Before we get going with today's episode, I am so excited to announce that David's new book, How Leaders Learn is available for pre-order now. The book is all about helping you master the habit of active learning, which is the number one skill of the world's most successful leaders. David's new book, How Leaders Learn, will teach you how to become an active learner so that you too can experience success you really want to see in your life and in your career. Pre-order the book today and then forward your receipt to book@howleaderslead. com so you can get immediate access to exclusive bonus content including an audio summary from David himself. Pre-order How Leaders Learn today, then forward your receipt to book@howleaders lead.com and get excited to get your book in the mail. I promise you're going to love it. Welcome to How Leaders Lead, where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I break down the key learnings of the end of the episode. You'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. My guest today is Steve Squery, the CEO and Chairman of American Express. And I got to tell you, it takes a really special leader to lead an iconic brand that's been around for 174 years and keep taking it to higher and higher heights. And Steve is definitely that guy. One of the many things I like about Steve is his willingness to seek out feedback and honestly ask himself what he could be doing better. You know, we all want to improve his leaders, but sometimes we overlook the amount of self-reflection it takes to actually do it. It can be really uncomfortable to ask for feedback and create space for honest self-reflection. But boy, when you develop that habit, it's like giving yourself rocket fuel. And Steve is a phenomenal example of that mindset. I know you're going to learn so much today. So here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours, Steve Squ ery. You know, Steve, I've had a lot of fun with you in the past. We've had the opportunity to play a little bit of golf. And there's that old saying that you can learn a lot about a person by playing around a golf with them. And one thing I learned when we played is that when it was time to tee off, you really wanted that scorecard. You wanted to keep score. What's that say about your leadership style? My leadership style is one that I get into the detail. And I think to use a golf analogy, I tee it up all the time. I mean, I tee it up 24/7. I think when you're in a role like this, these jobs are all consuming. And if you're not willing to go that extra mile, if you're not willing to grind and you're not willing to commit to being the best possible leader that you can be, then you shouldn't be in these jobs. And that's one of the things I really loved about playing with you. We had a good time and you grind and you try on every hole and you're cheering me on the whole way and you stay positive even when things weren't necessarily going our way. How does that mindset show up in the way how you run American Express? Yeah, I think it's something that I learned from my parents, especially my father, you know, I mean, in growing up, family of Italian immigrants, my father was the first one in the family really to go to college. And my father would always tell us, you can never get too high and you can never get too low, no matter how things shake out. And I watched him navigate life. And I think as you lead a company like this, you're always going to have highs and you're always going to have lows. And one of the things that I think I've learned since I became the CEO is that how the CEO sets the tone is how the tone goes for the entire company. And so I think it's really important that, you know, when things are going well , you stay even keel, but when things aren't going so well, you also stay even keel. But by staying even keel and not getting too emotional over things, it allows you to focus and to problem solve, right? You don't want to be assessing blame. You want to problem solve. And I think that's been important. So for me, my leadership style has always been one that is balanced, never get too high, never get too low and just continue to focus. And you're a really fierce competitor and as you mentioned, you are grinder. You never give up. Tell us a story in the business setting where this really paid off for you and the team. I'll go back years and years ago when Y2K was, you know, around. And what was interesting about that is this goes back to 1997. And the reason I'll pick this story is because it had such a huge impact on the company at that particular point in time. And I remember Harvey Gollib was the CEO at the time. And we needed somebody to lead Y2K for the company. And I was in a room with other senior executives, some more senior than me. And I volunteered, you know, for that role. And people sort of snicker at me when I volunteered for that role because they said, you know, if you kind of screwed this thing up, your career is over. And I said to them, if I screwed this thing up, everybody's career is over. Right? And so, you know, what for me, what I needed to do there was not only do my existing job, but I had to find the bandwidth to do this extra function and do it well. And the lesson there that people should take out of that is that when you have an opportunity to volunteer to make an impact in a company, season, there's no reward without risk. And it gave me tremendous exposure to Harvey, to Ken Shinault, to the board. And it really set me up later on. And it made a difference because, look, we were able to navigate. It was a two and a half year assignment. We navigated through the entire Y2K situation. And obviously, like other companies, we came out on the other side, fine, but you didn't know that at the time. And so, for me, it showed that you really had a grind at that point because think about doing your current job, which was a big job. I was a senior vice president, which wanted to top 140 jobs at the company at the time. But then also doing this other job, which quite honestly could have been done on a full-time basis. You know, you've been at American Express for almost 40 years. What did mean to you, Steve, to get chosen internally and get that nod to be the CEO? I mean, American Express is one of the premier brands of the world, premier companies of the world. You could go outside. You could get really, really amazing talent. It's interesting because people said to me, what was your path to, you know, to CEO? And it's not something I ever focused on. I mean, I just, look, growing up, the way I grew up, you know, it's not a silver spoon. It, you know, I'd risen to the level of