Q&A with Thomas Epperson: Build with trust, lead with intent
By Megan Nash
For more than 20 years, Dr. Thomas Epperson has worked with leaders to transform how they approach their roles, not just in the boardroom, but in life. As president of the InnerWill Leadership Institute, a nonprofit established by Luck Companies, and an adjunct professor at the VCU School of Business’ Executive MBA program, Epperson has seen firsthand how diverse professional backgrounds bring depth to classroom discussions. In this Q&A, he shares his insights on motivating teams, building trust and why effective leadership is about making intentional choices—whether at work or at home.
What’s the key to motivating a team, whether they’re performing at their best or facing challenges?
Teams need a variety of things to perform their best. First, clear expectations of the team, including answering the following questions: What does a good job look like on the team? How do we make decisions—by consensus, majority vote or does the leader decide with input from team members? How will we hold ourselves and each other accountable?
Second, teams need to communicate effectively, both from a process standpoint—such as how often we have team meetings, how we should communicate and how quickly we should respond to one another—as well as interpersonally. How do we adapt our approach to meet the needs of other styles? How can we encourage healthy conflict? How can we disagree AND commit?
Third, teams need trust—trust in the competence, character and commitment of other team members.
Fourth, teams need to be able to give and receive feedback. Every team member should share their goals with others, seek feedback on their performance and give feedback to support the success of others on the team.
Finally, team members should be expected to lead. Leadership is a choice that all members can make, starting with the formal leader.
How do InnerWill’s leadership development strategies align with the VCU School of Business’ Executive MBA curriculum?
VCU’s EMBA program is filled with professionals from a wide variety of backgrounds. They tend to be realistic, gritty and focused on achieving their goals—whether to own a business, advance in their career or be the best parent, spouse or friend they can be.
InnerWill’s mission is to develop better people, braver leaders and a wiser world through the practice of Values-Based Leadership (VBL). We believe that leadership is a choice, not a title, and we work to help leaders understand how to be better leaders at work, at home and in our communities.
VCU’s curriculum aligns tightly with our work on VBL: Building Awareness—clearly seeing our strengths, weaknesses and getting feedback; Realizing Potential—identifying our Why and how to be the best version of ourselves; Developing Relationships—understanding others’ values and styles and adapting our approach to build trust; Taking Action—making conscious choices with the courage to run toward the fire rather than away from it; and Practicing Reflection—taking the time to ask if we acted on our values, made the impact we wanted to make and learning lessons from our successes and failures.
When it comes to effective leadership, what do you believe comes first–technical skills or mindset?
Mindset is the most difficult thing to influence, and at its heart, leadership is about influence. We get hired for our technical skills, promoted for our problem-solving skills and fired for our people skills.
Influencing others to change their minds is the key to any organizational change, implementing a successful strategy or changing behavior.
Leaders have a variety of influence skills in their toolkit: caring about others, asking questions, having tough conversations, inspiring and motivating, building trust and building commitment.
We are all in the people business. Influencing mindsets is critical to be successful in any endeavor.
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