“People first. Strategy second.” As the CEO of Third Federal Savings & Loan, I use that phrase so often that I don’t need to form the words before someone is repeating it back to me. Whether it is a decision about new product offerings or a shift in planning or a decision that comes during a time of uncertainty, the associates who work for me know that the people need to be considered before strategic impact. In fact, we’ve developed our whole culture around it.
And it works.
Don’t get me wrong: Strategy matters. But thinking about that first and not focusing on the people who will execute or be impacted by the strategy is a disconnect that a CEO and a company cannot afford. It’s getting it backwards. The way a team connects and executes is the most important strategy for leadership. It leads to a culture of “can do,” rather than “have to do.” The team is connected, engaged and focused on how leadership works for them. It’s a synergy that runs through the organization. And in times of uncertainty, new pressures or crisis, it is the way to succeed.
“I don’t know” shouldn’t be the hardest answer to give. I’m regularly asked questions about things like AI, the broader economy, world political impacts, social issues and cybersecurity. The world moves quickly and new technologies and new challenges happen almost daily, and for many of those things, I may not have a clear or direct position at that moment. The team looks to management for direction and support, but pretending to have an answer and not being able to have open and honest dialogue hurts credibility not only for the moment, but maybe for your whole tenure in leadership. Trust, once lost, is very difficult to regain.
Be clear about what you know and what you don’t. Being able to communicate and share the process with your team builds your “can-do” culture. No one wants to be wrong, least of all me as the CEO, so I’d rather say, “I/we don’t know yet, but we are working on it,” instead of eroding what we’ve spent the last nearly 90 years building.
“I don’t know” can feel risky as a CEO. After all, being the head of the company, some would say that, no matter the question, I should know the answer. However, a 2025 Harvard Business Review article solidified this concept for me when it stated that leaders need to prioritize transparency, accountability and consistency. Nowhere in that article did it say that I had to have all the answers.
It’s not only OK for leaders to admit they do not have the answers; in many situations, it is the most responsible thing they can do. It’s not a cop-out when it is coupled with “Here’s what we know and what we don’t know. Here’s what we’re doing to figure it out. Here is when we will give an update.”
The COVID-19 pandemic solidified these learnings for me and my leadership team. Conflicting mandates by state and region, a company like ours that had never had remote work prior to March 2020, a worldwide pandemic with little to no understanding of how long things would last: Were we making the right choices? Did we have all the facts? Were we doing the right things? I didn’t know.
What I did know is that, by following people first and strategy second, my leadership team and I were able to connect with our associates.
I communicated with our teams, top to bottom, through weekly messages of support when we couldn’t be there in person, and video messages and Zoom calls provided regular updates about how we were going to navigate that unprecedented time. Our doors were open to customers. No appointments necessary. I didn’t know what was going to happen from one day to the next, but it didn’t deter me from communicating and sharing what I did know and reminding people that, while I didn’t have all the answers, we were working together to do our best. Associates appreciated the understanding and growing pains that we worked through, and our “can-do” culture shone every moment of those dark times.
Ditch the crystal ball. Your team knows you don’t have all the answers. They know that some decisions involve gray areas, that some decisions will involve compromise, and they may not always get the answer they are looking for. Disconnect arises when they hear PR spin, meaningless answers and, in the worst case, silence.
This is where trust is most important. In 2025, Gallup reported that only 19% of employees strongly agreed that they trusted their organization’s leadership. That is down a shocking 4% from 2023. An erosion of trust ultimately dooms a company.
Your team typically doesn’t expect you to have every answer. You don’t have to be a futurist. You don’t have to have a crystal ball. Leadership has to be visible, explain the process to the best of its ability, acknowledge concerns and not fill gaps just for the sake of doing so.
Engage with your team regularly. Leadership needs to take the time with their team. Get out of your office or cube and manage by walking around or regularly meet with people on the phone or by Zoom if the team is spread out. Engage with people. Stop making your company culture the slogan on the wall of “We’re all in this together” and actually be all in.
The reality is that the more management engages with the team, the more open and up front you are as a leader, the more credibility you have. None of us can see the future clearly, but what we can do in the present is connect, support, build relationships and engage with our teams. It may be old-fashioned to some, but the reality is it works.
As a company, Third Federal has gone through more economic cycles than I can count — downturns, crises, recessions, depressions. During that time, we’ve never laid off an associate, and our turnover rate is around 3%. Those are real numbers that positively impact not only our associates, but our customers, and ultimately, the bottom line.
Finally, leaders should remember that honesty and confidence are not opposites. A leader can be candid about uncertainty and still be confident in the team’s ability to work through any obstacle. Real confidence is trusting that we can figure it out together by putting people first and strategy second.