Leadership Individual Paper:

The Leadership of Hartley Peavey

Hesston L. Johnson

William Woods University Abstract
During the beginning years of blues, a southern Mississippi man emerged to become the founder and CEO of one of the worlds leading musical product manufacturers. As a young man, Hartley Peavey desired to be a musician. With his father unable to afford a guitar, Hartley Peavey built his own and started what would become a long line of products that he would soon have to offer at Peavey Electronics. After some advice from a store manager, Peavey began to take off. Hartley built his legacy on a great product at a great price. Today, Peavey still operates as one of the only independently-owned music product companies and does so on a global scale. This result came through leadership styles such as: achievement leadership, participative leadership, consultative leadership, and entrepreneurial leadership. With strong leadership styles such as these, Hartley has led an organization that continues to be a leader in the industry by developing new products, implementing new practices and ideas to set the standard. His leadership creates an environment that fosters growth, teamwork and leads to a bright future for the Peavey team. The Leadership of Hartley Peavey
The History and Birth of Peavey After 46 years of innovation, one man’s dream has become transformed into a world leading corporation in musical products. Today, Peavey Electronics is one of the largest, most diversified, independently owned manufacturers of musical instruments and sound equipment in the world. This all began with the aspirations and dreams of Hartley Peavey, the founder and CEO of Peavey Electronics. Hartley was born in the forties and experienced the explosion and growth of rock n’ roll in the fifties. In an interview with Musicians Hotline writer Trent Salter (2002), he said, “I had the good fortune to grow up in a very interesting part of the country during a very interesting time.” As a teenager in the fifties living in Mississippi, he was geographically right in the middle of the birthplace of blues and rock n’ roll. Hartley Peavey was introduced into the music world through his father who ran the local music store. Hartley worked by helping clean and buy records for the store at the age of 14. He later spent time as a disc jockey while in high school and his first few years of college (Salter, 2002). The real moment of spark and creation for Hartley came in 1957. Hartley attended a Bo Diddley concert in Laurel, Mississippi where he recalls, “...from then on, I wanted to be a guitar player.” He went home and begged his father to get him a guitar. His father told him that if he learned to play the instrument and take lessons, he would consider buying a guitar. However, as an impatient teenager, Hartley chose something different (Salter, 2002). Hartley created his first musical work by performing an instrument modification on a classical guitar. Since classical guitars are not constructed for steel strings, Hartley modified the guitar to support the added tension. Additionally, because he wanted to play electric guitar, he would have to make further changes to the instrument. Unable to afford a pickup, he made his own to amplify the sound so that the guitar could be plugged into a guitar amplifier (Salter, 2002). As soon as he finished his guitar modification project, he went again to his father and begged for an amplifier. Again, his father explained to him that once he learned to play guitar, he would help him purchase an amplifier. However, Hartley was impatient and chose not to wait. Instead, he built his own guitar amplifier in late 1957 to early 1958 (Salter, 2002). Now that Hartley possessed a guitar amplifier, an electric guitar and a wealth of ambition, he was ready to learn guitar. In his last few years of high school and early college he began playing in bands. He found himself in a guitar role in various bands in southern Mississippi, but never built any momentum as a musician. He explained: “Every band I was ever in had me for one reason; to build their equipment. Once I was done with that, they kicked me out! By the time I learned my lesson, I had built 50 or 60 amplifiers, about 15 guitars and four or five bases” (Salter, 2002). After a few years of being kicked out of bands and being a lousy musician, he chose to follow his natural talent. In a dealer engineering training seminar Hartley Peavey (2008) explained: “With hand tool experience from my grandfather, the help of the local community college and a stroke of luck with an inheritance of my grandfathers tools, I began to shape the business. As a fan of Leo Fender [founder of Fender Musical Instruments], and a frustrated musical product builder, I seen the possibilities and demand for a music product company. Specifically, a company that builds good products at a good price.” Hartley began his endeavor as a manufacturer of guitars and amplifiers. During the booming era of Fender products and Marshall, Hartley went store to store trying to sell his products. He seemed to always be facing the competition with no edge to overcome them. But one day a store owner said, “Son, I have a store full of guitars. If you want me to buy something, build me a PA system.” He took that comment