Built to Last: How Servant Leadership Can Power Your Business’ Legacy

”We do not believe in a hierarchical organization. Every colleague in the company can be a leader, should be a leader, must be a leader, has the opportunity to be a leader. We believe as leaders, our job is to empower our colleagues to do the right thing for our customers. We call it servant leadership.”

Bala Sathyanarayanan is EVP and CHRO at Greif, Inc., a world-class global industrial packaging products and services provider. Grief is a legacy company, having been founded in 1877. It is also the 7th oldest publicly traded company in the United States with the same stock symbol. Prior to Greif, Bala served as EVP of Business Transformation and Human Resources at Xerox, and VP of Human Resources at Hewlett Packard. On this episode, Bala discusses how to develop an employee experience framework based on your business’ core values, how HR leaders are strategic partners to the business, and how to build a lasting legacy through servant leadership.

”If a colleague feels safe, welcomed, celebrated, and cherished in the organization, they feel that they belong here. When they belong here, they could bring their whole selves to work. If you are supported by your manager in the organization, if you’re provided a platform to learn, grow, and succeed, and if you could bring your whole self to work where you could feel safe, welcome, celebrated, and cherished, it can help drive organizations engagement up, and that could lead to better customer outcomes.”

• The philosophy behind referring to employees as “colleagues”
• How Greif facilitates professional development for each employee
• Why finding success as a CHRO is more than developing a close relationship with the CEO

”It feeds both ways. Just as they are helping the organization grow, the organization has an obligation to help our colleagues grow. So we meet them where they are and help them grow for colleagues who have demonstrated the desire and the ambition and have the attitude to grow.”