Leap Academy with Ilana Golan - Bank of America's Bernard Hampton: The Leadership Secrets to Building High-Performing Teams | E104

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

Bernard Hampton’s journey from modest beginnings to Managing Director at Bank of America’s Academy is a testament to hard work, learning, and leadership. Raised in a middle-class family with a strong work ethic, Bernard’s early experiences shaped his leadership approach. From his start as a sales associate at RadioShack to leading over a thousand employees globally at Bank of America, he has always believed in the power of people and emotional intelligence. In this episode, Bernard shares strategies for transitioning into leadership, navigating crises, and the power of continuous learning in career growth. Bernard Hampton is a Managing Director and The Head of The Academy at Bank of America, where he leads global employee training and development initiatives for over 200,000 employees. In this episode, Ilana and Bernard will discuss: (00:00) Introduction  (01:39) Early Experiences That Shaped His Leadership (07:17) Joining Bank of America (09:02) Leading Through Crisis and Uncertainty (12:42) Four Keys to Stronger Team Dynamics (19:31) The Power of Origin Stories in Leadership (24:15) Leading Talent Development at Bank of America (30:07) The Value of Career Mentors and Sponsors (33:40) Building a Culture of Learning and Growth (38:10) Empowering Your Community as a Leader (39:45) Four Steps to Unlock Your Leadership Potential (45:30) Balancing Leadership with Personal Life Bernard Hampton is a Managing Director and The Head of The Academy at Bank of America, where he leads global employee training and development initiatives for over 200,000 employees. He is also a member of Leadership Florida's Executive Class 12 and serves on the Board of Directors for the Urban League of Palm Beach County, contributing to efforts that promote economic growth and community development. Connect with Bernard: Bernard’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bernardfhampton  Resources Mentioned: Bank of America: bankofamerica.com  The Academy: https://careers.bankofamerica.com/en-us/career-development/the-academy  Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness by Steve Magness: https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Things-Resilience-Surprising-Toughness/dp/006309861X  Leap Academy: Ready to make the LEAP in your career? There is a NEW way for professionals to Advance Their Careers & Make 5-6 figures of EXTRA INCOME in Record Time. Check out our free training today at leapacademy.com/training

Incredibly dynamic teams tend to collaborate better together, less about competing with one another, because in a company environment, there's one stock price at the end of the day, and the company's at its best when everybody's rowing in the same direction. Bernard Hampton, Managing Director, Bank of America, heading the Academy, a team of over a thousand professionals supporting over 200,000 employees globally.

Leadership is not a trait for managers or leaders only. I work with a lot of individual producers over the course of a career that have been amazing leaders in their own right. And it's that leadership quality or qualities that they demonstrate that have made them exceedingly valuable to the organization. Nobody wants to follow the leader that says, oh boy, are we in trouble and I don't know what to do. What are you doing to learn something new?

There's resources like the LEAP Academy online. There's people that you can observe. Sometimes that's about what to do as much as what not to do. If somebody's listening, but maybe they didn't get a chance of leadership yet, what are some of the tips that you would give them? I would tell you four things. Number one.

Bernard Hampton, Managing Director, Bank of America, heading the Academy, a team of over a thousand professionals supporting over 200,000 employees globally. His journey up the career ladder is fascinating. So buckle up. Jam packed episode. Bernard, thank you for being with me today. That's a pleasure. Thanks for the invite. I want to take you back in time.

When you grew up, tell us a little bit of what that looked like. And did you already have that vision that you're gonna be this big boss when you grow up? How did you grow up, Bernard? I don't know that it was about the what necessarily. So I grew up with modest beginnings, middle-class family, one that also farmed, by the way, so we grew a lot of our own vegetables. So hard work was a big part of what we did.

I had a father who was in the military, reserve duty by the time all of us came along, me and my older sister, younger brother, and then a mom who worked two jobs as well. So the family worked really hard, which meant, by the way, that they didn't have an opportunity to attend some of our events or sporting activities always, but it was all in the neighborhood or advancing the family. And as I grew up, my parents had enough to send my older sister to college, my younger brother,

my hiatus gave them a chance to recover. So I had to work through that myself, which was fine. my hiatus gave him a chance to recover, so I had to work through that myself, which was fine. We all worked through school, by the way, like most people do. And as I was working at a retail company, I started as a part-time sales associate and worked my way through. Before that, were you like a really great student as a kid?

Were you really driven? How was it like, Bernard? And where did you grow up? Yeah, so I grew up in a small town in South Carolina. I was a good student. I considered myself an AB. I was driven, but it was, I had a lot of interest. So I was a Boy Scout, actually became an Eagle Scout. I was really active in my church. Did a lot of youth leadership functions in church was a big part of my childhood, as well as a lot of external activities. And so my parents would always say I stayed pretty busy.

