Success Labs Leadership Profiles: Introducing Eddie Gibbons

Success Labs is proud to introduce its newest team member, Eddie Gibbons, who joined us in January. Before that, he served six years as a United States Marine and has more than 10 years of business management and leadership development experience.Eddie brings both an academic and industry background in process and strategic management. He earned a B.A. in liberal arts from The Ohio State University and an M.B.A.  from Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business. During his time at Tulane, he studied in Shanghai, China.Now, Eddie is pursuing his doctorate in human resource and leadership development, with an emphasis in organizational development from Louisiana State University. His research interests focus on the perceived obstacles to strategic planning in small businesses. When Eddie isn’t working or studying, he serves as a board member for the Wilson Global Initiative and is active in the Baton Rouge Area Chamber of Commerce.Learn more about Eddie in this interview:

What's your leadership philosophy?

Be self-aware and make a decision.

Which business leader do you look up to and why?

I can’t say I have a business leader that I look up to, but a historical leader I admire would be Abraham Lincoln. His experience is textbook change management. The stresses he must have undergone, both in his personal life with the deaths of his sons while attempting to keep a new nation from splitting apart, must have been crushing. Whether one agreed with his politics or not, his leadership was undeniable.

What's the hardest leadership lesson you've ever had to learn?

The way we perceive ourselves is not the way we are perceived by others.

What's the most common weakness you see in leaders and how do you help them improve on it?

I’ve noticed that at times, leaders are not self-aware and do not always understand how they are perceived by their organizations. This limits what a leader can get out of their people and can limit their ability to effectively communicate.

What advice would you give veterans who are working to translate their military leadership experience into their civilian work lives?

As a former Marine, I have noticed that we veterans wear our military service on our sleeve. It’s an experience we’re extremely proud of and intently identify with for the rest of our lives. For some of us, if we were exposed to the horrors of combat, our military service was a traumatic event. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we tend to expect our civilian peers to understand what we experienced and conform to our military expectations. They rarely do either, nor should we should expect them to. Military service was not their life path, it was ours.Though there are certainly crossovers, leadership in the military is not leadership in the private sector. Military leadership is often positional authority, through a highly segregated rank structure. Private sector rank structures can be, at times, much more flat and nuanced, requiring a propensity for political and interpersonal savvy, skills not always required in military leadership. If veterans wish to excel in the private sector, they will need to learn self-awareness and understand the differences between military and civilian leadership.Do you need help with leadership development? Contact us to see how Eddie and the rest of the Success Labs team can assist your organization.Success Labs is a leadership development and management consulting firm in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For more than 25 years, our expert team of consultants has worked with hundreds of companies to explore their business potential and improve their company and cultural performance. Contact us to get proactive about your people strategy.