Frank Blake was an attorney working as the deputy secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy when he was asked to take a leadership role at the Home Depot. He started at Home Depot in 2002 and served as its chairman and CEO from 2007 to 2014. 

Frank was an unlikely choice for the CEO spot. He had worked at General Electric in the past but had no experience in retail. Frank did a lot of things right and the market rewarded Home Depot for those moves.

When Frank stepped down as CEO in 2014, Home Depot’s share price was up 127 percent since the beginning of his tenure. Shares of their biggest competitor, Lowe’s, were up only 69 percent over the same period.

What did Frank do right? 

A lot of things, but a key aspect of his leadership was his humility. Ken Langone is a billionaire and one of the original founders of Home Depot. He is a crusty character better known for berating chief executives than praising them. 

Ken gets almost sentimental when he talks about Frank. 

“The thing that always impressed me was his sincere humility. He is one of the finest human beings I’ve ever been blessed to know in my life,” says Langone.

Frank Blake started his tenure as CEO with a simple strategy to return Home Depot to its roots. He wrote the few points of his strategy on a whiteboard in his office and it never changed. He spent his entire term as CEO walking out that plan. That kind of focus is unheard of in corporate America today.

He sold off non-core businesses, got Home Depot founders Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank involved and returned Home Depot’s focus to the customer and the associates that serve them.

Frank often referred to an inverted pyramid that showed him at the bottom, stating that his job was to serve the people that serve the customers. He said his primary job was to clear the path for them to do the work that served the customer.

Frank was an intense listener. He understood that everything important in the organization occurred above him. Remember that the CEO is at the bottom of the pyramid and the customer is at the top. Blake would never ask associates “How’s it going?” because the only reasonable answer to your CEO is “Great!”

Instead, he would ask, “What is not going well with X project?” That gave people permission to say the things they would never talk about to the CEO. Frank then used that information from the front lines to clear the path for change.

As his tenure as CEO was ending, he stated that one of his most important learnings as CEO was the power of recognition. He feels strongly that as a leader you will get what you celebrate. Frank saw his job as defining what was important by what he recognized and thanked.

Frank Blake served under Jack Welch at General Electric. 

Jack taught Frank that the greatest quality of a leader was generosity. A successful leader celebrates the success of others. It takes confidence and humility to lift the successes of others up above your own accomplishments.

While serving under George H.W. Bush, Frank picked up the habit of writing personal thank you notes to staff members. Bush would type (the old-fashioned way) personal thank you notes to his staff members. His staff said that the occasional correction fluid and slightly misaligned paper only added to the generosity of the notes. 

Each Sunday, Frank Blake personally wrote 200 handwritten notes to Home Depot associates recognizing them for their great work.

The more I read about great leaders the more I see leadership done right as an act of self-sacrifice. Great leaders serve and service costs you. It may cost you time, money or both but there is a cost to serving well.

As leaders, do we have the confidence to lift others’ successes above our own? Are we willing to sacrifice our personal time and agenda to recognize those people who serve with us?

Curt Fowler is president of Fowler & Company (valuesdrivenresults.com) and director at Fowler, Holley, Rambo & Stalvey (valdostacpa.com). He is dedicated to helping leaders create and achieve a compelling vision for their organization. He is a syndicated business writer, keynote speaker and has an MBA in strategy and entrepreneurship from the Kellogg School. He is also a CPA and a pretty good guy as defined by his wife and four children.

Jason Smith is a reporter at The Valdosta Daily Times. He can be contacted at 229-244-3400 ext.1257.