Truist Leadership Institute Magazine, Issue 2, 2021

Magazine
Issue 2, 2021 | Discover your change style p12 | Myths about change p24 | The benefits and value of Conscious Leadership+ p44
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Change is
important–and
everywhere
t’s time to talk about change.
This issue tackles the topic from
a number of angles: What happens in the
brain during the change process (page 18),
what leaders need to know about changes in
employee expectations (page 16), common
misconceptions about behavior change (page
24), and more. As you’ll see, it takes ongoing
practice and commitment to develop the
awareness needed to lead through change—
practice and commitment that is crucial for
leaders who want to uncover opportunities
for growth and success for themselves, their
employees, and their organizations.
Change management takes practice
because it’s hard. But change is necessary if
you want exciting new things to happen.
Speaking of exciting new things: In September 2021, Bill Rogers became the
chief executive officer of Truist Financial Corporation, our parent organization.
This is an exciting time for our company. The transition has been seamless, and
Bill’s leadership will help carry forward our purpose, mission, and values. In fact,
the change gave us the opportunity to reaffirm our purpose as an organization:
To inspire and build better lives and communities. At Truist Leadership Institute,
we do this by supporting the creation of stronger leadership that can help
individuals, organizations, and communities succeed. I‘m proud to say that we
are a purpose-driven organization—and that’s one thing that won’t change.
I hope you enjoy the issue and find it useful in your leadership role, whatever
that may be. Happy reading,
Will Sutton
President & Director
Truist Leadership Institute
The Psychology of Better Business
Truist Leadership Institute
Will Sutton
President & Director
Steve Swavely, Ph.D.
Director of Client Solutions
Patrick Gallagher, Ph.D.
Director of Research
Mark Packard
Director of Sales & Marketing
Anna Slaydon
Sales & Product Delivery Specialist
Bill Rogers
Chief Executive Officer,
Truist Financial Corporation
Kelly S. King
Executive Chairman,
Truist Financial Corporation
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2 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine

Table of contents
Your goals,
our expertise.
Go to truistleadership
institute.com to learn
about available offerings.
Safe, in-person programs
are resuming at the
Kelly S. King Center
in Greensboro,
North Carolina.
Other people might be the best sources for
finding out how to improve yourself. But you need to
provide psychological safety to hear from them.”
—Patrick Gallagher, Ph.D., Truist Leadership Institute
Front of book
Letter from
Truist Leadership
Institute . . . p02
—By Will Sutton
Now streaming . . . p06
The lead
Business-minded . . . p08
—By Sarah Coley, Ph.D.
—Illustration by Dieter Braun
Examining
your leadership . . . p12
—By Steve Swavely, Ph.D.
Leading inclusively . . . p14
—By Charlene McNeil
About talent . . . p16
—By Brian Fiske
Feature articles
Rewiring your brain,
changing your
behavior . . . p18
How behaviors are formed—
and considerations for
leaders interested in creating
change in themselves or
their organizations.
—By Brian Fiske
Dear CEO:
Your listening skills
need work . . . p20
Most leaders have an
opportunitytoimprovetheirlistening
skills—and we
have five ideas to help you
do just that.
—By Eileen Hogan, M.S., Ed.S.
Myths about change . . . p24
Researchers, authors,
executives, and Truist
Leadership Institute
consultants share the
important lessons
they’ve learned about
organizational change.
—Introduction by
PatrickGallagher,Ph.D.;interviews
by Brian Fiske
—Illustration by
Orlando Hoetzel
Introvert or
extravert? . . . p30
How much does it matter?
—By Karen Sommerfeld
Critical knowledge
Education: Students . . . p34
—By Liz Olech
Problem, solution . . . p36
—By Britta Waller Melton
—Photography by
Patrick Heagney
Research driven . . . p42
—By Patrick Gallagher, Ph.D.
Program insights . . . p44
—By Michael Fuchs
Inspire and build
better lives and
communities . . . p48
—By Kelly S. King
4 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine 2021 truistleadershipinstitute.com 5

On our podcast
The lead
The Leadership
Amplitude
podcast from
Truist Leadership
Institute is
available on
Apple Podcasts,
Google Podcasts,
Stitcher, and
Spotify.
Want to implement
change in your
organization?
Start with yourself.
In “Leadership
Amplitude,” a podcast
production of Truist
Leadership Institute,
host Anna Slaydon
and guests frequently
offer insights to make it
easier to lead behavior
change in yourself
and in your team.
Most episodes are
30 minutes or less,
and in these brief
listens, you’ll learn
why behavior change
is essential for great
leaders—and how to
implement it.
Want to learn more?
We highly recommend
these recent episodes
about behavior change:
Finding
your purpose
as you change
■ Asking Why
During Change
This four-part “Leadership
Amplitude” series
features conversations
on feeling accepted and
valued in the workplace.
■ Leadership
Purpose to
Lead Yourself
Practicing resilience
is key to our mental
and physical health.
A great way to practice
it? By developing a
leadership purpose.
Listen in to understand
how leadership purpose
promotes leadership
success.
How best
to carry out
change
■ Do vs. Be
What’s the difference
between what to do as
a leader and how to be
as a leader? Explore this
important distinction,
why the latter may be
more challenging, and
tips for improving both.
■ Troubleshooting
Your Awareness
On your journey
through change,
you’ll probably hit
some roadblocks.
In this episode, learn
to spot and navigate
awareness pitfalls by
focusing on your team
more than yourself.
■ Self-Evaluation:
Do You Know
How to Be as a
Leader?
Practicing resilience is
key to our mental and
physical health.
A great way to practice
it? By developing a
leadership purpose.
Listen in to understand
how leadership purpose
promotes leadership
success.
Photography: left, FluxFactory/iStock
The Psychology of Better Business TM
6 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine

Business-minded
By Sarah Coley, Ph.D. | Illustration by Dieter Braun
Where selfawareness
and behavior
change meet
This process takes time, with research showing that it can take up to
254 days for a new behavior to become automatic. This explains why new behaviors might
feel uncomfortable at first.” —Sarah Coley, Ph.D., Truist Leadership Institute
Understanding
how your brain
works—and
identifying cues
that trigger
your habitual
behaviors—
is the first step
in creating
lasting behavior
change.
he idea that change is difficult is not new—
even early Greek philosophers wrote about it as
a universal constant. No matter how often we’re
faced with shifting priorities or business challenges
that would benefit from a new approach, our brain
continues to push back against the unfamiliar. And
sometimes it does so in ways that thwart our efforts
to adopt new behaviors, including the ones that
would bring us closer to where we want to be.
This is because the brain seeks efficiency. The more
frequently a behavior is performed, the easier and
more efficient it becomes to practice—even if that
behavior doesn’t ultimately serve our goals. The good
news: Becoming aware of the cues that trigger your
default behaviors can help you switch to new habits
that are more conducive to your performance
and leadership skills.
8 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine
2021 truistleadershipinstitute.com 9

Business-minded
How behaviors are built
Research in neuroscience suggests that our
repeated behaviors start as effortful actions, things
we deliberately decide to do. When we do them
again (and again and again), the decision-making
isn’t needed, and we’ll perform these actions
almost automatically.
We may also lose connection to our motivation—
the reason we did something in the first place.
A habit could be less relevant (maybe you got a raise,
so having a written household budget isn’t as urgent),
or it could just feel less relevant (brushing your teeth
is still important, but no one is giving you praise for
remembering to do it each night as your parents
might have when you were a child).
The question is, how can leaders invoke principles
of neuroscience to make it easier to get to the point
of having a well-practiced habit? Here are two
strategies to consider.
■ Establish a cue for deliberate action.
There is a process leaders can use to construct
a new positive habit or to stop a counterproductive
one. First, we need to identify a
reliable cue that tells us to use our new
desired behavior: “When X occurs, I’m going
to conduct this specific behavior, Y.”
A cue could be as simple as, “any time
I’m feeling frustrated.” As soon as tension
from this cue is experienced, you should then
enact your desired behavior, which might be
something like focusing on your breathing for
10 seconds. Then, after successfully conducting
that behavior, you should follow it with a
consistent reward. This could be something like
savoring the feeling of success from performing
your new behavior, or you could choose an
unrelated but enjoyable reward, such as going
for a short walk.
■ Ensure your new habit is sustainable.
The idea that leaders can experience substantial
changes from practicing the “cue – behavior –
reward” action might sound too good to be true.
But it’s important to remember that the intention
of this sequence is to have something you can
rehearse easily and often. Over time, your desired
behavior will become increasingly automatic—a
sustainable habit. Even better: As this happens,
your cognitive resources will be freed up to tackle
other meaningful leadership challenges.
Shaping your behaviors also
reshapes your brain
As a new behavior is rehearsed, the brain’s structure
physically changes to make the behavioral sequence
increasingly efficient to perform. This process takes
time, with research showing that it can take up to
254 days for a new behavior to become automatic.
This explains why new behaviors might feel
uncomfortable at first: The brain needs time to
streamline them, and meanwhile your other ingrained
behaviors might feel easier to conduct. But there are
ways to make this transition easier.
To facilitate the creation of new neural pathways,
be sure to select cues for your new behavior
that occur reliably. Otherwise, you won’t get
enough opportunities to rehearse your sequence
As a
new behavior
is rehearsed,
the brain’s
structure
physically
changes to
make the
behavioral
sequence
increasingly
efficient to
perform.”
— Sarah Coley, Ph. D.
Truist Leadership Institute
of “cue – behavior – reward” action. A 2020 study
published in BMC Psychology examined the
difficulties faced by some individuals with specifying
useful cues for behavior change. Researchers found
that strategies such as writing the cues down and
reviewing them regularly to ensure they’re still
relevant could help people stay on track with
their new behavior.
Based on this information, any gaps that exist
between your current habits and the better ones
you want to have as a leader are not due to a lack
of willpower. The physical properties of the brain
make change difficult, and that is why capitalizing
on how the brain functions—instead of attempting
to bypass it with extra willpower—will be the most
effective strategy for changing behaviors. Simple
behavioral sequences that begin with a reliable
cue are especially effective because they allow
repetition, which is precisely how our brains
learn a habitual behavior.
Ensuring our efforts toward behavior change
are in sync with how the brain behaves is the key to
lasting success and will allow us to align our default
behaviors with the type of leader we want to be.
You’ll find more information and recommendations
about behavior change throughout this issue.
On page 18, you can see a step-by-step look at how
behavior change happens. On page 24, my colleague
Patrick Gallagher, Ph.D., introduces a collection of
common myths about change. And on page 44, you
can read about Conscious Leadership+, a new suite
of tools we’re rolling out to offer ongoing leadership
growth practice (including behavior change) to
our program participants. ■
Informing your
experience with
research
Sarah Coley, Ph.D.,
is a member of the
research team at
Truist Leadership
Institute.
To learn more about
the curriculum and
upcoming dates for the
Mastering Leadership
Dynamics program,
which incorporates
behavior change,
visit truistleadership
institute.com.
10 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine 2021 truistleadershipinstitute.com 11

