We talked about Empathetic Leadership, how we’re all in the people business, why many of us struggle with accountability and what to do about it, and how to bring change to organizations.

Listen to learn why saying “just do it” is a losing approach!

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Empathetic Leadership with Lifeblood

So, the bank president gets hit by a bus…what happens?

What about the CFO? Or the Compliance Officer? Is that a different story?

With apologies to our friends in executive management (I swear, we’re not trying to bump you off!), a large part of culture and engagement that we are missing is succession planning…and by that I mean more than what the regulators make us do.

Stephen Ingalls is the Pres/CEO of Team Catalyzer specializing in these types of discussions with community banks and has worked with community banks across the country. He brings a perspective to this conversation that I had not considered before and I hope you feel the same.

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What Happens When the Boss Gets Hit by a Bus?

Discussion with HCK2. Experience as an excellent teacher and Steve Ingalls from Catalyzer shares how his lessons in Emotional Intelligence have shaped how he approaches his professional and personal endeavors. Steve shares how deep his expertise goes and how to this day, he is a student and a teacher of EQ among other key leadership topics.

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The Bosshole Chronicles

Since early last year, the Great Resignation has been widely debated and reported, but analysis and tactics for battling its ill effects seem scant. Looking deeply at the reasons why people are leaving, poor bosses and sub-optimal work cultures rise to the top of the list. Note…we didn’t say toxic bosses or negative cultures. We said poor and sub-optimal. That’s because today’s battle for talent is slanted heavily in the favor of candidates looking to find value at work and to work for people and organizations that maximize their value. In this deep-dive discussion, Catalyzer presents their analysis and directly maps Great Game thinking and approaches. Participants will walk away with a better understanding of the Great Resignation’s realities, but with practical, tangible approaches their organizations might explore to mitigate its often dramatic effects.

Succession planning is all too often centered around “what happens if the leader gets hit by a bus” and too narrowly focused on the most senior leaders in an organization. In fact, getting “hit by a bus” is replacement, not succession, and it’s the “single points of human failure” that are most likely to derail an organization in the event that individual unexpectedly left. After an eight-month endeavor with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, Catalyzer will share implementation steps with Agency leaders for a plan that comprehensively considers talent and unique development tracks that, together, inform future succession and more effective performance management. The effort is a collaboration with the Agency’s senior leadership and involves Ellen Houlihan, Guy Hatch, and Stephen Ingalls from Catalyzer.

There are four hurdles that stand in the way of a leader making decisions. They include (1) lack of clarity around roles/responsibilities (is it my decision?), (2) incomplete or absent delegation (is it really my decision?), (3) individual indecisiveness, and (4) the culture surrounding what happens when poor decisions are made. This session explores these hurdles, outlining remedies for each. Stephen Ingalls, our President/CEO, leads this discussion for the Management Academy-12 cohort.

Last year has proven to be both interesting and illuminating. We watched senior leaders “circled the wagons” as if their banks were in a “last stand” defense against COVID-19 and the myriad second and third-order effects. Major initiatives in place before COVID-19 stalled as managers focused on the tactical instead of the strategic. I started seeing phrases in bank trade association articles like, “during these unprecedented times” and “given the rapid pace of change.” Were things different? Sure. Life-changing? I doubt it.

If that mindset or behavior sounds familiar to you – whether you were the one planning the “final defense” or you saw colleagues acting in those ways – in this session we will discuss how to best get back to doing the business of leading your bank. In fact, what we all experienced is but another blip in history that, that I would argue will be far less significant than 9-11 or the financial downturn of the late 2000s. Rather than the way many of us have been taught to think about the world, since the 1990s the U.S. military has been applying a concept called “VUCA” – Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous – to describe the nature of the post-Soviet Union world. VUCA certainly applies to the pandemic, but the concept certainly isn’t new (and the business journals have all begun talking about it in some form or fashion).

We will explore managing around the VUCA framework, discuss its implications for leadership and followership in your organizations, and debate what’s really different (versus what hasn’t changed much at all). Stephen Ingalls, our President/CEO, leads this discussion for Independent Bankers Association of Texas convention attendees.

Your workforce’s “getting back to normal” is a pipe dream. That ship has sailed, and without evolving our leadership approaches – we’re going to break our people. We’ll highlight what we hear, see, and think, and offer some leader recommendations for your consideration/ implementation moving forward. Stephen Ingalls, our President/CEO, leads this discussion for attendees at the Independent Bankers Association of New York State’s “Come Back Celebration.”