vice chairman in the company, which was , you know, probably 10 levels beyond my wildest dreams at that point. And so when Ken said to me, look, you're going to be the next chairman and CEO. And he told me this at Shinnecock, by the way, I said to him, you know, it's pretty hot out there. He'd have heat stroke, you know, but he said, look, I think you are the guy that can lead this company going forward. And David, when you start at a company at pretty much the entry level at a manager position, you're at the company for 32 years. And one of the most respected CEOs in the world tells you that he wants you to succeed him. It's not a dream come true because it's not a dream you ever had, right? It's just an honor. You know, I was flabbergasted by that. I was humbled by it. And you know, it's also a huge burden, though, too, right? Because, you know, when you are chosen to lead a company like this, I'm like the 12th CEO in the history of 174-year-old company. And so just think about that. That's an awesome responsibility. But more importantly, you now have responsibility for 75,000 colleagues. The decisions that you make impact people's lives on an ongoing basis. And you have to realize that that's all part of it. And I think the other thing you have to realize is that when you're leading a company like this, the company is not here to serve you. You are here to serve the company. And you have to inconvenience yourself to convenience the many, which is the colleagues in our company. And so being here 33 years, ascending to this position, it's really unbelievable. I mean, I can come into the office on some days and just pinch myself and wonder if somebody's just going to say, hey, you know what, the gig is up. It was a joke. And you know, you're no longer going to be the CEO anymore. Well, it's interesting. You made a comment that you have to inconvenience yourself to convenience the many. What do you mean by that exactly? You know, I'll give you a great example. I was doing a town hall, you know, a few years ago. And we're going to do a town hall, you know, virtually for our Australian colleagues. Well, yeah, it'd be great to do the town hall, you know, at like 12 o'clock in afternoon your time. But that's four in the morning in Australia. So instead, do the town hall at midnight when it's four in the afternoon in Australia. I mean, it's those kinds of things. And it's sent, I will tell you this, it sends a huge message to people that, you know, you're willing to go out of your way so that they don't have to go out of their way. And if you think about the amount of time and effort that, and you see this in a number of companies where people do somersaults and backflips to acquiesce to leadership, the reality is leadership should be doing somersaults and backflips to acquiesce to the colleague base. That's the way it should be. And so you need to put yourself out of out of your comfort zone to support your people because ultimately they're doing the really hard work, right? They are really doing the hard work here and doing a heavy lifting. You know, speaking of hard work, you know, a lot of people I talk to, especially CEOs that used to be CEOs, they say they wouldn't want to be a CEO today. It is kind of an environment because you've got social media, all this pressure on diversity and inclusion and all the governance issues. How do you think about that, Steve? Well, I think, look, you know, I've always said if you don't want to see it on the front of the Wall Street Journal, then don't do it. You just tell my kids that. As I think about it, it goes back to the values of the company. When we make decisions, you know, we try and make decisions, are they within our values and our values really drive our culture. And if you're not willing to take the heat sometimes and get out of the kitchen as the old expression goes. And so it's very different, I think, today being a CEO than it was, you know, probably just four or five years ago. I mean, between, you know, social media, the number of issues that are out there that you have to face, whether they're from a diversity perspective, a social, governmental, what have you. And I think, you know, for us, what really guides us is we use our values to guide our decisions and we try and do what's right for our colleagues and our customers. And so as we have a framework for how we weigh in on things, we go to our values and then we look at do these things impact our colleagues in a significant way and do they impact our customers. And then, you know, look, you're never going to make everybody happy. That's not your job. Your job is to make the best decisions possible for the companies taking into account all the constituencies that we have, which are shareholders, customers, colleagues in a community. I remember talking to you about diversity and the power of diversity. And you were really proud of the job that you've done in that area. Tell us about it and how you've approached it to get the results that you think are terrific. For me, inclusion was really important. I want a company where everybody can be themselves. I don't want people to come to work and have to act. You know, we spend so much time at work that if you can't be yourself, then why are you here? Our values are really around diversity, equity and inclusion. And our leadership team is aware of that. And our leadership team values that. What we're talking about is opening up your aperture to make sure that you are bringing in the widest point of views, bringing in the widest collection of talent and the most diverse collection of talent that you can have available to you. And I think that makes us a better company. I think that makes us a more fun place to work. And I think it drives better results for us. I know you're a very humble guy, but if you had to pick the towering strength that helped you get to the position that you're at today, what would it be? Two things. Number one, being able to look in the mirror and realize what you're good at and where your shortcomings are. I think so many people so many times just focus on what they're good at and don 't want to look in that mirror and say, hey, this is where I'm not so good and I can use to develop a little bit more. And I think the second thing that goes right along with that is you have to be an agile learner. You have to be willing to learn. And once you stop your journey of learning, it's kind of over. And I don't think anybody ever stops their journey of learning. I mean, look at you. I mean, you're doing what you're doing now after a wildly successful career and you're learning every day by doing some of these podcasts, right? I