executive who reported to me examined the situation, he fired the branch manager. And the reason why he did that is it was clear that this person was not adhering to what was an objective in the company which was diversity. And so, you know, I think a lot of people talk about values and I always say look at how people act and their actions to determine if a company really has values.
