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Session Highlight: Becoming an Extraordinary Leader

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By Sonya Stinson

In the lexicon of Millette Granville, diversity and college recruiting manager, Enterprise Talent Acquisition at Wells Fargo & Company, the ROI for an outstanding organizational leader is a boost in Relationships, Outcomes and Improvements.

In her Thursday afternoon, workshop, Becoming an Extraordinary Leader, Granville discussed how to achieve those results. Early in the workshop, Granville projected photographs of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Oprah Winfrey and Gandhi with quotes from them about leadership and asked participants to name some of the qualities each one possessed as leaders. The most important quality that all three have in common, according to Granville, is service.

"All of these great leaders have service at the top of their agenda," said Granville, who has a new book out called The Exceptional Leader.

Along with service, trustworthiness, being engaging, being a visionary and being innovative make up Granville’s list of the five core principles of leadership. By asking questions of the audience and using their responses as jumping off points for discussing each theme, she offered a number of pointers for being a successful leader in the workplace. Here are some samples of her nuggets of wisdom.

  • "If you don’t have a plan, you aren’t going to be able to effectively drive your team in the right direction."
  • "Don’t be self-serving. If we want team members who are going to go above and beyond for us, we’ve got to be willing to do the same for them."
  • "Foster honest and direct communication." If team members have room for improvement, tell them now. Don’t wait for an end-of-year evaluation.
  • "Celebrate the small victories. It’s along the way that we get tired and frustrated, and that’s when we need the most pick-me-up."
  • "The last step is paying it forward." That means helping your team members become great leaders in their own right.
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