Art of Leading
Leadership Is About Crafting A Vision, Building Excitement And Giving People Parameters | Terrance Williams, CEO of TruStage
Art of Leading
Terrance Williams, CEO of TruStage, a provider of insurance, investment, and technology, shares practical lessons, stories of leadership evolution, and his perspective on the hardest part of leadership.
This interview is part of our Art of Leading interview series with The ExCo Group‘s Adam Bryant.
Q. What is your approach to leadership?
A. It’s difficult for me to describe my approach without telling you how it was shaped. My journey began in a town outside of Charleston, South Carolina. I was blessed in that I grew up in a two-parent household—an educator and a construction worker—and the values they instilled in me included a work ethic, a focus on education, and the belief that I could accomplish or do anything.
My mom and dad were influential people in our community, even though I didn’t know it then. My dad was the elder of our church. They always played this leadership role from a community standpoint. They were always involved in giving back and helping someone sick, helping raise money for someone who had lost their job, or raising money for a family when someone passed away and they didn’t have insurance.
They always had this approach of paying it forward, giving back, and making a difference. They are 86 and 82 years old today, but it was only seven years ago that I had to stop my dad from driving the church van to pick up people to take them to the polling station to vote. I said, “Dad, you’re 79 years old. You should be in the van, not driving the van.”
Q. What were you doing outside of class in middle and high school?
A. I’m 6’4″, so I played basketball and was involved in many clubs, including student council and government. I was always someone who would step up and raise their hand from a leadership standpoint. If I’m in a room of 20 people I’ve never met, I will probably be mingling around, introducing myself, connecting with people, and figuring out how to bring people together. That’s always been me from a personality standpoint, even during my early years.
Q. What are some specifics of your leadership style today? What are the behaviors that earn gold stars from you, and what do you not tolerate?
A. With people who join my team, I share with them a document of about two pages and lists, in the form of self-disclosure, the important things to me. I talk about the importance of accountability and how we own our results. No one else has accountability for our results but us, regardless of market conditions, external forces, et cetera.
I talk about the importance of hiring and how one should always take time and do the due diligence. I talk about the importance of execution and how it should be driven at an almost flawless level. If it’s a big goal, there should be a clear plan with milestones, dates, and expectations, and we should hold ourselves accountable for those things.
I talk about the importance of attitude and why it’s critically important, particularly in a leadership role. We must understand where our mood elevator is at all times because our actions are being observed, whether we realize it or not, and whether we open our mouths.
Q. You mentioned the importance of hiring well. What’s your approach?
A. Ultimately, I’m looking for leaders. I’m not looking for someone who’s a technical expert. I’m looking for someone who can lead, inspire, and motivate. So I will ask—particularly with someone who’s been a leader for many years—who exists because of you? Who has risen through the ranks due to your mentorship, influence, and coaching? And I want real examples around that.
I also ask for examples of things they’ve done in their career that demonstrated their prowess as a leadership champion. I also seek someone inquisitive and comfortable challenging the status quo and driving change. I want them to understand how to drive productive peer relationships.
Q. How would you complete the sentence, “The hardest part of leadership is…”?
A. The hardest part is remaining humble. If you look back at the roles I’ve had over the last ten years, they’ve typically been president or chief of something, including my CEO role now. You must always be aware that what’s on your business card will drive how people engage with you. And if you’re not cautious, people will only tell you what they think you want to hear. You have to draw people out about the pluses and minuses, the risks and opportunities of an idea, instead of only getting what someone thinks you want to hear.
So, I must clearly articulate that I want to hear their perspectives and opinions. Many business decisions are nuanced; they aren’t black and white. I’m also a leader who thinks out loud. So I will say, “This is just a thought. I don’t want someone to run out of the room and do ABC because Terrance said it. I’m thinking out loud.” I want people to be comfortable engaging with me and coming forward with full thoughts on an idea instead of just telling me what I want to hear.
Q. Other key leadership lessons for you?
A. While I’m incredibly blessed and have had what many would consider success in my career, I have hit walls before. I’ve had episodes in roles where I didn’t hit it out of the park, and those are the most effective from a learning standpoint because they help you understand what you could have done differently.
As an example, one of my goals when I was at Nationwide was to become a general manager, which meant that I had full accountability for the P&L in a market. As I moved up, I had some success operating in individual functional areas, including running the claims division and sales. But when I finally got my first general manager role, I made a mistake that is blatantly obvious to me now.
In my conversations with each of my direct reports, I conveyed that, in effect, do what I did when I did your job, and you’ll be successful. I never said it that bluntly, but that’s, in essence, what I was saying without realizing it. I quickly realized that is not how you engage or motivate a team. Telling them to do what you did is not leadership. Leadership is about crafting a vision, building excitement and motivation, and giving people parameters but letting them operate.
I didn’t do that effectively in my first general management role initially. Fortunately for me, I had many mentors around that organization who reached out to me to say, “Terrance, this is what I’m hearing.” I was able to correct the course and evolve my leadership style. That’s a story that I’ve shared many times over the years about how I stubbed my toe early on, so to speak.
These lessons from Terrance Williams, CEO of TruStage, are part of our Art of Leading interview series featuring powerful insights from top leaders.