and ran with it (Hartley, 2008). In 1965, Hartley graduated college and started Peavey Electronics and has never looked back. His company produces pro audio speakers, power amplifiers, cables, microphones, wireless devices, mixing consoles, electric guitars, electric basses, guitar amplifiers, bass amplifiers, commercial sound equipment, numerous accessories, and more wrapped up in four different product lines (Hartley, 2008). According to the Peavey corporate website (2010), Hartley operates as CEO over Peavey Electronics, Architectural Acoustics, Crest Audio and Media Matrix. All four brands operate to collectively cover the needs of a starting musician as well as the needs of companies like the Hard Rock Cafe and many of the national airports. Today the corporation operates as a debt free company with 33 facilities on three continents, 2,000 products in their product line, distributing to 136 countries and holding 130 product patents of product engineering and design. In April 2008, I received the honor as a musical instrument store manager to attend a dealer seminar for Peavey Electronics. The seminar opened with Hartley coming to the front of the room looking as if he just got back from the lake with a stack of papers in one hand and a coffee in the other. He said, “Before we get started, I want you all to understand what I built this business on. Yes, I can make good products, but if my people and I don’t listen to you, it doesn’t make a damn what we build” (Hartley, 2008). The Leadership Styles of Hartley Peavey With that comment and further explanation Hartley demonstrated his consultative leadership style. According to Dubrin (2010), the consultative leadership style “is a style in which the leader confers with group members before making a decision” (p. 113). Hartley repeatedly explains how his various teams are looked to for assistance in how he leads his company. He has a research team which conducts the research needed to see what exactly the customer is looking for to meet their needs. He has engineers who put together the parts and schematics to meet customer demands. He has business-to-business customers who he consults with that have concerns for profit and are seeking opportunities for revenue out of Peavey products. He has an artist relations team working with professional musicians to develop and market the Peavey brand. But, no matter what the team is, he listens to them all and produces the greatest product possible out of a mix of the four groups [among others] (Hartley, 2008). Aside from being a consultative leader, Hartley is also a participative leader. A participative leader is a leader who shares decision making with group members. Participative leadership is also characterized by behaviors such as teamwork (Dubrin, 2010, p. 113). While working as a store manager in the retail music business, there were times when I would call to place product orders and Hartley would answer the phone. He would occasionally do so to speak to dealers and to see what he could do to improve his products and services. Hartley could also be found at the repair facility working to repair products and he even takes part in the Peavey Engineering education program where he teaches dealers about the basics of sound engineering and audio products. Hartley demonstrates a great amount of entrepreneurial leadership as well. Entrepreneurial leadership is based on many factors. A few of those are: Strong achievement and sensible risk taking, high enthusiasm and creativity, hurry with impatience, dislike of hierarchy and bureaucracy, and eyes on the future (Dubrin, 2010, p. 114). Hartley displays each of the factors listed above. In his strong achievements, he and his research team have developed and continue to develop products that are extremely innovative and considered “ahead of their time.” For example, in the last 5 years multi-effect processing pedals have been developed to produce various sounds for guitarists and bassists. While nearly all musical product companies are developing improved products, Hartley leaps into the future by introducing an amplifier-pedal combination. Additionally, the amplifier world of music has been pushed into a corner to focus on the old fashioned tube sound from the early days of rock n’ roll also. So, in his new product, Hartley provides the musician with a tube amplifier containing high quality processing digital sounds with a pedal board. This amplifier interfaces with the pedal board seamlessly to create programmed preset settings to your specific preferences for various sounds. One product (the Peavey Vypyr), meets all three needs alone (high quality processing pedal, tube amplifier, presets for musicians to program). In his risk taking as an entrepreneurial leader, Hartley introduced a special financing for organizations such as school, churches, non-profit organizations and more. With the economy in poor shape, Hartley identified an opportunity to help troubled organizations. With the introduction of a form of financing, Peavey has seen increased sales and revenue from the above mentioned organizations and has experienced little loss from a potentially high risk investment. Hartley also demonstrates the creativity characteristic of entrepreneurial leadership. With the participative leadership, he