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Overview: The biggest tests of leadership rarely happen when everything is going right.
Sheldon Harris has learned that lesson throughout his career.
He started at Costco in Anchorage earning $6 an hour and eventually achieved his goal of becoming a warehouse manager before age 30 — something he said no one had done before.
Later, as President of Cold Stone Creamery, he helped lead the company as it grew from roughly 10 locations to 1,400, more than $500 million in system revenue, and 15,000 employees.
Today, Sheldon coaches CEOs at CEO Coaching International. Over the past 12 years, he has coached hundreds of CEOs and trained every coach who has joined the firm.
He also coaches Mark Moses.
Throughout his conversation on the Make BIG Happen Podcast, Sheldon shared what Costco taught him about integrity, how Cold Stone responded when a major crisis threatened the business, why getting fired became one of the best things that ever happened to him, what separates the CEOs who achieve extraordinary results, and why great coaching requires more than simply telling a CEO what to do.
Adversity Reveals Who You Are
One of the most important moments in Sheldon’s career happened when he was CEO of Complete Nutrition.
The company was navigating difficult changes when a group of franchisees pushed back against the direction Sheldon and the leadership team were taking.
Eventually, a meeting was called with Sheldon, Mark, the founders, and some of the most vocal franchisees.
During that meeting, one of the founders agreed to fire Sheldon.
Afterward, Sheldon went back to his office, organized a few things, and offered Mark a ride to the Omaha airport.
Mark remembers being surprised by how calm Sheldon was.
He wasn’t bitter.
He didn’t burn bridges.
And during the drive, Sheldon pointed out something Mark hadn’t fully realized yet.
Mark had been fired too.
Looking back, Sheldon believes that moment ultimately became one of the best things that happened to him. It helped bring him and Mark together at CEO Coaching International.
The experience also reinforced a quote Sheldon believes deeply:
Adversity doesn’t build character. It reveals it.
Key Takeaway: How you respond when things go wrong reveals who you are as a leader.
Never Sacrifice Your Integrity
During his years at Costco, Sheldon began developing an opportunity to move more freight from Anchorage into Russia.
The customs were different.
The business practices were different.
And Sheldon had to learn how to adapt without compromising his own values.
He remembers shaking hands with a Russian business partner and pulling his hand back to find it filled with $100 bills.
For Sheldon, situations like that made the line clear.
Be flexible.
Respect different people and cultures.
But never sacrifice your integrity.
Sheldon believes leaders only get one reputation. He tries to operate as though everything he says or does could someday be recorded and broadcast publicly — and he would still be proud of how he showed up.
Key Takeaway: You only get one reputation. Protect it.
Own the Crisis
At Cold Stone Creamery, Sheldon helped lead the company through tremendous growth.
Then came a phone call no food company wants to receive.
A health department had traced foodborne illness back to Cold Stone ice cream.
Then another call came.
And another.
Eventually, the company learned there were 16 cases tied to its product.
The source was cake batter ice cream, which Sheldon said was probably the company’s number-one-selling flavor. The recipe included boxed cake batter containing unprocessed eggs that were supposed to be cooked before consumption.
The company’s attorneys advised Sheldon and CEO Doug Ducey to be extremely careful about what they said and not contact the people who had become sick.
They decided to take a different approach.
They called the affected customers and their families.
They showed genuine care.
They pulled product from the supply chain.
And because the company already had a crisis response plan, the team knew how to move quickly.
Everyone recovered, and Sheldon said the company came through the situation without a single legal tangle.
Key Takeaway: When something goes wrong, own it. Show up with integrity, genuine care, and do the right thing.
Build for the Company You Want to Become
When Cold Stone had roughly 75 stores, its leadership team set a BIG goal.
They wanted 1,000 stores within five years.
That forced Sheldon and the team to think differently.
They realized they couldn’t operate like a 75-store company and expect to become a 1,000-store company.
They had to start acting like the company they wanted to become.
That changed their hiring.
It changed their technology investments.
It changed the relationships they built.
It changed the decisions they made.
Cold Stone eventually reached 1,000 stores, although it happened four months later than the original target.
Sheldon didn’t consider that a failure.
Without the BIG goal, he believes the company might have ended up with roughly half as many stores.
Key Takeaway: Don’t wait until you reach the next level to start operating at the next level.