Examining your leadership
By Steve Swavely, Ph.D.
How do you
prefer to face
change?
reat craftspeople use the right tool for the
job they have at hand. I teach leaders to use the
right tools for the job at hand, as well: the tools they
need to help a team of colleagues move through
change is one example.
A good place to start is to become aware of your
own preferences when faced with change. At Truist
Leadership Institute, we use the Change Style
Indicator®, a leadership assessment that helps to
measure an individual’s preferred style for
approaching and addressing change. It shows a
continuum of preferences ranging from welcoming
and even seeking out change to minimizing or
avoiding change.
Let’s start exploring this topic!
Above:
Director of Client Solutions
Steve Swavely, Ph.D.
1
Which statement
is true?
2
The best change
style preference
for a leadership
role is:
3
Leaders
should:
4
A. Your change style
preference is built into your
personality, programmed
into how you operate.
B. You can learn to step outside
your preference if a
situation demands it.
Both of these statements are true.
As statement A asserts, a
change style preference is an
aspect of your personality. I find
that leaders are pretty good at
identifying where they fall on
the continuum of styles once
they read the descriptions (see
box below). If you’re not sure of
your style, you can look for clues
in a past situation. For example,
a conserver who had to be an
originator in a project at work
likely felt exhausted, because
working outside of your change
style preference requires more
energy.
Statement B is true because
your preference is not the same
as your skill set. You might
prefer to drive a car with an
automatic transmission, but you
can learn to drive a stick shift.
The
Change
Style
Indicator ®
A. Conserver. Leaders preserve
gains and institutional
knowledge.
B. Pragmatist. Leaders must
always ask “Why?” before
change takes place.
C. Originator. Leaders are
responsible for leading innovation
and transformation.
Every change style preference
has its strengths and its
potential weaknesses. So each
of the three perspectives is
valuable, but none of the three is
best or worst.
Instead, a leader should
consider what is required in
a particular situation: What’s
good for the organization
might not be the same as
what’s comfortable for you.
You might be a conserver, but
if your organization needs to
adapt to a new technology, you
should shift out of your comfort
zone of conserver and help the
organization adapt and
change effectively.
A. Be aware of their own
change style preference.
B. Be aware of the change style
preferences of each person
on their team.
A and B are both correct.
Self-awareness helps you know
your preferences, but you have
the power to change how you
behave in different situations.
A leader who knows the
change preferences of each
teammate can be more influential
and effective. The leader can give
the pragmatists the rationale that
they need, give the conservers
the risk analysis that they need,
and give the originators the
options that they need. Now,
you’ve got a high-performing
team.
Teammates are frequently
surprised at the variety in change
style preferences on their team
because their own preference
acts as a filter. If I’m a pragmatist,
I tend to think most people are
pragmatists, for example.
Teams should
learn about
change style
preferences:
Conserver Pragmatist Originator
■ Prefers the known to the unknown.
+ Keeps the team from running off the ledge
without having thought things through.
– Can hold the team back from making
necessary adaptations.
■ Prefers to explore the current situation
objectively. Asks, “What’s the practical value
of this change?”
+ Able to mediate between originators and
conservers on a team.
– Slow to change if they feel the change lacks value.
A. Before kicking off a change
initiative.
B. If their change initiative is
struggling.
C. Even if a change
initiative isn’t planned
because change is constant.
If you answered A, you’re right. It’s
great when teams make this kind
of understanding a prerequisite
for a change initiative. It can
prevent a lot of mistakes.
In truth, that happens very
rarely, so B is also a good
answer. That’s probably the most
common experience that we have
with clients. I tell leaders in this
situation that all’s not lost. It’s
not too difficult to hit the pause
button, back the bus up a little bit,
reevaluate how to move forward,
and use leadership tools to get
the initiative back on track.
C is also a great answer.
Change is accelerating
exponentially right now, and
people are recognizing a need to
have the resilience and capacity
to go through and manage
change in an effective way. ■
■ Prefers a faster, more radical approach to change.
+ Always willing to try new things. Can uncover
ways to work faster, better, and easier.
– Willingness to take risks and to enact changes
can hold an organization back from stable,
scalable success.
12 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine
2021 truistleadershipinstitute.com 13

Leading inclusively
By Charlene McNeil
Keys to leading a
diverse team
Creating a diverse team does not automatically mean that teammates
will begin performing optimally. In fact, most such teams do not.”
—Charlene McNeil, Truist
To manage an
increasingly
diverse workforce,
you must
learn how to
identify potential
challenges and
address them
before problems
arise.
hose of us who have the opportunity to lead
know that it is a huge responsibility. When you
add the complexity of leading diverse teams in an
increasingly diverse workforce, it becomes even
more challenging.
Diversity is more than just a hot-button issue.
Research shows that it is strongly associated with
business success. In the 2020 McKinsey report
“Diversity wins: How inclusion matters,” researchers
found that companies whose leadership had the most
gender, ethnic, and cultural diversity were likely to be
more profitable than their less diverse counterparts.
Having diverse teams also leads to greater creativity
and innovation and increases teammate engagement
and retention.
Regrettably, we rarely discuss the challenges that
Photography: left, Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images
come with leading diverse teams—challenges that
require a distinct set of skills in today’s leaders.
Create an environment of support
Creating a diverse team does not automatically
mean that teammates will begin performing optimally.
In fact, most such teams do not. Often, communication
issues and differences of opinion can lead to
unresolved conflicts and dysfunction—all of which
can interfere with productivity and job satisfaction.
If not checked, this can become a recipe
for disaster.
Today’s leaders need to be aware of the challenges
inherent in managing diverse teams. In response to
those challenges, they should have a plan in place to
ensure that all teammates experience these
three feelings of support, at a minimum:
A strong sense of belonging.
A feeling that they are valued.
The knowledge that they are part of
something larger than themselves.
Along with creating a supportive environment, great
leaders demonstrate courage by letting go of the desire
to always be right and by not being afraid to share when
they are wrong. Great leaders are curious and willing
to learn from others, ask questions, and share their
vulnerability. They also focus on honing their conscious
leadership, which helps to pick up on cues that might
not be explicitly stated by team members.
Determine where you stand
To better understand what your own issues are in
relation to diversity, start by doing some reflection and
self-assessment. For example, you can ask yourself:
■ Am I comfortable leading individuals with
different backgrounds?
■ Am I open and receptive to leading individuals
who look different than me or have different
religious beliefs?
■ What has shaped my beliefs, behaviors,
and decisions?
■ And most importantly, what are my biases?
That can be a lot to consider, but until you fully
understand what has shaped you as a leader, you will
not be able to effectively deal with the challenges
often faced when leading diverse teams.
Know your teams
As a leader, you support your teams by holding them
accountable, empowering them to take ownership
of their work, and acting as an ally and sponsor by
advocating on their behalf. Doing this means frequent
communication with individuals as well as the team.
You should check in with individuals frequently and
make sure that in one-on-one meetings and work
communications you not only cover work-related
updates, but also the individual’s development and
career aspirations.
When leading diverse teams, it helps to get to know
the individuals on the team on a deeper level. To do
that, try to answer these questions:
■ How do they like to be recognized?
■ What do they value in life?
■ What do they feel is their life’s purpose—
and do they feel connected to fulfilling
that purpose?
Learning these details matters, especially when
you are able to act upon them and include them in
your leadership. Doing this helps to build trust,
equity, and a sense of fairness among the team, and
leaves teammates feeling cared about as individuals,
adding to their job satisfaction and overall happiness—
and helping your diverse team strive for success. ■
To learn more about leadership
development programs
from Truist Leadership Institute,
visit truistleadershipinstitute.com.
About the author
Charlene McNeil, Senior
Vice President, Diversity,
Equity, and Inclusion
Segment Leader &
Head of BRG Strategy
Enablement at Truist,
has focused on talent
development and DEI
strategies for more than
two decades. She is a
Certified Diversity
Professional and
Certified Professional
Coach. To learn more
about overall diversity,
equity, and inclusion
priorities at Truist, visit
truist.com/who-we-are/
diversity-equityinclusion.
14 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine 2021 truistleadershipinstitute.com 15

