Swipe Right

Editor’s note: TIFFANY D. TUCKER was a keynote speaker at this summer’s WILMA’s Leadership Accelerator conference, drawing laughs and sharing insights about her experience in the dating world of Wilmington.  There are many parallels between navigating dating apps and navigating leadership challenges, says Tucker, owner of Tiffany D. Tucker Speaks LLC. She recently moved from her role as UNCW’s deputy athletics director and senior women administrator to become the athletics director of University of Maryland, Baltimore County. This is an excerpt from her speech at Leadership Accelerator, pointing out a few of those lessons learned.  To hear the full talk, go to W2WLeadership.com

All dating apps are not created equal, understanding that when you are deciding to date and jumping out into this dating world – this new 2024, I-gotta-put-my-profile-picture-up … world. I’m going to jump on the app. I’m going to see exactly who’s out there.

But the hardest job is picking one. …

One thing about leadership that I’ve learned is first, you don’t need all of the apps. You have to delegate and figure out what works for you. …

For your leadership and in your company on your team, you’ve got to find the folks who really make an impact, and you as a leader, must delegate those responsibilities to them. …

Number two, who are you really hiding from? You get on a dating app, and you’ve done all the work to take the cute picture. Meanwhile, the other joker’s decided, ‘I’m just going to pull out a selfie with some shades on.’ The one thing I want to see is you. Who are you hiding from?

As leaders, y’all know where I’m going: vulnerability.

When you’ve got to stand in front of a room of people and tell them we didn’t hit our mark over the last few quarters; I’ve got to let X amount of people go.

I had to stand in front of my staff and say, ‘Hey, it has been an amazing experience to be here in Wilmington and work at UNCW, but for my own personal and professional life, I must seek this other opportunity for my growth.’

And being vulnerable is not weak. It’s being strategic. It’s being intentional.

You as a leader are allowing other people on your team or under your leadership to grow. You allow them to be innovative; you allow them to fail forward.

They can’t win if they don’t try. You didn’t get where you are because everything went right. It didn’t work that way.

But if we as leaders, especially when you ascend to roles where you’re in the C-suite and everybody’s eyes are looking at you. They’re waiting on your every word – that one person in the organization that takes all the notes, color codes them when they get back, puts them in the Google Drive, sends them out to everybody else – yes, that person needs to know it’s okay to be vulnerable and allow people to see who they really are.

… If you’re going to swipe right, swipe left – make a decision. No one wants to follow an indecisive leader.

Imagine if the Electric Slide played right now, and we’re all trying to now figure out where to jump in, who’s going right, who’s going left.

Make a decision. Be decisive. Communicate with your team – even the hard stuff.

Transparency. It’s tough to let people in, but sometimes in decision making, especially when you have young leaders in your organization, you have to let them know how you got to that decision, and that transparency means a lot to folks, and not even just the young folks. You have people who’ve been in organizations for 20, 30 years – they want to know where we’re going too. …

We’ve had all the meetings, but now it’s time for you, the leader, to make a decision. You gotta swipe right, you gotta swipe left, but you have to make a decision.”

To view more of photographer Aris Harding’s work, go to arisharding.com.

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