A Leader's Journey

Wieand knew that, with coaching, Matczak could change his weakness for "toys." (And he was right: Matczak ended up selling the homes, the yacht, and the Lear jet.) But, at 57, Matczak was unlikely to change his overcontrolling personality, nor was he the type of person who could keep many balls in the air -- a skill that's essential to running the affairs of a multimillion-dollar company. So Wieand pushed Matczak to do what so few mega-entrepreneurs have done: surround himself with people who had the management skills that he lacked. This year, Matczak has promoted his star employee, a 35-year-old master manager, to president and has given this manager equity. Matczak has also hired a vice president to oversee sales and marketing. "When you're an entrepreneur, you think you know everything already," he says. "I'm nervous about letting go. But I know that it's what I've got to do to grow the company."

A few of Wieand's clients are not as eager for such revelations. They have been sent to Wieand by their superiors, and they come reluctantly. The division president of a pharmaceutical giant, for instance, was sent to Wieand last year because of his arrogance and aggressiveness with his peers. Although his need to prove his mettle had gotten him into the "inner-inner circle," his superiors wanted to soften that drive now that he had become a peer.

But the 47-year-old executive fought Wieand -- attempting to intimidate him, as he had already done with his colleagues. Just as Wieand had used his financial skill to prove that he wasn't stupid, so this client was using aggression to hide a vulnerability. (Says the executive: "I knew I had a problem, but I didn't know what to do about it or where it stemmed from.") It wasn't until midway through the program that Wieand and his client discovered what that vulnerability was. The client was filling out a "life inventory" form when he came to the question "What are your secrets?" And then he just blurted out that he hadn't graduated from college.

To most people, that revelation was hardly earth-shattering. But this executive, surrounded by MDs and PhDs from Ivy League schools, had always felt inadequate. Although he had worked at the company for 18 years and had always been truthful on his personnel records, he had avoided discussing his education with his colleagues. "It just came to me," the executive says. "Perhaps I knew it all along." In an effort to strip the secret of its power, he disclosed it to a few of his colleagues, including the president of the company, who then proceeded to confess his own sense of insecurity. "It's amazing," says this client of Wieand's. "When you disarm yourself, you disarm others as well."

These days, this executive is debating whether to accept another promotion, which would require relocating his family, living apart from them, and seeing them only on holidays and occasionally on weekends. Like so many in Wieand's program, he has found that being "authentic" has forced him to reevaluate not just his work but also his personal life. "Before, I just would have taken the job and let my family deal with the consequences," he says. "Part of what I learned from Paul is to look at how you affect other people."

This year, he and Sidhu each hired Wieand to create a special leadership program that would help their top managers become more authentic leaders. "If you are aware of your weaknesses and are constantly learning, your potential is virtually limitless," Sidhu says. "You can build something that will be a legacy."

Such talk is encouraging to Wieand, who feels certain that a movement is slowly taking hold inside boardrooms. More and more companies are seeing "that the old style of ruling by fear doesn't work anymore. The good people will leave." He is haunted by the pain he caused, and he hopes that his work serves as a kind of penance. "There were so many people whom I hurt at Independence. I am still embarrassed about who I was then," he says. He pauses dramatically. "Being a leader is a hard job -- maybe the hardest job there is," he says. "But once you've chosen it, you have a moral obligation to be your best self."

Pamela Kruger (pkruger@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company contributing editor. Contact Paul Wieand by email (aeileads@aol.com).