About talent
By Brian Fiske
How to counter
“The Great Resignation”
With distributed leadership, things are more situational-based. The idea
is to give people the opportunity to manage an initiative, a project, or a task
to completion.”—Bev Wise, SPHR, ACC, Truist Leadership Institute
Today, employees
are looking for
more flexibility,
autonomy,
and opportunity
in their roles, and
they’re willing to
leave their
jobs to find it.
Could distributed
leadership help
you keep key
people?
n spring 2021, Texas A&M University associate
professor of management Andrew Klotz coined the
phrase “The Great Resignation.” Klotz observed that the
decrease in resignations in 2020 (compared to 2019) in
the U.S. signaled a backlog of interest in job switching.
He predicted a massive shift in the workforce once the
pandemic started to subside.
One survey released in early 2021 found that 41%
of its 30,000 respondents were considering quitting
their jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported
record quit rates, including 4 million Americans who
quit their jobs in April 2021 alone.
Klotz wrote in an essay for NBC News that as well
as financial factors for these high quit rates, remote
work tops the list of whys. “Given that humans have
a fundamental need for autonomy, the freedom that
remote work provides can be very appealing, and the
flexibility is a boon to caregivers and working parents.”
Bev Wise, SPHR, ACC, SVP and director of
consulting at Truist Leadership Institute, emphasizes
the connection between the high quit rates and the
pandemic. “COVID-19 forced companies to gear up
quickly into this remote-work space, and the results
demonstrated it is a very viable option.”
And just as the interest in flexible, opportunityfilled
work has always been there, Wise explains, so
has a practice that can help organizations provide it:
distributed leadership.
What is distributed leadership?
Distributed leadership is a proportional sharing of
leadership power and responsibility throughout an
organization. It is similar to collaborative leadership,
in which a leadership team directs company activities.
However, distributed leadership frames leadership
as an activity, not a role—many people engage in
Photography: left, Thomas Barwick/Getty Images
leadership, whether that is within a small group
or department, or organizationwide. Additionally,
distributed leadership is dynamic, meaning a person
might lead in one situation but not in another.
“With distributed leadership, things are more
situational-based,” explains Wise. “The leadership role
is based on the tasks that need to be performed. The
idea is to give people the opportunity to manage an
initiative, a project, or a task to completion.”
What’s the benefit? “It helps to engage your
employees. You engage them in something they have
passion around, interest in, or knowledge of, and you
get to see how they do.”
This type of approach works especially well with
remote work, Wise says, because organizations
can offer opportunities for growth and ownership,
measure the outcomes, and help to retain employees
by giving them the autonomy that they crave.
The key to distributed leadership success
Leaders embracing distributed leadership need to
have a tight focus on engagement—their own, as well
as that of their teams. These four tips can help you
keep that focus.
■ Provide clarity—and control. Distributed
leadership is a great tool for giving skilled
individuals control of projects and tasks, which
can help create a feeling of ownership and
pride. Be clear about your expectations for the
completed project, deadlines, and the like, to
enable their success. “If they’re running into
difficulty, you need to be able to provide them
some coaching to help them overcome obstacles,”
Wise says. “So you’re providing clarity while still
maintaining those intentional connections.”
■ Allow room for growth. In other words, let
employees learn from the experience as they go.
“You need to be available for question-answering
and to coach through issues that arise,” Wise says.
“You want to make sure they have the knowledge
and the wherewithal to do what you’ve assigned
them to do.”
■ Make the big picture clear. Your team, and
your leaders, want to know how their project
fits into the larger whole. “You need to share
that importance,” Wise says, “by telling somebody
that what they’re doing is important to
your department or to the organization.
That helps them know that they’re doing
something that is meaningful for the overall.”
■ Make intentional connections. With remote or
hybrid work, leaders don’t always have the chance
to engage in off-the-cuff conversations with
teammates. However, those connections are an
important part of engagement. “You need to be
intentional about reaching out and seeing how
things are going,” Wise says. “You want to make
sure—and make it clear—that you’re available
for help, for guidance, and for coaching.” And this
is important to figure out for all your employee
categories: the onsite, the hybrid, and the
remote. “You need to have a plan for how these
connections will happen across the board.”
If your expectations aren’t met
If things don’t go as planned, make your employees
part of the solution: Spell out what you expected
and be transparent about what was achieved. Then
ask individuals or small groups of employees who
were on the ground with the work for input on how to
approach things differently to achieve better results.
Part of doing it better the next time may mean
having honest coaching conversations with
individuals who aren’t as engaged or aren’t as
productive as the organization needs them to be.
“You can balance candor and kindness,” Wise says.
It goes back to the importance of providing clarity,
not just in assigning responsibility, but in evaluating
performance.
You can also think beyond your team, as more
of your colleagues and contacts are likely open to
talking through what works for them, too. “Reaching
out to your network to talk about solutions could be
beneficial,” Wise says, “and could provide new insight
into ways to engage and retain employees.” ■
Looking for insight?
Our Employee
Engagement Survey
can help.
High employee
engagement adds to
employee retention,
helps to control
expenses, improves
customer service, and
boosts productivity.
How’s engagement at
your organization?
Our engagement experts,
including Bev Wise, SPHR,
ACC, SVP and director
of consulting at Truist
Leadership Institute, can
partner with your leaders
to survey your team,
evaluate results, and
provide recommendations
for actions that could
improve your team’s
engagement. Learn more
at truistleadership
institute.com.
16 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine 2021 truistleadershipinstitute.com 17

By Brian Fiske
How behavior patterns are
formed—and considerations for
leaders interested in change.
Change
as a
threat
The behavior:
Each morning, the leader
takes the shortest possible
path to her office. But
feedback from peers and
employees uncovers the
perception that the leader
is not engaging with
her team, so her routine
needs to change.
In the brain:
When confronted with
change, the limbic system
can trigger a “fight or
flight” response.
This threat response can
impair analytic thinking,
creative insight, and
problem solving.
Conscious
effort
reduces
the threat
The behavior:
The leader decides to start
each day with a different
path to her office to create
natural opportunity for
interaction throughout
the workplace.
In the brain:
More effort and attention
are required for this
change. The new behavior
choice requires a conscious
decision to change, and
ongoing practice to
strengthen the different
neural pathway.
Small goals
can make
change
manageable
The behavior:
The leader sets a goal
of having spontaneous
conversations with three
individuals before reaching
her office each day.
In the brain:
Setting a small goal, or a
series of small goals, can
help reduce the threat
response by making the
effort required to change
seem minimal.
Reward
makes
practice
worthwhile
The behavior:
Small goals are reached,
and the leader speaks
with more employees and
receives positive feedback.
In the brain:
The process of practicing
and mastering a desired
behavior, or reaching
goals along the path
to mastery, can trigger
the limbic system to
release dopamine. This
neurotransmitter is
connected to feelings
of bliss, pleasure,
and euphoria.
The new
pattern
emerges
The behavior:
Through repetition and
reward, a new pattern
forms.
In the brain:
In one study,
it took up to 254 days
for a behavior to
become automatic. ■
Key
takeaways
for leaders
■ Motivation
matters.
Creating a desirable goal,
for yourself or for your team,
can help provide motivation
to change.
■ Recognize forward
progress.
Breaking a change goal
into small steps can make it
achievable and provide
opportunity for the
reward response.
■ Consistent
practice
is necessary.
It takes conscious effort
and repetition to instill a
new behavior, both for
individuals and for teams.
ehavior change is challenging, and that challenge
begins in the brain. The brain’s neural pathways—
the connections between brain cells that allow signals to
travel from one part of the nervous system to another—
are strengthened and become more efficient the more you
repeat a behavior. The behaviors often become defaults.
So what needs to happen to change a default behavior
to a different one? We’ll use a simple example—a leader who
wants to change her morning routine so she can engage
with more spontaneous interactions with employees—
to show how it works.
Conscious awareness
of ongoing current
patterns—mindfulness—
can minimize the
threat response.
This creates openings for
behavior change.
Resources for leaders
The consultants at Truist Leadership Institute recommend these two books for
those interested in learning more about the brain and behavior change.
■ The Mind of the Leader:
How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results
by Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter, Harvard Business Review Press, 2018.
■ The Leading Brain:
Neuroscience Hacks to Work Smarter, Better, Happier
by Friederike Fabritius, M.S., and Hans W. Hagemann, Ph.D., TarcherPerigee, 2018.
18 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine
2021 truistleadershipinstitute.com 19

By Eileen Hogan, M.S., Ed.S.
Your listening skills likely aren’t as
good as you think they are. This letter to CEOs
explores why—and shares five ways to improve
your skills to benefit your employees
and your organization.
Photography: Thomas Barwick/Getty Images
20 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine 2021 truistleadershipinstitute.com 11

Dear CEO
Strategy 1
Tune in to your
patterns.
Strategy 2
Identify your
preferred listening
and communication
style.
Strategy 3
Learn others’
preferred
listening and
communication
style.
Strategy 4
Be aware of any
negative reactions
to information
shared.
Strategy 5
Look at
listening skills
as curiosity
skills.
ello, CEO. I’m sending you this
note to tell you that your listening
skills probably need some work.
Most leaders like yourself feel that
listening is a skill they learned early in
their careers and that they have
continued to hone those skills ever
since. While that’s probably true to some
extent, it’s easy for listening skills to take
a back seat to an increasing workload,
ever-growing inbox, and demanding
meeting schedule as you advance in
your career and leadership.
Let’s be clear—no one is intentionally
a poor listener. However, every day
you are wading through a deluge of
communications—meetings, memos,
emails, texts, social media alerts,
colleagues stopping by—all while trying
to manage the day-to-day demands of
your position. Add to that the countless
ways that information delivery can be
interrupted or misconstrued, and just
making sure you hear everything can
feel like a feat. But your goal in improving
your listening skills is ultimately to better
meet your team’s needs and walk away
with everyone feeling heard.
Continuing to develop your listening
skills will differentiate you as a leader,
which is why I’m also sharing five
strategic ways you can become an
expert listener (at right).
Great listeners make better, more
informed decisions, provide more holistic
support for their teams, and summit the
mountains of information around them.
Sincerely,
Eileen Hogan, M.S., Ed.S.
Senior Consultant
Truist Leadership Institute
My first suggestion for developing
your listening skills is to be present in
all conversations. Before you dismiss that
as an obvious piece of advice, hear me—
and the science—out. We’ve all felt our
minds start to wander during a
conversation, no matter how hard we try
to stay focused. There’s a physiological
reason for that happening: Our brains can
process words at a far faster rate than
someone can actually speak to us.
The average American speaks at
125 words per minute (WPM), but your
brain is actually able to process 800 WPM.
That difference can make it seem like your
brain has plenty of power to both listen to a
conversation and think silently about other
priorities. Unfortunately, that usually is not
the case. Your tangential thoughts will
eventually cause you to lose focus on the
conversation happening in front of you.
To begin solving the problem,
identify the causes:
■ What has caused you to disengage?
Are you thinking you have more
important things to do? Are you
busy checking emails instead of
focusing on the person speaking to
you? Are you planning for the next
meeting on your calendar?
■Do you have a different
communication style than the
person you’re conversing with?
■ Are you unclear about the purpose
of the conversation?
Starting to notice these patterns as they
are happening will help you develop the
self-awareness needed to make
adjustments that will help you be more
present in your listening.
Everyone has a different communication
style, and it’s important to identify
your preferred communication style
early on in your career. For instance, some
people are more direct and prefer to get
straight to a solution. Others like to talk as
a way of working out their thoughts about a
problem and are just looking for you to be a
sounding board. Of course, communication
styles can change situationally, too.
But even so, you can understand how
there might be an issue if you have a direct
style and the person you’re listening to is
talking it through. If you constantly jump
into the discussion with solutions, the other
person may feel like they’re not being
heard, while you will likely feel positive
about the exchange because you’re
offering help.
By understanding your personal
communication and listening styles
and being able to adjust them to align
with those of the people you’re working
with, you can make sure you provide
the type of support they expect as
you’re listening.
For those team members you work
with often, you’ll likely know how they
prefer to communicate. You might tend
to go to a colleague specifically because
they have a preferred style that’s close
to yours, for example.
If you’re not sure, ask. Try something
like, “Help me understand why you’re
sharing this information. Do you just
want me to hear it and provide support?
Are you hoping that I will offer some
insight on a decision? Or do you need me
to help you analyze a plan of action?”
Having that expectation spelled out
can make all the difference in how you
listen to someone—and how they
perceive you as a listener.
The
more you
approach
each conversation
with
curiosity, the
more likely
you are to
be engaged.”
Strong listening skills require selfawareness.
As a leader, you’re making
high-stakes decisions throughout the
day—and it can be difficult when someone
disagrees with a choice you’ve made or
a strategy you’ve set. While consciously
you may assert that you’re fine with
feedback and open to hearing other team
members’ ideas, in the moment, you may
have some subconscious resistance to
hearing something that goes against
what you’ve shared.
This can be hard to identify in yourself;
but the first sign of it will be in your
reaction to the conversation. Maybe
you get a little defensive or demanding,
asking for a more in-depth explanation.
You might also talk slightly louder, raising
your voice to dominate or even shut
down the conversation, or use
inappropriate sarcasm or insults.
These aren’t intentional reactions, and
they can be hard to pinpoint once the
moment has passed. The easiest time to
catch this behavior is in the moment
when you feel it happening.
Normally, these reactions stem from an
unconscious belief you have about yourself.
By being an active listener and identifying
these biases, you can unpack areas where
maybe you aren’t as confident with a
decision as you could be. This gives you the
opportunity to open up the conversation
to your team for feedback that will allow
you to explore options further.
If you notice this happening, pause the
conversation and take a deep breath. You
want the interaction to remain positive, so
reset by saying, “What I think I heard you
say was that there might be a better way
to approach this situation. Tell me more
about your thinking.” It’s important to use
your listening skills to keep the lines of
communication open. Otherwise, you may
unintentionally discourage your team
from giving you feedback in the future.
Constantly asking yourself “why” is
how you develop both good listening
skills and good conversation skills.
Every effort in good listening should
start from a curious space with you
wanting to know more: more about others’
communication styles, more about why
they’re asking for your time, more about
why you’re having a reaction to a
conversation, more about what you heard
and why it has an impact on your
organization.
Another way to infuse curiosity into your
listening is by adding paraphrasing to your
strategy. This isn’t something you need to
do in every instance, but try starting some
responses with, “I want to make sure
I heard you. Here are the two things I heard
you say …” Not only does paraphrasing
confirm what exactly you heard, it also
verbally validates that the speaker has
been heard and gives them an opportunity
to clarify if they weren’t heard the way
they wanted to be.
The more you approach each
conversation with curiosity, the more likely
you are to be engaged, and the more you
can communicate questions for your team
to explore further.
Identifying when your listening skills
are falling short can be a challenge.
You’ll need to slow down and ask
thoughtful questions of yourself and your
team members. It will certainly take work
up front, but ultimately, the more you foster
clear communication and understanding
within your team, the more time you
will save on the way to your goals. ■
22 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine 2021 truistleadershipinstitute.com 23