The Best CEOs Are Humble and Hungry
After coaching hundreds of CEOs, Sheldon has seen a pattern among his highest-performing clients.
They’re humble and hungry.
They’re humble enough to admit they don’t know everything.
They’re willing to be vulnerable.
They’re willing to be wrong.
They’re willing to hear things they may not want to hear.
But they’re also hungry.
Hungry to achieve.
Hungry to help others achieve.
And hungry enough to do the difficult work required to get where they want to go.
Sheldon also sees another difference between CEOs who perform and CEOs who simply stay busy.
The best leaders focus on what matters most.
When a CEO brings Sheldon a problem, he tries to narrow the conversation to one question:
What’s the one thing that would make the biggest impact?
There may be two or three important priorities.
But there aren’t ten.
Key Takeaway: Stay humble enough to learn, hungry enough to act, and focused enough to know what matters most.
Great Coaching Isn’t About Giving the CEO the Answer
Sheldon has trained every coach who has joined CEO Coaching International.
Through that experience, he has learned that being a great CEO doesn’t automatically make someone a great coach.
A CEO is used to making decisions.
Giving direction.
Holding people accountable.
But another CEO doesn’t need another boss.
Sheldon learned that lesson himself.
Early in his coaching career, he took on a lot of clients and then started getting fired by them.
His natural style was assertive and driven. If a client committed to doing something and didn’t do it, Sheldon sometimes slipped back into CEO mode.
Eventually, he realized he needed to meet each client where they were.
He still had to challenge them.
But he also had to understand how far to push, when to push, and when the CEO needed him beside them helping them work through the issue.
That changed the way Sheldon coached.
Key Takeaway: A great coach doesn’t simply tell a CEO what to do. They help the CEO determine the right answer for themselves.
Ask Better Questions
One of the most important lessons Sheldon learned at Costco came from CEO Jim Sinegal.
When Sheldon was a young warehouse manager, Jim would ask him a question and then stare silently while Sheldon answered.
The silence made Sheldon uncomfortable.
Eventually, Sheldon asked what Jim was thinking about.
His answer was simple.
What question should I be asking?
Sheldon says it took years for him to fully understand the power of that lesson.
Instead of listening while preparing the next answer, he learned to keep listening.
What question should he ask next?
What is the CEO really saying?
What might they not be saying?
For Sheldon, the right question can create the aha that moves everything forward.
Key Takeaway: Great leaders don’t always need to have the answer. Sometimes they need to ask the question that helps someone else find it.
Final Thought
Near the end of the conversation, Mark asked Sheldon what an ambitious CEO must be willing to do to Make BIG Happen.
Sheldon returned to the lesson he learned while scaling Cold Stone.
You have to grow into the leader your future requires.
When Cold Stone had 75 stores, the team started behaving like it had 1,000.
CEOs have to do the same thing with themselves.
They have to get clear on where they want to go.
They have to identify what they need to develop to get there.
And they have to understand why the outcome matters to them.
That last part is important.
Sheldon has met CEOs who aren’t crystal clear on what they want. Sometimes they’re even less clear about why they want it.
The answer can’t simply be what their peers in EO, YPO, Vistage, or somewhere else tell them they should want.
It has to be their own.
Because once a CEO understands what they truly want and why they want it, Sheldon believes they can do some amazing things together.
Sheldon’s story is a reminder that building something BIG requires more than growing the business.
It requires growing the leader too.
Listen to the full Make BIG Happen Podcast episode with Sheldon Harris.
About CEO Coaching International
CEO Coaching International works with CEOs and their leadership teams to achieve extraordinary results quarter after quarter, year after year. Known globally for its success in coaching growth-focused entrepreneurs to meaningful exits, the firm has coached more than 2,000 CEOs and entrepreneurs across 100+ industries and 90 countries. Its coaches—former CEOs, presidents, and executives—have led businesses ranging from startups to over $10 billion, driving double-digit sales and profit growth, many culminating in eight, nine, or ten-figure exits.
Companies that have worked with CEO Coaching International for two years or more have achieved an average revenue CAGR of 22.8%, nearly 2X the U.S. average, and an average EBITDA CAGR of 37.5%, nearly 3X the national benchmark.
Discover how coaching can transform your leadership journey at ceocoachinginternational.com.
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