So I drove a school bus, I ran track, I played basketball. I was the state vice president of the Future Farmers of America. So there was always something going on. So very driven from the get go. Do you remember specific events, even as a kid, that shaped you to that extra-driven person that you are? It was a lot of the way my parents talked about experiences and the ability to learn anything if you were willing to listen, study enough, replicate what you learned and took

away. So it was events like being involved in the Boy Scouts, quite honestly, that was unexpected leadership opportunities along the way. It was experiences outside the norm that weren't necessarily something that was going on in the neighborhood, but whether it was a 50-mile canoe trip and it was spending time relying on other people and engaging with other people that may bring different experiences or different things that you could teach one another. Amazing. So your parents in general taught you hard work, but they weren't necessarily with corporate titles. It wasn't about, I need to be an SVP, a managing director. Like

none of that came there yet. No, not at all. I did not have an example in corporate America to follow in my family and it was a lot about charting your own path to decide what did success look like for you and ultimately what did the opportunity to chart your own path in society mean. So you start basically from a sales associate in Radio Shack. Did you start before that or was that a first? I did a part-time job and began to advance from that point. And as I would share with people, you know, that was a commission job, but I've made a career ultimately out of helping other people get what they want.

And so I even thought about that as a part-time sales associate that if my check would ultimately be a reflection of how many of my clients I was able to help meet whatever need, whatever goal or objective they had along the way. And that translated into ultimately leading people. And so the success of companies, of businesses, of teams ultimately come down to the engagement from the employees. Are they feeling like they're getting their needs met? If they are, they tend to take better care of clients and ultimately you deliver for clients. And whether it sells results, profits, it's a function of the people you're serving having their needs met or getting their goals and objectives achieved. Oh my God. So I love what you just said. If I'm going to take good care of

them, this is going to be basically the recipe for success. And then it becomes a win-win. What are some things that you needed to learn though, because you haven't been a leader yet, you just got to a leadership for the first time in Radio Shack and you're starting to climb up the ladder. What are some things that you feel like you needed to learn and that shaped your leadership style or if there's specific events maybe that just oh my god, I don't want to do this or I do want to do that. Yeah, I think initially for most people at that stage in life, you're following a manual of some sort some standard operating principles and practice

But they're not necessarily always developing EQ or emotional intelligence along the way but I think if you're feeding off of other people, you very quickly learn to, well, I can tell by the person's face or their body language became closed off that that didn't resonate. It wasn't the way that I said it, it was I'm not communicating well with them. The tenets of communication,

emotional intelligence, engagement, responsiveness, the opportunity to begin to take ownership for things that don't go well. I certainly wouldn't have referred to it back then as psychological safety, but ultimately, it's where you begin to practice the tenants of how you create an environment where everybody is contributing to the solution ultimately. moved to Bank of America and you create a long career there and you just keep on climbing up the ranks. Probably a lot of the things that you do in leadership today are based on things that you learned along the journey, right, so share a little bit about some of these

pivotal moments maybe that shaped you. Honestly, the first one was whether to come to Bank of America or not. I initially turned down the opportunity and tried to pass the recruiter on to somebody else. And ultimately, I'm glad I didn't because ultimately what sparked my interest was how the company thought about its clients, the responsibility to them individually for companies of all sizes and to the community, the importance of good financial advice and the responsibility

the organization took to be able to provide that to positively impact families, companies, the economy. But honestly, the biggest thing that made my decision in the factor to join the bank came down to the greatest asset in the company, and that's our people. And so through the process of interviews over the course of four months, I had an opportunity to engage with some 40 plus people outside the interview process, people that were friends had introduced me to. And it was those people that love what they did

as they talked about the organization, how open they were about the culture, that the values were more than words on the wall, and that they intended to spend their careers here. Well, that's when I knew. So that's ultimately what made my decision to say this was the place for me to be. And, you know, here we are almost 21 years later. Only thing I wished is that I'd made the decision sooner or that I had an opportunity. So you join what year is it? So we're about, you said 20 years.

So if I'm not mistaken, a few years later, there's a big financial crisis. How did you maneuver something like this? I mean, you're not new. You're not new to leadership for sure. But this has been, I'm sure, shaking the boats of everybody. 100%. What mattered then is the same thing that matters today is certainly magnified in moments like the financial crisis or whether it was the years during COVID communication and listening and your ability to do that on steroids during moments of uncertainty because at the end

of the day, nobody wants to follow the leader that says, oh boy, are we in trouble and I don't know what to do. Right? That would be a problem for those people. And it's in those moments where if you were communicating twice a week, that maybe it needs to become four or five times a week. And it's the opportunity to listen, pick up the phone, whether it's a roundtable or call, understand what you're taking anecdotally from people and bring those learnings into a broader conversation to say if you, you know, when a five or six people are feeling this way, that's probably 50, 60, or 100 that are feeling that way. And your ability to outthink or what would come across as

really being in touch with people is ultimately what it is. People want a sense of clarity, want to know what's happening, what do we expect to have happen, if something changes, is there a level of steadiness and trust from a leadership perspective that they can follow? And for us, that happens at all levels of the organization. Bernard, let me ask you something, because I think that's extremely relevant.

