34 THE NAFCU JOURNAL NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2022 SMALL CREDIT UNION LEADERS HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE ALL STARS By Steve Foley, President and CEO of Bragg Mutual Federal Credit Union MANAGEMENT INSIGHT Greetings from the Small Credit Union world! When the folks at NAFCU asked me to write a column for this issue, I jumped at the chance. Pulitzer anyone? NAFCU said I could write about any topic I wanted so I’m going to write about utility infielders. What does baseball have to do with credit unions? First, let me explain for non-baseball fans what a utility infielder is; these are the ballplayers that can do anything. They play any infield position, have a decent batting average, and most of them are decent outfielders. You can insert them in a game and get quality results. Usually they are never the star, but every team needs a couple of these players to plug the gaps to make the whole team stronger. They have a love of the game and often earn a smaller paycheck than the stars, but they don’t mind teaching the tips of the trade to other players. Small credit unions have a lot of utility infielders. Small credit union leaders have such a depth of knowledge to plug a lot of gaps and have the skills to easily field any position while providing quality results. And we don’t need to get into salaries… NAFCU has a compensation comparison report for that! But we are not alone. Across America many executive leaders at small credit unions handle a variety of key roles for their credit union, and they do it very well. Sometimes that role is to be a CEO or CFO, however, sometimes the role entails becoming a member service officer, or a loan collector, and then later that day, the same person can often be found changing the light bulbs. (I call changing light bulbs management training!) Every small- to mid-size credit union executive has a story they can tell that is very similar to what’s described here. Because we are small credit union employees, most of us are very good at the variety of positions we carry out every day. We’re good because we go to practice every day and use those skills. This allows us to coach our players up and strengthen the whole team. Executive leadership at a credit union, if we have done our job right, allows us to spend time with and train our next generation of management. We train those that we see have potential for succession. We coach them on how to build a better credit union. We are building careers, not jobs. But sometimes, those we teach sign a free agent contract with another credit union—or worse, the Yankees! That’s OK, we taught them well, and maybe it’s time for them to be a rising star in a bigger ballpark. It has been said that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. So, when we lose one to the big leagues, it’s a reflection of how well we’ve done our job. Congratulations are in order! So, hats off to all of you in the small credit union world. You guys are pretty awesome. You did not invent baseball or credit unions, but you are very good at performing at a high level. You may not be the stars, but I know you are getting the job done. You are making your credit union stronger every day. Guess what? The credit union world is better off with people like you, the utility infielder that is really an All-Star. “We train those that we see have potential for succession. We coach them on how to build a better credit union. We are building careers, not jobs.”
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