In a rapidly evolving financial landscape, leadership competency is a critical factor that can determine the success or failure of credit unions. This week’s episode of “CU On the Show” features an insightful discussion with Heather McKissick, CEO of CUES, on the nuances of leadership in the credit union industry. Heather shares her journey, personal leadership philosophy, and actionable strategies for fostering effective leadership.
Core Tenets of Effective Leadership
- Knowledge and Credibility–Heather emphasizes the importance of being well-informed about the issues facing the organization and the industry. While leaders don’t need to be experts in every area, they must have a deep understanding of the core issues to make informed decisions.
- Skills Development– Communication, change management, and mentoring are crucial skills for leaders. Heather advocates for a dynamic approach to leadership that evolves with the organization and industry. Leaders should focus on helping others learn and grow alongside them.
- Relationship Building– Mission-driven organizations thrive on strong, purpose-based relationships. Heather stresses the importance of cultivating long-term relationships centered on mutual goals and missions, which are essential for sustained success.
Leadership Development in Credit Unions
Leadership development is crucial for ensuring the long-term success of credit unions. Heather highlights several effective practices and initiatives:
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- Tailored Leadership Programs: Credit unions of different sizes have unique needs. Mid-sized and smaller credit unions may lack internal resources for comprehensive leadership development programs, while larger credit unions face challenges in scalability. Organizations like CUES provide consulting and process development support to bridge these gaps.
- Just-in-Time Leadership Development: Traditional linear leadership programs can be time-consuming and may not address immediate needs. Heather introduces the concept of just-in-time leadership development, which focuses on providing relevant skills and knowledge in real-time. This approach ensures that leaders are equipped to handle current challenges and adapt quickly to changing circumstances.
For a deeper dive into Heather McKissick’s insights on leadership competency and development, listen to the full episode of “CU On the Show.” Whether you’re looking to enhance your own leadership skills or develop the next generation of leaders in your organization, this episode offers valuable guidance and inspiration.
Listen to the episode and take the first step towards fostering effective leadership in your credit union.
Heather McKissick and CUES are not affiliated with or endorsed by ACT Advisors, LLC.
Audio Transcription (pulled from the podcast)
Doug 00:02
Welcome to CU On the Show, Heather McKissick, the CEO of CUES, we’re delighted that you’re with us today.
Heather McKissick 00:36
Me too. Thank you.
Doug 00:37
So what we’re going to talk about today is leadership competency, a subject that you’re well suited to comment on. But before we do that, tell me Heather McKissick. How did you get started working in this wonderful industry?
Heather McKissick 00:53
So I came to credit unions a little more than 10 years ago now. And it really, when I look back on it, it feels like a very natural outgrowth of what up until then had been my career focused almost entirely on nonprofit or not for profit organizations. So I started out in higher education, and worked in that system for quite some time. And then when I left higher ed, I went to work for a cooperative of River Authority. So I learned about how river authorities as cooperatives serve their communities, then I moved to the largest nonprofit health care system in the United States and worked there for a while. I then went on to lead a small, private 501(c)3 organization focused on leadership and leadership development. And it was around that time that I was recruited to join the credit union. And I had not, like many people I think, really understood about credit unions my whole career. But when I found out about credit unions and how they were not for profit, financial cooperatives, to me, it just all fell into place. Right in that moment, it was as if everything that I had done in my career had been leading me to that moment, and I have not looked back ever since.
Doug 02:23
Yeah, it does sound like the background was a perfect training. So the subject that Heather and I talked about at GAC was leadership competency. So, it seemed like the natural place to start is, Heather, talk to us about your personal philosophy on leadership and how it’s guiding your decisions and strategies at CUES.
