San Francisco Women Leaders Association Chapter Meeting: Become the Authentic Leader You Envision.

[Music] And next I want to introduce Melissa Fan. So hold on while I slip skip over to that page. So, um Melissa is um her passion is in small business. Um her passion in small business stems from her personal experience of growing up in a small business family. I love that. I grew up in a in a family of entrepreneurs. So, I absolutely love that. And as um the national client outreach and integration manager, her focus is to build an integrated process to elevate banker client engagement in close collaboration with key marketing product and communication partners. Super eager to hear more about that. Melissa joined Bank of America in June 2011 as a small business banker in the greater Sacramento market. After successfully achieving fivestar top performance in both respective markets, she led a pinnacle team of small business consultants in the Silicon Valley market. In 2018, she moved back to Sacramento and led a top performing small business banking team and was promoted to a regional performance manager for the Pacific Northwest region in 2019. I love that career growth. With her distinct passion in small business, Melissa is devoted to finding ways to give back to communities. With that devotion, she is co-chair of Sacramento leadership education advocacy and development for women and also serves as the ambassador for NWBO Sacramento National Association of Business Women business owners. She received a BA degree in political science from UC Davis and enjoys outdoor activities and spending time with her cavapoo max name Max and Jack Russell mix Lulu. Yay, Melissa. Thank you. Okay. Morning. Goodness, that was like a long introduction. So, hopefully you weren't all bored out here. So, interesting enough, everything that Beth said had has a correlation to what I'll share with you today. So, it was almost like, was she in my brain before I came here? You know, first off, I want to thank all of you um for allowing me to come here and talk about my journey. As you heard in my bio, I've done various roles in banking. I've been in banking since 2003. And when I think about what I'll have to share with you today about becoming the authentic leader you envision, that's to me something that really resonates with me because being in banking since 2003, which by the way, I did not think banking would be my career. That in general, being that leader is something that really is important to me. And that's where I am today. And hopefully the story and and some of the resources I'll share with you today will resonate with all of you. So before I really share the next slide that has a quote, I want to kind of share a little brief background about myself. So youngest of seven, first generation here and in my Bible says, I have a passion for small business. Well, my parents actually opened the first Asian supermarket in Sacramento. And Bank of America, ironically, was their bank. And I remember uh being, you know, the youngest. They said, "Gosh, this bank actually cares about me." I was I was young. I didn't think anything of it. I'm like, "Okay, what does that even mean?" Not knowing, you know, years later I'll be in banking and actually making an impact the way those individuals made impact in my parents life. So, I went to UC Davis thinking I was going to go to law school. Totally not what I thought I'll be doing today. And as I went through the journey of becoming an actual leader, leading a team, leading a sales team as a matter, um, in different markets, that's when I started to think back and think about my story, my personal story. So, as we go through some of the resources I'll share with you today that helped me and where I continue to, you know, I guess master craft of being a leader that I inspired to be. Hopefully, it resonates with all of you. So, let's take a couple minutes and let's look at this quote. Hopefully, it's hopefully you all can see. I don't have my glasses, so I I can't look at that. I'll look down here. So, let's take a minute and let's let's read this. And I love to hear from some of you what resonates. Oh, okay. All right. So, that's my cue to read it, right? So, okay. Even if I had my glasses, I probably read it. So leadership is a sum total of who you are. Leaders are developed, not simply born. And we can can't all develop ourselves to be able to guide others. Anyone who follows their internal compass can become an authentic leader. And this is by Bill George who is an author by a book that really helped me in my journey. Any volunteers on sharing when you read this? What resonates? What stands out? Jobs. um multiple of the different jobs that I've done so far in my life um I've had the opportunity to learn and learn these skills of leadership that then leads me to my next step and I feel like leaders are developed not simply born um is others have seen something and helped me develop those things to that have helped me get where I am and continue going. So I that really stood out to me because it's not you know 10 years ago I wouldn't think of myself as a leader but now growing and things I've done and experience and people I've known and things that I've learned have helped me get to this point and consider myself that now. So that's I really like this quote. So you're telling me we're not all born leaders? No, you can develop it. Okay. No, definitely I agree with you. Anyone else? Yes. So, within within the job that I currently work, um I I didn't start as a leader, but I I can agree that leadership starts within um oneself and not by role or title first. And um I can say that because with my experience I I've trained lots of people and leading comes with uh leading by example and that's how people follow your steps before you get to the title position of being a leader. So it definitely starts within and um being a person where you can uh