Even now, a lot of companies are feeling, a lot of individuals are feeling fear. How do you, as a leader, balance between, on one hand, integrity and authenticity, and on the other hand not freak everybody out? Because if you're going to freak everybody out, they're not going to be with it, right? So how do you balance the two? I love that question.

And the first one from my perspective is that you always treat people like adults. And so regardless of what someone does, regardless at what level or role that they have, we all largely want the same thing in life. We may or may not have a family that we're responsible for. We'd like a decent place to live and a safe community. You'd love to be able to advance or achieve career goals. Maybe you're in your dream job already, but at the end of the day, you have bills to pay. You may have a mortgage or rent, there's some commonalities and themes that regardless at what level someone may be at in the organization, the way the organization runs, their

understanding of it, their ability to recognize whether their voice matters or not, is integral to all of those things. And so I tend to think almost anything, unless it's confidential information, that I can have, whether somebody is four levels removed from me, if they're a level above me or they're beside me, all need the same information. You may change the tone or tenor of it a little bit, but ultimately, information is powerful.

Having a habit of doing that usually creates the opportunity where people will trust you, that they know you'll always shoot straight with them, particularly when something's not good news. And I think that's okay. I'm a big believer of empowering the team because if they know the truth, they can be empowered to make better decisions. And it also gives them a chance to rise up to the occasion when some of them will not

rise up to the occasion. And that's okay because that's when you also know where the winners are. I think it's really, really interesting because I think this is where some leaders lead with fear versus dreams and hopes. And I think the other element that I'm just curious about for you specifically, but also all the people that you're helping in the academy today, there's a all the people that you're helping in the academy today. There's a fine balance, I guess, between pushing people to work harder and burning them out versus letting them go.

And then now they can just do whatever, be in La La Land and understand that they all need to work harder toward the mission. How do you balance between results and not burning out the team? What are some of the things that helped you? I think about three things. One, I think about my own personal purpose, which is about helping people change their lives by reaching their potential

or achieving peace with their own decisions, right? So everybody's at different places. And I think to a great extent, that piece with your own decisions can impact negatively or positively where someone positions themselves, the way they think about the company, their role, their experience.

So I'll give you an example on that one before I give the other two. I remember I used to tell a story to our teams and in different organizations, depending on what was going on, sometimes individual conversations about at one point in my life, depending on family circumstances, I'd made decisions. I was not mobile. I knew that that meant that that would cause me to

miss several opportunities along the way. But I had to personally be okay with that, because that's not something the company did to me. That was the decision I made. So that level of piece meant I would have to make sure that I was continually learning, preparing, because at the moment that changed, I didn't say I would never be able to move, but I said for now. So what did that mean I should be or could be doing at the same time? Well, that story related to a lot of people on the way, in some cases, maybe saying, well, as the company's found a missing these opportunities, but not thinking about their own self-imposed limitations

and having a sense of peace and confidence in that. This is worth waiting for a second, because I think what you just said is so critical, and I want the listeners to hear this. You need to understand your must-haves, and you can have it all just not at the same time, but you need to understand your must haves. And you can have it all just not at the same time, but you need to understand your own must haves. And it needs to be you, not what people think about you,

not what society expects for you, not what your parents want for you, it's what rights for you. And then you have that piece of these are my must haves, this is what I need right now, and this is where I'm going for, right? So I think Bernard, this is just so, so, so important. So I had to stop here for a second.

Thank you. I appreciate that. You expanded that very well. The second one really comes down to what is it that somebody wants. And think about working through things systematically. And I always encourage people to be willing to declare it, but then work backwards. And then you have a decision point. You have to decide, are you willing to do what it takes then to be able to achieve it?

So you may declare the goal and that may very easily change where they were headed along the way. And then the final one is a momism. And so my mom's always had this saying growing up for the three of us that was, you're no better than anyone else, but no one else is better than you. I think I landed on the three of us in different ways, but as I've gone through life and careers and managed careers,

that's probably some of the most powerful advice I've ever gotten because what she meant by that is there will always be a skill level or a difference. But she also admit at the same time that those are all differences that you can control. So somebody may have better skill in an area, they may have a different experience, they may have different educational background. But if you're willing to put in the work to listen,

learn, and apply, those are gaps that you can close. Simultaneously, by saying regardless of what you do, what level you may operate at one day, having a healthy respect for everyone that you work with elicits or creates an environment where people will always be able to, or at least interested in helping you with things that you wanna be able to learn from them

and vice versa, but also has the benefit of creating followership. And so those were important lessons, but understanding where people are. And then I shall add a fourth one to it. I think everybody has an origin story that's unique to them that makes them special. And the more we understand them, the more we help people incorporate their voices in different ways, the value, their opinions, their perspectives, that makes the team better. And so across these four things ends up creating a fabric from my perspective of just incredibly dynamic teams that tend to collaborate better together. They solve problems together, less

about competing with one another, because in a company environment, there's one stock price at the end of the day, and the company's at its best when everybody's rowing in the same direction, everybody's being thoughtful about better solutions and how to solve problems, but then doing that together. Oh my God, I love this, because I think if you connect that basic zone of genius, kind of where you're really, really good at, together was what you want,