Introduction by Patrick Gallagher, Ph.D.
Interviews by Brian Fiske
Illustration by Orlando Hoetzel
Researchers, authors, executives, and
Truist Leadership Institute consultants share what they’ve
learned—and how their thinking has changed—when it
comes to organizational change.
24 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine

Eight myths about change
Change is never orderly.
It is not complicated, but it is complex,
and often chaotic. It is only real
when it feels messy.”—Bjarte Bogsnes, Bogsnes Advisory
or leaders, teams, organizations, and even entire
industries, change is ubiquitous. If an organization is
not already adjusting to changes in its markets or
consumers, it is likely in the midst of several change
initiatives; for example, shifting operational strategy,
restructuring to reduce costs, or transforming organizational
culture. And of course, all organizations continually face
the changes thrust upon them by outside forces—a case in
point is the near universal redesign of work-from-home
policies in 2020 and 2021.
For a change to be successful, someone—or multiple
people—must change their behavior. A leader, for example,
must change the way she interacts with her followers to
change her leadership results; newly remote workers must
rearrange the way they spend work hours to navigate
working from home. In short, change cannot be successful
unless behavior changes in the desired way.
It follows that behavior change is a competency that can
help businesses succeed. It is, however, a competency that
few leaders explicitly work on developing. Indeed, some
principles of behavior change may directly contradict other
received wisdom about change.
That’s what this story tackles. Here, we have asked leading
scholars, practitioners, executives, and our consultants to
share what they thought they knew about change, or
specifically behavior change in individuals, that turned out
to be wrong. The ideas here show that organizational change
practices can and will evolve—and the best leaders remain
open to that change.
Photography: Courtesy, Truist; Wendy Wood; Matt Walleart
■ Myth
Winning hearts and
minds is the key to successful
organizational change.
Winning peoples’ hearts and
minds is standard advice for
successful change initiatives, but
you might get a bigger payoff by
investing in reshaping contexts.
Decades of behavioral science
research has documented the
power of contextual forces in
shaping one’s behavior, even
when the context pushes for behaviors that run counter
to one’s beliefs or values.
I have seen many organizations in which everyone is on
board with a new mission, new shared values, or a new
process—their hearts and minds are all aligned—but
when it comes down to the actual day-to-day behaviors,
the old habits win out because the circumstances still
support them instead of the desired new behaviors.
I don’t mean to say that winning hearts and minds
isn’t important—it is, and may indeed be necessary for
successful change. But hearts and minds are only part of
the story. No matter how much support and agreement
there is for an initiative, it can still fail if the necessary
behavior changes are not supported by the context.
—Patrick Gallagher, Ph.D.
Director of Research, Truist Leadership Institute
■ Myth
Self-control and willpower
are the keys to change
I think there’s something pretty
basic that most of us
get wrong: We put too much
emphasis on willpower. We think
that if we just try hard enough
and have enough self-control,
we’ll be successful. We attribute
many of our failures to a lack of
willpower. If you ask overweight people why they
can’t lose weight, it’s the favored answer—even though
almost ¾ of all Americans are overweight or obese.
It doesn’t make sense that a lack of personal selfcontrol
is responsible for such a broadly shared
societal problem.
Self-control is too difficult to maintain (it’s no fun),
and it’s too fleeting to accomplish these kinds of life
goals. People who are successful at maintaining a
healthy weight, working persistently at their jobs,
saving money, or making any other change don’t do it
through willpower. Instead, they form habits that
persist without effort or decision making. So, I think
that one of our biggest challenges is to understand how
to form beneficial habits. It’s not through self-control.
—Wendy Wood, Ph.D.
Provost Professor, Psychology and Business,
University of Southern California, author of
“Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making
Positive Changes That Stick”
■ Myth
Behavior is prewired
Generally, people tend to think of
human behavior as deterministic:
When 1-2-3 is present in the
environment, then people will
do XYZ behavior. And anytime
it doesn’t happen, it is because
of something internal to the
person—we basically look at the
variance in the 1-2-3–XYZ link
and call it personality or values or something similar.
I think that’s wrong. Over the course of my career,
I’ve become much more focused on behavior as
probabilistic, and it has changed a lot of how I come at
behavior-change work. People are certainly complex,
and some variance is due to internal factors. But since
I can’t do much about internals, I don’t focus on
personality when creating change. Instead, I’m learning
to acknowledge that environments are equally
complex. When there is variance in the 1-2-3–XYZ link,
it is very often due to 4 and 5 and 6—previously hidden
environmental factors.
26 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine
2021 truistleadershipinstitute.com 27

Eight myths about change
When you initiate a
change, you commonly feel a sense
of uninformed optimism.”—S. Chris Smith, Ph.D., Truist Leadership Institute
This has made me a more patient scientist. Rather
than writing off parts of the population as unchanging
because of internal factors, I am much more likely to
stop and take the time to find the 4-5-6 that is real for
them and meaningfully affects what they do. I remind
myself constantly not to get lazy, to not write it off as
something unchangeable, and to just double down and
dig in to find what is really making the difference.
—Matt Walleart
Head of Behavioral Science at frog,
speaker, author of “Start at the End”
■ Myth
The change curve is for all change
In the first course I took on
change management, the very
first diagram they put on the
board read, “When humans go
through change, this is what happens:
denial, anger, bargaining,
depression, acceptance.”
I was like, “Yeah, that’s good.”
It has what psychologists call
face validity. It made sense to me on the face of it.
Here’s the problem: The researcher who came up
with it did so based on interviews of terminally ill
people. It wasn’t on people who are developing a new
product strategy or rolling out a digital transformation
project or going through organizational change.
But it turned into that.
The death and dying curve was an amazing
breakthrough for the dying, enabling people to have
conversations instead of the subject being taboo.
But it then became a model for survivor grief, too, for
getting through the emotional process. And then it
became about grief. And then loss. And then not just
loss, but change. And then not just change, but
organizational change.
It’s a myth that has run away. Why should how
people deal with death be a template for what we go
through in change? We all go through change in life.
We get married. We graduate from college. We have
our first child. And we have lots of transitions in
businesses, as well. Not all of those changes
are going to trigger negative emotions. In some
cases, the opposite will happen.
So who says those transitions have to be like
the ones for loss? That they have to be a
grieving process?
—Paul Gibbons
Speaker, coach, author of “The Science of
Organizational Change” and the upcoming
“Change Myths”
■ Myth
Change is structured
My own experience has taught me
that change is never as plan-able
and structured as so many
textbooks and consulting firms
tell us. I am tired of companies
presenting way too glossy and
sanitized stories about the
transformation journey.
Change is never orderly. It is not
complicated, but it is complex, and often chaotic. It is only
real when it feels messy.
—Bjarte Bogsnes
Founder of Bogsnes Advisory, Chairman of Beyond
Budgeting Institute, winner of a Harvard Business
Review/McKinsey M-Prize for Management
Innovation
■ Myth
If my team resists change,
they aren’t committed
Resistance is a normal response
to change. In fact, it demonstrates
progress—it’s an indicator that
we’ve acknowledged the change
is real, and we are focusing
more of our attention on what’s
happening.
Helping team members
Photography: Courtesy, Paul Gibbons; Bjarte Bogsnes; Truist; Rick Western; Truist
overcome resistance to change is challenging. But it’s
the starting point for shifting our focus from the past
to the future.
It’s never too late to encourage involvement, even if
gathering input and feedback from employees before
changes are introduced is your ideal. Employee insight can
help you uncover potential challenges as changes are
implemented and make the outcome even better.
Finally, resistance is how we internally process the
personal impact of the change. It’s where we come to
terms with potential gains and losses, identify bestand
worst-case outcomes, and shift our energy to what
we can control. The risk? If we don’t process resistance
when it naturally occurs, resistance keeps coming back
over and over again, and gets in the way later on.
Remember, resistance is not the final destination.
We can use it to our advantage as leaders and support our
teams to begin moving forward toward commitment.
—Ros Guerrie, M.Ed.
Educational Leadership Programs Manager,
Truist Leadership Institute
■ Myth
Change can be managed
effectively through top-down
communications
Change is about energizing
and mobilizing hundreds if not
thousands of people to behave in
new and different ways. Accomplishing
this requires a balance
of leadership and management.
And while the “cascading”
top-down approach might work
in unique crisis situations, it is
largely ineffective in today’s fast-changing world.
Instead, a communication strategy to support
change needs to incorporate top-down, bottom-up,
and side-to-side support. The contrast between this
approach and the cascading approach is like the
contrast between the original single-channel
monographic phonograph and today’s digitally
enhanced surround sound.
Involving many more people in leading change
initiatives has helped me, and other leaders I have
worked with, to quickly and effectively create a sense
of urgency within entire organizations in support of
desired changes. And that speed is important:
Research has shown the need to achieve full
engagement from a minimum of 50%+1 of the entire
change population in order to be successful with most
change initiatives. Shortening the time required to
achieve this level of buy-in generates quantifiable
results more quickly and greatly increases the
likelihood the change will stick.
— Rick Western
CEO, Kotter International Inc.
■ Myth
Everyone on your
team shares your enthusiasm
for a particular change
Starting something new
can feel great. When you
initiate a change, you commonly
feel a sense of uninformed
optimism. As a leader, you feel
a level of certainty that the
change is a good idea—and
you may fail to anticipate
the predictable drop in
performance when a change is launched.
This happens because the team has a different
psychological reaction to change than you. They may
feel a change is done “to them.” The brain is wired to
detect threats, and the natural initial reaction for most
people is to see change as a threat. Instead of sharing
your enthusiasm, team members typically react with
denial or resistance.
Don’t take this personally, and don’t let it derail your
efforts to lead the change. Instead, work to move
others toward the forward-looking exploration and
commitment phases of change.
— S. Chris Smith, Ph.D.
Executive Consultant, Truist Leadership Institute ■
28 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine
2021 truistleadershipinstitute.com 29

