In March 1998, three years after joining the Schindler Group, 33-year-old Silvio Napoli moved his young family to India to begin his first assignment as a general manager. It was a formidable task.
Schindler had no prior market presence in India, and Napoli had to build a startup operation from scratch in a market where customers were highly price-sensitive, business was relationship-based, and strong competitors had dominated for decades. Some colleagues at Schindler doubted whether the appointment would succeed. Napoli had neither experience working in a non-Western context nor prior general management experience.
Twenty-eight years later, Napoli revisited the first assignment while speaking to two sections of the Top Management Process course, an MBA elective on the role of the general manager taught by Lori Yue, Charles E. Exley Professor of Business at Columbia Business School. After roughly 30 years at Schindler Group and nearly 15 as its CEO and chairman, Napoli now serves as CEO of Lucid Motors, a California-based luxury electric vehicle manufacturer. Yet when asked about the most important leadership lesson of his career, he returned to that first general manager assignment.
“Building a strong team is critical for leadership,” Napoli says. Learning to get things done through others, he emphasizes, is a crucial transition from a staff role to a leadership role. In India, Napoli hired capable people who were highly motivated and better equipped to operate in the local market. Barely two years into its operations, Schindler India had installed 500 elevator units and captured 8% of its market segment. Yet Napoli’s leadership lesson was not only about building a strong team. It was also about learning how to lead that team toward high-quality decisions.
Strong leaders focus on better decisions
Napoli notes that professionals early in their careers often carry a hunger to prove something, whether to their parents, their friends, or their team. Ambition can be a powerful source of motivation, but leaders must ensure that the desire for recognition does not interfere with sound judgment.
As leaders take on greater responsibility, their role shifts from demonstrating their own capabilities to helping a team arrive at the best decisions. That requires creating an environment where different perspectives are heard, debated, and tested. The goal is not agreement for its own sake, but reaching the strongest possible conclusion. This emphasis on decision quality, Napoli argues, is one of the most important responsibilities of leadership.
One obstacle to doing so is what Napoli calls "popularity syndrome." Leaders can begin favoring choices that win approval rather than those that best serve the organization. "Popularity syndrome is a big danger early in your life," he says. His rule is to be clear from the beginning and stay firm on a small number of issues. "It's not a popularity contest."
Never say 'I told you so'
Napoli describes a meeting practice he still uses. Analyze the decision, go around the table asking each person in turn, and weigh in only at the end. "Leaders speak last," he says.
He rarely gets a room to agree, and sometimes the final call is one he doubts. A strong leader, he believes, can tell a team member: I am not convinced, but you are the expert here, and we will go with you.
What Napoli expects in return is the discipline he calls disagree and commit. Once the decision is made, everyone goes, and nobody comes back later to say, "I told you so."
He hires against himself for the same reason. Recruiting ranks among the hardest and most underrated parts of the job, he notes, and a common trap is choosing people who think the way you do. He cites his CFO, someone calm and analytical enough to stop him mid-sentence and ask whether he has thought an idea through. At times, he admits, it is infuriating, but it ultimately produces better decisions.
The stakes rise with the role
As leaders take on greater responsibility, the consequences of poor judgment grow.
Three months into his role at Lucid when he spoke in September, Napoli described a turnaround at a company only six years old. He called it a classic case of flying a plane and fixing it at the same time, with awful weather outside. He has cut his direct reports by half and recruited new leadership, including a CTO with deep automotive experience.
Much of the daily work comes down to separating noise from what matters. His job is to set priorities, decide what actually drives the outcome, and stop everything else. "What you don't do is sometimes more important than what you do," Napoli says.
He also refuses to soften the message. He tells people the situation is painful and will likely get worse in the short term. He stays visibly calm on purpose, because a leader who looks rattled often produces an organization that panics and makes poor decisions.
Take the job nobody wants
In 1997, colleagues told Napoli that moving his pregnant wife and two small children to India was a huge mistake. He candidly shared the challenges his family faced, especially during the first few months after relocating to India. “You start doubting yourself,” he says. “We discussed it together and decided to do this together. The family is a team, and going through this experience, it becomes even stronger.”
In 2026, people asked why he would run a turnaround at this stage of his career. His answer both times comes down to the same thing: the chance to do something that matters. At Lucid, he says, that means saving jobs and helping build an automotive industry in a region that has never had one.
Asked how to reach a general manager role sooner rather than later, he gives two rules. The first is to take the job nobody wants. Crowded, prestigious paths make it hard to stand out. Difficult ones offer room to maneuver, room to make mistakes, and something visible to show for it.
His second rule concerns whose opinion counts. Peers see through you in a way that bosses and direct reports do not. "The people that really will decide whether you are going to be promoted and you're going to be successful are your peers."