it was what you love, what the company needs, and together was that origin story, because now you have a purpose as well, right? And now you're more motivated to push higher, right? This is where, yes, you get everybody to work a lot more collaboratively, if you will, to one mission. But how do you do it in a big team? Maybe when you have two and a half people,

sometimes it's easy to mama them, but if you have hundreds or thousands of people, how do you find that origin story? How do you have the bandwidth or the flows or the processes to even push them towards where they're going to be most amazing at? I'll tell you two ways. One, I always believe in you prioritize people. I mentioned it before, but they truly are the most important asset in any organization, team, company, regardless of the size. I can't remember who said it,

but somewhere along the way in history made the statement that good leaders give instructions through the chain of command, but they get information outside the chain. What works from my perspective is, yes, you can't touch everyone, but whether it is a visit to a single location, a visit to a massive location, your ability to be there early,

build in time to stay late, not overpack the schedule, to be able to grab individuals, make individual connections and find out about them, is just exceedingly important. It's valuable. And make individual connections, and find out about them, is just exceedingly important. It's valuable. And out of connections, those create the moments where people tend to pick up the phone

and tell you the things you need to know when you need to know it without worrying about some structured process to be able to provide information. Extremely valuable. I can tell you the number of business plans that I've been able to make, derive, explore more information, interrogate a problem I may be trying to solve for

the organization and go further through some of those individual conversations and connections. The second is about origin stories. I do it in my current organization. I did it in the last one that had 13,000 people in it. This is the impact to me of thinking about the chain of command because once I started this opportunity of sharing origin stories I shared my own with my team but not till

a two or three other people had did it prior and it was as simple as saying hey Alana we've got a meeting coming up we're gonna be in person I would love it with whatever you feel comfortable with if If you take 15 or 20 minutes, share your origin story, whatever parts of it you feel comfortable with. You can use pictures or props if you want, but 10 or 15 minutes to present and maybe spend 10 minutes being able to get reflections or questions from the audience.

And that's literally all I ask. But I can't tell you the number of times that through these tears are around the room or shock and awe and the things that somebody may not have known about this button up serious professional that's hard charging always, but all of a sudden they became human. And the number of connections across the room. And this has worked beautifully, whether it's an established team, I've used it when there's been periods of change or new organizations coming together.

But I've got to tell you, when you talk about the four stages of a team forming, this process has helped me through several organizations now move through those stages with light speed like I've never seen before, Because those connections have brought people together, either because they admire the story, they're inspired by the story, they made a connection to several points in their own history, and it's brought the teams together. And it doesn't have to be everybody at once. Number one, emotionally you probably

couldn't take it. You can. You have to be able to do it. And so we've done this over a series of months where two or three people may start it at an offsite and then virtual meetings in between every month, every other month, somebody additional from the leadership team will tell. And so it may take a year to have a 12 or 14 person leadership team be able to tell those, but the momentum is incredible. And the side conversations that aren't just about business

are also what happens to be able to elicit trust. Well, how did you share your origin story, speaking of? So I happened to take my team to the Center for Civil Rights and Justice in Atlanta. And it was as we did the tour through a number of experiences. So in the South Civil Rights Movement, I'm seeing all of the things that my parents grew up and lived through.

And we get to the end and we're debriefing. So it was an offsite that had a cultural element to it. But at the end, I told my origin story and how my origin story is tied to a stock of cotton and what that meant for my mom, who's one of seven, to have been during her high school years, she's the second oldest of seven, her and her oldest sibling, to be taken out of school by their father and for three or four months during the year during cotton season, have to pick cotton at a 100 pounds a day.

And so imagine missing three or four months of high school. That's what it took for the family to be able to survive and what that would mean. But then to go on and talk about a lineage that goes back into slavery and what I consider a point of privilege for my family, quite honestly, is at some point my great, great, great grandfathers and his brother, their families were sharecroppers after post slavery and came to own 21 acres of the land that they sharecropped as a family and passed down through the generations. Well, my family owns some of that land today. We grew up on some of that land and that's where my father built the home that my mother

lives in to this day. And you start to think about ownership. What does that mean to be able to have an asset that was part of the story for how they were able to send my sister to college as the first person in our family to go to college. And it spins from there, critical decisions that somebody made along the way.

How do you respond to what happens to you in life? And that's part of a story that I'm proud of decisions that somebody made along the way, how do you respond to what happens to you in life? And that's part of a story that I'm proud of that I certainly think that I have grown from not in spite of, but because of that story. Wow, that is so powerful. First of all, Bern, thank you for sharing that. I think this whole tool, basically, if you think about it as a tool to share those stories, it's just such a strong way for people to bond and to get closer to trust more and to want to work together

towards a mission. So today with all this knowledge, you lead the Academy in Bank of America and it's supporting over what 200,000 employees globally, which is insane. First of all, what inspired you to move towards talent development and learning? Like, it sounded like it was always a big passion. That's the truth. Like, this is what I'm hearing. But what inspired you to move towards that? I would tell you initially upon making this move, that wasn't the case. It certainly has been an asset to me professionally throughout my career.

