Barbara Sugg, the president and CEO of Southwest Power Pool, knows what values stand out in a leadership team. In April, she shared those qualities at the Soirée Women’s Leadership Symposium.
First and foremost, Sugg encourages leaders to know and support their “first team,” which is the team they are on, not the team they lead. Sugg compares a company to an orchestra with each section being led by a different “manager.” If each manager cares only about the section they led, when the orchestra comes together, it sounds like a mess. If the manager remembers that their first team is with the other section leaders, then they acknowledge their duty to make their section fit into the overall orchestra and make it all sound flawless.
“If all [a manager does] is focus on being the best leader they can be for their people, then they will miss being part of the success of the business because they will be too focused on their own team,” Sugg says.
Next, she says that as a leader, you should be candid and curious, meaning you should be able to express your own opinions, but not so married to your ideas that you aren’t willing to hear anyone else’s. Be curious about other people’s ideas. Your leadership team should have enough open communication, trust and honesty to be able to humbly discuss alternative and new ideas.
Sugg notes leaders should admit they don’t know everything and should seek out what they don’t know in people who do.
“If you don’t have the acceptance that people know what you don’t know, that they have ideas that you haven’t heard and that you need to be curious about them, you’re going to have blind spots that you may not even realize are there,” Sugg says. “You need people looking out for those blind spots and who are looking at things differently than you look at them.”
Sugg also emphasizes that leaders should have excellent communication skills. They should know their audience and present their information with the level of detail that matters to their position.
Lastly, and perhaps the most important foundational skills leaders should know, is how to take care of their employees and support their basic needs. Every employee needs to be known, needs to do work that is important, needs to be able to measure their success and they need to be treated with respect.
Barbara Sugg is the president and CEO of Southwest Power Pool, where she brings more than 30 years of IT experience in the electric utility industry to the table. She participates in several industry organizations and philanthropic boards, is a certified executive coach and helped found the Leadership Foundation for Women, a nonprofit focused on equipping women for success.
