surrounded by family during the Brothers Bike 2025 tour. IMAGE: JENKINS FAMILY
Key Takeaways
- Leading a large company means learning to lead “from afar,” trusting your team to keep the “wheels spinning.”
- A is for Attitude: The leader’s positive attitude is contagious and sets the tone for the entire organization.
- B is for Brand: The brand is the promise you make to your customers, and it must be delivered by every team member.
- C is for Culture: Culture is the “secret sauce” that makes your team want to deliver on the brand promise.
- S is for Servant Leadership: A leader’s primary role is to serve the team, providing them with the support they need to succeed.
This summer, my brother Raleigh and I — along with Brian Kelly and Mark Ambrose, two retired ABC Home & Commercial Services managers — rode our bicycles from Anchorage, Alaska, to College Station, Texas. This was a 5,500-mile journey over three months that had wonderful highs and extremely difficult lows. (Editor’s Note: Learn more about the “Brothers Bike 2025” tour in our October issue.) While it was a great adventure, this ride was for my grandson, Moss. Eleven years ago, we lost him at 15 months old to what is classified as Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood (SUDC). He was perfectly healthy, went down for his morning nap, and never woke up.
Every year, 400 to 600 families experience this same heartbreak. The ride raised money for research conducted at NYU Langone Health to answer the “unexplained” in SUDC. We hope to someday find out what actually caused Moss’ death and, more importantly, learn how to prevent this tragedy from happening to other families.
Trust your team
People ask me all the time, “How in the world did you step away from the business for almost three months?” That’s a fair question. Being gone from the business that long could’ve been a big concern, but I’m blessed with an incredible management team.
Our leadership team at ABC has been together for an average of almost 25 years. That’s an amazing statistic, one I’m very proud of. With that kind of experience, I knew the business would run just as well as if I were there every day. From the beginning, I’ve worked hard to build an organization that doesn’t depend on just one person.
I believe that real strength in leadership isn’t being needed every minute. It’s building something that doesn’t crumble when you’re gone, which starts with a strong management team that you trust. For example, VP Matt Burns and I have been best friends since fourth grade. We worked for my dad at ABC in San Antonio during summers in college, and now we’ve been working side by side in Austin for about 40 years. Matt is also our CFO and is involved in every part of running the business. When I’m gone, he is the unquestioned leader of the organization.
I’m also very proud to have my son, Bo, as our company sales manager. Like Matt, he’s involved in the overall leadership of the business. We have four outstanding division managers who run the day-to-day operations of ABC. My son-inlaw, Holt Myers, leads our Pest Division; Steve Ambrose runs Home Improvement; Tom Riggs oversees Mechanical; and J. Zambo leads Lawn and Tree. These four leaders have a combined 56 years with ABC, and I have complete confidence and respect for every one of them.
Beyond that, ABC is supported by an outstanding group of department managers who keep this company running smoothly every day: Julie Fredlund in Office Operations, Yvette Ruiz in the Call Center, Michele Nelson in Human Resources, Stephen Brkich in Accounting, Tim Fredlund in IT, and Les Stobart in Marketing. Each one of them has been with ABC for at least 17 years. That kind of loyalty, experience and dedication is rare, and I don’t take it for granted.
Take time to check in
Even with such an incredible team, I wasn’t completely disconnected. Thanks to emails, phone calls, texts and Starlink, I was able to stay in touch even in remote parts of Alaska and Canada. I sent video updates back to our ABC family, and they cheered us on every mile of the way. But the truth is, I never had to step in or fix anything; they had everything handled.
I know being away from your business for that long can make a lot of owners uneasy. But for me, this trip proved something I’ve believed for a long time: You don’t measure success in leadership by how much your company needs you. You measure it by how well it runs when you’re not there.
<p>The post A strong team keeps the wheels spinning: Leading from afar first appeared on Pest Management Professional.</p>
from Pest Management Professional https://www.mypmp.net/strong-team-leading-from-afar-abcs-of-growth/
Sacramento CA