By Karen Sommerfeld
How much does it matter?
Introvert...
or extravert?
onversations around introvert and extravert personalities in the workplace seem to be
popping up everywhere. The topic gained traction during the pandemic, as we all started
thinking harder about how we work together. The media have latched on, with articles
informing leaders that “introverts dread returning to the office” and “extraverts are
struggling with work-from-home policies.”
How should a leader respond? When leading introvert or extravert teammates, there’s one
key to success, says Sally Woods, Ed.D., executive consultant at Truist Leadership Institute.
Go beyond the stereotypes and get to know your colleagues. Effectively considering the introvert
or extravert question is really part of a leader’s larger search for new ways to help a team thrive
and increase productivity. Introversion and extraversion are dimensions of personality that
researchers can definitively measure.
Beware of leading with stereotypes
The preference for introversion or extraversion begins to appear in childhood and shapes the way
we interact, learn, and work all our lives. In broad terms, those with a preference for extraversion tend
to draw energy from being around people, making things happen, and talking through issues while
getting input from others. Those with an introversion preference are drawn to their inner world of
thoughts and ideas, preferring to think through what they’re going to do before taking action.
They’re most comfortable working alone or with one or two other people.
It might seem obvious who on your team is an introvert and who isn’t, but Woods advises leaders to
use caution when looking at staff through this lens. “We often look at these things informally, but the
informal use of the terms introvert and extravert has no science behind it,” she says. Woods says it’s
easy to misinterpret someone’s behaviors as being extraverted or introverted. “An employee may
30 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine 2021 truistleadershipinstitute.com 31

Introvert or extravert?
Working better
together
Executive Consultant
Dr. Sally C. Woods is one
of the experts who leads
programs at Truist
Leadership Institute, like
Mastering Leadership
Dynamics, and also
personalized individual
and team offerings fit
to your organization’s
specific goals and
challenges. Learn more
at truistleadership
institute.com or by
calling (336) 665-3300.
Get even
more leadership
expertise from
Truist Leadership
Institute’s Leadership
Amplitude podcast.
Recently, our experts
explored the topic of
introversion versus
extraversion in a threepart
series. Learn more
by listening to Leadership
Amplitude on
Apple Podcasts,
Google Podcasts,
Stitcher, or Spotify.
have a preference for introversion, but their job
requires them to use extraversion behaviors all day
long. Their manager sees that behavior and may come
to the erroneous conclusion that this person is an
extravert, which may lead the manager to have
misinformed expectations of that employee,”
warns Woods. This kind of stereotyping around
introversion and extraversion doesn’t end there.
■ Stereotype: People are either introverted or extraverted.
People aren’t always one or the other: The preference is
on a spectrum, with a significant percentage of individuals
near the middle, says Woods. All of us, no matter our clarity
of preference on the extraversion/introversion scale,
have the capability of behaving in either extraverted or
introverted ways.
■ Stereotype: Extraverts are more successful.
Woods says neither introversion nor extraversion makes
one better or more effective at work. “There’s no one best
way to approach all situations,” she says. “And certainly,
from a leadership perspective, there is no preference that
makes one a better leader than the other.”
■ Stereotype: You can treat all introverts or all extraverts
the same way. It’s not true that every person with an
extraversion preference is noticeably outgoing. And, those
who prefer introversion are not necessarily shy (shyness is
unrelated to an introversion preference). Relying too much
on the labels “introvert” or “extravert” is an oversimplification
of human behavior. There are other personality traits to
consider, such as being open to change or more cautious, or
the level of a person’s impulse control.
■ Stereotype: Extraverts have hated working from home,
and introverts loved it. Working from home has not been a
universal experience—remember, 29% of workers haven’t
worked from home at all. Those who flourished at home
did so for many reasons apart from whether they could
be considered an introvert or an extravert.
The stereotypes point out the dangers for leaders:
“As a leader, if I decided that one of my teammates is an
extravert, I might assume he’ll never take the time to
think through things,” Woods says. “It automatically
limits my thinking—limits my interactions with him, my
expectations of him. It limits what I notice, because we
tend to notice what we assume.”
Woods says leaders need to ask themselves more
questions than “Is this person an introvert or an
extravert?” Instead, try: “What’s getting in my way of
seeing a teammate as more than what I assume she is?
Why am I coming to that conclusion?”
“It might lead me to ask the other person, ‘What’s
important to you?’ or talk more deeply with them about
the behaviors I’m noticing,” she explains.
Leading through awareness of your own
introversion or extraversion preference
Developing an awareness of your preference opens the
door to understanding what your nonpreference is, so
you can practice more of that. Put another way: Leaders
tend to offer teams what they would like, such as an
extraverted leader providing open floor plans for
collaboration with no space set aside for quiet reflection.
A self-aware leader might instead seek out a workspace
plan that accommodates various preferences.
“No leader is paid to stay in their comfort zone,” says
Woods. “If I have a preference for extraversion, I’m not
paid just to extravert. I’m paid to use behaviors that
are most effective in the moment. So I’ll pull from my
preference as well as my nonpreference, depending
on what’s needed from me to get the best possible
outcome in that situation.”
Making the workplace more comfortable while
offering the gift of discomfort
Woods says that, even though looking at introversion
and extraversion isn’t the most conclusive way to look
at your team, it can be useful. It’s highly likely you have
both on your team; taking that as a given, you can make
decisions that will help the two groups work together.
Woods offers a hypothetical: “A team returns to
their workspace, which is an open design, and some
teammates are thinking through work problems out
loud with each other,” says Woods, who adds that
thinking aloud is often an extravert behavior.
“Meanwhile, teammates with an introversion
preference right beside them need some quiet time to
think and do their work, and the extraverts’ discussion
may interfere with that.” A possible solution is that the
team sets some ground rules so that everyone can use
the space in a way that works for the whole team. That
could lead, says Woods, to a solution where the leader
creates a huddle space, where thinking aloud can be
done while respecting others’ need to work quietly.
The idea is to create the physical space and culture
where everyone can work the way they are most
productive while still accommodating and valuing the
preferences of others.
She also posits that it’s perfectly acceptable—
actually necessary—to encourage teammates to accept
a new challenge. “Sometimes an introvert has to speak
in front of a crowd if it’s part of the job. If we stay only in
our comfort zone, we’ll never grow as human beings,”
she says. Learning new skills, while uncomfortable at
first, can help teammates add more value, “and
developing others is one of the most important
responsibilities of a leader. So, asking teammates to
work outside their comfort zone is a real gift to them.” ■
Critical
knowledge
The Psychology of Better Business TM
32 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine

Education: Students
By Liz Olech
Developing
the next
generation
of Latino
leadership
Latino students
represent one of
the fastest-growing
demographics in
higher education.
That’s why they are
a focus of the growth
of Truist Leadership
Institute’s Emerging
Leaders Certification
program.
Photography: Sergio Mendoza Hochmann/Getty Images
Many Latino students have a clear goal to become a leader, but the path to
becoming one is often murky. Truist Leadership Institute’s ELC program offers Latino
students learning pathways to help them grow into the leaders they wish to be.”
espite the fact that undergraduate college
enrollment is at an all-time low, Latinx and
Hispanic students are quickly gaining increased
representation in higher education. And that trend is
expected to continue.
“When you look at the data in the United States,
one in five students today, 24% of the kindergarten
through 12th-grade student population, is Hispanic
or Latino,” says Kevin Ortiz, senior student leadership
specialist at Truist Leadership Institute. “Fast-forward
to 2050, and a lot of data shows that one in three
Americans will be Hispanic or Latino.”
More Latino students today means higher
percentages of Latino leadership tomorrow—in
government, business, and every other sector.
Truist Leadership Institute is delivering leadership
training to students. Its partnerships with more than
85 colleges and universities have meant training for
more than 13,500 students (as of July 2021). And
specialists like Ortiz are making sure the Emerging
Leaders Certification (ELC) program reaches more
Hispanic and Latinx students.
Latina + ELC: Two students’ perspectives
Melanie Godinez-Cedillo, a senior at University
of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, completed the
certification program online as a college sophomore.
She says taking the program then helped her to
realize her leadership strengths and weaknesses early
in her college career, as well as how her beliefs impact
her leadership behaviors. She was able to put her new
learnings into practice for her final two years.
“The program gave me confidence to lead with
purpose,” says Godinez-Cedillo. “As a co-president
of Mi Pueblo, the largest Latinx organization on
UNC’s campus, I often revert to my training with the
Truist Leadership Institute to better understand my
own leadership style—pinpointing specifically where
there could be gaps in my leadership and actively
working to close them.”
Nicole Gonzalez Ong, a senior at Boston University,
agrees that the program helps students focus on
what it means to be a leader. “My greatest takeaway
from the program was that there is no secret formula
—Nicole Gonzalez Ong, Boston University
to being a leader,” she says. “Different situations,
environments, and people will demand varying
methods of leadership, so leaders must be dynamic
and open to change.”
As a Latina person, Gonzalez Ong says the ELC
program was a great opportunity to meet students
from similar backgrounds and talk about their career
aspirations. “Many Latino students have a clear goal
to become a leader, but the path to becoming one
is often murky,” she says. “The ELC program offers
Latino students learning pathways to help them
grow into the leaders they wish to be and become
role models in their professional careers
and communities.”
Reaching Latinx students
Currently, the ELC program is available at four
Hispanic-serving institutions (University of Central
Florida, University of Texas at Arlington, University
of Houston, and Southern Adventist University),
which are colleges or universities where Hispanic
students are at least 25% of the full-time student
body. Ortiz says Truist Leadership Institute has also
been able to reach Hispanic students through
new unique partnerships, such as with the
Association of Latino Professionals for America,
the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s
Carolina Latinx Center and the Hispanic
Scholarship Fund.
“We bring the ELC program where the Hispanic
and Latino students already are,” Ortiz says, “and
we know they are seeking scholarships, networking,
and talking to each other through these associations.”
Participating students also say that the program is
effective. According to 2020-2021 survey feedback,
80% of students ranked Truist Leadership Institute’s
ELC program as better than other leadership courses
they’ve taken.
“Our focus at Truist is to build and inspire better
lives and communities,” says Ortiz. “Bringing this
leadership coaching and leadership training to
the next group of folks who are going to be
impacting the community, churches, schools—
it’s really why we do it.” ■
How to train as a
program facilitator
for your campus
Are you interested in
becoming an external
facilitator of the
Emerging Leaders
Certification program
on your campus?
Truist Leadership
Institute hosts a summer
training program for
faculty and staff from
partner colleges and
universities.
For more information,
please visit the Truist
Leadership Institute
Student Leaders
webpage and contact
Student Leadership
Programs Manager
Brittany Brown at
Brittany.Brown
@truist.com or call
336-665-3300.
34 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine 2021 truistleadershipinstitute.com 35

Problem, solution
By Britta Waller Melton | Photography by Patrick Heagney
Global growth
through better
teamwork
I was excited about the idea of pulling people away and collaborating
in a different form like we did. We were looking for improvements in communication
and breaking down silos.” —Mike Dubin, president and CEO, Beaver Manufacturing Company
Developing
a better
understanding
of one another is
the formula for
facing challenges
and reaching
company goals
at Beaver
Manufacturing
Company.
xpanding production into the European
market was proving challenging for Beaver
Manufacturing Company Inc., which supplies
reinforcing fibers for industrial use.
“We looked at several marketing arrangements
that just didn’t work out as we’d hoped,” explains
Mike Dubin, president and chief executive officer of
the company, which is headquartered in Mansfield,
Georgia. “And basically then we said, ‘We’ve got to
control our own destiny.’ ”
So Dubin and his team identified and closed on an
acquisition of Intercord Thüringen GmbH of Germany
in September 2020. (Yes, you read that right—in the
middle of the pandemic.) With this merger/acquisition
route, the company achieved its goal of adding
manufacturing capabilities in Europe while adding new
products and industry sectors to its suite of offerings.
What helped Beaver Manufacturing take control
of its own global destiny? Determination for
Talking teamwork
From left, President and CEO
Mike Dubin, Supply Chain Manager
Kathy Wilson, and Global Sales
Manager Mark Eagle chat
in Beaver Manufacturing
Company’s Mansfield, Georgia,
headquarters.
36 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine
2021 truistleadershipinstitute.com 37

Problem, solution
I think we’re looking ahead
at the next 50 years of the company
being much more diverse
in what we do . . . ”
— Enrique Quirarte, Beaver Manufacturing
Right:
Enrique Quirarte,
general manager for
Mexico and South America,
with a spool of Beaver
Manufacturing–treated yarn.
certain. But the company and its leaders also went
into 2020 with something else working to their
advantage: leadership training and team-building
experiences facilitated by Truist Leadership Institute.
A short company history
Chemist Ed Needham and engineer Kenneth King
founded Beaver Manufacturing in 1971 in a former
cotton mill in Mansfield, Georgia. Needham had an
idea for a proprietary way to treat synthetic yarn to
better adhere to rubber. Today, Beaver Manufacturing
sells
a wide range of specialized fibers in the automotive
and industrial sectors; the fibers strengthen
hoses, belts, tires, couplings, air springs, and many
other industrial components.
In 2017, Beaver was seeing revenue growth in
Latin America, as well as in the United States. To
meet demand, the company opened a manufacturing
plant in June 2018 in Tepeji, Mexico, about 45 miles
northwest of Mexico City.
A key player joined the Beaver Manufacturing team
at that point: Enrique Quirarte, general manager
for Mexico and South America. Tapped to launch
production operations in Mexico, Quirarte first got to
know Beaver when the company was his customer
in a previous role as a marketing manager.
“I was familiar with Beaver’s leadership and the
company culture,” Quirarte says. “I was exited about
the challenge of starting operations in Mexico
working with this team and helping the company
grow.”
The benefits of an individualized approach
In 2019, Quirarte became the first of the company’s
executive leaders to travel to Greensboro, North
Carolina, for the on-site portions of the Mastering
Leadership Dynamics program. It proved to be a
very different experience than what he was used to.
At other leadership development workshops
Quirarte attended, little of the training came directly
from an expert. “All the training I got in the past was
from someone that got trained by someone else to
give the training,” he says. “They needed a mass scale
with a lot of people.” That diluted the effectiveness of
those sessions in a way he didn’t realize at the time.
At Truist Leadership Institute, he found the
focus was on impact to participants, not volume of
employees served. “They [the program facilitators]
were true professionals with a lot of experience and a
lot of background on the subject matter,” he says.
“You can tell that immediately, in the way they
manage themselves and the way they manage the
group.”
Quirarte says he came out of the program with a
much better understanding of himself as a leader
and with tools to be more aware of how he reacts in
different situations. He also developed the knowledge
he needed to control the direction of his leadership day
to day, rather than letting his emotions or fear of failure
take over.
“It helped me understand others,” he says.
“It was a very nice set of tools to really understand
other people that I’m leading and what are the things
that I could do to lead better, to make them also
be better leaders.”
Quirarte reported what he learned back to Dubin
and the other leaders at Beaver Manufacturing.
“Through the great experience that I had, I think it was
clear for us that we needed to make something for our
team,” Quirarte says. Shortly afterward, Dubin called
the Leadership Institute and began planning an offsite
team-building session for a cross section of just over
a dozen leaders from the company.
Exceeding the goals and defining a purpose
Executive Consultant Chris Smith facilitated Beaver
Manufacturing’s team-building sessions, which took
place in January 2020. “I can remember having a
conversation with Mike about the fact that they were
Photography: Courtesy Beaver Manufacturing
going to rent a bus and drive up here together,” says
Smith. Dubin specifically wanted to have the teambuilding
participants spend several hours on the road
together, rather than travel separately. “That stuck
with me because it was a sign that he really wanted to
accelerate team cohesion.”
The team-building was successful yet hard work.
“I was excited about the idea of pulling people away
and collaborating in a different form like we did.
We were looking for improvements in communication
and breaking down silos,” Dubin says. “We did break
down barriers a good bit—doing some bonding,
doing some understanding of each other, trying to
figure out how to understand how we operate as
individuals and how we operate as a team—and that
wasn’t all pretty, by the way.” But the program paid
off in unexpected ways.
The sessions resulted in Dubin, Quirarte, and
the other leaders drafting the company’s formal
4 key takeaways
Although Beaver
Manufacturing
Company Inc.
is in a specialized
industry, lessons
from its leadership
development and
team-building journey
apply to any growing
company.
Use the power of
transparency.
The executive team shares
key strategic plans with
mid-level managers, and
invites them to periodic
innovation brainstorms.
Thus, they get more support
on their initiatives,
and the company benefits
from a larger, more diverse
pool of ideas for future
endeavors.
purpose—a first in the company’s 50-year history.
As well, Dubin says, “We redefined our mission and
vision to better fit what we’re doing and how we’re
operating.”
They also committed to share with more employees
the overall strategy for the company; to establish
rules for more effective meetings; and to build
comfort with more frequent and useful feedback
among one another. “One of the big things for us is
making sure that we have the hard conversations,”
Dubin says, “and that we’re more open and honest
with people about what’s going on.”
Quirarte explains that the company’s aspirations
are at a new level as a result of their experience
with Truist Leadership Institute. “I think we’re
looking ahead at the next 50 years of the company
being much more diverse in what we do, how we
approach things, looking for new opportunities,
looking for new business,” he says.
Be persistent.
The company didn’t
immediately reach its goal
of production capacity
in Europe. It took more than
one attempt. And if the
acquisition of Germany’s
Intercord hadn’t worked
out, the executive team was
ready with a list of other
ideas to try in Europe,
such as reclaiming
brownfields.
Think past your
career timeline.
Executives at Beaver
talk about plans for the
company’s next 50 years,
which is beyond when
they’ll retire. But setting
their sights so far ahead
signals their commitment to
building something strong
enough to provide value to
customers and employees
they haven’t even met yet.
Try new things.
In the past five
years, executives headed
into new territory—such
as holding professionally
facilitated team-building
sessions.
38 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine
2021 truistleadershipinstitute.com 39