motivate and give the steps to growth and lead by example is a starting factor in leadership and you know developing leaders. Yeah. Absolutely. It's it's interesting you share that because leadership comes before that title that role right you have to embody that and that's where you get followership. So absolutely I agree with you. So thank you. So, thank you for sharing. So, when I looked at this quote years ago, I thought to myself, okay, being youngest of seven, I guess I don't have to be born a leader. And I never thought I'll be leading a team, to be honest. I loved what I do. And I said to myself, okay, well, I do love helping my teammates who are on boarding maybe from another institution because I came from Washington Mutual and then Chasing and um Bank of America. So I understand some of the stresses you feel going from different institutions and whatnot. And I would then lead the way and help them understand how do you become successful in this institution though very similar to others there are different things about it. So I always told myself the internal compass we always have to stay true to our core values despite what comes your way. It's easy to get your amydala hijacked and feel these emotions where you're just like wait what? And Beth said it, take a breath. Though I wish I took a breath few times where I didn't. Um, it helps you stay focused. It helps me stay aligned to what's important to me. So, in this next slide I'll share with all of you. It comes from a book again by Bill George and it's authentic leadership. And just a quick background as I shared and briefly in the bio that Beth read, I started as a small business speaker. So, I was an individual contributor. My goal was to help business clients achieve their goals. I loved what I did. And, you know, I started in Sacramento and moved to San Francisco on a whim. I was like, I'm going to work in the financial district just to rattle the cage, just to change things. And going from Sacramento to San Francisco, very different market at that time. I was, I guess, a senior banker. And the leader was like, "Melissa, can you help onboard all these new associates, etc. Sure, happy to." At that time, again, no desire to lead a team. Zero desire. I was happy what I was doing. Love helping business clients, thinking about my parents and how the impact those bankers did for my parents. So, I was then asked like, "Hey, Melissa, would you be interested in taking over Silicon Valley and leading the small business consultants there?" said, 'Well, what does that mean? And they said, 'Well, essentially do what you do but on a bigger scale. Said, ' Okay, I could do that. Of course, I can. Sure. Not realizing, we all know this in this room, leadership is just more than that, right? It's more than just achieving the actual job that you've always done. It's connecting with those individuals, understanding what's important to them. And though that's pretty straightforward, boy, was I in for a ride. So I took over 28 small business consultants, different backgrounds, different age, different ethnics, you know, whatever it may be, different walks of life. And the first thing I did coming into that team was I better get to know this team because who am I to come in here and say and start coaching because to me that doesn't work. You have to connect. So I started reading different books. You know, there's a ton of good leadership books out there. At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself what really resonates, again going back to inner compass, what resonates with your core values. So this book by Bill George, he had this model here, which is five characteristics of authentic leadership. And as I was reading this, I was like, okay, this makes total sense. And when you I think back to why am I even here? Why am I taking this level of stress and leading this team and helping them all achieve different goals? Because everyone has different goals in life, whether it's monetary, whether it's moving up in the company, whatever it may be. I had to start thinking through how do I be that authentic leader we all want to be? We don't want to be this phony person and read these books and start portraying things that aren't really you. So I started to think about my life story, started to reflect and learn about myself. And there was one story I remember vividly still today. I was a small business banker and this leader shall name uh remain nameless. Um I was chosen to go to a leadership program that I've been working extremely hard for. and he comes in and says, "Yeah, I chose someone else because I don't think you're going to be able to travel. You know, women probably have to stay home and you have to travel every month for this program. It's ninemonth program." And I looked at him, I was like, "This was eight years ago." And I looked at him and that's when I wish I met Beth because I couldn't breathe at that point. Felt a lot of emotion. But of course, I didn't want to say the things I wanted to really say. So, I stepped out and I was very emotional. That was a pivotal moment when I told myself I would never be him. I would never hold anyone back without even really getting to know what are the barriers and how do I as their leader take those barriers down. He never once understood who I am, what support I did have at home to allow me to travel because it is hard to travel, right? But he never took the time to understood that. So I politely said, "I'm going to push back and here's what I'm going to do and here's why." So I stated facts as to why I should have been selected and not this individual, which was a male, by the way, that he chose. And they only choose um one from each region. So at this time, only 30 get selected across the nation. It was just the policy, one per region. So I called our executive. She ran the entire West Coast. I never call her and I said here's here's what's come across