All the tenants of talent management, of good human resource discipline, engagement of people. But I considered it in a way to say, you know what, that's something I may want to do at the end of my career. Today, that is such an integral part of how do you build successful teams, deep and broad benches of succession plans,

redundancy in organizations, expand organizational capacity. And so I thought about it in terms of businesses that I run. So up until this point, I've always run a revenue generating business. And out of some very good advice from a leader and a sponsor and a mentor,

I began to document not roles that I would wanna do in the future, but what was the what? Specifically in planning my career, what did I wanna continue to be able to learn? What were different ways I wanted to continue to be able to contribute to the success of the organization?

I wanted to continue to be challenged. I wanted to broaden in my role. And then what were specific aspects of leadership and business that I enjoy. And so that was the list. And by the way, there was also a short list of here's some things that I'm least likely to get fired up in the morning to go do. And I think both of those were important, but what they enabled sponsors and advocates to be able to do was help me think about fits for what ultimately would be the next phase of my career. And so it wasn't until by the way, like a lot of people, one of my biggest failures, I think at the time is when you begin to think about jobs, jobs change more over

time may or may not become available, but it became a very different exercise to say, how would I relish the opportunity to spend my time? What would fill my tank, so to speak, when it comes to my purpose, what was important? And that's what ultimately took on the complexion of this role to be able to head the academy, which wasn't on my radar. Something I thought about at some point in the past,

but it wasn't on my radar, but being thought about at some point in the past, but it wasn't on my radar. But being faced with an opportunity to go back through my list and said, this is exactly what I would love to do. And that to me is amazing. I would love to take you for a second to that decision, if that's okay, Bernard, because clearly you make a huge difference. And by the way, when you can unlock potential of hundreds of thousands of people, guess what? The whole organization wins.

But I want to take you to that moment of decision, because I think one of the things that we see repeatedly was our audience with our clients is the fear of, oh, my God, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to be irrelevant for everything else and that's going to kill the rest of my life. And what if I, you know, like, it's that final thing, which I look at a career as all experiments and we just gonna adapt again and again. But I know there's always this fear of,

oh my God, is this decision gonna dictate the rest of my life? And I'd love to take you there for a second, Bernard, because clearly that is a big shift. That was a moment of discomfort to be quite honest. I remember asking a particular sponsor, so why would somebody think that was the next logical step, or what would make you think this is something that fits? Without missing the beat,

the person said, I'm going to take you back to the list that we talked through a year ago and why this couldn't be a better opportunity. Because amongst the things on that list was I wanted to be able to experience more, learn more of the organization. Well, it happens to be not only do I get to work with this amazing group of folks that support 35 different organizations, support functions, businesses around the company. But all of the line of business heads are

my biggest clients for organization today. So to be integrally connected to hasten or accelerate the pace of learning is extremely exciting to me, and to be able to build bridges, quite frankly, across these vertical academies that support our organization globally, and capitalize on those relationships amongst my leadership team

that are even stronger today that I mentioned. The ability to apply a strategic lens with leadership bias across really did create open doors for me to be able to think about and ponder this differently. I will say it also helped that I just a couple of months before I read this book by Steve Magnus called Do Hard Things. It has four pillars in it, but two of the ones that stood out particularly was the ability to respond instead of reacting, I'll actually give you three, to transcend discomfort.

That was the moment right there. Then the third one, actually the first one in those pillars was to ditch the facade and embrace reality. What's most important to think about, here are all the things I don't know today that I want to learn, and how this opportunity can connect to accelerating the closure of that gap. So it was bringing me back through everything that I read in

a different way that I initially had applied to a different realm, but it was now square in front of me. I couldn't have been more excited and honored from that point to be able to work with the people I get to work with today to build new strategies in the way that we are. Which is incredible. And I want to go there for a second. But you also mentioned, which I love, sponsors and mentors.

And I'm a big believer. I wasn't a big believer until relatively later in my career. But the more and more I realized that a jar can't read its own label. And sometimes you do need the sponsor. You do need the mentor. You do need the external view to reflect this back to you. Because yes, the data was always there. I was just not looking at the data in the right way.

And I love that you're mentioning it because I think there's a little bit like in sports, we're so good about going to coaches in order to train the Olympics. But for some unknown reason, we're so scared of admitting for help related to a career, but actually that is probably where we lose the most amount of money, time, you know, relevance, opportunities. How do you find these mentors, sponsors? What helped you? Oh, super question. I'll tell you three things. Number one, big difference in sponsors and mentors. I think a lot of people have mentors.

The mistake I have given some folks feedback on in the past is don't treat that like a check the box. Your goal is to have that be two way is to develop a relationship of trust where you can honestly expose what you're struggling with, what you're working with, because you're going to miss the ability to really capitalize on the real value that they have to bring. Because your goal would be if you did that well, if you weren't just pulling from them, but you also poured into it, ideally you'd turn it into a sponsor relationship. So I've made those mistakes in the past, I had to pivot as well, and I share that from just lessons learned.

