4 Trends & 3 Challenges on the Credit Union Leadership Landscape

Charles Shanley, President/CEO, Shanley Search Partners

What financial institutions need from leadership today looks quite different than a few decades — or even just a few years — ago. Meanwhile, workforce and environment changes, as well as lagging tech knowledge, join the ever-growing question of how to connect to younger generations as challenges facing today’s community banks and credit unions.

Here are the trends and challenges I see for recruiting leadership at credit unions.

4 Trends in Credit Union Leadership

1.        Evolving leadership styles. Leadership in the financial industry has shifted from authoritative to more collaborative and empathetic in the past 20 years. The former style’s rigid, top-down, “my-way-or-the-highway” approach has become less and less effective. Though they ultimately make the final decisions, today’s leaders ask for and incorporate input from employees. This shift toward purpose-driven, servant-minded leadership aligns with the broader mission of credit unions and community banks to support their members and account holders, as well as contribute positively to the communities in which they operate.

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2.        Remote leadership. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a number of financial institution staff to move to fully remote or hybrid work schedules — and many still operate this way. Today’s leaders are learning to navigate this new frontier of virtual work to get the most out of their employees while maintaining culture and team cohesion. Communicating effectively, promoting work-life balance and incorporating collaboration platforms and virtual team-building activities are skills an effective leader needs to develop.

3.        Emphasis on adaptability. Going hand in hand with a collaborative leadership style is adaptability. With a range of ages and personalities on a team — and Board of Directors — with such disparate ways of interpreting information, today’s leaders need to know how to communicate, lead and inspire on the micro level.

Along with adjusting to generational gaps and individuals, adaptive leaders must:

• Embrace change

• Act with agility

• Be flexible

• Encourage continuous learning

4.        Emotional Intelligence. Today’s collaborative, adaptive leader should also have the emotional intelligence (or “EQ”) to recognize emotions in themselves and others and manage them efficiently.

Leaders with high EQs:

• Have a heightened sense of self-awareness

• Regulate their reactions in difficult situations

• Build strong interpersonal connections

• Understand and consider emotional implications of decisions

3 Current Challenges in Leadership

1.        Lack of initiative. It’s easy to get comfortable where you are, and hectic daily schedules can make additional training seem impossible to some emerging leaders. But leadership is about continuous self-improvement. Those who don’t stay up on industry trends and take steps to become an effective leader will not be strong candidates when promotion time comes.

2.        Tech knowledge gaps. Technology growth is moving faster than many can keep up with, leaving some leaders without the technical background needed to become vision-based leaders. Having — or seeking out — this knowledge will set candidates apart from the pack.

3.        Generational disconnect. Millennial and Gen Z banking habits continue to evolve and keep financial institutions on their toes. As social media’s role in their financial lives grows larger every year, and use of alternative banking methods and online apps become more popular, community banks and credit unions need visionary leadership in order to attract, connect to and serve these digital natives.

Charles Shanley is president/CEO of Shanley Search Partners, a nationwide financial services consulting and strategic advisory firm that specializes in Executive Search, Recruitment and Leadership Development for Credit Unions, Banking and Fintech. We put our experience to work for you, successfully placing top-performing candidates, from managers to executives and C-Level. We have extensive experience working with Boards on the executive placement of their next CEO and can also help with both retained and contingency search, internal candidate evaluations, direct placement, project staffing and contract-to-hire scenarios.