and I'm not going to accept it and here's why. So an exception was made and two from this region was able to go because we couldn't tell the other other individual he couldn't go. So I share this story with all of you because I'm sure every single person in this room has gone through an experience whether it's good or bad where it makes you think that's my reason. That is my purpose. My purpose is to always empower and help and not just be a manager but really be able to take down those barriers and help them achieve all their aspirations that they have. So when we look at this five characteristics of authentic leadership, we won't have the time to go through all five, but hopefully you find some interest in this and probably read the book. I would definitely recommend it. But I want to kind of go over three particular characteristics that truly resonates with me and continues to resonate with me. Passion, sense of passion, sense of purpose, leading that way. So I've shared the different stories I've shared today. My passion in small business. This is just a different element. Now I'm leading a team to help business clients achieve their goals. I always stay true to that passion. And it it was it was obvious when I was with my teammates. And when you think about that, so okay, stay true to yourself. All right, Melissa, what's next? What do I do to ensure that I become that authentic leader I envision and not that individual that really broke me down at that one point? So, I think about relationships and I think Beth talked about that really starts with multiple conversations, right? It doesn't start with one. Um, I'm not sure if I'll trust anyone with my ATM ever though. I'm kidding. So, relationships. When I came into this team, like I mentioned, it was about building relationships. And there's that fine line, right? I work for Bank of America, so it's there's a lot of regulations and guidelines. I can't just get too personal, but you just be yourself, right? And better understand that individual for what's important to them. And interesting enough, through my career of leadership in different teams I ran or led, I end up leading the same team I worked on. I was now managing my peers. Very interesting. They were my peers. We hung out. We we went to events together. And now I had to put the hat on as as a manager and difficult conversations had to happen. Not fun, but it had to happen. But instead, before doing all that, I realized I need to re get to know I just made up my own word. I'd have to get to know everyone again because it's different now. So, I met with everyone over lunch or coffee and started to better understand what was important to them. And again, these are like teammates where they've known me for 10 years. And from there, the relationship I've built with them, it continues and continues conversation after conversation like Beth highlighted doing key things. You know, you have to ask yourself what is it to ensure to how do you get more productivity, right? being connected. So I always had an annual event. I love tacos. So I would get a taco truck and we went to land park because I was just middle ground and I invited all their family members because if it wasn't for the support of the family members, the spouses, the kids, I would not be able to be able to lead a pinnacle team. No way. It was because of their support and I needed them to hear me say thank you to their face for allowing their spouse to be able to deliver for our customers because it was huge. There's days, especially during PPP days, I promise you we're working around the clock. So again, having a genuine interest in your employees, understanding what's important to them, that's important. And then lastly, compassion. Leading with compassion, having heart, being genuine sounds pretty straightforward, right? Because again, as I mentioned, there's that fine line, but HR, you can't get too close. So, I'd like to share a story because I think the stories is what you remember. There was a time when I was leading this team, again, my peers. This was an individual, he worked for the company for 20 years at this point. and I met with him in person. He covered like Reading Chico area. Wasn't a close drive for me. Reading's three hours away. And I said, "You know what? I can't get to know him over the phone. That's silly." So, I drove there to get to know him. And at that time, he was not performing to the degree that we would hope for. And the leader prior to me was pretty much asking him to opt out. And I said, "No, let's let's find out the root cause." Right? So, you have to peel the onion back and understand the why. I don't think anyone wakes up and says, "I want to be mediocre today." There's a reason and that is my job to peel that onion back and help this individual understand and how they break that barrier. So, I met with him a few times, learned that his mother had just passed away. and he was the, you know, his his wife had just got laid off. He has a teenage girl and his son really learning all that. And his purpose was his family. That was his purpose. That was his passion. He was so passionate about his kids. And at that time, I said, "Okay, obviously not a will issue. He has the will, which we can't teach in my opinion, the grit. It was just a skill. He he came from managing a financial center for 20 years going to commercial lending. Very different. So I said, "No problem. Are you willing to work a little bit after hours? I can teach you credit." He's like, "Sure." I said, "Okay." So that's what we did. Every single week, little by little, inch by inch, he understood commercial credit. From there, he started to excel. He was just rocking and rolling and so happy. But I noticed every connection we had, which was weekly, he it seemed like something was bothering him, but I didn't want to, you know, poke the bear essentially, right? I said to him, you know, you're always