Mike Boardman, president of Trans Lease, doesn’t believe any one person creates a company’s culture. The best leaders, he says, inherit it, strengthen it and leave it stronger than they found it, a responsibility he takes seriously as head of a 35-year-old organization built on trust and long-standing relationships.

“Protecting the culture sometimes means making difficult decisions, but people pay far more attention to what leaders tolerate than what they say,” Boardman says.

For Boardman, that means setting clear expectations, empowering people to make decisions and holding everyone, including himself, to the same standard. Alignment, ownership, growth and accountability are the pillars he builds upon, an approach he credits with sustaining the company’s reputation for handshake deals and relationships that still mean something, even as the industry keeps changing.