When I lived in Washington a decade or so ago, one of the local banks started calling itself The Most Important Bank in the Most Important City in the World.

Needless to say, I took my business elsewhere – I didn’t feel important enough to do business with them and was pretty sure I wasn’t important enough for them to give me the kind of service I wanted.

Self-importance is a geographic hazard in Washington. It’s also an occupational hazard for executives, many of whom exhibit thinly disguised contempt for staff-level employees. Managers in companies afflicted by the executives-are-royalty culture learn that self-important arrogance gets them ahead. Sad to say, in some companies it does.

You have alternatives, though.

For example, shortly after I departed the electric fish of my graduate school days in pursuit of an actual income, I found myself having to present a system design to the senior vice president of manufacturing. I’d only interacted with corporate executives a couple of times at that point in my career. From my perspective, this was a big deal.

Nervous, I arrived a bit early, expecting to sit outside his office until the rest of the attendees showed up.

“Go on in,” his secretary said, and there I was, alone with the No. 2 guy in the company.

After we introduced ourselves, he held up a black book and said, “I found the most remarkable thing in the library the other day.” I asked what it was.

“It’s a PhD thesis from an anthropologist who lived with the Sioux Indians a hundred years ago. It’s just amazing!” And with that he proceeded to put me completely at ease as he told me about what this long-dead anthropologist had learned.

After the meeting (which went well, in part because this gentleman extended himself on my behalf) I learned some other things about him.

That he’d literally started at the bottom of the company, working his way up. That he was responsible for negotiating with a dozen bargaining units as a regular part of his job, and routinely had to make very difficult decisions. That he was respected throughout the industry.

I learned two other things. Here’s the first: Not a single employee had a single bad thing to say about this executive.

Not one.

Can you make that claim?

Here’s the other thing I learned: Abusive, ill-tempered, bad-mannered, politically driven managers didn’t succeed in his organization. With no disrespect to any other group I’ve known in my career, this team, with no written mission statement, vision, or other chartering document, was the most focused, mission-driven, aligned collection of managers I’ve ever worked with.

It’s common for groups with charismatic leaders to lose their way when their leader retires or moves on. Through at least two successors, though (both promoted from within), and at least two complete turnovers in managerial staff, this group continued to have the same chemistry. For all I know it still does.

I’ve since worked for and with screamers, schemers, liars, and back-stabbers. The first time it happened I had no idea how to deal with the situation, in fact.

But I’d learned the key facts: that lots of managers and executives are excellent leaders. That it’s possible to create an organization in which everyone focuses on the job instead of on personal agendas. That you can, as a leader, create an environment in which helping the company succeed is the best route to personal success.

I’ve heard colleagues say things like, “You don’t become a manager to make friends.” Maybe not.

But I know from experience that it’s possible for you, like the subject of this week’s column, to be a highly effective leader and still be a mensch.