What events have occurred during your career that have had a significant impact on the way you perform your role within the organization? The events that have had the most significance on the way I perform my role is all around relationships and trust. As a people leader for most of my career, everything is around trust, building relationships and team. I have been led by some phenomenal leaders at Vanguard some not so great ones – for all – I have been thankful as I am always learning. I have witnessed first hand, the power of team, vision and mission through strong leadership and have thankfully been able to back up those findings with engagement and direct quantitative data.
What changes have you had to make in the way you have performed your tasks/responsibilities? I think what I have learned around changes that I have made in my leadership style is always around being flexible and accepting that sometimes it is perfectly ok to pivot. If team results are not going well, I need to ask myself and my team why. I need to create an environment of trust and open communication so that we can all learn and grow as individuals and teams. And I need to hold my folks and team accountable (and ideally, I want them to hold each other accountable too). I have had to make drastic changes, especially with new teams that I took over in the past – mostly underperforming teams. For example, many years ago I was moved to take over a team (that I was once on) as they were highly disengaged and their metrics were far below expectation. My style was drastically different than their prior leader who drilled all about metrics. I carefully observed this team and saw that they were not connected to client experience. That was my angle. Let’s reconnect with the client, with each other, with me – and trust and momentum was built. Within 4 months, this amazing team was exceeding metrics.
Why did you make the changes and how do you feel about the changes you have made? At first, I have to admit I was quite nervous about taking over this team. What if I couldn’t help them? What if they didn’t like my style of leadership? What if my managers had no idea what they were doing by moving me from an amazingly engaged and outperforming team, to this new team. The fear was real – but I buckled down – reconnected myself to mission and went to work. Building those relationships, building that trust, building a team – in all honestly – building a Vanguard family… and then I got to sit back and watch awesomeness happen. I learned to trust in myself, my capabilities, my experience and style. And to trust my leadership team as they know me quite well.