Education

Watchful leadership

By Mark Scott

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Dana Gibson
president, National University

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When you become the leader of an organization, you gain a whole lot more than a prestigious title.

You also put yourself squarely under the microscope of all the people who work for you, says Dana Gibson, president of National University. If you’re having a bad day, you need to think twice before you pound your fist into the wall or let out a hearty scream because people will be watching.

Fortunately, the same people tend to notice when you do something positive. With the goal of fostering a healthy culture, Gibson says she tries to let her passion for her job shine through in her personality and in the way she conducts business at California’s second-largest private, nonprofit school.

By being both a good listener and a collaborative leader, Gibson seeks to demonstrate through her actions that she wants everyone to be part of the school’s success.

Smart Business spoke with Gibson about learning how to interact with people by watching how they interact with others.

See your people. Even if you’re a company in one location, it’s getting out to different departments. If you have more than one location, go to the different locations so that you get kind of a feel. It’s not just listening to people but seeing some of the informal things, as well, that you learn by being out.

See how folks interact with some of their supervisors. Let’s say an individual and you go out, and you’re visiting with another manager in their office; you can see how they interact with their support staff.

You learn a lot about people when you see those interactions. It helps you understand how you need to interact with them, and it lets you see how they interact with other people.

That usually shows a comfort level that they have. If they are more structured on how they communicate or if they are more informal, that helps you to know how to communicate with that person.

Talk to your people. When they do a good job, say, ‘That was a really great effort.’ It’s being sincere when you do that. Give them the ability to make mistakes. If they acknowledge they have made a mistake and they need to correct it and they’ve learned from it, that’s also beneficial to the organization.

None of us want to make mistakes as an organization, but human nature is we are all going to make them. It’s acknowledging that that’s going to happen and letting people realize that they need to come forward and correct them and move on.

It’s a positive when they are doing things well and giving them kudos and being sincere. On the other side, when you have some issues, it’s discussing that through and using it as a learning experience.

Guide, but don’t lecture. It’s very important for people to figure out how to accomplish what they need to do. It’s the leader’s job to make suggestions because many times, that helps them focus where they need to be spending their time and effort.

There’s a way you can do that and not micromanage everything they are doing. It’s more making suggestions along the way as you see things and yet, at the same time, letting them move forward.

I’m not a micromanager, but I also like to know what’s going on and to make suggestions. Try not to give them specific details.

It’s more giving them guidance instead of details. Like instead of giving them a list of here’s the five steps to do this, it’s suggesting you need to make sure that you communicate with the right parties while you are doing this because there is a lot of vested interest in it.

By doing that, you hope they come up with a plan that makes sure they are communicating with all the people they need to.

Keep the focus on the team. Emphasize that everybody can say their piece, and we all listen. We might decide on a path that not everybody agrees with 100 percent. It’s setting that up and being very open and blunt about it when you have the discussion.

Here’s the controversial thing, and we have to make some decisions on it. We’re not all going to agree 100 percent, but once we make the decision here, we’re all 100 percent supportive of it.

Be responsive. It’s the 80-20 rule. Eighty percent of the things take 20 percent of the time. It’s really trying to figure out what are those 20 percent that need to take more time. Most of the people that have worked for me have always said they found that I was very accessible, and it was because I would respond quickly to most of their items.

If nine out of 10 items get a really quick response, but that one that you need to work on takes longer, they don’t really notice it because you have gotten back to them so quickly on most of the things.

Some people set aside a specific time of day. I’ve never found that works well for me because there are too many pulls on your time. If I’ve got an hour to go through all these communications, it’s trying to get through a vast majority of them in 20 or 30 minutes and then spending time on the other ones.

You can be a captive of your calendar sometimes. Not everything is as structured as you’d sometimes like it to be. Don’t let that rattle you. You can get back on track.

HOW TO REACH: National University, (800) 628-8648 or www.nu.edu