LPL Financial CEO Rich Steinmeier: ‘Care For Your Clients, Lean Into Followership’

When it comes to the health of a business, most leaders just look at the bottom line.

Many believe that the figure at the end of the ledger is what indicates the difference between success and failure. But Rich Steinmeier is different.

The CEO of LPL Financial takes a wider view. Steinmeier focuses on creating conditions for long-term success, not just immediate gains at the end of the day.

For him, this often means investing in people. It’s a concept he calls “followership.”

“There is a challenge between short-term success and long-term success,” Steinmeier explains to me on a recent episode of the Corporate Competitor Podcast. “But to focus on the long-term means you should invest in followership.”

For Steinmeier, whose firm supports more than 32,000 financial advisors and oversees approximately $2.6 trillion in brokerage and advisory assets, he knows his job is different.

It isn’t necessarily about maximizing market share or minimizing manufacturing costs—at least, not in the day-to-day sense. Instead, he spends his energy on building lasting relationships.

Steinmeier, who played on football and basketball teams growing up, learned about sportsmanship at an early age. And today, he continues to lean into it.  

“I don’t do much day to day, Don,” the CEO jokes, before adding more seriously, “What I do is actually care for constituents, care for people, care for our employees, care for our clients, care for the leadership team.”

Steinmeier talks about all this and more on the podcast, including:

• Doing less only hurts you. As a young football player, when Steinmeier was benched, he slacked off in practice instead of working harder to prove the coach wrong. But when another player cheered after beating him in a drill, Steinmeier decided that was the last time he’d minimize his efforts to stick it to someone else.

• Celebrate success. In 2016, Steinmeier attended the NBA championship parade for the Cleveland Cavaliers with his daughter. That moment reaffirmed to him the need to celebrate successes corporately. “On our team we call them kind of ‘surprise and delight’ moments,” he said. “You have to seek out celebrating.”

• Create and share joy. In today’s go-go-go world, it can be difficult to remember what all this work is for. But Rich makes sure his team at LPL keeps in mind the best parts of life. “I think people sometimes don’t give themselves enough grace,” Steinmeier said. “So, one of our values that we think about here is to create and share joy.”