Problem, solution
One of the big things for
us is making sure that we have the
hard conversations, and that we’re
more open and honest with people
about what’s going on.”
Custom
solutions for your
organization’s
success
From team-building to
executive coaching,
Truist Leadership
Institute experts like
Executive Consultant
Chris Smith, Ph.D., get to
know your organization’s
needs and the right
leadership development
strategies to impart.
To learn more about
off-site, virtual, and
in-person programs
from Truist Leadership
Institute, visit truist
leadershipinstitute.com.
Putting learning into practice
After the company’s leaders left Greensboro,
their work continued. They needed to practice what
they were aiming for, not just talk and meet—or
worse, lose focus on it altogether.
Since the close of the training, the group has
met every three months to keep momentum going.
In those follow-ups, the leaders check in on efforts to
make changes to the culture and communication issues
highlighted at the team-building.
For example, one tactic to build empathy between
office staff and manufacturing floor employees had the
office staff take one- to two-hour turns operating the
yarn treating, spinning, and winding machines.
Another initiative focused on increasing peer-topeer
encouragement with tokens that team members
could award one another for small, positive acts that
made a difference for customers or one another.
Tokens are displayed on the “Beaver Board,” and each
month’s top token-getter receives recognition and
a small gift.
One fundamental shift is people starting with the
assumption that everyone wants the best for the
company. “We’re not letting any lack of communication
create problems,” Quirarte explains. Improving
communication can be as simple as backtracking when
there’s a tense exchange: Let’s regroup here. Tell me
what you’re thinking. Tell me what’s important to you.
Truist Leadership Institute’s Smith commends
the Beaver Manufacturing leadership team for
understanding the connection between team-building
and their company’s success. “Team cohesion is so
important, because in times of high change and high
uncertainty, there’s going to be a lot of stress. And
when there’s a lot of stress, we are more likely to come
at each other sideways. And we’re going to be less able
to manage ourselves through conflict. But if we get to
know each other well, and we spend time together,
then, when stress does happen, we assume positive
intent,” Smith explains.
“It certainly helped us in terms of dealing with very
difficult situations and figuring out how to get
through them,” Dubin confirms. “You have a better
understanding of what you’re doing as a company,
what you’re trying to accomplish, and also
understanding individuals and how they operate
a little bit better.”
The road ahead
Between April 2020 and December 2020, Truist
Leadership Institute and Beaver Manufacturing
continued to stay connected via 1:1 executive
coaching sessions.
“Every time I was losing my mind, I would speak
with Chris to not lose my mind. That’s the simple way
of putting it,” Dubin says.
Smith says every leader can benefit from having an
objective, outside sounding board—especially a CEO
who is steering an international expansion during
a pandemic. “Part of what Mike’s got to do is figure
out, ‘How do I step into this space of not just running
a domestic organization, but now I’m running two
countries, Mexico and U.S. And we’ve just added a third,”
Smith says. “And that’s going to challenge us, because
we’re moving into unknown territory.”
Thankfully, the Intercord merger is proving to
have been the right move, and all of the company’s
customers stayed with the combined company
through the pandemic. “Things are still tough,” Dubin
says. “Labor in Germany and the U.S. is very tough.
There’s still a lot of things to deal with, but even more
so I would say we have great opportunities.”
To help capitalize on those opportunities, Dubin
says Beaver Manufacturing leaders will be back to
Truist Leadership Institute in the future for more
sessions at what he praises as the “fantastic facility”
in Greensboro. “I think that’s the way you have to
do it. It really brings your organization together in
a way that would be difficult to do in another
setting,” Dubin concludes. ■
On the line
Mike Durbin talks with
Shayla Hardwick in the
production area at
Beaver Manufacturing.
40 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine 2021 truistleadershipinstitute.com 41

Research driven
By Patrick Gallagher, Ph.D.
Improving as a leader:
Where to begin?
When coaching others, do not be too prescriptive. A robust body of research
has found that helping others identify their own behaviors to improve can have more
positive effects than dictating what behaviors they work on.”
—Patrick Gallagher, Ph.D., Truist Leadership Institute
Finding a few
minutes a day to
think carefully
about leadership
behaviors can
set the stage
for long-term
improvements.
hanging behaviors to improve one’s own
leadership competencies or to help others
improve their leadership, can be difficult and take a
long time. The first step, of course, is identifying the
behaviors that will make the difference. For some
types of behaviors, like assembly line steps or call
center procedures, finding the behaviors with the
most impact on the bottom line might be easy.
But for leadership, finding the most impactful
behaviors could be more challenging.
After all, one day leadership might take the form
of a rousing speech to a crowd; another day, it might
mean carefully analyzing a situation with your
subordinates and enabling them to take control.
Helping others develop their leadership abilities
poses the same challenges. It can be difficult to
Photography: left, Thomas Barwick/Getty Images
know what behaviors to coach.
You might even have received some feedback
on your leadership skills, tendencies, or
competencies—for example, many leaders complete
or receive 360 o assessments in which they receive
feedback from those they interact with throughout
the organization. That feedback is valuable, but it
still might not identify specific behaviors that a
leader can target for improvement.
So how can leaders know what to work on to
improve their leadership or develop it in others?
Here are three tips, based on research findings,
that can help any leader get started.
Get specific. Goals like “be more empathetic”
or “improve my reactions to challenges”
sound compelling, but they are too broad—
they do not identify how other people will
experience your leadership differently, and
they do not give you a clear picture of how to
improve. Instead, home in on granular details
and identify small, very specific behaviors, such
as “begin each email with a greeting” or “wait
for others to speak before sharing my opinion
in meetings.”
That granular level of specificity might make
it feel like the behaviors you identify are too
minor to make a difference. But working on
specific behaviors, one or two at a time, could
make a big difference to the individuals who
experience those particular behaviors. Also,
taking small steps can give you practice in
changing your behaviors and make the process
easier or faster in the future.
Importantly, when coaching others, do not
be too prescriptive. A robust body of research
has found that helping others identify their own
behaviors to improve can have more positive
effects than dictating what behaviors they
work on (Deci et al., 2017). So help others get
specific about their behaviors and give feedback
about which behaviors are important, but be
careful to let the agency remain with them.
Get mindful. Much of our day-to-day behavior
is habitual or automatic—which is to say, it
happens without us thinking about it (Wood,
2019). To identify behaviors that might have a
big impact on your leadership skills, pay close
attention to regular events in the workplace,
interactions with employees, or sequences.
For example, do you write compact responses
to email inquiries from employees that might
be open to misinterpretation? Do you tend to
engage colleagues in discussions every time
you see them in a hallway, perhaps without
considering their time constraints?
The idea here is to recognize behaviors that
you don’t usually think about but that you may
want or need to change. Those automatic,
habitual behaviors might have a significant
impact on how you are seen as a leader.
Mindfully attending to your daily sequences
can help interrupt that automaticity and give
you control over important behaviors
(Lyddy et al., 2015).
Support voice. Other people might be the best
sources for finding out how to improve yourself.
But you need to provide psychological safety
to hear from them. Psychological safety is
related to several important conditions at work,
including more information sharing and workers
feeling that they can freely voice their challenges
and innovative ideas, even if contrary to the
prevailing norms (Frazier et al., 2017). Those
conditions can help you and others identify
behaviors that could be changed to improve
leadership. Leaders should share the task
of identifying leadership behaviors. They
should also support others in speaking up
about how to improve their own behaviors
and leadership in general.
Spending just a few minutes on these three steps
every day can help leaders identify behaviors to work
on that will improve leadership competencies—their
own and those of the leaders they’re trying to grow. ■
Behavior change
brings results
Experts like Patrick
Gallagher, Ph.D. (above),
director of research
for Truist Leadership
Institute, develop
leaders using a model
of behavior change
that helps create
desired organizational
results.
Check out our program
offerings at truistleader
shipinstitute.com.
42 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine 2021 truistleadershipinstitute.com 43

Program insights
By Michael Fuchs
Tools designed for
lifelong development
Conscious Leadership+ helps leaders apply what they’ve learned from
Truist Leadership Institute right away, back at their workplace.”
—Sarah Coley, Ph.D., Truist Leadership Institute
Conscious
Leadership+
prepares leaders
to experience
sustained
improvements in
their leadership—
and their
organization’s
success. Here’s
a closer look.
astering Leadership Dynamics (MLD),
the flagship Truist Leadership Institute
program for senior-level leaders, promises participants
a lot of “aha!” moments and self-discovery during its
virtual sessions and three in-person workshop days.
Those results have the potential to have a longlasting
effect on a leader’s career and in their workplace.
Self-awareness is a process that’s never finished,
however, and improvement takes consistent,
lifelong practice.
That’s where the new Conscious Leadership+
offering from Truist Leadership Institute comes in.
Conscious Leadership+ is best described as a suite
of tools that motivates leaders to apply what they’ve
learned after finishing a Truist Leadership Institute
program, though some tools can be used during
the program as well.
One example from the Conscious Leadership+ collection
is the BChange Tool (“B” stands for behavior), which
allows leaders to identify specific behaviors that require
attention. Leaders will either initiate new habits that better
serve their leadership purpose or stop counterproductive
ones that work against it. Other Conscious Leadership+
tools are set to be rolled out in 2022.
“Conscious Leadership+ helps leaders apply what
they’ve learned from Truist Leadership Institute right
away, back at their workplace,” says Sarah Coley, AVP
and senior consultant at Truist Leadership Institute.
“Rather than all of their growth taking place within the
MLD program, we see Conscious Leadership+
as equipping leaders to grow for life.”
Conscious Leadership+ is currently only offered to
graduates of MLD at no additional cost. Coley says
there are plans to add even more tools to the Conscious
Leadership+ suite and adapt each to the other
programs offered by Truist Leadership Institute.
Here, she describes the development and value of
Conscious Leadership+.
What was the
inspiration behind
Conscious Leadership+?
Conscious Leadership+ is a
way to continue the benefits
of leadership development
after a participant has returned
home. For example, the
BChange Tool gives leaders a
chance to apply and practice
what they’ve learned with
us. It was developed because
changing habits can be
uncomfortable and new, even
for motivated leaders. But over
time and with the practice
offered by the tool, it starts to
feel more intuitive and natural.
While taking our programs,
leaders might sense that
they can use the content to
substantially bolster their skills,
and Conscious Leadership+
is intended to efficiently
unlock that potential.
How does the suite of
tools work to increase
conscious leadership?
Conscious Leadership+
enhances a leader’s selfawareness.
On a large
scale, it builds the leader’s
understanding of how they can
improve their impact within
their organization. On a small
scale, it helps a leader examine
the daily behaviors that they
can enhance to improve their
leadership, and then helps
them practice those
enhancements.
Conscious Leadership+
helps leaders to be realistic but
deliberate in their improvement
efforts. Teaching yourself new
habits won’t immediately lead
to better overall organizational
productivity, but when
you sustain these habits,
you contribute to a work
environment that helps teams
perform at their best.
Conscious Leadership+ is not
equipping leaders to change
one behavior for merely a few
weeks. The tools give leaders
something they can use to
improve for years to come.
Is Conscious Leadership+
based on what participants
learn in MLD?
Conscious
Leadership+
Sarah Coley, Ph.D., is a member of the Research Team helping to develop Conscious Leadership+,
a suite of tools that enhances the programs offered through Truist Leadership Institute.
For more information about Mastering Leadership Dynamics and Conscious Leadership+,
please visit truistleadershipinstitute.com or call us at 336-665-3300.
For a long time, self-awareness
has been a cornerstone concept
in Truist Leadership Institute’s
programs.
That’s also true for Conscious
Leadership+, which makes
it a natural extension of our
programs. But some elements
of Conscious Leadership+, such
as understanding habit change,
were not originally covered
in MLD. That said, we’ve also
expanded some content in MLD
to help leaders comprehend and
prepare for the process of habit
change that they’ll experience
through the BChange Tool from
Conscious Leadership+.
Learning how to change a
single behavior for the better
is just the first step in changing
any number of behaviors. ■
44 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine
2021 truistleadershipinstitute.com 45