think those are the two things that have really helped me grow as a, not only as an individual, but as a leader as well, is being able to look in that mirror and say who you really are. And then the ability to be an agile learner. Tell us a story about the biggest leadership lesson you learned on the way up. By having this self reflection that you're talking about. The biggest leadership lesson I ever learned was probably when I was 18 years old from my mother. When I went to Manhattan, I would work full time at Bloomingdale's on 59th Street. So I'd, I'd take the train up to Manhattan College, take the train back down, get off and go to Bloomingdale's. And, you know, so there you were in Bloomingdale's and I was a stock guy, you know, and doing various different things. And you know, whether it was working in a rug department, the sign department, whatever it might be, whatever I could do. And you know, back in those days, you know, if you weren't in the graduate management program at Bloomingdale's, you're just a stock guy, you sort of looked down on it. And I remember going home and being frustrated. And my mother used to always say to me, she said two things. She said, you can be anything you want to be if you put your mind to it. And I was, I'm not so sure about that, mom. They went to Columbia. They went to Yale or in the training program. You know, I'm in Manhattan. They asked me where I go, you know, I might go to community college and so forth. She said, the other thing is, which is important is don't let anybody tell you what you're capable of doing because only you know what you're truly capable of. And that got me to sort of look a lot more in the mirror about who I was and what I could do. And I still go back and people say to me, what's the best business advice you ever got? And it was from my mother. And I've changed it a little bit over the years to be a little bit more business speak. And that was don't let anybody set your goals for you because only you know what you can truly accomplish. And if you think about that, why should anybody set a ceiling for you? Why shouldn't you set the ceiling for yourself and then strive to get there? And that has stood with me. But that then, if I go back to those other two points, which I never would have thought about that back then, but that then says, hey, look, you have to look in that mirror and you have to be an agile learner if you want to get to where you want to go. I was really amazed to learn that you'd been in the same company for 40 years. That's a long time. And I have to believe that there had to be a time when you thought about leaving. You know, when was it? And how do you work through it? And why did you stay? There were a number of times early on where I thought that this might not be the place for me. And I interviewed outside and decided to stay. But I'll tell you why, why I almost left and why I stayed. I was told so many times during my career, this would be the highest level I would ever achieve. I was told that when I was made a director, a vice president, a senior vice president, that this was it. Don't expect anymore. Okay. And I'd go back to what my mom said. They were putting a ceiling on top of me. And those words in her mind, you know, rang out to me that you could do whatever you want to do, which is true. And don't let anybody tell you what you can and cannot do. And the reason I stayed was for two reasons. Number one, this company offers tremendous opportunities. And number two, I wanted to prove them wrong. I wanted to prove them wrong. And most of those people that told me I couldn't never reached anywhere near where I reached. And so I guess you could say I had a chip on my shoulder. And I think that chip on my shoulder has served me, has served me well. That's why I stayed. I still felt it was a great company to learn at. And that's really, really important to me. And it had lots and lots of opportunities. But the other part, and going back to how we started this from a competitive perspective, from a competitive perspective, I wanted to show these people they were wrong. And I did. Hey, everyone, it's Kula, co-host of Three More Questions. And I have some exciting news to share with you. We just launched a breakthrough app that will help you become a better leader in less than two minutes a day. It's called How Leaders Lead. As you know on the podcast, David spends about an hour each week interviewing some of the top leaders in the world. People like Tom Brady, Condoleezza Rice, and Jamie Diamond. But we know that leaders like yourself are pressed for time. So we've taken the very best clips from these conversations and put them into an easy to use mobile app that you can learn from in less than two minutes a day. If you want to become a better leader, start a daily leadership habit with the How Leaders Lead app. It's available now for free and the app store. Download it today. And when you first took over a CEO of American Express, I understand you met with your top 100 executives. Talk more about that, what you really tried to find out and why you did it. Ken Chenault and I had a great transition. And you've seen lots of situations where when the current CEO is leaving and the new CEO is coming in that you get some friction and over time they sort of go apart. I'm probably closer with Ken now today than I've ever been. He was a tremendous supporter of me personally, but even during a transition. And what he said to me, he gave me great advice. He said, do it the way you think it should be done, not the way you think I would do it. Now, that's tremendous confidence, right? I mean, that's a guy that has tremendous confidence. And that was really good advice. And you know, again, go back to what I said about looking in the mirror. Well, I think the company needs to look in the mirror and a CEO I needed to look in the mirror. And so I said, what better way than to go out and talk to the top 100 leaders in the company. And I spent 45 minutes with them with each one of them. And most of them were in person, you know, if they were in England or something , I didn't happen to be in London. We did it over the phone. But what I said to them is I said, look, what should we do more of as a company ? What should we stop doing? What do you hope that I will do? And what do you are absolutely afraid I'm going to do? And anything else that's on your mind. And it was great learning. And what it showed and what I was trying to show was that we were in this together. We were going to collaborate. We were going to win as a team. And I think that was really important because then the next step that I took after