PSE&G COO Shares His Leadership Style

Steve Adubato goes on-location to the Commerce and Industry Association of NJ event and speaks with the President and COO of PSE&G, Ralph LaRossa, about his leadership style.

5/13/17 #3005

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"We're here at the Commerce and Industry Association event. We actually had a great panel discussion talking about leadership. Ralph LaRossa knows something... knows a lot about leadership from PSE&G. Ralph, you were part of this great panel discussion. Biggest takeaway for you... number one leadership lesson not only that you took away from this, but that you live by? Yeah, I think it reinforced for me that my number one issue, which is really to learn from the people around you to make sure you have a good team that you surround yourself with. I think you heard from Mike, and everybody that made comments today, that you can't go into any job and think you're gonna be a leader of an organization by just coming over the top. You need to understand what that organization does from the bottom up, and be able to articulate that, and actually respond to issues as they come up by knowing what those people are facing. By the way, it was Mike Maron, who is a CEO from Holy Name Medical Center, and Kathleen Waldron, who is the President of William Paterson University. It was a very dynamic, interactive discussion. It was very candid frankly, and the leaders put it out there. We talked about... one of the areas that came up that was fascinating, and I know our audience will appreciate, was about, really, the question of being hands on. Micromanaging. You were actually in the discussion, and you had to... you had information coming in to you about things going on with crews all over the state, how is it that leaders can be engaged without micromanaging? Because you gotta be involved? Yeah. You know, if you want to get... if you're really gonna get a lot of work done in any industry, you really have to let your people rise and take control of activities. And so we're facing that right now as we're continuing to expand our gas infrastructure replacement program. So we've got crews working all over the state. And yet, they have to be empowered to deal with their local communities, their local customers. But we need to know what's going on because with social media these days, with Twitter, and Facebook, and everything else that's out there, we're getting information back about the behaviors of our crews, and the way they're interacting. And so, we need to be up to speed with what's happening to give them the right guidance, and oversight. But we can't be micromanaging their individual activities on a day to day basis. So there's a real fine line there that we're trying to find a balance of. And one of the things that Ralph talked about is that..."