learned about the needs of religious organizations from his research team. The problem is churches, both large and small need complex sound equipment to amplify the sound of pianos, guitars, basses, acoustic instruments, microphones and more. But at the same time, on one stage there may be 4 people holding a microphone. With all the noise there is a high potential of feedback, and nearly all churches do not have a trained sound technician in the congregation. So, the engineering team created the perfect solution. They designed a mixing console that auto adjusts sound levels for multi-microphone use specifically designed for a church setting. This trend setting product is an example of the extremely innovative engineering. Additionally, Hartley demonstrates the characteristic of ‘eyes on the future’ in entrepreneurial leadership. He holds dealer seminars to touch base with dealers on a quarterly basis, works on the front lines and always seeks opportunity for new products in the musical product industry. The last leadership style I will focus on which Hartley Peavey possesses is the Achievement-Oriented style. This type of leader is defined as one who sets challenging goals, pushes for work improvement, and sets high expectations for team members (Dubrin, 2010, p. 141). Hartley displays the achievement-oriented leadership by his desire to be the top musical product manufacturer in the world. Since 2008 his organization has held 4 of the top 10 spots in the industry for product manufacturing. This task is achieved by placing an emphasis on costs and quality. One such task was handed to his team in England. He placed a task of decreasing costs in manufacturing to customers in Europe in order to improve his goal of becoming the #1 musical product company. In placing the task on his team, research produced a result that indicated a surprising finding. The team found that they could import unfinished materials from the United States into Europe to produce various products and sell those products at a lower price. The adjustment increased the sales in Europe a substantial amount and Peavey was placed on the forefront of the market with some of the leading musical Europe-based companies such as Wharfedale, Vox and Orange.
The Leadership Abilities of Hartley Peavey The leadership abilities which Hartley Peavey demonstrates show that he is a strong leader in a highly competitive environment. He executes entrepreneurial leadership on various levels to create a successful organization. In the Meridian Star (2007) Jim Beaugez records Hartley as saying, “My business philosophy is very simple: It’s based on the Golden Rule of treating people the way you want to be treated.” Such a philosophy is only successful with exemplary service through entrepreneurial leadership and participative leadership. His ability to lead others on an employee level also motivates his staff. While at his Meridian-based corporate office you will notice a few things. First, everyone has a badge and it only contains their first name. There is no high ranking title or anything, just “Hartley” or “John”. Second, there is a large cafeteria where everyone dines together. Then, at the end of the day, Hartley has an outdoor get together that is available to anyone who wants to join for a drink and an after work recap. While such activities display fun and relaxation, his team works hard to achieve the goals and tasks he sets before them. Hartley displays a strong leadership ability by listening to customers. He has created what is referred to as “CEO-Act”. This simple creation is a self addressed folding postcard. You place your ideas or complaints on the inside and mail it off. Each one is addressed to the desk of Hartley and every one sent receives a personal response. Such action is something that is rare among CEO’s of large corporations, such as Peavey. Based on the leadership style of Peavey Electronics, the company is destined for a continued bright future. Hartley continues to work with his team to this day and always seeks the help and improvement from his team to meet the demands of customers. The vision he has is that of a company that builds great products at a great price and he achieves that by participative, entrepreneurial and consultative leadership with his various groups. This leadership produces the results and goals that he is pushing for every day. Within this challenging industry he is also fostering an organization of growth by interacting with employees and removing barriers between employee groups. With these characteristics, the Peavey legacy will carry on for many years.
Bibliography:
Baugez, J. (March 30, 2007). Better Buisness Bureau Honors Hartley Peavey. The Meridian Star. Retrieved on March 25, 2010 from http://meridianstar.com/local/x681079933/Better-Business-Bureau-honors- Hartley-Peavey
Dubrin, A. J. (2010). Leadership: Research Findings, Practice and Skills. Mason: South- Western.
Hartley Peavey (personal communication, April 2008)
Peavey Electronics. (2010). Corporate Information. Retrieved March 26, 2010 from http://www.peavey.com/support/corporate/
Salter, T. (2002 January/February). Exclusive Interview with Hartley Peavey. Musicians Hotline. Retrieved on March 25, 2010 from http://www.musicianshotline.com/archive/interviews/hpeavey.html