welcome to share with me what's on your mind. I always solicit that. So, ironically, I go to Spokane for a conference and I get an email with his resignation letter. So strange. I was like, "Okay." I call him. I was like, "Hey, I'm flying back. Let's let's talk when we get back." He's like, "I'm tired of holding this team down. I'm tired of disappointing you. You've done nothing but be kind to me and I can't seem to deliver because he's thinking this pinnacle team, his performance wasn't at the caliber of others." And I was at that point taken back by that comment. I said, "Have I done anything to make you feel that way?" And this is where it's also important as leaders to listenit that feedback because at times we may be oblivious on the things we say. He said, 'N no, it's not that. I just see the ranking report and I'm bringing the team down and I'm tired of feeling that way. Said, okay. I said, well, I'm not going to accept this resignation letter unless you have another job lined up. Understanding that he was the, you know, sole provider for that family, he's like, well, no, I don't have anything lined up. I said, "Well, you're not going to resign until you find another job because your wife and your kids need you. I will be your reference. Find something that makes you happy." He said, "Okay." I said, "Also, one more thing. Here's the number to our employee assistance program. Just do me a favor and call them. Get a call back a week later," he said. And he was very emotional. He had suppressed all of the mourning. He never was able to mourn over the loss of his mother. and realized he never took time for himself. So I said, "No problem. Let's let's have you take a leave of absence." He said, "What about all my, you know, commercial deals?" And I said, "No, I've did your job. I can do it. Take over the pipeline." So that's what I did. I met with all his clients that had deadlines to getting their commercial building or whatever it is they needed. I said, "You worry about yourself. Come back. Everything will be better. I promise work will be here. So needless to say he took two months off, came back and boy was he different. He was just that like smiling ear to ear, super happy. And from then on he performed in a way where candidly I was surprised. I was like wow. And I think that's the the the part of all of this, right? Being able to be that leader, that authentic leader, taking that genuine interest, have staying true to your core values and your passion, being connected, having that compassionate heart. It all falls together one at a time. So I said a lot but I want to give time for all of you to perhaps maybe share something that resonated with you or if you look at this diagram and say Melissa I embody all five characteristics but what do you think when you look at this is as you walk away today and you think back to your team are there any aspects of this diagram here that perhaps is an opportunity or maybe it's something you do every single day and I would love to here what you do to become and master that piece. So, I'll open up to all of you. I have a soprano voice. So I don't um I think we all connect with this and then and you know 20 years ago nobody talked about authentic leadership. Now it's everywhere. But my question to you is and you talked about examples of managing down right like helping your employees which I think all of these values are super important but we all know that in order to advance you have to also manage up. So, I'm curious, how do you bring these characteristics or who you are? I can see you're passionate and all of these things. How do you bring it in managing up the relationship? Yeah, that's a really good question and that's where it goes back to understanding what's important to them, what their goals are, right? So, every individual is very different. Again, you have those who just are very monetary. I just want to make money, Melissa. And you have those who want to climb the corporate ladder, who want to maybe lead a team one day. And I was it that was my main objective. Sit down. I had a little notebook. I still keep it because it's good memories to look back. And each individual again would then express what their aspirations are. Many of which actually wanted to lead a team, maybe a different line of business. So with that it's this doesn't change this diagram this authenticity really correlates to every whether you're managing up or down or whatever it may be. It's always number one understanding what's important to that individual. Number two connecting with them doing those pulse checks because we can get very busy in our dayto-day especially when you you manage a large territory. At one point I had the Pacific Northwest. I was in Portland one day I was in Seattle another day Northern California. everywhere but I never I put it on my calendar to make that time to connect cuz people change their minds right so it was always that personal connect and ensuring that the goal you had and was you wanted to lead a team are we striving to go to that are we essentially getting closer to that goal so I think those pulse checks having that self-discipline I think you know you think about this diagram here the consistency not just asking them once But having that self-discipline and modeling that self-d discipline yourself, they would then model that themselves. Um there has been many individuals actually when I left to take the region performance leadership role. One of my bankers at that time he he uh took over the team and that was his passion. He's like Melissa I miss leading. He used to be a market leader and we got him to where he wanted to be. And that always came back to this five characteristics of my authentic leadership that I ensured I portrayed and embodied. Does that answer your question behind you? Um I think what stuck out to me is that um this is not title driven, right? it's or level driven. Every one