If you ever wanted to be like Mike, this is the Mike to emulate. If you aspire to leadership try being like Gummeson and not like Jordan.

 

Mike Gummeson is a visionary and inspiring leader. Under his watch as president and CEO, National Diversified Sales has grown into an industry leader in manufacturing and innovation. NDS has become widely recognized for their water management solutions and Mike has achieved a great legacy of dealing with change and building a talented leadership team.

 

More than anything else, Mike has been a corporate culture warrior at NDS. He has defined and consistently reinforced the core values of the organization and built a culture based on those values. Personally, Mike is very engaging, energetic and one of the most self-aware executives we have ever encountered.

 

Question: Please describe your leadership style and approach.

 

Answer: "There are several things that are very important to me as a leader: First, that the entire organization have a clear understanding of where we are going, our vision and the specific financial goals we need to achieve for the current year.

I also want everyone to know how we plan to get there in the form of our priority initiatives and action plans, each of which have a clear initiative champion and owner. Finally, I want everyone to know how they are expected to contribute to our initiatives and financial goals.

 

We create and reinforce a company culture embraced and practiced by all employees that is based on our Core Values (Teamwork, Communication, Results, Customer Focus and; Integrity and Trust). We also want to make sure our team displays a set of behaviors characterized by alignment with our vision, financial goals, and priority initiatives; frequent and candid communication and feedback at all levels; employees taking ownership and initiative; moving with speed; flexibility and adaptability to changing conditions; and continuous improvement, both personally and as an organization.

 

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