Casual Coffee Conversations: Career Pathing, Difficult Conversations, Leadership in the Home, and Biggest Lesson Learned

Meet Charlie Leonelli, Chief Administrative Officer for MAC Federal Credit Union

Charlie and I dive right in to talk about career pathing, his personal experience from owning a business and transitioning into the corporate, world and what career pathing at MAC looks like. We reminisced a little about my time at MACFCU and his fun working in a business-to-business position as it paired with his gifting. We talk about the blend of the skills required or gained from experience owning your own business and the skills of working in the corporate world and how they now serve clients/members and staff. He introduced me to a new vocabulary word "emergent" Charlie shares some wisdom, that when the focus is only on the urgent and forgetting about the important - the business will go away!

Next, we talk about difficult conversations....... When someone is new to it, advice on how to start the conversation. How communication is a practice and requires a level of humbleness that happens before, during, and after the conversation. Jenn asks about coaching for employees and staff. Together we talk about skills as a tool kit, and if we are not stepping out of our comfort zone we are not expanding and gaining new tools. Jenn and Charlie share about shared conflict, on how to reach the goal through "professional rumbling" and leave with an agreeable plan for the greater good of the company. The key is no pride in authorship!

Leadership and family... what does that look like? Charlie speaks to leadership in the home as being the most difficult form of leadership in his life. At home, you can see the growth from infancy to adulthood, whereas in the corporate world, it's just a small snapshot of a time.

Jenn speaks to the bridge between personal lives and our business lives, with importance on how we can use storytelling to help show the employees how they fit into the greater organizational story so they understand why they are so important, and that together they are working towards something bigger than themselves.

Charlie shares that his most favorite and rewarding aspect of leadership is watching those he works with step into the role and begin to thrive, and watching the outcome be successful!

Jenn shares the biggest lesson learned from her time working with Charlie. We ask the question if Superman can be invisible to understand that we do not expect superheroes to perform something that is not their superpower. So why would we ask employees to perform in their weakness? How true teamwork requires levels of bravery and self-awareness.

Charlie ends by giving Jenn encouragement in the process of creativity in continuing Casual Coffee Conversations.