that was with my top executives put together something that we called the framework for winning that talked about our mission, our strategic priorities, how we're going to win , what we were looking for in leaders, the values that we had. And what I also then did is said, look, we're going to run this as an enterprise. Up until then, we had run it as individual business units from a scorekeeping perspective. And you know, look, competitive people want to keep score the right way. But I felt that, you know, one plus one plus one should not equal three. It should equal four. And by looking at this more from an enterprise perspective and having everybody have the same skin in the game, that was really important. And so what I learned was people really wanted to work together. People really wanted that enterprise feeling and they didn't want that feeling of, hey, look, you're in one business unit. I'm in the other business unit. And in addition to competing on the outside, we're going to compete internally for the best ratings. And so what I did is I eliminated this concept of business unit ratings. I mean, we had multiple business units and I basically said, we're all going to sink or swim on how the company does. Now, we'll have our individual goals, but the only rating that's going to matter for people is what the company gets. And that changed the dynamic a little bit because as we were having investment conversations, what we saw was, hey, where should we put the money as a group, not, you know what, he got an extra 50 million to invest was my 50 million. The end of the first year, one of my direct reports came up to me and said, you know, we invested an extra $600 million this year that we didn't originally have in the plan. And I only got 10 million of that. And I'm like, okay, here we go. And he said, that was absolutely the right decision. And he said, what really makes me feel good is I had a voice in where that 600 million went. And so what I found by talking to all those people was that they really wanted to collaborate. They really wanted to operate as an enterprise. And that's what we did. And I think that's helped really drive our success. You know, one of the questions that you asked, which I hadn't heard of before, because, you know, a lot of people go on listening tours and, you know, want to get the feedback. But I love this question is, what are you afraid I'm going to do? Well, what's the big thing you heard? The biggest thing was don't act too quickly without truly understanding everything. And, you know, prior to taking over as CEO, it was probably 25 or 30% of the company that hadn't worked for me, right? And I was more of a guy that was kind of in the background. I did a lot of different roles for Ken. And one of the big things I did was sort of the reengineering of, you know, 2015, 2016. And so I think people were afraid that I may not listen and people were afraid that I was going to act too quickly because I haven't met a decision I didn't want to make . I think that was really good. I think what you really needed to do was to demonstrate to people you were thoughtful, to demonstrate to people that you were taking the input. You know, because you're loud, because you multitask, because you may appear at times like you're not listening, doesn't mean you're not listening. And so what I realized, taken out of that was, look, take a step back, get even some more input and be a little bit more deliberate because you don't want waiting a day to make a decision is not going to make too much of a difference in the grand scheme of things if you're, you know, you're talking about stopping an initiative or something like that. And so what I tried to do was take people more through my thought process, try to even listen more and sometimes listening more, it was just being more attentive. You know, you could say, well, I'm listening and my father used to say to me all the time, hey, dad, you know, I'd be looking at TV. I'm listening to you. And he actually was. You just, he was a great multitasker. So I think they were just afraid for areas that I didn't know. I had a preconceived notion and was going to act. And that was one of the things that that I heard a lot of. And so, you know, you just took that off the table. And how did you let people know that you really heard that? I think you demonstrate that, right? And, you know, one of the things that I still do today when I make a decision, I try and take people through my thought process. I try and take people through the thought process of why we did what we did. I'll do that in town halls. I'll do that in one-on-one meetings. I think every time you have an interaction with your colleagues, it is an opportunity to teach and it's an opportunity for them to learn. And you know this, as you sit in this seat, this seat is very different than any other seat you could ever sit in in any company. And it's different because it's a one-of-one job. You don't have really colleagues that are, you know, sort of, you know, equivalent with you. You have direct reports. You work for a board. It's a lonely job. And so, taking them through how you thought about it and taking them through some of the things that you face, I'm very public about how I feel about the job. And I'm very public about with my team how I think about things. How do you go about getting feedback today, Steve? You know, it's interesting. I was just, I just had somebody in here and we were talking about how do I become a better leader? And you know, one of the things that I'm pretty happy about with my team is they're not afraid to tell me when they disagree with me. At all, I've got people that speak up. And what they've known is that no one's ever going to get burned because they disagreed with me. I'd like them to disagree with me. The only thing that I ever say is I disagree, but let's disagree respectfully. And let's have alternatives. And so I think my team will tell you that, you know, they have an opportunity to tell me what's on their mind and know there'll be no repercussions. Having said that, I think what's important is for me to be a better leader as I , you know, move through, I mean, just starting year seven now as CEO, what would my team really want me to work on? You know, because it's one thing to get feedback in an individual situation, right? Hey, you know, we disagree with that. Have you tried that? But one of the things that I'm going to do this year is work with somebody to work with my team to basically say, hey, look, if you could make Steve better, that's not hard. It's a wide open range of things, right? If you could make him better, what