Went to Tampa-St. Petersburg last week where I had the pleasure of giving the commencement speech at National Louis University. What an impressive institution. A large percentage of the graduates were earning PhD’s and master’s degrees and the energy in The Coliseum was inspiring. The event provided me the opportunity to ‘reune’ with some colleagues from years gone by. (See photo of Anthony Spano and Rick Yaconis).
Under the leadership of executive director Anthony Spano, the Tampa campus has met with considerable success. In his eight years at the helm, enrollment has increased 5x, employee satisfaction runs high, and the institution’s key performance metrics are largely green.
I had the chance to interview Anthony following the graduation. Always interested in the topic of leadership, I asked him: ‘To what do you attribute your success’? Allow me to share the key takeaways from that conversation. Regardless of your profession, I’m confident there will be some ‘nuggets’ in Anthony’s remarks that will be useful to you.
Dave: So, Anthony, to what do you attribute your success?
Anthony: Here are some of my leadership practices:
· When hiring, I interview for the person, not the skill.
· I am forever aware that it costs too much to coach someone out and to train, and re-train. It’s critical to get the right hire from the get-go.
· I’ve learned to embrace the mantra: Fail fast. While it hurts to let someone go, better to do it sooner than later.
· It’s important to me to bring people on board that challenge me, people who want my job.
· Have a great #2.
· Life is short. Our careers are shorter. Take some chances. Take some risk.
· Love and be loved. Make it fun.
· Demonstrate repeatedly that you care about the person. Every person. When engaged in a conversation with someone, send them the message that at that moment they are the most important person in your universe.
· As the leader, it’s my job to remove chaos from the environment.
· The little things matter.
· I’m not the boss; I’m one of the coaches. To get this team to win we all play a role.
Lastly, I spoke with two members of Anthony’s key staff. When asked, “What stands out about Anthony”, this is what they said:
· He puts us at ease even during rocky times.
· He’s amazingly calm during otherwise stressful moments. When he is calm, we are calm. We take our queue from him.
· This man knows how to lead through moments of ambiguity. His communications are clear and his tone is confident and comfortable.
· He likes to celebrate our wins. We love that!
· He treats everyone like family.
There you have it. Hope this is of use to everyone in one way or another.
Bravo Anthony Spano. Long may you run…..
#leadership #leadership speaker