Heather McKissick 02:46
Well, thanks for asking. I think my personal philosophy about leadership has certainly evolved over time, as I think it should, for most of us, because leadership is not a static practice, it should be a dynamic practice, that evolves and changes as we do, or as our organizations or our industry does. So I will say first up that my leadership philosophy is a dynamic philosophy. It’s one that I hope will continue to evolve over the course of time as well. The core tenets though of that philosophy for me, really have to do with three key things. And they inform, I think the organizations where I work as well, in terms of our approach to leadership development for people. The first one is that I need to know my stuff, I need to be credible, I need to have the information or the knowledge required to be appropriate in my role. Now, that does not necessarily mean I should be a subject matter expert in all things that everyone in my organization does. But I think that the issues that face my organization and that face, our industry are really important. So that’s the first tenet. I also think that the skills that we need as leaders depending on our organizations are also very important. For me the skills I tried to maximize and really lean in on are my communication skills, my change management skills, and my skills when it comes to mentoring or bringing others along as we go. I know like many other adults, I learn best by doing and I think the same is true for others. So the skills I try to embrace are really focused on helping others come alongside and learn as we go. And then the third piece is about relationships. I think, as I mentioned before, I have spent most of my career in not-for-profit or nonprofit organizations. And these organizations are mission focused, purpose driven. And usually that means they are highly relational and very much relationship driven. So, for me knowing and understanding how to cultivate long term relationships, that are really focused first on our mutual mission, that matters a lot as well. So, my personal leadership philosophy is about knowing the issues well, leaning in on communication and collaboration skills, and maximizing and embracing the relationships that I’m lucky enough to have.
Doug 05:40
In preparation for this meeting. You mentioned something about courage and the courage within that philosophy to sometimes change, lots and lots of change, but sometimes stay the same. How does that manifest? Give me some examples of how that manifests within CUES and other examples.
Heather McKissick 06:00
I think a lot about courageous leadership. And everything that I just talked about, in some ways rolls up right up in there, right? We have to have the courage to change as our industry evolves. So when I’m thinking about credit unions, for example, and all of us who serve credit unions, not just those of us who work within credit unions, the idea about embracing change comes up a lot, because we are facing a lot of change across our industry. We as credit unions are also deeply rooted in our mission and our purpose as organizations that are largely focused on people helping people. So, I think we’ve got two opportunities there. Number one, the courage to change means let’s keep moving forward, let’s embrace some of the new technology, some of the innovations around leadership, some of the changes that in some ways we are being proactive about. And in other ways we are faced with having to be reactive regularly. Credit unions are not famous for making rapid change. And so, I really believe that it’s important for us to develop the skills that it takes to be more agile when it comes to adopting new technologies, different ways of planning projects, different ways of staffing our organizations, etc. So that’s what the courage to change means to me. That we have to be able to turn and face the future. I will say, though, that I think credit unions also, under those very circumstances, have to have the courage to stay the same, as well. And what I mean by that is mission focus, the purpose-based work that we all do, I think it is easy to get caught up in the attractiveness of change and the pace of change in why we are being called to change so rapidly, which is to compete and keep up with other industry players or other credit unions. And it’s easy under those circumstances, to lose sight of why we exist in the first place. So, for me the courage to stay the same means to embrace that change, while never losing sight of the mission and purpose that credit unions were originally founded to serve.
Doug 08:37
Take away quote, so far from Heather, is credit unions are not famous for making rapid change.
Heather McKissick 08:46
Okay, maybe we should edit that to say, many credit unions are not famous for making rapid change, because I don’t want to suggest that there aren’t credit unions who aren’t leaning in. And being innovative. There are plenty of examples of those. As an industry, however, I think that we are not even fast followers. And that’s something that I know many of us are working quickly to make a difference in.
Doug 09:16
How do you balance the not change, mission driven activities with financial stability, that margin mission trade off? How do you balance those things?