are the two things or three things you would hope that he would focus on? So it gets back, David, to that, what do we hope for Steve? What do we hope that he would do? And I think, you know, you say, look, 65 years old, seven years in the job, why do you care? It goes back to being an agile learner. You care because you want to continue to grow. And so I think it's at the right time for me to talk with my team. And I know I'll get really good feedback of, look, you know what, we wish Steve would modulate this up that, let us do this more so forth and so on. And so we'll see how that works out. Maybe if this works out, well, we can do podcast to what happened to Steve after his feedback. Yeah, I would love that, you know, but obviously you've got real religion on self-awareness. I mean, you really believe that's a key thing. Do you have any stories when someone earlier on in your career helped you identify a blind spot in your own leadership? There's a lot of blind spots that I had early on, and this goes back probably to the Accenture days because I spent four years at Accenture before, was author Anderson at the time, but we say Accenture now was on the consulting side. And I had a manager at that particular point in time that said to me, you know, you are treating everyone the same and they're not. It's my like my first management job. And this is one that I think permeated throughout my career because he said, I 'll make the names up. You got Joe over here who's more experienced than on this assignment for, you know, the last two years, you've come in as the lead on this thing and you have Sally over here who's brand new. Why would you treat him the same? And David, what you realize about that is that everybody has a different context. And one of the things I always talk about with my team now is what's the context? Everybody has a different context. And when you think about it, the person that had more experience didn't need me sort of grinding over them. The person that had less experience needed me leading and helping a little bit more. And so I think, you know, what I learned from that early on is you have to morph your leadership style to meet the situation. I mean, look, we hear about this and I know you've interviewed a number of athletes on this as well. But you know, you hear about coaches that have one way to do it. It's the, you know, it's the patriot way or it's this way or it's the other way . I don't think that really works in business. To this day, I don't treat every single direct report the same way because they all have a different context. They have more experience, less experience, newer in the role and so forth. And so that lesson from, you know, 44 years ago still plays out today. And so I wasn't self aware enough to know that people are at a different point because think about it. You're a 24 year old kid and it's like, okay, I'm now in charge. Nobody teaches you, right? I mean, it's not like, okay, you're going to now lead people. So you say, I'm going to do it this way. The other thing I think that, you know, people make a mistake of so many leaders make mistakes, especially young leaders, when they get put in a job, they try and prove right away why they're in that job. You don't need to prove right away. Your actions over time will prove why you're in that job. You don't need to make some big statement coming out of the gate. You need to sort of feel the moment a little bit more. You know, Steve, you said earlier, the minute you stop learning, you start dying. How have you cascaded that belief throughout American Express? I think, you know, one of the things that we do a really great job of here is from our CEG, our colleague experience group, is offering tremendous opportunities for people to learn both as leaders and from a functional perspective. And just from some storytelling as well, I mean, I'll talk about the development journey that I've been on. As I said, I think it's a constant journey. And I think when people hear it from the CEO that, you know, learning is important and that you continue to learn, they can decide to pick up on it or not. But then you got to put your money where your mouth is. And so if we didn't have the programs available to our colleagues, you can't say to people, learning's really important. When I get that learning, I have no idea. Go figure it out, right? And so we do have a great curriculum from a leadership perspective and from a functional skills perspective as well. When I think of American Express, I think of one of the great brands in the world. How do you as the CEO define the brand and how do you decide when you're going to change it? Yeah. And as always stood for security, trust and integrity. And you never want to lose that. We started as a freight forwarding company and now we're doing payments, right? And so if you think about this, when you were shipping something from New York to California, you had a trust, the carrier that was taking it. You had to know that there was security and that there was integrity in that. So when you give me all your personal information, you need to ensure that I'm going to take care of it. You could trust me with it and I'm going to have integrity. And so I think those are the key brand attributes. What you do on the edges with this is one of the things that we have done, one of the things that's really driven our growth is making the brand more accessible. We've made the brand more accessible, particularly the millennials and gen z iers. And so I wouldn't say we've changed the brand, but we've communicated those attributes and those value propositions about the brand in a way that resonates with a different cohort. And so those are the big decisions I think you need to make, David, is that how do you have the brand speak and what does it represent? And the brand is the most precious asset that we have here. It is one of the top 10 brands in the world. It has stood the test of time. I am a steward of that brand at this particular point in time and I don't want to do anything to damage that brand. But what we need to do is to make sure that that brand speaks to the people that we want to attract into our franchise. And you're so passionate about customers, Steve. I mean, how do you take your passion that you have around customers? And obviously, this is one of the reasons why you rose to the top job. How do you spread that throughout the company? I don't know how we get the people that we get, but if you went into one of our service centers, you would say, Steve, I know where you got your passion from. It's our customer care professionals. If you were to listen to them on calls