Preparing and Nurturing Future Bank Leaders

Not everyone is naturally cut out for management, but that doesn’t mean great leaders can’t be cultivated, supported and shepherded into positions they may have never even considered. Even experienced managers need extra support when transitioning into new roles, since every department, job role and bank branch is a little different than the next. 

Rick McCarty, president and COO at $1.9 billion-asset Oak Valley Community Bank in Oakdale, Calif., understands what it takes to move up through the ranks at a community bank. Having moved from a credit analyst position to CFO since beginning his career in 1997, he understands the difficulties of assuming a new management role. 

Last year, his 18-location community bank promoted numerous associates to managerial roles. Every new hire at Oak Valley Community Bank completes an executive orientation program that includes a strong focus on the bank’s culture. 

For managerial training, the community bank enlists the help of an outside firm that provides training in areas like communications, interacting with team members, employees and superiors. It offers other courses that “help individuals make their own leap to leadership,” McCarty adds.

Reflecting on his managerial journeys, McCarty credits Oak Valley’s HR director and supportive team with helping him make those leaps. “The CEO at the time gave me the runway to stretch, to grow and to test myself, but without creating any undue risk for the bank,” he says. 

This balance between support and autonomy gives new managers the chance to make difficult decisions, learn from their mistakes and get more comfortable and confident in their roles.

Taking the difficult lessons to heart

Management wasn’t necessarily on Joshua Keck’s mind when he put his degree to work in an accounting and payroll position at $476 million-asset Willamette Valley Bank in Salem, Ore. However, when the community bank’s executive director proposed a potential branch management position, Keck’s ears perked up. Turns out he was hungry for more social interaction during the workday, and he had already fulfilled numerous management roles during his career. 

At those prior roles, Keck learned some leadership principles that he carried into his new role as a branch manager. For starters, he says, he never asks anyone to handle a task that he wouldn’t do himself. He uses a firm approach when making leadership decisions, but he likes to stay flexible just in case a new situation or challenge crops up. Finally, he treats all five of the branch’s employees like partners, rather than subordinates.

Keck says he learned that last principle the hard way. “I remember the first time I was ever thrown into a leadership role at a youth camp, and I failed miserably. I was this dictator who would say, ‘That’s the rule,’” he says. “Through that experience, I came to the realization that management really is a partnership with all my employees.” Keck says he takes his role as the tone-setter very seriously, even if that means stepping out of his office and participating in programs like new checking account sign-up contests. 

“I want to make sure all of our team members have an example to connect with as they write their own career success stories,” says Keck. “That encourages them and gives them something to shoot for. I mean, if I’m not out there trying, why should they be?”

Creating pathways to success

To banks that need help shepherding employees into management roles, Darcy Eikenberg says a good starting point is acknowledging that difference between managing processes and managing people. As a leadership coach, speaker and author at Red Cape Revolution in Bonita Springs, Fla., Eikenberg works often with community banks and says this simple realization can go a long way in helping institutions create success pathways for their new managers. 

“The last thing you want is for a high performer to take on a new management role and get burned out and frustrated with it,” she says. “Unfortunately, that can happen quickly if someone’s expertise was in managing processes versus people.” 

Bank leaders can avoid these problems by factoring in their cultures, the value they provide to their communities and their local-level decision-making when promoting or hiring for management positions.

“The people you decide to cultivate as leaders have to be a reflection of your bank and should be out there interacting with customers, at the bank branches and at local events,” says Eikenberg, who sees ample opportunity for community banks to use this HR approach as a competitive differentiator. “The difference is in your people, and managers are the key to ensuring that you have [all your] team members out there helping customers in a way that supports the bank’s overall success.”

She also tells banks to think beyond easy options like on-demand, online management training and to revert to more hands-on approaches, such as face-to-face interactions with current managers; brown-bag lunch sessions focused on specific topics or problem areas; and mentoring and other live interactions that put new managers in touch with the bank’s leaders, partners, employees and customers. 

“The best part of learning and growing, especially when you’re in a community-based organization, won’t come from an online module,” Eikenberg says. “It comes from being out in the world, talking to and connecting with people who you might not come across on your own.”