And then the ones that turned into sponsors, because there's a level of trust and transparency, a couple of things happen. Number one, that person will tell you when you have broccoli in your teeth. They'll put the mirror up. They'll tell you the truth when you need to hear it. And I can't tell you how invaluable that's been. And I'm not pretending that that's always going to feel good. But you accept it because you grow to know that

that's coming from a great place from somebody that only wants to see you do well, be at your very best. And so that connection is always important. Sometimes mentors can be given, nobody can give you a sponsor. Somebody can assign you a mentor, your relationship and the way that you help that unfold will determine if it becomes a sponsor or not. Sometimes they come through programs. I always encourage people,

as I've been on my journey over a career, is to seek them on your own, to think about everybody you meet. By the way, I've got peers that are phenomenal mentors and sponsors today because of investing in and fostering relationships. We do great work together, but we also support the growth

and development of one another. The other place that I think gets thought of least sometimes is I highly encourage you're not cheating on your company. I encourage people to also seek and develop outside relationships that become sponsors and mentors because to your point, fresh perspective, at the end of the day, leadership is leadership. You want people that are going to be thought, intelligent, engaging, not listen to a company's secret process, but be able to help you about strategies. We've all got different experiences. And so we're gonna come at things differently

and provide you advice today that breaks the mold, maybe out of whether it be cultural that you're in or because you've always done it that way, that perspective can be a catalyst for change in different ways. So right now, if you're looking at what you're doing and your entire organization is doing for employees globally, what do you think are some of the key maybe skills or opportunities or the things that really move the needle to unlock these people's potential?

Culture is important and we've been on this journey for quite some time and that's why I have just so much credit to the folks that I work with and their willingness to be able to do things different. Many of them came from within the business, by the way, and so they bring a level of subject matter expertise, they learn learning, and our tools and resources. But the way that we think about this culture of learning, if you will, is to one, be part of the creative environment

where continual learning is celebrated. In order for that to happen, learning needs to be interesting, it needs to be democratized. We tend to bring forward the use of various modalities, including great new technology like virtual reality and AI into it. We create environments or training that

leads people into real life skill development. It has to solve a problem, solve a challenge somebody's going through. They need to feel enabled and empowered to perform their roles at a higher level when they're done. And it needs to be supported. And one example of doing that is we use AI in something that we call iCoach, where literally 1.3 million times last year employees across our company engaged in immersive learning where they can use tools that would provide them feedback on either areas they were struggling with

and they decide to self-driven go in, or one, the leader encourage them to be able to go in and get feedback and practice whatever the scenarios are that they're struggling with and they may get feedback from, in this case, a computer, but it allows them to feel enabled, empowered. Now, my leader is not catching me in the act of doing something poorly. Now, I'm showing off a little bit because they see me being successful with it, and these tools and resources allow them to do that.

The other opportunity, my colleagues in our global talent organization went through a process and identified the 200 skills around the company that are opportunity, my colleagues in our Global Talent Organization went through a process and identified the 200 skills around the company that are significantly important because they're either functional skills or they're managerial skills applied to all roles across the company. My organization built and launched last year the Bank of America Skills Library, which gives them access to those skills and importantly they're connected to something that we call the career path tool where someone can go in and

say hey you know what I'm in this role today I would like to do this as an individual producer or I'd like to pursue a leadership track they can see the skills required in those roles and they can see all of the tools and resources available to give them access to to not wait, but begin to develop those skills today. That ability to say, we're one company that has many careers, and I have control as an individual employee, regardless of my level,

regardless of what I do today, I have access to that. Yes, I've got great leaders I can work with, but I can also demonstrate some personal ownership by being able to engage in these tools and continue to learn today. I love this Bernard, because I think people don't even realize how much is on the menu right now.

There's endless possibilities, there's endless ways to grow in responsibility, to grow to different function in the company, to different tech tools, to different, like, there's just so many. And I think what we also sometimes we miss is that it's less about your skills. You still need to be good. But now it's more about adaptability and curiosity and emotional intelligence and about a thousand things that they used to be soft skills or the things are nice to have.

But they're actually the career accelerator that you need, which is kind of interesting to see how I think the world shifted and these are becoming a must have. Yeah. And if they don't exist in your company today, I think we're fortunate at Bank of America, but if they didn't exist in your company today, there's resources like your Academy, the Leap Academy online.

There's so many, there many books that you can read. There's just lots of sources of information. There's people that you can observe. Sometimes that's about what to do as much as what not to do in key situations. But the bottom line is, what are you doing to learn something new? Then how are you not just learning because you can get the continual vacuum of learning but if you never apply it, then what happens at the end of the day?

Right. So I want to thank you just for a second. You're also pretty big on and active in organization outside in terms of Urban League and to give back and leadership Florida, I think, and other things that you love giving back to the community. Why do you think it's an important piece? That's part of balance for me in my life. I'm so pleased that it's reflected in my children and the way that they volunteer today as a priority.