Heather McKissick 09:27
I don’t know that it is a tradeoff. And that’s something that I think is important for all of us to talk about a little bit more because investing in our members should never mean a compromise to the safety and soundness of the organization as a financial institution. I think the way we think about investing in our members, however, could shift so that we are measuring it in different more tangible ways and also measuring it longer term over time. So let me tell you what I mean by that. Some people at a surface level, they might look at the work of some credit unions and equate mission focused work with philanthropy. Oh, well, you just want to give the members money away to different nonprofits or different charities or community events. How does that help us keep our organization financially viable or sustainable? I think those are excellent questions. But mission focused work can be so much more than philanthropy. And frankly, I think philanthropy has its place. Again, we’re here to serve our members. But we’re also here to serve the communities where they live, because members don’t live on islands. They live in communities. And sometimes those communities also need support. But there are other examples of mission focused work that drive the financial sustainability of an organization, things as simple as our products and services as credit unions. Now, one of the things that I like to use as an example, related to how products and services which drive margin can be mission focused activities, is frankly, in the design of those products and services. Many of us as financial institutions, are in the habit of developing products and services, almost in a vacuum. We have product design, that works well for us as institutions, and works well in terms of meeting our goals, whatever those goals might be. But often those design processes don’t include the members themselves, or even don’t include the unmet needs that those members have. There’s a lot of talk these days about human centered design. And what does that really mean? What would happen if we put the members at the center of our product and service design and made sure that the needs that they have and that their voices were just as loud as the internal voices on that product development team? How would that change the way that we structure and offer products and services that drive the margin, and also serve the mission? I would argue that those products and services will be much more appealing to the membership. And they will drive more margin as they fulfill the mission. Now, all of that might be in a credit union context. But I can tell you, it’s exactly what we’re also doing at CQS. We’re a member-based organization, like many credit unions serving institutions are. And so we are taking a hard look at what our members really want and need, and making sure that we’re reaching out gathering the voice of the member and having it be an important part of how we redesign or design new products and services for our members into the future. And I’m banking on the fact that that means there’ll be that much more attractive, and therefore that much more profitable, for lack of a better word for the institution.
Doug 13:34
A lot of what’s behind this comes down to the guidance that comes from leadership, right? It comes from leadership of the credit union from the board, about what to do, what not to do and why to do it. So let’s talk a bit about leadership development in credit unions. What is it they say? That change is now faster than it’s ever been, and the slowest it will ever be. In the credit union movement leadership is something we need to continually develop. How do you do that? What specific initiatives do you see credit unions doing that work really well? And any ideas for our listeners on leadership development?
Heather McKissick 14:12
There are so many great examples of people who are doing leadership well. I will say this, it does vary from case to case. Sometimes it’s about asset size, not always, but often, there are fewer internal resources available to credit unions who are mid-sized or smaller size when it comes to really intentional development of succession planning programs or talent development and leadership development programs. That’s one thing that CUES is here to help with to help those size organizations with the consulting and the brainstorming and the process development if you will, that will help them develop the leaders of today and in the future. There are also challenges that large credit unions face when it comes to the scalability of some of the leadership efforts that they are undertaking. It can take three to five years to get everybody through a solid in person leadership development program. And ain’t nobody got time for that, right? And so how do you create leadership development programs that can be more nimble and just in time to give people the skills that they need, when they need them, as those large credit unions are facing rapid change as well. So I think some of the challenges that we have, as a system really are dependent upon what the internal resources that we have are now you asked about what are they doing, what kinds of programs and what kinds of initiatives are credit unions, and others creating to help develop their leaders, what we see is a large focus on knowledge and issues. One of the things that we hear most from CEOs and board chairs is that they want to make sure that the leaders in their institutions have a thorough grasp and understanding of what the issues are, that are facing the industry at large. So if that means general economic development, awareness, rate compression, or if that means legislative concerns, like many credit unions are seeing now, the downstream effects of the Cecil legislation that went in place in terms of how they’re accounting for loan losses, and what the impact is on those changes in their organizations.
Doug 16:54
So let’s talk about leadership development and credit unions having a specific program to develop leaders. And you mentioned a minute ago about just in time leadership development, and I’ve never heard of that before. So, I’d like you to expand if you would a bit on examples of how that might work.