with customers about how much they care about our customers, about how much they want to do for our customers. I mean, I have our customer care professionals talk to our board members, you know, in panels and so forth. But we have some of the best customer care professionals in the world. And as you go through the organization, people realize that we don't exist without customers. And as a management team, we realize we don't exist without customers or without great colleagues that take care of those customers. So I'll give you a great example. During the pandemic, there were two things that we needed to take care of. First our colleagues to make sure that they were safe and sound and oh, man, you know, we got everybody virtually. And we had probably 6,000 people, David, that did not have internet access. We didn't get rid of them. We paid them for the nine months until they were able to get either get internet access or to come back to work because those were the people and we took care of them first because those are the people that needed to take care of our customers. And then as far as our customers go, you know, a lot of our value propositions have a lot of travel benefits to it. And not a lot of people would travel during COVID. And so what we did was we injected, you know, another billion dollars of value into our products so that they were meaningful for people when they stayed home, whether that was streaming credits or shipping credits or cellular credits or dining credits and so forth that we gave them on their card. And, you know, and I've said this in other interviews, how could you do that? I said, well, look, the reality is this will be over. Nobody knew when it was going to be over, but you knew it would be over at some point. And the most important thing was that we took care of our colleagues. We took care of our customers and we took care of our brand. And so I remember I called Warren Buffadon's about 21%, Berkshire Hathaway owns 21% of American Express. And I called him up and I said, look, is April 15th, buildings are down 50%. And what I said to him was, you know, it looks like we're going to lose probably $4 a share. Our capital position will be good, but I want to invest another billion dollars , you know, and our customers. So we'll probably lose $5 a share. Are you okay with that? And he said to me, look, take care of your customers. Take care of the brand. You'll be much better off on the other side of it. We didn't lose $4 a share. We made much $4 a share, but it put us on a growth trajectory. And I think people at this company are just passionate about customers. We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Steve Squery in just a moment. Prior to Steve's tenure, American Express was led by Ken Shinol. Ken has also been a guest here on How Leaders League. And in our conversation, you'll hear some of the same themes of feedback that Steve's talking about today, including how you've got to embrace constructive confrontation if you want to build a strong team. One of the things that I talk to founders about very directly is eliciting and receiving direct feedback. And so this concept that I used in management of constructive confrontation, do it respectfully. But at the end of the day, what you want with your people and what you're going to get with me is I'm going to tell you how I feel, what my concerns are, what areas you need to develop. Let's talk about it. But then let's put a game plan together because one of the things that's important that I really stress the founders or anyone that I'm mentoring is we're all judged by our actions. And so take me through the outcomes. Behaviors that you engage in, let's understand what the impacts are, let's understand what the results are, because we all got to be outcome driven. But again, if we want to do something that's really lasting and meaningful, it 's got to be motivated by values and principles. Go back and listen to my entire conversation with Ken, Episode 68 here on How Leaders Lead. You mentioned the fact that with COVID, obviously people worked at home. And there are a lot of leaders now that are working remote or there's some sort of hybrid environment that the leaders set. What do you do? Just from a practical standpoint, what do you do to keep your team connected in this virtual world? One of the things that prior to the pandemic, we were 20% virtual as a company. We're probably about 30, 35% now. And the reality is if you came in here on a Friday, you probably wouldn't see a lot of people pre-pandemic. And so I think we were sort of a little bit hybrid before that. And we had a good percentage of people that were virtual. So we had a lot of the traps sort of done before that. I think the bigger issue though was how do you stay connected to your leadership team and how do those leadership teams stay connected to one another? And one of the things that we did pre-COVID was we decided as a leadership team , we would have something that we call meetings week. Sounds daunting, but let me explain it. One of the things I noticed as I was going through the company was that we scheduled a lot of meetings and sometimes people be calling in from Singapore or somebody be calling in from London or they didn't show up and so forth. And so you never had the team together. So what I basically said is, look, all of our enterprise meetings that we need to have, we're going to do those during one week, out of the month. We'll do our financial reviews. We'll do everything we need to do at one week, out of the month. And everybody's going to be there of my direct reports and our finance team, unless there's a family emergency or something else. And so if you think about it, as a team, we were together 25% of the time. So when COVID hit, we had established that real connectivity and collaboration as a team being together. And I think that really helped us. And so what we tried to do with people as they started to come back from COVID was it was come in with purpose. And so people started to come in to meet together and so forth. And maybe that was one day a week. And as we've gotten up to it now, we're at three days a week. And I think three days a week is probably for us the right cadence. I think that mentoring is hard virtually. Meetings one on one, virtually a fantastic meetings one on 15 are not as good. Sort of the Hollywood squares approach, I say it. You just don't have that dialogue. And one of the things I've learned really early on, David, was that you're in a meeting. Body language is so important to find out if people are checking out or they're not. And you lose some of that during this virtual