The Wawa story began in a small rural town of Pennsylvania called Wawa. There the owner George Wood started a small dairy farming and processing plant in 1902, after relocating the family iron foundry business from New Jersey. As home delivery of milk declined in the early 1960s, Grahame Wood, George Wood grandson opened the first Wawa Food market in 1964 as an outlet for dairy products. Today, Wawa is a paradigm of success with 645 conveniences store located in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland and Central Florida. Wawa has succeeded where others have failed due to exceptional leadership. One of such leaders is Howard Stoeckel former President and Chief Operating Officer of Wawa. (Stoeckel & Adelman, 2014).
Background
Mr. Howard
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He embraces Wawa core values which are as follows: value people, delight customers, embraces change, do things right, do the right things and has a passion for winning (Stoeckel & Adelman, 2014). Throughout his career, he successfully used these core values as a guiding principle of his career. In fact, Stoeckel refers to these values as the glue that keeps the company together (Stoeckel & Adelman, 2014). Howard Stoeckel leads with optimism. He is never afraid of failures, and as he puts it, people learned from their failures and individuals should be opened to talk about it. He believes that success is not being on the bleeding edge; it is mainstreaming modern concepts (Stoeckel & Adelman, …show more content…
His leadership style like his predecessor is that of a servant leadership. Stoeckel enjoyed watching employees of Wawa grow and achieve their dreams. He wants other people’s dreams to come true, and his mission is to empower other people to achieve their objectives. Over the years, he has supported and has the courage to do the right thing by challenging, developing and acting as a mentor to others. As a servant leader, he looks for good work, and he gives appropriate commendation and follows through on commitments. He trusts other people regardless of their background, makes time for people and shares their visions. Wawa has a servant leadership program that all leaders of the business must go through if they are going to run a store (Stoeckel & Adelman,
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Wal-Mart as we know it today evolved from Sam Walton’s goals for great value and great customer service. Mr. Walton’s competitors thought his idea that a successful business could be built around offering lower prices and great service would never work. Mr. Walton also credited the rapid growth of Wal-Mart not just to the low costs that attracted his customers, but also to his associates. He relied on them to give customers the great shopping experience that would keep them coming back. Sam shared his vision for the company with associates in a way that was nearly unheard of in the industry. He made them partners in the success of the company, and firmly believed that this partnership was what made Walmart great.
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