Mentors
Williamson has had two strong mentors who guided him throughout most of his career. One was a small business owner, David Weil, who gave him the opportunity to run a manufacturing business. “David used to say, ‘Take care of the dimes and the dollars will take care of themselves.’ That’s true to some degree. When you pay attention to details, the larger things will fall into place. I learned about sales, cash flow, and profitability running that small business,” he says. “Large businesses have a lot of short-term advantages that small businesses don’t have. In a small business, you must master the fundamentals.”
When Williamson first came to Canada, Alain Madore, the man who wound up being Williamson’s presidential predecessor, mentored the newcomer from the small business background. Williamson says, “He helped me transition to a larger company mindset. When you work in a very small business, you’re often working deep in the weeds (handling all the details yourself), but in a larger environment, you need to rise above that and learn to delegate responsibility. Alain helped me ‘work in the right time zone,’ as he used to put it.”
T.A.C.
With those fundamentals learned, Williamson developed his personal leadership philosophy that incorporates transformation, autonomy, and coaching. “I want to transform the company so that it will have a bigger impact on the industry and be more profitable. That’s the goal, and to accomplish that I have to bring people around me — incredibly smart and talented people. Those types of people don’t usually want to come to work and be told what to do. They want autonomy to make decisions, but they want to be coached as needed, not dictated to. I like to give my VPs autonomy and allow them to execute. If I have an opinion as to how they should do something, I’ll work with them one-on-one to make sure we have the same vision. When we have to make a big company-wide decision, I get all the players together and make sure we get all ideas on the table to reach the best decision. My role as president is to make strategic-level decisions for Dart’s long-term success. If I’m focusing on daily operational or finance decisions, I’m going to lose focus on the long-term strategy. So, I surround myself with smart and talented people who are more capable than me of making decisions for their areas of responsibility. Fundamentally, what I look for in leaders are two things above all else: a bias for action, and people that think and act like owners. Without those two qualities, it’s a non-starter.”
14
Jan/Feb 2025
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