environment. And you also lose that sort of, hey, at the end of the meeting, those little groups that might congregate together to have further on discussions. And so I think for us, we're putting in the right processes. Look, we still have some people that are unhappy about coming back in, but I think if you really want to grow your career longer term, mentoring is important, collaborating is important, leading in person is important. And I think studies are starting to show that now that I'm not so sure companies are going to be successful if they're 100% virtual. But I think hybrid is the way to go. And for us, it's probably three days a week. Here you've been CEO now for seven years in the same company for 40 years. And one of the things you have a really excellent reputation for is bringing an entrepreneurial approach to how you attack the business. What is the biggest problem that you're trying to solve for your customers today? I think one of the problems that we have, and I think we're on the road to it, is what you used to hear was you couldn't use your card everywhere. In the United States, that's pretty much gone. I mean, the United States, we're at parity coverage. I think one of the things that we're really working on is how do we have ubiqu ity internationally as well. And that's going to take some time, but I think we're making a lot of progress on that. And I think that's the biggest thing. You really want ubiquitous coverage. And that's really an important thing for us because I don't want people to have another product. People want to use our product all the time. And people want to use our product all the time because we stand behind them. They know that when they ring us up or they email us or they do chat with us, we're going to get back to them. There's two things that are very different about having an American Express card than any other product. How many other products will you meet somebody? They'll say, "Hey, I've been a member since 2000. I've been a member since 2010." You're not going to hear that with any of the competitive products. That member since thing means something. The other thing that I would say is we get phone calls from people in distress all the time. You're not calling your bank if you're on the side of a road or if you've got a health emergency or something like that. But you will call American Express because you know we will help you out. We will help you out to the best of our ability. That's important. That is really important to us. And you have this big noble cause of helping people achieve their aspirations. Most brands don't have that lofty goal. What puts you in position to do that? It is a lofty, and some may say a ridiculous goal, but it's within a box. We're not going to help you be an astronaut. But if you want to achieve your travel aspirations, if you want to help achieve some of your financial aspirations, if you're a card member and you want to take a trip of a lifetime, we'll put that together for you. If you're a small business and you need somebody to completely manage the whole thing, whether that's a transaction banking account, a working capital loan, and a small business card that's going to give you the spending power, we'll put that together for you so that you can achieve your aspiration of success. And so that's what we mean by it. It is a lofty ambition, but it's within the context. Remember, go back to our word context. It's in the context of what we can provide in that sense. And he started almost 200 years ago as a freight forwardy company, and you've evolved so much. How do you now think, Steve, about the future and taking the company where it needs to go next? What's the next 10 years look like in your mind? Yeah. Well, I may watch a few of those from the sidelines, but we're at the beginning of a journey. I'd say this is my leadership team. We've had some really good success. The stock went past 200 for the first time in our history. We got as high as 224, probably around 220 today. And let's not be complacent. We're not even halfway done about where we need to go as a company. And I think when you look at the opportunities that we have, we have so many opportunities in international. I mean, our market share in international is so small relative to our competitors, but it's one of our fastest growing. I'd really love to see us grow the brand and grow our business footprint in international. I talked about coverage and ubiquity of that coverage. I think there's so much more we can still do from a consumer perspective in terms of meeting more of the financial needs of the consumers. A few years ago, we bought a company called Rezi, which has quickly become one of the most significant dining applications, obviously in a restaurant business, not only for restaurant tours, but for card members alike. And so I think there are other things for us to continue to provide value to our card members. I mean, that's what we're about. How do we expand our organic footprint today to be even bigger in how we provide services and experiences to our card members, both in the United States and internationally, and both from a small business perspective and from a consumer perspective? See, this has been so much fun. I want to have a little bit more with you with my lightning round of questions that I always go, "So are you ready for this?" I think so. I'm sure you are. What three words best describe you? Intense, funny, my wife won't agree with that, and on all the time. What's your biggest pet peeve? People that don't work today at potential. What's the number of times you've lost your AMEX card? Too many. What American Express card do you carry? I carry the Centurion card, the Platinum card, the Gold card, the Green card and the Delta card and the Corporate card as well. What's something most people don't know about their credit card that they should? There's a lot of value in your credit card, and you should really explore the benefits. Who would play you in a movie? Ray Romano. That's easy. What's your best finish in your American Express golf tournament? Tied for third. That's not bad. Describe your last pinch me moment. As I said early on, I think my last pinch me moment is every day when I get to walk in here and sit in this seat. What's the best part about growing up in the Queens? People were real. People were authentic, and I still have my best friends from kindergarten. If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear? You'd hear classic rock. What's something about you that few people would know? I love theater. All right. You did that lightning round. You were great. I don't know how lightning it