When humility and class meet successful Leaders, CEOCEOs, entrepreneurs, board members...

In the last week, I came across three different individuals that trigger this short post.

How many times have we meetmet in our carrier powerful but arrogant, self-centered, egocentric, C-suite executives? Quite a few I would say.
But, how many times have you meetmet powerful but humble C-Suite executives that inspired trust and respect instead of fear and dislike.

Recently, one of my previous security managers saw a former CEO we used to look after, guess what: this former CEO was just a guy, walking around in search for something. No escort, no fame, no journalist, no one stopping him to chat. How many C-Suites have forgotten that job title’s celebrity is ephemeral. They forget to remember that a C-Suite without a team is not a C-Suite. One should never call himself a leader, the team will.
Lao Tzu wrote: “When the best leader's work is done, the people say, 'We did it ourselves.'”

Last week, On a flight from Zurich to London, I sat down next to a gentleman and we started to talk. I was impressed by his calm, overall knowledge and humility. At the end of the trip, we finally exchanged namenames and professionprofessions. He was an extremely successful CEO, C SuiteC-Suite, board member, university lecturer, etc…. Very impressive .

A nice guy, whichwho I met by coincidence, with whom I play tennis with, happenhappened to be an extraordinary entrepreneur who built in less than 10 years, a hundredhundreds of millions businessof businesses, with hundreds of employees starting from 0… guess what, hewhat? He is still traveling in economic class, and still driving isin an old car.

A great sponsor and mentor of mine, which I meetmet at a break, strikerstruck me with his intellect, efficiency and capacity of listening. For some he was too nice, but for most of us, he is just a Leader.