Jay Stein, the CEO of Stein Mart

A recent issue of USA Today, contained an article about Jay Stein, the CEO of retail chain Stein Mart. According to the article, Mr. Stein is extremely well liked by customers and employees. The reasons are that he’s nice, he listens, he cares and he says “thank you” a lot. A comment posted on Glassdoor.com, “Jay Stein is a wonderful man who really cares about the people who work for him.” Mr. Stein spends lots of time visiting his stores and these visits are for the right reasons. As he puts it in the article, “I’m not coming to check on stores, I’m coming to thank people….” You’ll find the same thing is true at Costco where Craig Jelinek is the CEO. Employees absolutely love working there and they love their CEO. This formula for success is not exactly earth shaking, but it has enabled these CEOs to create two very successful companies. The question I have is why don’t more CEOs engage in this kind of behavior? They would be a lot more successful if they did.