Business as usual isn't going to cut it

Leading thoughtfully will help us navigate a rapidly changing business environment.

It’s taken a little bit longer than I was expecting to finish this blog post – as you can imagine it’s been an interesting couple of weeks within the banking and financial services industry.?There will no doubt continue to be bumps in the road, some of them significant, as global economies and governments continue to come to terms with inflation and various market challenges.

That said, as we approach the end of the first quarter of 2023, it’s important to keep the big picture in mind and what matters most: our values and what motivates us to drive success in our personal and professional lives.

Now that many folks are returning to offices, some leaders would probably be happy to restart the pre-pandemic ways anew: a rinse and repeat approach. But I believe we simply can’t just bring back the old paradigm and shift into autopilot. We need to take the lessons from working through a devastating pandemic and continually evolve our approach.

It’s in that context that I’ve been reflecting on my personal leadership philosophy. As we embrace the future of work, I believe that it’s important to take note of the lessons the last three years have taught us. At a high level: we have to trust our colleagues; we have to embrace and lead change; and we absolutely need to maintain a team ethic at all times.

Here are a few principles that I think will be essential to achieving success in the context we’re currently navigating:

Lead with empathy. We need to understand our colleagues to ensure we can work together. As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella once said , empathy is the heart of design thinking. I believe that empathy is absolutely critical to running a business effectively, particularly in challenging times. If you care about your team members, they’ll be more invested in the shared success of the organization. And that’s a better outcome for everyone.

Listen, and don’t be afraid to confirm if you’ve taken in everything correctly. Closely tied to empathy is active listening. We too often equate listening with hearing, instead of making sure we truly understand where the other person is coming from.

The late Bill Russell, one of the greatest winners in the history of sports, highlighted that listening “is never casual, but a skill that requires you to subordinate your own views when listening to someone else.” Listening, for me, means internalizing the other person’s thoughts and sentiments, and then confirming with them that my interpretation is correct. Anybody can parrot back a statement someone else told them, but ensuring you’ve captured their thoughts isn’t always a given. We need to take that extra step.

Find mentorship in a less obvious way. In large organizations, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle of deadlines and trying to do one’s job well. Finding a mentor might seem like an onerous task, even with opportunities that are available as part of an established program. But throughout the course of my 35-year career, I’ve learned that you can find mentorship opportunities in multiple places from many different individuals. Thasunda Brown Duckett, president and CEO of TIAA, said mentorship “is all around us.” We need to seek it out and be open to it and be mindful that it can come from unexpected places. “When you think about who you are, there’s so many facets of you. How could one person give you that entire get?” she said.

When I think about mentorship, it’s about getting advice from multiple people from different vantage points. Personally, I think mentorship in our personal and professional lives is something we need to unbox and think of in a more holistic way.

Inclusion is as much a state of mind as it is about numbers and representation. Everyone knows businesses that reflect a diverse makeup will be best positioned to thrive. We should continue to do the important work to diversify every corner of an organization. But if we’re not promoting a mentality of inclusion every day, we won’t be able to sustain it over time.

“Inclusiveness is a state of mind,” said Indra Nooyi, former CEO and chairperson of PepsiCo, in a recent interview . “It’s an emotion. Are you going to make everybody feel welcome and included? That requires deep involvement by all people in power to make sure you identify bad behavior that’s not inclusive, nip it in the bud, and model the right behavior.”

As we work to assemble diverse teams – at all levels – we need to think about what we’re doing to ensure everyone feels included. Do people feel at ease speaking their mind at work? Do they feel comfortable going to work? Are their accomplishments getting recognized? We have to actively promote a culture of inclusion to ensure we can continue to attract the best and brightest.

Talent is an asset, but teamwork will get us past the finish line. Michael Jordan’s famous quotation “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championship,” couldn’t be more relevant to business settings. We hire people to harness their talents, but without teamwork — achieved through a common vision and goals — we simply can’t get the best outcomes. People need to understand what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and how it contributes to the common good of an organization. Moreover, teamwork and competition don’t necessarily have to be conflicting concepts: We can encourage healthy competition in the service of a bigger goal if we have already nurtured a culture of trust.?

Trust above all. Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, has talked about how “trust has to be your highest value in your company and if it’s not, something bad is going to happen to you.”

If you don’t build a culture of trust — both among your team and with your clients – it’s very difficult to sustain a healthy business of time. Internally, some may think trust may conflict with accountability, but I think they go hand in hand. To achieve accountability in a team, you need to build a culture of transparency, in which nobody feels afraid to express what they think.

I want to emphasize that my thoughts here represent how we’re navigating change at this point in time. We won’t always get it right and will need to course correct, when necessary, but we need to continue to strive for a values-based leadership approach. Technology is surely going to continue to evolve and change the way we address these questions, and I look forward to revisiting these themes and principles over time.