00:00 – Leadership Under Pressure

Matt McCoy: What's the number one leadership lesson you've learned in your career?

Stephen Segal: Well, it's interesting, and I think it comes down to the fact that you can really understand people and understand challenges, not when you're being successful, but when you're under the hardest points of challenges.

So we had a situation where we had grown the company very rapidly, from $10 million a year to $100 million a year in almost 20 months through acquisition and organic growth.

And right after that, we ran into a liquidity crisis.

During that crisis, it's really when we saw the character of people. People that we thought were supportive perhaps weren't as supportive, while others you least expected rose above what you thought they were.

It was actually a very rewarding experience in many ways because we saw the true nature of people.

The good news is the vast majority of people were incredibly helpful and collaborative, even when they themselves were under pressure.

Employees were worried about their jobs. Suppliers were worried about getting paid. Lenders were under strain as well.

It was amazing to see how many people still remained supportive throughout that process.

The lesson is this: judge people by how they react when you're under pressure—not just by how they behave when you're successful.