Making it Rain on Young Leader Development

They talk a big game, but never deliver.

This is one of the greatest frustrations that a young leader has with their employer. Companies talk a lot about how much time and money they are willing to invest in their young people to develop them as future leaders, but often fall drastically short.

Servus Credit Union is not one of those companies. We walk the talk to an annual budget for the Servus Young Leaders Network in the amount of $50,000.00.

Repeat: $50,000.00.

In all honesty, when we first presented the Servus Young Leaders Network to our Executive Leadership Team we requested a budget of $30,000.00. THEY increased it. How cool is that?

The cost to Servus is manageable as it only represents 0.00045% of our total assets ($11 Billion). To give you a better perspective, below is spreadsheet showing what an equal percentage would be for credit unions at various asset sizes.

For a $100 Million credit union, are you spending more than $450.00 per year on your young leader development? My hope is YES.

Over the past several years, credit unions have seen a down turn in the economy and increased competition has caused margins to be squeezed tighter and tighter. It is important that leadership development is not added to the chopping block. A friend of mine summed this up perfectly by saying, “We need to start thinking about leadership development as a fixed cost associated with growing our business; not as an "extra feature" or variable cost that can be cut when the economy is down.”

With that being said, young leader development is not just about spending money, it is about spending time. As a company, Servus Credit Union is actively developing a mentorship program with the intent for it to be released companywide in the New Year. During the current pilot phase, we have several of the Servus Young Leader Network members active in the program as mentees.

While excess capital may not be available to support a young leader development program like the Servus Young Leaders Network, I encourage, better yet, CHALLENGE you all to make yourselves available for your young leader’s development.

Mentorship is free. 

Devin