Program insights
Transform your
leadership
Truist Leadership Institute offers a range of programs, workshops, and services that are
transformative for participants. Our approach is grounded in science and proven in business—
and we recently expanded our range of options to include programs that can be held at our
state-of-the-art campus, your location, or virtually.
We’re living and working in an environment where change is constant and
uncertainty is ever-present. What are you doing to make sure that your leadership
is sustainable during these challenging times?”
Leadership
Development
Change
Teams Management Engagement Talent
New: 90-minute virtual workshops
For senior-level teams and individual leaders
Program
Flagship
Program:
Mastering
Leadership
Dynamics TM
Leading
Culture,
Change,
and
Engagement
Leadership
Success
for
Mid-Level
Management
Tailored:
Building
High-
Performance
Teams
The
Psychology
of
Change
Engagement
Analysis
and
Consulting
Engagement
and Motivation
Strategies
Improving
Your
Company’s
Talent
Strategy
Better Leaders:
The Beliefs
That Drive
Results
Building Better:
Embracing the
Opportunity of
Change
Insightful
Communication
During Times
of Conflict
Light the
Spark:
Creating
an Engaged
Workforce
Managing
Stress
Through
Resilience
Powerful
Conversations
for
Team
Development
What You’ll
Learn
Who It’s For
Learn to recognize
and apply appropriate
leadership
strategies to effectively
inspire greater
performance with our
flagship program.
CEOs,
other executives,
and
senior leaders
Lead your
organization in
three key areas of
culture development,
employee engagement,
and managing
change.
CEOs,
other executives,
and
senior leaders
Learn how to choose
the most appropriate
strategies to address
people and situations
while staying on
purpose and keeping
people engaged.
Mid-level leaders
who lead teams
and/or operational,
group, or department
managers
Leverage
performance, build
teamwork, and
strengthen
relationships.
Executive
teams
and seniorlevel
teams
Understand the
psychological
process of change,
along with strategies
to keep your team
and organization
engaged and moving
forward.
Mid- to senior-level
leaders with responsibility
for leading
changes in the department,
business unit,
or organization
Get an accurate
diagnosis of your
organization’s
engagement culture
and the underlying
factors that are
impacting
engagement levels.
CEOs,
other executives,
and
senior leaders
Understand the
neuropsychology
of employee
engagement and
learn strategies
to increase
engagement.
CEOs,
other executives,
and
senior leaders
Enhance your
company’s approach
to acquiring and
developing the
talent you need to
accomplish business
objectives.
CEOs,
other executives,
and
senior leaders
This interactive
team session can
help identify the
beliefs and
behaviors that drive
even better results.
Our ever-changing
world has
highlighted how
critical it is to have
effective change
leadership. In this
workshop, we’ll share
insights on how
to navigate and lead
change.
In this interactive
workshop, we’ll
discuss specific
strategies that
leaders can
implement to help
avoid unproductive
conflict, allowing
them and their teams
to move forward in
empowered,
collaborative
ways.
This workshop
will equip
participants with
a better understanding
of what
engagement is—
what drives it,
what gets in the way,
and what leaders and
teams can do to
enhance it.
What are you doing
to make sure that
your leadership is
sustainable during
these challenging
times? In this
engaging workshop,
we’ll explore how
the brain reacts to
stress and provide
strategies for
how you and your
team can be
more resilient.
The time you
spend working
as a team is an
investment in
your collective
success. During
this workshop,
you will make
your team more
effective through
facilitated
conversation
and activities.
Length
of Program
8-week
blended learning
experience
3 days
3 days
2 days
1 day
Length varies
1 day
Length varies
Location
On-campus sessions
held on our campus;
live online sessions
and self-paced
assignments held
at your location
Held on our campus
or at your location
Held on our campus
or at your location
Held on our campus,
at your location, or
virtually
Held on our campus
or at your location
Held at your location
Virtual
Held on our campus
or at your location
Learn more about our programs at truistleadershipinstitute.com or by calling 336-665-3300.
46 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine 2021 truistleadershipinstitute.com 47

Inspire and build better lives and communities
How culture drives performance
When
values are
clear and held
deeply, they
provide the
guardrails for
how we
behave.
ulture drives long-term performance, which is
why understanding culture and how it affects
performance is so critical.
Culture is made up of purpose, mission, and values. It is
relatively stable over time and can only be changed with
consistent actions different from the existing culture. The
confusion typically comes when individuals think that
practices and strategies or tactics are culture. They are
not. Two organizations can have similar cultures and very
different strategies and practices. Sometimes people say
culture means “This is how we do things around here.” This
statement really refers to practices, which often adjust due
to changing conditions. Also, strategies can vary within
organizations. For example, at Truist we have different
strategies in Eastern North Carolina than we do in Texas.
Practices can also vary based on market circumstances.
Culture doesn’t need to and typically shouldn’t change
based on circumstances or conditions. It’s more permanent
and provides long-term stability and consistency of
performance. Why is that true? Let’s start by defining the
parts of culture.
Purpose is the “why” of an organization. It is the reason for
being, the North Star. Purpose declares what the organization
is trying to accomplish, what it stands for. It is the long-term
outcome that an organization intends to commit itself to
making happen. The purpose does not typically declare how
or what will be done; it’s the why. At Truist, our purpose is
“to inspire and build better lives and communities.” Another
word that is used in this context is vision.
Purpose is the most important part of culture because it’s
what allows the organization’s constituents to align with it.
If I am not clear about an entity’s purpose, how can I decide
if I want to be a part of it?
The key driver of performance is the engagement (motivation) of
employees. Humans are motivated pretty much as American psychologist
and philosopher Abraham Maslow described, i.e., focused on the pursuit
of satisfying our needs (physical, safety, social, self-esteem, and selfactualization).
People who are successful and happy in life are the ones
who align with a group of people (organization) in pursuit of a purpose
that in large part meets many of their needs. When this occurs, they are
not “working,” rather they are motivated by pursuing this purpose because
it helps satisfy their own “why.” My personal why for making a positive
impact in the lives of as many people as I can aligns perfectly with our
purpose at Truist. Hence, I am highly motivated to help fellow teammates
work hard to accomplish this purpose.
Purpose also provides that sense of direction in challenging times.
While the last several quarters have been hard and many strategies and
tactics of businesses and people have changed dramatically, Truist’s and
my personal purpose have not changed at all. That clarity of why we’re
here creates a sense of calm and direction when recent circumstances
could lead to despair and confusion. It really is like Viktor Frankl says
in one of my top five books, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” when quoting
Friedrich Nietzsche: “When you know your why, you can endure any how.”
That statement has surely been battle-tested and stood the test in recent
times. Purpose matters!
Now, mission defines what we do to accomplish our purpose. At
Truist, it’s about providing financial resources to help our clients achieve
their dreams, hopes, and goals in life. We do that through providing
an environment in which our teammates can learn, grow, and have
meaningful careers while having many of their motivational needs met.
We also work hard to make our commitments better, all of which results in
optimizing long-term shareholder value.
Our values describe how we live and operate. Values are the beliefs
that drive our behavior, which creates our results (the Truist Leadership
Model). When values are clear and held deeply, they provide the guardrails
for how we behave. That’s because people behave in a manner that is
consistent with their beliefs over time. So, leaders of an organization
should make their values clear so when someone joins, they know if their
personal values align with the entity. When someone joins an organization
and does not share the values, it rarely is a good situation. For example,
one of Truist’s core values is being trustworthy. Someone who cannot be
trusted will not make it as a Truist teammate. Values are critical!
So, how does culture drive performance? The purpose sets the reason
why, the mission states what we’re doing to accomplish our purpose,
and the values define how we live and operate. Taken together, culture
provides the direction, drive, and alignment that lead to success and
happiness, which is what I pray you will find in life.
Kelly S. King
Executive Chairman
Truist Financial Corporation
SunTrust and BB&T have come together as Truist Commercial, connecting innovative services
with deep, local expertise to help you achieve your vision for business success.
Our teams stay close so they can be responsive and roll up their sleeves to get to work with
you. We believe in the power of the long term, so we focus on doing what’s right—for you
and your business. Because when your business thrives, it has the power to positively impact
employees, communities, and the world.
Harness the power of two.
To learn more, visit truist.com
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© 2021 Truist Financial Corporation. BB&T, SunTrust, the BB&T logo, the SunTrust logo, and Truist are service marks of Truist Financial Corporation. All rights reserved. Truist Securities is the trade name for the corporate and
investment banking services of Truist Financial Corporation and its subsidiaries. Securities and strategic advisory services are provided by Truist Securities, Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. | Lending, financial risk management,
and treasury and payment solutions are offered by Truist Bank. | Deposit products are offered by Truist Bank, Member FDIC.
48 T ruist Leadership Institute Magazine

The Psychology of Better Business