In this episode, Heather speaks with Mechelle Roberthon, Vice President/Director of Talent Development at Home Bank. Heather and Mechelle both share the opinion that this episode is like being in “Leadership Church”. It is 35 minutes filled with rich wisdom and inspirational stories, which I guarantee will fill you up and leave you motivated for the rest of your day, or even your week.

Lessons learned and discussed in this interview extend beyond the realm of leadership into the reality of being a caring person. Mechelle’s gracefulness, graciousness, mercifulness and willingness to surrender demonstrate the powerful traits that make up caring leaders as well as the hearts of good people.

Takeaways:

• Be transparent, apologize often and solicit feedback all the time.
• Be forgiving.
• Be consistent—in your home life, your work life and your personal life.
• Have self-awareness, but make sure you follow up with action.
• Surrender is hard, feels like weakness, like you’ve lost. But surrender is such a strength, to be able to bite your tongue, to resist an unkind gesture, and move forwards.
• Give your employees grace because you are going to need their grace.
• Awareness is huge-be uber aware and over aware, of who you are, not who people want you to be, or who you hope to be, but be aware of where you are right now including your faults, so you can receive feedback and understand better how to grow.
• Your work as a leader is not more important than the work of your direct reports.
• Just engross yourself in leadership development, like this podcast. Also, articles, books, you’ll get hooked on a philosophy then work to make it your own.