Heather McKissick 17:14
Oh, you bet. So a traditional leadership development program arc might look like, hey, we’re going to identify 10 different skills that we think are super important for our leaders to have. Most of the time, what that means is that depending on the level of leadership, the skills are going to be slightly different. So maybe our branch management or frontline leadership, need more operational level skills, whereas middle or more senior management are looking at more executive level, capacity type of skills. So depending on the level of leader, you’re still going to pick a handful of skills that you think are important for the leaders in your organization to have, and then you will come up with the logical sequence of those skills being taught to the organization and give people assignments to begin to develop or understand those skills in a better way. There’s nothing wrong with that kind of traditional leadership development program design. However, what we’re finding is that it, as I was mentioning before, can take too long, and people do not have the luxury of time to put everybody through a linear or sequential Leadership Development Program, in some cases. Now, there’s nothing wrong with developing leaders for the future. But what we are finding is because the landscape is shifting so quickly under our feet, a lot of us don’t have what we need right now to be able to digest, understand and behave differently based on any given situation. So, just in time leadership development means what is the organization facing right now? Or what do we believe it will be facing in the next three months? What are the skills that we want people to be able to utilize to face those issues? What’s the knowledge that they need in order to better understand those issues? And what are the relationships that they need to leverage in order to make fast work? So how do we understand from an organizational point of view what those circumstances are that would require our leaders to take on a just in time leadership approach? So I’ll give you an example. A lot of us are facing technology changes, it seems to be a frequent refrain that people are talking about. It could be anything from implementing a new core to launching an app or anything in between. Most of the time, what happens is that effort becomes bifurcated. The subject matter experts around technology, they’re the ones who understand the technology deeply. And then they hand off what they want the others to know, to communications or training personnel that would then build training around that. And the experience that the leaders or others would undertake during that training in a classroom setting, or an online setting, it doesn’t happen real time in the business itself. A different approach might be to have a cross functional team, that’s identifying what are the stages of that technology implementation? And what do people need to know and understand about it right now? Here’s where we are. Here’s what we expect. But until we get there, here’s what we want you to know and do in the meantime, then once we reach that threshold, okay, it went well, this is where we are now, things have changed a little bit, let us tell you about the current state, and what we need to do and understand at this stage. So it becomes a more agile way of engaging and involving our leaders, providing them with the information that they need in the moment that they need it. Instead of what project management methodology language, people would call a more sort of waterfall approach, where we’re trying to anticipate everything all at once and teach it all in one fell swoop. That just doesn’t have legs, it doesn’t get the kind of traction that you want it to get. So you’ve got to chunk it down and offer it to people in a way that they can understand in this moment, implement where they are, and then be excited about and ready for what that next phase might be.
Doug 22:27
How do you get the data to evaluate that need, and then your progress toward closing the gap?
Heather McKissick 22:33
So, there are a lot of ways to measure how leaders are developing. Not just how they are implementing whatever that training solution or curriculum might be. One of the most surface ways that you can evaluate a leader’s development is simply, did I learn anything new that I didn’t know before? And that’s usually pretty easily done. It’s easy for people to self-diagnose what I know now versus what I didn’t know. Really, the next levels of leadership development evaluation are some of the most challenging and they take more time to do. The next level is okay, you might have learned something new, Doug, but what did you do as a result of what you learned? Did you effectively implement that with your team? What were the measures of effectiveness? And how do we know that in fact it went well, or it needs to be iterated upon somehow. So, it’s what did you learn? But it’s also what did you do with what you learned? And then the last thing is, what were the results of what you did? So it’s what did you learn? What did you do with what you learned? And what were the results of what you did with what you learned? Because it’s really only then that we can truly evaluate not just the effectiveness of the steps, but of the leader themselves in implementing and guiding that change over the course of time.
Doug 24:13
Those three steps that you just laid out is a discussion with their manager about, did you learn it? Did you implement it? Did you get the results?
Heather McKissick 24:23
Correct. And it could and should be baked into any good leadership development process. And the architects of a good leadership development process will be able to bake those gates in over the course of the process. And, again, that requires subject matter expertise, depending on what the topic might be.
Doug 24:46
In that process. Is that where you would start to identify leadership gaps? And work to close them, I would assume?