of us at every level is a leader of our own lives and of our own jobs and whatever. And so authentic leadership and those components are great and maybe we didn't talk about them 20 years ago, but if you take it on as an individual, which to acknowledge you, you challenge the status quo when that you were bypassed for that promotion. I've done that myself and you stand out, but it there's a risk. So there's some risk takingaking in it. But I'm not going to pretend to know everything about this topic, but we have to look at institutional and organizational barriers that are blocking male and female people from giving their best leadership at whatever level and challenge the status quo and do it in a way. And fortunately, the environment, whether it's politically correct or they really believe it, is because we have to look at those barriers that are stopping us from really having the best solutions and talent, you know, move and and do work. Absolutely. You know, I mean, work is a four-letter word and we love to work whatever it is we do. We love to be social. We love to problem solve. We love to it's nice to say we have freedom but we still there's a component of even as an entrepreneur there's a component of work that we love and so it's really about how you go about doing the work and in big structures we really have to call it DEI call it whatever you want we have to really look at where we've limited ourselves and it takes all of us to be able to challenge that yeah thank you and I recognize you my novel sister here right part of novel Yes. Any other thoughts or questions? Oh, first of all, I'm the youngest of seven as well. So, Oh, okay. It's more like the survival of the fittest commented, by the way. So, I'm curious, um, the story you told about the leadership that you pushed back, have you been able to pay that forward and be able to sponsor more women in that position? Yes. And is that something you built in as part of your growth? Yeah. So I'm, you know, it's not just the job I do today. I do all other things that I'm involved in. So I'm the co-chair for we have an internal group and as leadership, education, advocacy, and development. And as a co-chair, I think through the struggles I've went through. And believe it or not, I'm an introvert. And sometimes I think like how do I raise my hand? And sometimes people think that someone would tap you on your shoulder for that role that you you don't need to build yourself up or build your brand. So being as a co-chair and finding other elements that I could be part of to lead the way and help take down those barriers for women leaders, that's now my passion. Always been my passion. Just redirected, right? Because what I do now and my day job has changed. um you know I lead the national team for small business and I essentially design a lot of the different resources for our business bankers. So very different um very gratifying because now I'm on this end of the spectrum of designing things where when I was executing it I was like gosh I wish this here's my wish list now I'm now on the other end. So to answer your question, I I think it's so important that going back to your core value, your passion, the gratification I get when I see someone like myself or a younger me, if they don't speak up, who will? So of course, you got to do it politically correct. Right? So those are the things I strive and I always have the open door of inviting others. Put time on my calendar. always updated and we can chat, we can meet for coffee, whatever it is, because I want to invest whether it's 30 minutes, an hour in that individual to empower them to take down those insecurities that unfortunately we all have. So yeah, um I have a question about you're very passionate with what you do and I can very much relate, but how do you find a balance? um being a leader where you're trying to get to, you know, your employees root cause of lack of performance every time with all these different employees that have different backgrounds and different um emotional tactics or uh different different way of expressing themselves and not knowing completely their background. How do you balance out when to stop when it gets risky for the company um without losing the compassion and connecting with your employees? And I think that that is where our limit comes in with the male dominance in the leadership role where we are we can be um looked at as too compassionate or too sensitive. How do we find the balance in that? Yeah, that's a really good question. I actually struggled with that when I first led the team. It's drawing the line in the sand, setting expectations from day one. Um, and as you get to know everyone, it's understanding the root cause. And it doesn't start with one conversation like Beth says, it takes multiple. So, I'll give you a quick scenario. I know we're out of time, but let's say you're you're driving performance and that individual is not hitting that performance. And for the company, you have to, you know, meet those goals. First off, find my thing was I always said, is it will or skill? I could fix skill. I can't fix will. And I think with over time with conversations and observation, you'll find out what that is, but never assume. Ask questions. Be curious. Ask questions over and over and over until you figure out what the root cause is. And then at that time you have that com, you know, conversation whether it's probably not the best. You have to have it because that's what you're here for. You're here to lead the team and be able to grow the company. And you give them an opportunity to self-reflect because I don't think we all take the time to self-reflect. It's something we have to sometimes even put on your calendar, maybe 30 minutes, self-reflect. And if you allow the employee to self-reflect, they would then realize themselves and they would then opt out. So that was essentially my strategy. Yes. Thank you.