In fact, they go to food distributions and all sorts of activities with me as well, but they also do them on their own. That's part of personal fulfillment. Like I said, I grew up with modest beginnings, and the Urban Leader has been attracted to as an organization because it focuses on helping people from all walks of life be able to achieve economic empowerment.

The power to get great advice, to have tools and resources, receive coaching can literally change somebody's life and their families for generations. And part of that is the feeling of how it's tied to our mission and purpose as a company at Bank of America. And part of it is about where and how I grew up. And if I'd had access to some of the information

that I have today, what might that mean for people in my community or neighborhood from where I grew up 50 plus years ago? I absolutely agree. And for me, it's also a big thing. And I think it also helps people, A, get the balance, but also learn skills. They bring back those skills and that fulfillment and that passion back to the organization. So I love that this is something that you lead with because I'm sure other people can follow. So for our listeners, maybe Bernard,

if somebody's listening, but maybe they didn't get a chance of leadership yet, or they're right now freaked out about the economy, they don't know how to find a job or whatever it is, what are some of the tips that you would give them in order to leap to that leadership role and to become more successful, to be able to prove themselves? I would tell you four things, but before I do that,

I think an important comment is leadership is not a trait for managers or leaders only. I work with a lot of individual producers over the course of a career that have been amazing leaders in their own right. And it's that leadership quality or qualities that they demonstrate that have made them exceedingly valuable to the organization. And so if it's a personal choice not to be a leader, that's fine, but still demonstrating leadership makes you incredibly valuable. The four things that I would say in response to your question is number one, be a continual learner and a continual practicer.

So how are you leveraging the resources in the company where you work? How are you leveraging resources online, books, wherever you get a source to be able to learn from. For me, a favorite was always before online and even since, has been learn from people that are further down the road than I am or may even want to be. So for 20 years,

I've read books by either really successful CEOs or those that provide strategy to them or build strategy with them because it helps get into mind of how the organizations may unfold or think. Key question is always, who or what sources are you learning from? The second is to deploy it. Deploy what you're learning. Sometimes that's going to come from your own self drive and looking for ways to do it. How you influencing peers that

you work with? Do you think about the organization first? Or you only thinking about yourself? My encouragement would be to think about the organization first, and the colleagues that you work with, because your leader is going to see that. Let's say they're trying to decide between two people who have relatively similar performance. Maybe you're an A and there's another person who's an A plus.

But if you're the person that's deploying skills for the organization, you're thinking about the org first, you make people around you better, I'd take the A player or even the B-plus all day long because there's a multiplication effect to the way that that person thinks it operates. Third, I'd say make sure you reflect it. Reflect it in who you are and the way that you show up.

You can be in a hurry, but be in what I would call a composed hurry. So don't seem frenetic that it's this role, this job at all costs. This comes from, those are reality from a couple of the authors that have read over time, like John Maxwell talks about leadership develops daily, not in a day. And so they have taken a course or read a book, that doesn't mean you're ready today, but how are you using it and practicing it?

Or Malcolm Gladwell talks about it takes 10,000 hours to reach mastery or ultimate expertise. And so that makes me think about all of the people that are around you that are always trying to get better, but reflecting it looks like somebody who has learned something or has received feedback, but has become known for being a really fast adopter and that executes consistently. Then the fourth one, I'd say, when the race of one first, meaning you, that person in the mirror, that's the person that's got to change every day. If you're not able to measure yourself against,

am I better today than I was yesterday? Am I better skilled this week than last week, this quarter than last quarter? Consistently challenging yourself. Because, by the way, everybody around you is. They may be external, they may be internal posting for the same role. There are other people sharpening their acts constantly. And so unless you're doing it, you also miss the opportunity,

which this will elicit as well, which is attracting advocates and sponsors along the way. You alluded to a few things, and I want to emphasize them back for the listeners to hear this again. Who's around you is really, really important and who you're looking and learning from, right? Because there's always going to be the voices that are scared for you and want you to play safe and don't necessarily want the best for you, right?

Or just want to keep you small. So you want to make sure that you're looking and you're learning from the people that are really where you want to be and not that will keep you stuck and safe. So I think that's one that I think is just really, really, really important. And I think the other thing that you alluded to beyond that taking perfect steps every day and just continue, I think patience is a bliss. And I think there's a little bit of a balance between patience and hard work. And it's OK to be very driven.

But also, you need to understand that there's an element of patience that you need to embody because things take time. And sometimes, as I admit, I have a patience issue, but then I want everything yesterday, but I also need to realize that's not going to happen. And I just need to keep on going towards the goal. And I know to have that belief that eventually it's going to all pan out. And I think that just so hard sometimes for driven people.

