Five Alive

Five Alive

By Matthew H. Steilberg

May 12, 2014

            About ten years ago I was selected to attend a highly regarded leadership development program offered by the bank where I worked. It was a nice honor and I was thrilled to be asked! Part of the pre-work/preparation for this exclusive workshop was the completion of what’s commonly called a “360” evaluation, meaning my direct reports, my manager, various other partners, and even I would have the opportunity to rate me on approximately 60 distinct leadership competencies. All in all, about 50 other professionals were going to weigh in on what they thought of me as a leader.

            I’ll have to admit, I was a bit unnerved. I hoped I’d been friendly to and cooperative with all of them – what if my results were bad? Maybe the folks who asked me to attend might reconsider! Now I’m not so certain I want to go!

I signed on and took the survey myself; I remember reading each of the 60 questions and thinking to myself…I’ve never consciously thought about this aspect of my leadership.

Sixty times I think I said this to myself.

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            A few weeks later I found myself in Charlotte sitting with the leadership program manager as she reviewed my results…but before she could begin with my report, I managed the courage to ask her this question:

            “Julie, you sure have asked a lot of questions on this survey…something tells me, though, that some may just matter more to our bank than others. Will you tell me which our company cares the most about?”

She smiled and then replied:

“Great question Matthew and it’s actually an easy one to answer. There may be sixty questions on this survey, but there are just five that have consistently separated the best from the rest over time – as measured by the financial performance of the leader’s team and the follower-ship of the people beneath, beside, and above them. We can see it clear as day. We call them our Five Differentiators. And here they are.”

I held my breath.

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1. The best instill great management focus and discipline. I call this the ability to constantly “clean” the window so the troops can see easily see through to where we’re headed.Said another way, they role model and are constantly articulating the story of their team’s vision, mission, and values. These are the leaders others follow because of the conviction and consistency of their message; they may occasionally be wrong but they’re rarely in doubt - and there’s also a clear measure of accountability infused as well.
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4. They build competitive and innovative business plans. Business success is frequently driven by maximizing or taking advantage of opportunities – but most often it’s about solving vexing problems.All. Day. Long.And many times the “answer” is simply not in the “book”. The leader who can assess a challenge or an opportunity and design a customized plan to win…is a winner. The leader who is good at building a great game plan is also usually skilled at researching trends and options and gaining perspective from others who have been in their shoes before crafting their plan.
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8. They display personal courage. Yes, this one’s principally about making tough decisions…as all leaders are confronted with these on a daily basis. Questions of pricing, expenses, and investments in the future come to mind – but frequently the personal courage comes with relation to people issues, such as whether to hire or fire or redouble efforts to improve a situation.Personal courage appears in other forms too – such as the leader who is unafraid to admit they made a mistake or they’re not talented in every way.  Great leaders have the courage to care for their people in a very personal way. And personal courage is frequently about ethical leadership and doing what’s right – especially when no one’s looking.
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11. They demonstrate sound judgment and act with speed. I call this one “the balancing act” --- and that’s because most leaders are generally weighted towards one or the other. Many are the leaders who will study a situation or a problem for days if not weeks and STILL not make a decision. Rarer, though equally problematic, are the “shoot first” and “aim later” cowboys. Our best leaders are thoughtful, pragmatic, and action-oriented.
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13. They build, install, and manage quality processes. The phrase “going through the motions” sometimes gets a bad rap; that’s because a repeatable process that consistently produces quality results with minimal errors is a big asset to a business.Not just any ordinary manager can build and manage processes like these, you must have a mindset of clearly defining goals (supported by measurable metrics and gather data in order to analyze and understand root causes for current performance. Done correctly, your analysis can lead to the right strategies for performance improvement. Finally, it takes a skilled manager to understand the importance of repetitive checkpoints to assess the performance of the process. It’s what we call keeping the process “in control”.Process orientation isn’t the most inspiring competency of a great leader, but it’s frequently the hallmark of the steadily effective manager.
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                It was about time for the first seminar of the workshop to begin and I gathered my things to find a seat near the front of the class – but before I moved, Julie grabbed my wrist…firmly…and said something I’ll always remember:

                “Matthew, I’ve never seen anyone who is equally skilled at the highest level with all five of these Differentiators – but what I can tell you is that our best leaders aren’t significantly flawed with any of them.  Typically they are competent with two or three and show natural strength in two or three. 

And the best leaders, recognizing their weakest of the five, know to attract and retain partners and teammates who will complement them as needed.”

…

I can’t honestly say I remember one particular aspect or activity from the leadership workshop I was chosen to attend, after all retention of classroom training is slight at best.

But I have remembered to keep the Five Differentiators in front of my nose ever sense – and I always will.

Matthew Steilberg leads the C&F Insider conversation; he is Head of Retail Banking for C&F Bank of West Point, Virginia.   A recovering English major who talked his way into a banking job right out of Washington and Lee University in 1987, Steilberg has held retail leadership roles for First Union/Wachovia and Bank of America prior to joining C&F in 2008.  Most of his assignments over the past 26 years have called on him to lead merger integrations and new customer acquisition through business banking strategies.  He likes to say that it’s his job to “catch and keep people” — convincing new teammates, customers, and the communitiy to join the bank…and stay.

Matthew is most intrigued by what the future of community banking looks like in the new digital and post-boomer generation age: what is our competitive position and advantage? Posting to his blog is the easiest way to give him feedback or ask questions, unless you’d rather join him for his customary 4:30am five-mile walk where he does most of his thinking and meditating. 

Yeah, probably not.