A columnist for Forbes was so impressed by CEO Mehran Assadi’s leadership style that he wrote about it for the current magazine.
Columnist Louis Efron writes about people, purpose and leadership for the magazine.
He wrote a piece in the current edition titled “How the CEO Of National Life Group Drives Continuous Improvement.”
“Mehran Assadi, the CEO of National Life Group, believes that the continuous improvement of his organization starts with him,” Efron wrote.
Mehran has often told employee meetings about how he spends time every Sunday morning reflecting on how he showed up over the past week.
He uses that time to evaluate what he did well and where he needs to improve.
“I walk back over my week,” Mehran told Efron, “working through meetings and decisions, assessing how I showed up. Showing up for me means that being an active listener is more important than speaking; it means that I have to seize opportunities to provide positive feedback as well as constructive coaching advice; it means that I have to invite debate and intellectual wrestling; it means that I have to welcome different opinions and points of view.”
Efron was also impressed with Mehran’s use of the Seven Cs of Leadership and the awards he presents to National Life leaders each year.
And Efron also drew a connection between Mehran’s leadership style and National Life’s bottom line.
“His stellar results support his assertion,” Efron wrote. “National Life Group’s insurance sales have doubled since 2011, its customer base has grown from 796,000 in 2014 to 843,000 in 2016, and the face value of its life insurance policies just exceeded an historic milestone of $100 billion—$20 billion of it added in the last two years. He is one of the top-rated Glassdoor CEOs, with a 98 percent employee approval rating.”