What do you think Bernard? I laugh because I join you in that. And in some ways I've also also much better than my younger self have tried to be able to embrace that is to say because people are different am I being reasonable and am I asking the person that I may be waiting on for something or engaging to be able to solve a problem is that reasonable and why or why not because Because then we may negotiate, or it may be an obstacle that I can remove

and still get it in the timeframe that I want. Or they may, because of their closeness to the problem, as long as they feel safe to be able to bring it up and tell me, well, you know, if we do this, or it takes a little bit longer, we can get to a better solution for these reasons. And so those additional questions and being more of a scientist than an evangelist,

if you will, interrogating something based on the facts arrives at the right decision. Or is a partial solution better for something that's gonna evolve? So I may still need it when I need it, but let's evolve over time, but we've got to get to a better place sooner. I think what you said about making it scientific is really, really interesting because one

of the things that I admit I came late to the game was I didn't believe in any of the disc assessment, personal tests, all of that. And now I'm kind of eating my hat a little bit because that would have solved a lot of my issues. But the interesting thing is that I always assumed everybody's motivated in the same way. And that is not correct. So I was just kind of thinking, oh, everybody's like me. If they're motivated, they just go, no, everybody's different. Some people are more result driven. Some people are more people driven. Some people are more, you know, it's like they need more of the processes.

People are different. And I think if we are looking at it in a little more scientific way versus only my gut feel, because my gut feel was wrong, I thought everybody's the same. But if you're thinking about it a little more scientific, you can actually drive the people in the right way according to what's right for them and not try to put them in the wrong boxes, if you will. Did you see that, Bernard?

A hundred percent. It's that finding out what's critical to people individually ultimately changes their outlook, it changes their engagement. It helps you understand where they're coming from and their perspective, quite frankly. You know, you maybe think about, I'll jump back for just a second if it's okay, when we were laughing about just being really driven

and working hard and demanding schedules, it also made me think about a mistake or a pitfall that a lot of people can fall into. And I would tell you, I was in it at one point, but fortunately had a leader and a sponsor that I could have real conversations with. That would include talking about personal and things other than work,

that would ultimately talking about personal and things other than work that would ultimately affect work. And at the time they gave me some of the best advice, I think both for me, my family, but for other people whom I passed it on to, which was they could tell where I was going. And they said, you know, and they decided to use themselves as an example, which surprised me. But their example was that they wanted me to know, they've never missed one of their children's events.

You can fill in the blank, I never missed an event that's important to my family, spouse, partner, mom or dad, child, what have you. I thought about that for a moment and then we engaged in a conversation and I start bringing up examples about what about this? What about that? Never miss one.

You don't miss my words and never miss one. And I began from that moment, two things. Number one, I always calendar these things. So I went from keeping two calendars to one, no personal, no business. Everything's on my business. They're all together. Because what's on it gets done.

And then I had a conversation with my children. I had two at the time. We've got a third one now. Which one? Congratulations. Thank you. Which one? Well, she's now 15. But yeah. But we had a conversation that said, I said, yes, that travels a lot. I've always involved in stuff, but I will never miss one of your events. But here's the deal. You've got to tell mom and I as soon as you know about it. And it had a benefit. Number one, I knew about what they were, but it also forced my boys, especially my daughters, you know, girls and boys a little bit to get organized and forced them to get organized and communicate more regularly

because but what it also showed the third thing was how big of a deal it was for them that I never missed them because you bet they told me. And I could plan my day and calendar around it. And I share it with my teammates because I don't want them to miss theirs. We can figure out another meeting that you need to miss or this or that other. That's time you won't get back. And it also changes your reflection of your engagement and the work will never be the enemy in a personal situation because work can support and enable what you do. And it's important for all of us, individual producers, leaders alike, to think about and

continue to prioritize what's important because you will make time to back into it and get work done. This is priceless, Bernard. And I wish I met you a few decades ago because I think for me, you know, I always end the episode with a tip for your younger self. And I think end the episode with a tip for your younger self. And I think you just talked about my tip to my younger self. And I think, yes, as a driven person, when my daughter was five months old, I was like, OK, now back to work. And I missed probably the first five years of their life.

And I think there's something about we talked about burnout just for a second at some point. But burnout is basically when just when your priorities are wrong. there's something about, we talked about burnout just for a second at some point, but burnout is basically when just when your priorities are wrong. It's not that you're working hard. I'm working really, really, really hard right now, but I'm doing what I love. And I love every second. And when I just came back from, you know, Turks and Caicos, it was my family, because that is a priority for me, but I do it differently now.

So there was no burnout. And I think what you just said is so critical because the organization usually gonna be okay. And all you need to do is just work around it. This is brilliant. Thank you. I've enjoyed talking to you. Yeah, so what would be your one tip to your younger self?

And then, you know, because now I thought you gave me mine. Mine would be probably twofold. Always focus on people, regardless of what the thing you're trying to solve is. Focus on the people first. And then second, where that intersects with career, don't focus on the role focus on the what what are the things that you really want to be able to do? What matters? Brings a level of clarity and purpose

from my perspective to what you're doing. If I'd have learned that sooner, that would have been priceless. Oh my God. So I have to say, Bank of America, leaders are talking like you, that puts everything in a different perspective. So Bernard, thank you for this amazing conversation.

It was just pure gold. Thank you. Very kind of you. The pleasure has been mine.