Heather McKissick 24:53
For individuals? Absolutely. One of the things that it takes to make your way from individual contributor from manager to middle or senior leader is executive presence. You hear this language around executive presence a lot. But it becomes a lot harder to quantify what that really means. Well, what does it mean when someone has executive presence? And how do you know it when you see it? Well, one of the things about executive presence is often good communication skills, and good public speaking skills. It is one of the number one most identified requests for leadership development at any level in an organization. How can I confidently speak in front of others about subject matter x. So let’s pretend that you’ve got a leader that wants to get better at executive presence. And we identify that they need to be able to do public speaking really well, in order to have that executive presence. So you can start very simply with them. What’s the next presentation that you need to make? Oh, you don’t have any that you need to make? Well, let’s find an opportunity for you to make a presentation. What subject makes the most sense? Okay, do you have the knowledge about that issue? Are you thoroughly enough versed in the subject? If not, go get yourself what you need when it comes to being fully versed in the subject matter for your presentation. That’s step number one. It can be easily measured whether or not you have the important and requisite knowledge about that topic, in order to deliver something credible. But, then the next part is really about the effectiveness of the presentation itself. Was it clear? Was it concise? Does it have a good call to action for the audience members? Will there be any follow-up required from the audience to make sure that that information landed? That then becomes the process part of the public speaking piece. Did the objectives for the presentation get accomplished? Did people understand after the presentation was over? Not only the information, but what was required of them to do as a result of the presentation? And can those actions on the part of the audience be appropriately measured? So, it might sound like, oh, gosh, how many steps are there Heather, all I want to do is just stand up and brief somebody at a meeting about what’s going on. But there’s a lot to unpack right about why and how someone has a skill that you want them to have. And whether or not there are gaps in their skills and how they need to be shored up. So let’s say you come in and you make a presentation about hosting podcasts, you’ve got all of the information down, but you stumble, you use a lot of qualifying words, you repeat yourself, you say, um, a lot. By the time it’s over, your audience doesn’t really know what it was that they were supposed to understand. And the last thing that they do is actually sign up for your podcast class, that you are trying to convince them as your call to action at the end. There are a lot of ways that you can then say, oh, okay, great, Doug knew the subject matter, he really had that down. But let’s help him with the organizing skill. Let’s help him with the follow-through that he needs so that we can be certain next time he stands up to give that presentation, that he delivers the complete package, and not just one part of it.
Doug 29:10
So, that is going to help to close the leadership gap for that particular individual that doesn’t have the background in making presentations. How do you build a pipeline of folks with those skills? How do you turn that into a system of leadership development?
Heather McKissick 29:29
So let me say this. I think that particular topic, that addresses the skills gap, but not necessarily the leadership gap. One skill that leaders might need to have is this business around executive presence or presentation making. If you can identify how to bring up somebody’s skill in that particular area when you really looking at leadership across the set, a much broader topic of leadership. You’re looking at a variety of different skills, a bunch of different pieces and parts that we expect leaders will demonstrate. So really, when you’re looking at a leadership gap in a person, you’re looking back at what are those top five competencies that I want to make sure that they demonstrate? Executive presence might be one of them, change management could be one of them, industry acumen, whatever that might be for them, if it’s financial acumen, or otherwise. These are examples of skills that leaders need overall, what ends up happening when you start assessing the leadership team as a whole, or an individual around their leadership. So, you have to look at do they have the various skills that I need them to have? They might have two out of three, how do I give them opportunities to continue to practice and lean in on those two that they’re already good at? But where do I need to focus with them to really help them shore up and get the just in time, real time experience they need to make sure that they close the gap on that third. That’s where this just in time kind of real time leadership development practice can be helpful as we try to develop leaders, and not just close gap on skills.
Doug 31:29
And taking that to the next step. How do we turn this into the leaders of today and the leaders of tomorrow and the leaders of the next generation? Like how do we turn that into a system of building a pipeline?