was. I think I paused. I think if we were on sort of family feud, the clock might have ran out a little bit. By the time we added it, it'll be very lightning. You sit on the board of both your alma mater's at Manhattan College, and then also I'm just in your high school as I understand it. It seems like you've never forgotten your roots. What tips would you offer leaders on how to stay grounded in the midst of all the success that you have? I mean, never forget where you came from. I mean, I look out my office, David, and I look at Ellis Island. My grandparents came through Ellis Island. I mean, so a hundred years ago, Giuseppe Squarey, 16 years old, came through Ellis Island, didn't speak English, didn't write English, and he set in motion a chain of events that his grandson is sitting right here. So if you think that this was some bequeathed that you were supposed to have this, you're out of your mind. And so for me, I think it's really important that you always stay grounded and authentic. And I think that's why my best friend still to this day are guys that I went to kindergarten with or I went to high school with. And staying connected to my high school is so important to me. One of my best friends is the president of the school. And I go there to the board meetings and I go to accepted students night every year to talk to kids and parents said, "Me, why do you do this? You don't even live here anymore." I said, "I want to show kids what the possible is, what the art of the possible is." And the reality is you and your kids are no different than my parents and my brothers than I were. And I'm not saying you're going to become CEO of American Express, but you can have a successful career in business. And Manhattan College, look, I'm chair to board Manhattan College now. My dad went to Manhattan College. So my father went to Manhattan College, I went to Manhattan College, and it's part of the squirre legacy. You know, you and your wife Tina, you have four daughters. How has been a girl dad made you better at what you do at work? I have to listen a lot more. You got to listen. I mean, they have an opinion and the opinion is legitimate and the opinion is real and they'll make sure you listen. The other thing is they pay attention to detail. They pay attention to a lot of detail and, you know, they're always taking care of me. I mean, that's the advantage of having daughters is they're always looking out for you and taking care of me. And my kids take care of me all the time. I mean, they're always looking out for me. Like, dad, you look like you got circles under your eyes. Dad, you need to take care of that. You need a little bit more rest and so forth. So that has been great. Having said that, you're only as happy as your unhappiest child at any given moment. You know, I have one daughter and she's a only child. You know, to think about having that multiplied by four. I mean, that's just an awesome, awesome blessing. And the last question for you, what's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to improve as a leader? Feedback is really important and you should always ask for and listen to feedback. And then you should evaluate that feedback and, you know, say, "Well, geez, that may or may not be me," but it may be the impression you're giving off. You know, they say feedback is a gift. I believe it truly is a gift and I think you should seek out feedback and then I think you should evaluate that feedback and go back to looking in that mirror. I think it's a two-way street. I think you need to give yourself feedback and you need to get feedback. But on the same token, you need to play it forward and make sure you're providing feedback to your direct reports and others so that they can grow as leaders. Feedback is the way I think that we grow as leaders. Great advice, Steve. And I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed this conversation. You are the real deal. You are a guy who's made it happen. Find the latter, exceeded expectations, not for your mom, not for your dad. It's certainly not for yourself. And you've shown the world what you can do if you believe in yourself and you work hard. Thank you. I'm still, my father, if he was alive, would still be shocked by this because this is well beyond his expectations. I'll just tell you a quick story about, I was probably about 12 years ago, we were sitting in the kitchen and my father would come over, you know, every other Saturday and he'd make risotto and we'd sit there and he'd say to me, "Hey, did you ever think and I think I was like a group president or something at the time, do you ever think you'd be successful as you are?" And I thought this was like one of these great father-son moments. And before I got a chance to answer, he said, "I didn't." And I said, "What do you mean you didn't?" He goes, "Well, I didn't mean that in a bad way." I said, "Well, how could I take that in a good way?" He goes, "Yeah, I guess you're right. But I'm honest with you, I didn't think you'd be this successful." So this would have been clearly well out of his realm of plausibility for his son. Well, well deserved and it's great to see you spreading the values that you learned as a kid in one of the greatest companies in the world and with one of the biggest brands. So thank you very much. Thanks, pal. It's always good spending time with you. Take care. You know, I've heard it said that amateurs want praise, but professionals want feedback. And you could really hear that mindset in the way Steve Squery leads himself and his team. As he says, "You've got to be willing to look yourself in the mirror and be honest about what's not ideal. If you're ready for a new level of growth and development, then make it a habit to seek out feedback and practice self-reflection. I'm telling you, it is a game changer. This week, reach out to a colleague you trust and ask them to tell you what one of your blind spots is. Now I got to warn you, you're probably not going to like what you hear. But take that feedback, examine it, let us spark that all important process of self-reflection. I guarantee it's going to help you become an even better leader. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is that great leaders create a habit of self-reflection. Coming up next on How Leaders Lead is, well, me. I have a brand new book called How Leaders Learn Coming Out on June 4th. And so next week on the podcast, the CEO of David Novak Leadership, Tim Schur, will be interviewing me about the way I lead. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead, where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be. [BLANK_AUDIO] [ Silence ]