James E. Loehr - Leading with Character

The book is called Leading with Character , and one's purpose in life is the through line, the fuel, and the catalyst for it all. In the pages that follow, you'll get what I've gotten out of my experience working with Jim over the years. It is a necessary examination of the relationship between character and leadership and what leading with character means. It is an eminently practical guide to defining one's own personal credo and to training the leadership muscles that will help you live up to it. And it is a stirring meditation on the elements of one's legacy – how it's much more about how we treat others than what we do for ourselves, and why we must work at it every single day with intent and discipline.

What you walk away with is both a framework and a toolkit for becoming a better, more thoughtful leader. It's a guide to training and strengthening your leadership muscles, much as you would train a muscle group in the gym: with focus, commitment, and determination. And it is a roadmap that, when followed with intent, will better prepare leaders to treat people as they should and to confront the challenges they will inevitably face – and that we are all facing now.

I've been in training, so to speak, and developing my “leadership muscles” for more than 40 years, while working at three “institutions.” I started my career in the U.S. Army (founded 1775), which I joined out of college and where I spent four years as an officer in West Germany at the height of the Cold War. Next came Procter & Gamble (founded 1837) where I spent 28 years in Brand Management and General Management, including leading the company's business in Southeast Asia and eventually rising to Group President of the $7 billion Global Male Grooming business, when P&G made the largest acquisition ever in packaged goods, buying Gillette for $57 billion in 2005 and then running that iconic business for six years. Those experiences helped shaped me as a leader and prepared me to take on my current role, at Levi Strauss & Co. (founded 1853), where I've been the CEO for the past nine years.

The common thread between these organizations is that all three are values-led and purpose-driven, with cultures that emphasize character and a strong moral compass. That is why, I firmly believe, they have all endured for generations – through wars and economic crises, through natural disasters and pandemics, through astounding technological advancements and tumultuous social upheaval, and even through their own occasional missteps.

As a leader, I am the product of my experiences, assignments, and the leaders that I've worked for. I've also been fortunate to have wonderful mentors and coaches along the way, including, Jim Loehr.

Over the past two decades, Jim has been a coach and friend who has helped me to define who I am and the kind of leader I am today. I've worked with him on several occasions – often, I can see now, at what turned out to be critical points in my life and career. Soon after I took the helm at LS&Co., for example, he pushed me to think very intentionally about the kind of leader I wanted to be – what my legacy would be. He forced deep and occasionally uncomfortable self-reflection that involves facing brutal truths about yourself and working consistently to reach for that next level. From Jim, I learned the importance of journaling as a way to force thoughtful introspection on a daily basis. While I may miss a day or two here or there, journaling (almost) every day – and the thoughtful interrogation and self-reflection it elicits – is something that I know has contributed to my success.

It is not easy, but that's why it's so invaluable. Jim challenged me to become a purpose-driven, compassionate leader, born of character and nurtured by intentionality and hard work. And ever since, he's challenged me to keep working on it. Every day.

I joined LS&Co. for three main reasons (there are always only three reasons, right?). First, the Levi's brand. I grew up wearing Levi's, and to me it was one of the most iconic brands in the world. Unfortunately, it had fallen into disrepair and had lost its relevance. Could it be reinvigorated? I firmly believed that it could. To me, it was a great challenge.

Second, the company's values. This was a company that commits to “Profits through Principles” and has a long legacy, going all the way back to Levi Strauss himself, of giving back and making a difference in society. We desegregated our factories in the south 10 years before it became the law of the land. We were one of the first companies to offer healthcare benefits to same-sex partners in the United States. We pulled all funding of the Boy Scouts when they banned Gay Troop Leaders in the early 1990s, and then didn't waver despite getting more than 130,000 letters and emails, almost all of which announced an intention to boycott Levi's. Making a difference and not being afraid to take a stand, even if unpopular, is what the company is made of. That resonated with me and made me want to be a part of it. And, history has proven the company's stands to be right with the benefit of hindsight.

Third, the company was in trouble. It had not created any shareholder value in over a decade. Sales had plummeted, the company was highly levered with over $2 billion of debt, and the Levi's brand had become irrelevant. My own two boys never wore Levi's as teenagers. A far cry from my generation! Back in my day, if you went to Woodstock (I was still a few years too young), you were either wearing Levi's or you were naked.

So I took the job, wanting to turn the company and the brand around, and wanting to leave a legacy, to make a difference. This was one of America's greatest brands, and one of America's oldest companies. The chance to turn the company around, make the brand what it was when I was a kid, where I begged my mom to take me two towns away to buy a pair of Levi's before I started middle school. And, I believed one key to turning the company around was to lead with our values as a company.

That is to say, I had a purpose. I had a vision of what I wanted to accomplish and what I wanted to leave behind, and that has been crucial to everything that's happened since. What's more, I gave a lot of thought to what I wanted my legacy to be: to be more about how I led rather than just the results we achieved. That we could and would get great results not just because of WHAT we did, but because of HOW we did it. Always choosing the harder right over the easier wrong. Innovating in ways that could improve the business and our industry. Not being afraid to take a stand on tough issues of our day and, in doing so, putting the Levi's brand back at the center of culture.

Over the past seven years, we've delivered revenue and profit growth every single year, excluding the impacts of foreign exchange, and we've created significant shareholder value. The Levi's brand has arguably never been stronger. Sales last year were $5.9 billion, up from $4.6 billion when I joined. We successfully returned the company to the public markets in March 2019 with a very successful IPO, and at that time I recommitted that we were not backing off of our values even as a public company.

As much success as we've had as a company over the last seven years I am more proud of HOW we did it. What made us successful through the turnaround was our commitment to those values. Never have I been more convinced about the importance of leading with character. We doubled down on our values. We have innovated around sustainability and have not backed away from the Paris Climate Agreement and our commitment to reduce our carbon footprint. We are innovating with lasers and with new fibers, like cottonized hemp, both of which require dramatically less water than their legacy counterparts. In 2016, when the president banned immigration from seven Muslim countries, we were very quick to take a stand on this unprecedented unilateral Executive action. Not only did we speak out against it publicly, we also supported court cases with amicus briefs. And, importantly, we put our money where our mouth was and committed dollars from the Levi Strauss Foundation to support non-profit organizations around the country to support marginalized communities impacted by the Executive Order.