Darden Leadership Lessons: Cherish and Protect Your ‘Credibility Cup’

What makes one successful in business? In leadership? What lessons lead a person to greater opportunities – and help them stay there? Why are the best employees the way they are? Ask a leader today these questions and you’ll get priceless insight drawn from the well of experience.

So we did just that, checking in with graduates of the Darden School of Business who are serving in executive roles leading teams and operations spanning the globe.

Today’s focus:

Mike McDermott (EMBA ’16), President and CEO of Mary Washington Healthcare, a fully integrated regional nonprofit health care system serving more than 60 facilities, including two hospitals.

What are the values, practices or traits that have led to success and created opportunity throughout your career?

I don’t think you can overstate the importance of integrity and reliability. Being honest with a foundation of good moral principles, and allowing others to depend on your words and actions will, drop by drop, fill your cup of credibility. It is that cup filled with credibility that creates your influence as a leader.

Cherish and protect your “credibility cup,” and you will create opportunity and success throughout your career.

What are the common characteristics of the best employees and colleagues you have encountered over your career?

Positivity and resilience are important. Attitude and effort are choices, and the colleagues I have most enjoyed working with have had the ability to maintain positivity during difficult times as well as the ability to bounce back and persevere through adversity. I feel these characteristics create the ability to achieve successful outcomes from even the most challenging circumstances.

What is the most important “soft skill” for leaders in today’s workplace environments?

Current workplace environments are full of distraction, with seemingly infinite issues and worries to consume a leader’s time. The best leaders possess a shrewd filter, a natural ability to separate the signal from the noise, avoid distraction, and focus their organization on what is truly important.

What tactics do you rely on to effectively lead in such demanding and complex positions?

I like to characterize my leadership philosophy as: Nice, Provocable, Forgiving and Clear. In ongoing business relationships, this “tit for tat” approach assumes positive intent, drives accountability, avoids grudges and is grounded in reliability. I have found this approach to be valuable in navigating volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environments like those often seen in the modern workplace.

This is part three of our series on Darden Leadership Lessons. Read our earlier entries:

Diem Nguyen (MBA ’01), CEO and director for SIGA Technologies Inc.

Pablo Ciano (MBA ’00), member of the Board of Management for DHL Group and CEO of DHL’s eCommerce division.