A Leader's Journey

Wieand opened AEI in the summer of 1995. He knew his program would have to be more wide-ranging and demanding than other leadership programs. So he drew on the research of Al Siebert, a psychologist who had been a paratrooper in the Korean War. In his studies, Siebert found that "extreme and torturous conditions" strengthen a "small fraction" of people. These survivor types have complex, paradoxical personalities that defy simple categories. They can grow and learn, but they also maintain their core personality. To Wieand, leaders need that type of personality. Real leaders, he observed, were serious and playful, self-confident and self-critical, strong and vulnerable, intuitive and logical.

He also drew on recent findings from neuroscience, which showed that the brain's limbic system, which governs feelings and impulses, is stronger and more stubborn than the neocortex, which controls logic. "That's why you can't take your staff white-water rafting and expect to return with a new, happy team," says Wieand. "The limbic system will override that intellectual memory in a short period of time. It can hijack almost all rational thought."

So Wieand tries to change not just how executives think but also how they process their emotions. One part of his program involves watching films -- first at home, with a spouse or a friend, and then with Wieand. "With a film," he says, "you can show people a vision about emotional identity that they'll never forget."

To prove his point, Wieand pops in a video of "Ordinary People" and fast-forwards to the film's climactic scene, in which Donald Sutherland's character tearfully tells his picture-perfect wife, played by Mary Tyler Moore, that he isn't sure he loves her anymore. Rather than have the difficult conversation that's needed to salvage the marriage, the wife -- who can't handle messy emotions -- walks out on her family. "If you're watching this with your spouse, who then says, 'That's you' -- well, that's powerful," says Wieand. "And then you come to see me, and we talk about how you feel about all of the characters. Which one did you identify with? What would happen if a person like that were running your company? With a film, you can begin to experience how you process your emotions."

From the start, Wieand found that his program could produces "aha" experiences -- even in self-aware executives. His first client at AEI, Jay Sidhu, admits that he was taken aback when he learned how his staff viewed him. An avid reader of Tom Peters, Sidhu was determined to create "one of the best companies in America" and was committed to running a team-driven, inclusive organization. So why did his staff find him intimidating? "People who come always think they're a people person. They get a shock when they get the results of their 360-degree evaluations," says Wieand. "I remember Jay asking me, 'Isn't there one person who sees it the way I do?' "

Then Wieand had Sidhu read an article by Peter Drucker about communication and then watch "The Browning Version," starring Albert Finney. During the movie's stirring farewell speech, in which a fiercely intellectual scholar, played by Finney, confesses that he wished he had been more "human," Sidhu had an epiphany. "Paul and I were discussing what Drucker says about communication," says Sidhu. "Communication is in the mind of the recipient: You're just making noise if the other person doesn't hear you. And when I saw this movie, I suddenly saw the power of communicating on an emotional level, without putting up a front."

Sidhu had been holding weekly meetings with about a dozen staffers in his 4,500-person organization, inviting anyone from tellers to senior executives to attend. But in their evaluations, staffers complained that it put them off when he called on them in those meetings. That's why Sidhu now begins each meeting by speaking candidly -- and, at times, emotionally -- about what he has been dealing with in the bank that week. And he's found that his candor has sparked true dialogue. "Everybody talks about the importance of building a family atmosphere within a company, but that means nothing unless you sit and talk on an emotional level." Sidhu says.

Some aspects of a personality cannot be changed, however. And Wieand pushes clients to take a close look at themselves and to accept their limitations. When John Matczak came to see Wieand, his company's sales growth had been slow for five years. Matczak wanted to grow his business from $50 million to $150 million in annual revenues. Discovering what was preventing Matczak from achieving that goal didn't take long. For those five years, Matczak had invested heavily in status symbols: a Lear jet, two oceanfront vacation homes, and a 60-foot yacht. And his sales staff had a high turnover rate -- 35% a year -- primarily because he was so domineering and did so much micromanaging.