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Leading Man John P. Schreitmueller, ’75, founder, president, and chief executive officer of the Resolute Consulting Group, talks about reinventing the corporate world. His advice to leaders? Get real! By Villia Struyk
onservatively stylish in a navy jacket and striped tie, John P. Schreitmueller, ’75, stands at a podium addressing a group of business executives at a breakfast seminar. The lecture, sponsored last year by Southern and the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce, has drawn business executives from throughout the state to hear Schreitmueller’s thoughts on leadership. Those attending the on-campus event are in good company. Regarded as a top leadership and work/life strategist, Schreitmueller is the founder, president, and chief executive officer of the Resolute Consulting Group, LLC, which has worked with clients from a wide range of organizations, among them Bank of America, CocaCola Bottling Consolidate, Nokia, the Department of Homeland Security, American Airlines, Lockheed Martin, IBM, British Aerospace, Frito Lay, and Boeing.A sought-after speaker, Schreitmueller also is a frequent media guest and has been featured on MSNBC and The NBC Evening News with Tom Brokaw, among others. Clearly, Schreitmueller knows his stuff, and on that warm spring day at Southern, members of the audience are highly engaged, listening intently as they quietly enjoy coffee and Danish. Pausing in his speech, Schreitmueller scans the room. “What do you think about when I say ‘C.E.O.’?”he asks. The audience stares
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intently at Schreitmueller — who is, in fact, a C.E.O., or chief executive officer. Coffee mugs are lowered to tables. Mouths cease moving mid-chew.“How many of you thought jerk?”he asks the crowd. Hands raise throughout the room, some with almost lightning speed. Schreitmueller continues,“Why, when we say C.E.O., do we conjure up the picture of a jerk?” The reason, Schreitmueller contends, is that“corporate leadership, in general, has taken it on the chin in the last couple of decades.” Indeed, the ever-growing list of corporate scandals, inept executive boards, and sky-high bonuses awarded to leaders of even failing businesses, make it difficult to conclude that something isn’t wrong with corporate America. And then there are the executives themselves. In his blog last March, Schreitmueller wrote,“75 percent or more of the professional, white-collar workforce in the United States is inauthentically deployed. In other words, at least threefourths of every degreed professional out there in corporate America would prefer to be doing something else for a living.” It is just this anomaly that Schreitmueller and Resolute Consulting seek to address. Based in Atlanta, the company provides a range of services to businesses, organizations, and individuals, exploring issues related to leadership, behavior, work/life balance, and career
transition. Their areas of expertise are farreaching and highly personalized. Coaching leaders who have been recently hired or promoted, helping family businesses develop succession plans, and managing difficult reporting relationships are just some of the company’s countless services. In nearly all cases, the overall goal is to help clients achieve — and in many instances discover — what Schreitmueller refers to as their authentic goals. “We, as leaders, must look at ourselves first,” says Schreitmueller.“The dreams we had as young children were unbiased and untainted by society. But we often stop paying attention to those things…We lose sight of what’s important…what’s authentic.As leaders, we need to rediscover that, because if we’re going to devote so much time to work, it better be authentic. It better be what we want to do.” For Schreitmueller, part of that journey of self-discovery took place at Southern, where he enrolled after visiting campus with a neighbor, the late Gene J. Casey, professor emeritus of health and physical education. Schreitmueller, who earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in liberal studies, held numerous part-time jobs as a student, including working for a menswear retailer and as a pilot. (He began flying at the age of 13 and is a licensed commercial pilot who has logged thousands of hours continues on page 42 Fall 2009 | 27