Dad’s Leadership Lessons 1

A few weeks ago would have been my Dad’s 55th birthday. I spent most of that week sad and missing his energy and presence in my life. But this morning I had the opportunity to present in front of several of my dad's old colleagues at Regions Bank who reminded me just how awesome my dad was and I got inspired to share. 

If you ever had the pleasure of meeting Nathan McClellan, you know he was larger than life and left nuggets of wisdom every step of the way. I have fun memories of his many isms like “are you having fun yet” or him shouting various movie quotes at me from the car to make me smile. But the things that have stuck with the most are the small things he did to show me how to be a leader. So I have decided that over the next couple of weeks I would like to share the top lessons that my Dad taught me over the years, that I am just now realizing how ingrained these things are into my leadership style.

1. Create space for everyone to be heard

My dad believed that regardless of your positions that every person’s experiences and thoughts are valuable. He made sure that his most junior to his most senior team members had a seat at the table to share their thoughts and opinions on the deals and projects they were working on. He believed that different viewpoints made the team stronger and that the only way to have those viewpoints expressed was to bring them to the table. Weekends with my dad started with a round table discussion of what we wanted to accomplish that weekend; it was a team effort to make decisions about what items made a list and even as children we played large roles in our plans. Though I might not have wanted to play another game of Pretty Pretty Princess with my little sister, her voice still needed to be heard in the planning because it was a valid option for things to do. It helped me to learn consensus-building, collaboration, and creating a win-win situation, but most importantly, it taught me to buy-in. If you feel as though you have been not only brought to the table for the discussion but heard when decisions are being made regardless of the result, you feel you have been part of the process and can buy-in to the decision the group made together. 

What leadership lessons have your parents taught you?