Corporate Responsibility: Why Ray Anderson Is My Leadership Hero

03 Jul Corporate Responsibility: Why Ray Anderson Is My Leadership Hero

Who is your leadership hero? What do you admire most about this leader? What impact or legacy do you want to create as a leader? Are they focused on creating corporate responsibility within their organization?

My leadership hero was a man named, Ray Anderson, a CEO of a carpet manufacturing company. What I personally admire about my leadership hero is that…

• He was the type of leader who had an epiphany and immediately took action
• He was the kind of leader who made a personal commitment to step up and make a positive difference

After reading a book by Paul Hawkins, he realized that his company was negatively impacting the environment and subsequently the future for his grandchildren. Instead of turning a blind eye to how his company was negatively contributing to the corporate responsibility field, he decided to be a hero.

He made a leadership commitment to do two things:

1)     He decided to lead the company to be the greenest carpet manufacturing company in the history of the world (and you have to understand the carpet manufacturing business is a very dirty industry with lots of by-products and toxic chemicals used.)

2)     He decided he wanted to inspire others in his industry to do the same thing

Corporate Responsibility Is Loaded With Potential

It may surprise you that Ray Anderson’s renewed green vision for a zero-carbon footprint business turned out to increase their stock price by 450%!!!

Not only did he accomplish his goal of creating a successful green carpet manufacturing company, but he also gave away almost all of his technology to his competitors so that they could also become a greener company. If that isn’t corporate responsibility at its finest, I don’t know what is.

These results impressed me, but in this video, I share with you what really inspires me about this story…

I’d like to hear from you in the comments below, how are you stepping up? What are your ideas about how executives and leaders can step up to make a difference?

John

Dr. John Izzo has spoken to over one million people, advised over 500 companies, authored nine best-selling books, and helped some of the world's most admired companies. He has been a pioneer in creating successful businesses and emerging work trends for over twenty-five years.

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