Heather McKissick 31:45
If we were talking about within one given organization, you might talk about industry language would just call it a leadership competency model. One of the things that CUES has done is built a leadership competency model for credit unions, specifically. What is a leadership competency model? A leadership competency model is a curated set of skills that we know that leaders must demonstrate in order to be successful inside any given organization. Those skills usually show up in several different categories. And they’re categories similar to ones I have mentioned already. Relationship skills, mindset skills, knowledge of the industry, and also the ability to lead others well. So, these skills that are strung together in a leadership competency model, the way that we begin to put leaders through that set of skills is highly variable, the way that organizations develop leaders has to be very intentional. And I think what happens is that so often, leadership capacity gets confused with operational acumen or management skills. And those are two very different things. So, whereas we might be excellent operational leaders and have the skills that it takes to execute on strategy, do we have the leadership capacity to think bigger, broader, develop the strategy, and think critically about the risks and opportunities that the organization has at the same time? So, when you’re developing leadership competencies, a lot of time it looks like more than just skills. So, we might have financial acumen and operational knowledge and we might understand what it means to manage risk or compliance. But that’s only one category that a leader really needs to be able to embrace. Other categories include things like better understanding the issues that our organization faces. What are the advocacy efforts that we need to be aware of from a regulatory or a political standpoint? What are those socio-economic factors that are influencing the people that we serve or the marketplace that we are in? What are the technologies that are important to us as we think about our future? So, there are skills, and there are issues. So, let’s just leave it at those two things for now. How do we encourage leadership development, it’s by giving leaders the opportunity to engage with both, and to understand how the issues that we are all facing, require different skills depending on who we are, and what we are trying to do for our organization. So operational management skill is one thing, leadership skills require a different level of thinking, and complexity, and integration, based on what’s happening within the organization.
Doug 35:51
When you think about the future of leadership and how it changes with digital leadership, the gig economy and corporate and social responsibility, how do leaders prepare for these trends?
Heather McKissick 36:06
So one of the examples is what I call a curated bundle of leadership training, that CUES is now testing with many of our members, and other partner organizations. This particular bundle is one of those just in time bundles that we were talking about before. It focuses on emerging leaders, and some of the skills that they need as leaders, not just as managers. We are blessed with some really talented, smart, young professionals in the credit union movement. Most of them know their stuff, when it comes to their jobs, and the issues that are facing their credit unions or the industry. But where many of them have raised their hand and said they need help, is in some of these, I’m going to call it softer skills areas, even though I hate that term, like emotional intelligence, like foundational leadership practices, like change management. And like executive presence, which we were talking about before. One of the ways that we’re addressing these skills, these softer skills with this emerging population, is by creating a blended curriculum. Here’s what I mean, by just in time, there are online modules that people can sit down, okay, Doug, let’s say you’re part of this cohort, you’re an emerging young professional, you know your subject matter really well. And you’re great at leading your team and managing operations on a day-to-day basis. But you’re going to sit down in front of your computer, and you’re going to take a self-guided module that is highly interactive, and that is going to give you the information. And also some practice on this particular skill around executive presence, it’s going to ask you questions, it’s going to let you self-diagnose and give you some ways that you can reflect on your executive presence, and where you may need to improve. After that online module is over, you’re going to join a small cohort of your peers who have also taken that online module in a real time live coaching session with a professional coach. And that coach is going to talk you through what you just learned in that online module. So Doug, tell me what did you learn about yourself? How did you score on those assessments? What are some of the reflections that you have? So there’s an opportunity to in the moment, digest and process the content from that online module with a professional coach and some of your peers so that you can get to deeper insight. The third component then, is that you have an individual development plan template, and you’re going to be able to fill in, what do I need to do? Who do I need to be mentored by? How do I need to share about this business of executive presence? That’s what I mean by real time leadership development. That bundle can be deployed in an organization quickly and easily. It can be deployed for an individual that might have that need right away. Or it can be deployed for a group, because we know that entire group is going to need to develop these skills in order to take on the mantle of leadership for the organization later.
Doug 40:12
Is that a specific CUES tool or training program?
Heather McKissick 40:17
Yes, it is.
Doug 40:18
What’s it called?
Heather McKissick 40:20
Well, it depends on the audience. Right now, it has the very glamorous name of the leadership skills curriculum bundle.
Doug 40:28
That’s a good name that works. That’s easy. It’s easy enough to understand, the leadership skills curriculum bundle from CUES.
Heather McKissick 40:35
It’s something that we’re testing right now and are really excited about the results. I hope that we will be bringing it to market for more than just test participants in the very near future.
Doug 40:47
Heather McKissick, thank you for your ideas on the future of leadership and on the opportunities that credit union movement has to develop its future leaders to retain those leaders, and to continue to serve the membership with excellence. Thanks very much for all of your ideas. We appreciate it greatly. And of course, our listeners can look to the CUES organization for many opportunities to use the resources of CUES to develop leaders. Thank you.
