A Dozen Dos and Don'ts of Leadership: Lessons Learned

Finding your leadership stride takes time, experience and willingness to put yourself out there. My best teachers have been trial and error – my own and others I've observed or been counseled by. Over my years as CEO of CU Strategic Planning and previously heading up government affairs at what was then called the Northwest Credit Union Association, I've identified several lessons that have shaped my leadership style and can be applied at any level, at work and in your personal life. Here are 12.

1. Be as transparent as possible. Being transparent builds trust and helps your team to understand what's important to the organization. Transparency helps everyone to row in the same direction. People function at their best when they're secure knowing both the direction of the team and how they impact that direction. Managers who aren't transparent can stoke fear that drives rumors, which isn't helpful to a healthy, functional organization.

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2. Take imperfect action. This has been my mantra this year. Very few actions are perfect. When you look back in hindsight, you may say, "I'm really glad I did that," or "I could have done that better." But at least you took action to move forward. Every decision can be a learning experience.

3. Don't punish mistakes. Along the lines of taking imperfect action, don't punish people when they make mistakes – unless you see them committing the same ones over and over again. If your team isn't making mistakes, they're not innovating. They must feel empowered to be effective and take risks; otherwise, they may become so cautious that they and the organization can become stuck. That's a management problem.

4. Make data-based decisions. To help us all avoid mistakes, we need to use the right data in our decision-making process. Feelings are a form of data, and they're important, but it's critical to use as much objective data as possible for the best outcomes. If you uncover you've made a wrong decision later on, at least you've decided. A lesson my dad taught me is you can always change course. Don't wallow in analysis paralysis and do what you can with the information you have in front of you.

5. Balance your sharks and octopuses. I'm a shark. Sharks live for the next accomplishment, to just keep swimming and move on to the next task. Octopuses like to wrap themselves around successes and really celebrate them. Both types are important for your organization, and over the years, I've learned it was really important for me to learn to hang with the octopuses because my octopuses feel unappreciated if they don't have a chance to celebrate their successes.

6. Words from the top carry weight. Everyone's words have weight, but the higher you are in an organization the more impact your statements might have. Even off-hand remarks can be taken as a directive. The example I use with other leaders is to imagine a pyramid. At the bottom of that pyramid, it's not going to hurt someone very much if you throw a rock at them. But if you're at the top of the pyramid, and you throw a rock at them, it could kill them. We must be very aware of how we communicate and the impact our statements can have.

7. Assume the best intentions. This one is important for my own mental health: Assume people have the best intentions, whether it's an employee, a client or a member. I learned this lesson when I led government relations at the NWCUA. I attended many meetings over coffee with people of divergent interests. Most believe they're taking stands for the right reasons. I can respect that even if I don't always agree. Very few people act maliciously, and even if they are acting maliciously, it's better for your own mental well-being to assume they're acting in good faith. Even if you end up finding out they're a bad actor, at least you weren't upset about it the whole time, because you can really only control your own reaction to events.

8. Multitasking is a myth. There are people who are really good at micro-tasking and switching between tasks very quickly, but there is no such thing as true multitasking. It's critical to set aside time to plan and concentrate, even just for a short while – a half an hour here and there – to concentrate on just one task without notifications constantly dinging at you. We've become eternally distracted as leaders, because there's so much going on and we need to find a way to contain it.

9. You can do anything, but not everything. I often bring this adage up in planning sessions. Leaders must constantly assess whether what you're doing are the right activities and what should go on the chopping block. Whether you're looking at your personal daily tasks or the service offerings of your company, fight the impulse to add initiatives, meetings, reporting responsibilities and other items you're wedded to just because they've always been done that way. To be effective, leaders can't keep loading their teams or themselves with new to-dos without eliminating others that no longer make sense.

10. Don't take emotional intelligence for granted. IQ is table stakes in business. In credit unions, emotional intelligence may be more important than IQ. We're in the people business. Whether it's with team members, clients or credit union members, reading people, understanding what makes them tick and having empathy helps you communicate in a way that can be digested, so the organization and team members can make progress.

11. Connect your team with your good. It's really important as an organization, especially in credit unions, to connect your staff to the good the organization does. At CU Strategic Planning, because we're one step removed from the direct effect our company's work has on the lives of credit union members, we have to be intentional about it.

We established a system for our clients to share individual member impact stories with us, and we share them with our team to help them connect the dots from their role to the end result of helping credit unions unlock community development opportunities.

Especially in credit unions, where we don't always pay our frontline staff as much as our competitors, sharing stories of changing members' lives can help employees see and feel the impact they have, which for some is worth more than a little extra money in their paychecks.

12. Measure the right things. One thing that really sticks out in my mind from my time at the association was differentiating productivity from mere activity. I could visit the state capitol and have 100 meetings with legislators, but if those meetings didn't result in influencing their decision making, it was just activity, not productivity. Be sure you're measuring the right things, which can affect behavior and tell you that you're pulling the right levers.

Like my experience with understanding the octopuses, a common theme in these leadership lessons is that leaders need to be intentional about their development journey, always looking to build on lessons learned.