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What do banking and education have in common?

When you’re Ros Guerrie, senior vice president for leadership and professional development manager at BB&T University, the answer is leadership.

“BB&T’s definition of leadership is about creating self awareness, being able to communicate well, setting a vision and getting people on board to accomplish that mission,” says Guerrie. “So whether it’s a bank manager or a principal, the beliefs and processes are the same.”

Based in Winston-Salem, BB&T University offers a blended learning approach for bank employees to develop leadership skills through classroom instruction, case studies and coaching. The connection between BB&T’s efforts to train employees and the NC New Schools approach to leadership development for principals led the bank to make a $300,000 investment in NC New Schools’ North Carolina Center for Educational Leadership (NCCEL). But BB&T’s contribution goes beyond the financial gift.

“BB&T has served as a great thought partner and supporter in this work,” says Jodi Anderson, director of NCCEL. “Our work involves very similar development strategies and activities, just in different settings. Because we are all focused on developing leaders within the broader context of the community, NCCEL is able to build upon their experiences and apply those lessons learned for developing principal leadership.”

Guerrie believes the relationship between BB&T and NC New Schools is a win-win for both organizations.

“Promoting and developing leaders is a key foundational belief for the whole company,” says Guerrie. “BB&T is focused on making our communities better places to be, and schools are an important aspect of that mission. The leaders in those schools are developing the talent who will become associates at BB&T, so that benefits us in the long-term.”

Guerrie identifies coaching - a significant piece of NC New Schools’ support for principals and teachers - as a key element in leadership training.

“If you look at coaching in a very simple way, something is wrong and needs to be fixed. We look at coaching differently,” Guerrie says. “As a leader, I’m going to coach to prepare others to succeed. That’s the goal of the manager. At BB&T, we teach the process so that a manager learns and understands how to coach, then we give them the opportunity to practice. That’s just like a school environment - doing that for principals and for teachers.”

Leadership development is important for both recruitment and retention of employees, according to Guerrie.

“Leadership isn’t about motivating others. It’s about creating an environment that motivates them. Leadership is taking the time to understand what’s important to people,” says Guerrie. “This isn’t a checklist, it’s a long-term journey that we’re on to create a place where people can learn and be fulfilled.”

This type of professional growth is also critical for managing change - something that both successful bank managers and innovative school principals must be able to do.

“Managing change and leading change are critical competencies for any leader to have. When you’re leading change, you have to recognize that natural resistance and figure out how to engage people and be able to show them the benefits,” says Guerrie. “And in order to do that as a leader, you have to really believe it yourself. It takes a lot of self-awareness to understand what that change process will look like.”

Throughout her training career of more than 20 years, Ros Guerrie has designed and facilitated leadership and professional development training programs as well as teambuilding, strategic planning, and change management. She is certified as a leadership and development trainer and is a Certified Myers Briggs Type Indicator Practitioner. She is a national member of the American Society of Training and Development (ASTD). A native of Colorado, Guerrie earned a bachelor’s degree from Adams State College and a master’s of education in training and development from North Carolina State University. Her area of research was evaluation of training and performance improvement initiatives.