Leader of Leaders | Stories With Traction Podcast

SHOW NOTES:

SUMMARY: In this episode, Dr. Anthony Lee and Matt Zaun discuss what makes someone a leader of leaders.

DR. ANTHONY LEE BIO: Dr. Lee is the President and CEO of Westcliff University and has led the institution through incredible growth for the last 16 years. Under his leadership, each of Westcliff’s colleges has experienced commendable progress as they continue to welcome some of their strongest and largest incoming classes.

As a distinguished leader with a demonstrated history of excellence, Dr. Lee is playing a pivotal role in shaping the future of higher education. His visionary outlook has been significantly influenced by his outstanding educational background: He holds a Doctorate in Educational Leadership specializing in higher education administration from the prestigious University of Southern California Rossier School of Education. Additionally, he possesses a Master of Business Administration from the University of California, Los Angeles Anderson School of Management, where he focused on strategy and entrepreneurship. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of California, Irvine.

Dr. Lee is in high demand as a speaker at conferences and seminars across the nation and is a two-time nominee for the esteemed Orange County Business Journal Innovator of the Year award.

His leadership has made a profound impact on students and faculty around the world, solidifying Westcliff’s status as a global higher education leader. His unwavering commitment to fostering equitable access to education for all exemplifies his philanthropic spirit and deep dedication to community engagement.

For more info on Dr. Lee:
LinkedIn
Website

MATT ZAUN BIO: Matt is an award-winning speaker and storyteller who empowers organizations to attract more clients through the art of strategic storytelling. Matt’s past engagements have catalyzed radical sales increases for over 300 organizations that range from financial institutions to the health and wellness industry.

Matt shares his expertise in persuasion with executives, sales professionals, and entrepreneurs, who he coaches on the art of influence and how to leverage this for profits and impact.

For more info, check out Matt Zaun HERE. 

 

*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors

 

Matt Zaun 

Recently I launched an episode, The Story of Westcliff. Now, I was so intrigued by the story because my guest and I discussed how a university was taken from essentially nothing to 6,000 students.

And we talked about leadership, innovation, and what it means to scale an organization. We're going to do a part two to that discussion.

We're going to dive into leadership, but specifically, what makes someone a leader of leaders. Today, I'm joined again by Dr.

Anthony Lee. He's the president and CEO of Westcliff University.

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

Welcome back, Dr. Lee. Thanks. lot of you here.

 

Matt Zaun 

I appreciate your time, and I really appreciate all the stories that we have talked about. I learned a lot already from your experiences, but I want to talk further about the leadership piece because one of the things you mentioned on the last episode is when you're first starting a university, you're really focused on the accreditation process.

And you made a comment regarding that accreditation process that once that is in process, you really need to focus on building out your team.

And there's a lot of leaders across the United States and world that they talk about that, you know, building out a team, but they have a lot of difficulty with that and an understanding of what really truly drives the team and culture.

So I wanted to talk about that. So when you were first pulling your team together, what were some of the things, maybe qualities in the person or maybe different values that you were looking for for an individual that you'd be bringing on?

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

I think one of the first things, of course, is looking at their experience, but everybody out there, you're going to be able to find someone with the experience that you need.

So I think the most important aspect is actually coming in with the right mindset and personality that will mesh well with yourself.

Can you work with this person directly well? and with the rest of the team that they're going to be working with.

In beginning, it was certainly a challenge to find the right people, but I think we're fortunate to find people that were really bought into the mission vision of West Clif University on what we were trying to accomplish as an organization, and they believed in that.

Then I think, for me, I was trying to lay out here the steps that we need to take as an organization to really help us to become successful, and they were excited to be a part of that, of building that and setting the foundation for that, because they can see the potential future success that we could have.

 

Matt Zaun

You mentioned a comment on our last episode where you said that an affordable, quality US education can fundamentally change someone's life.

It even goes further. This is generational change. It could affect them and their kids' kids. of a huge mission, a huge mission.

So how do you know, so you have the experience, there's a lot of people in the world that have certain experiences and probably have adequate experience to be someone's team member, but how do you know someone's gonna buy into the mission of an organization early on?

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

And ultimately, he's all about asking questions and diving deep into the person, right? You really wanna know what is inspiring that person, what drives that person, why are they motivated to take them to the job?

But one of the questions I ask in an interview, I try to do a lot of comparisons, right? And I try to really say, hey, you applied at Westcliffe, where else did you apply?

The mind might ask you that. And as you look at those other positions comparing to Westcliffe, what is unique about Westcliffe versus the other ones?

And what's unique about the other ones versus Westcliffe? When you ask questions like that, you can get a lot of information out of them and then you can kinda get a really sense of like their priorities and what is their purpose.

And I think that's a part of how I try to ensure that. I get the right people in place to help us be part of the culture and part of the organization.

 

Matt Zaun 

So the last time we spoke about culture, you made a comment to me that, you know, with all the growth that you've experienced in the last few years, you are still on a major growth pace and you talked about speed, right?

growing environment. So from a culture perspective, do you look to see, like, how can you know, at least early on, someone would be a good fit for that fast pace growing environment based on an interview?

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

That's a good question. So I think if you're looking at hiring somebody that wants to fit a fast pace culture, one of the key things to me is like, number one, have they done it before?

And number two, do they get excited about it? Right? You can get that out of an interview. think part of so they have to have an understanding that whatever we're trying to do today to get us to another.

level may change in the future and will probably have to change if you want to continue growing. So, you know, I think those people that can kind of go with the flow, roll with the punches as they say and just kind of be adaptable and flexible are the type of people that would be very successful and can help us to continue to be successful at West Coast.

 

Matt Zaun 

Let's talk about like the journey because you've been doing this for quite some time. So, let's talk about the journey.

Maybe the early steps and then where you are today. So, within the early steps, can you think of any early hires that you made kind of what happened?

Maybe some things that you learned from that?

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

Yeah, it's interesting. There's a couple of them that come to mind. One is so I get my doctorate in 2013 and shortly after that, I hired one of my classmates and she was an academic leader for us and I remember she was teaching a leadership class in business as well and I remember talking to her and she was telling me that she talked about being her class.

So I like, oh, wow, OK. I was a little embarrassed to be honest with you, right? I'm like, oh, you talked about your class.

What did you guys talk about? And she was like, I talked about how, what kind of leader you are.

And she said that the leader that you are, really, you're just trying to find the right people and put them in the right spots.

It's almost like a puzzle. You want to put people in right positions to succeed and where their strengths lie?

And she said, I'll really get at that. thought, well, thank you. I think that made me think further about continuing that kind of mindset in the future, right?

Making sure I find the right people that fit the right positions because ultimately, those are their strengths, and then their passion for education.

they're going to be happy in the job for long time. going to help us be successful for a long time.

 

Matt Zaun 

I think that's a phenomenal compliment.

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

That's a phenomenal compliment. Yeah, yeah, I really appreciated that. She actually is still working with me today.

 

Matt Zaun 

Still, it's awesome. Oh, wow.

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

Yeah.

 

Matt Zaun 

That's incredible. Credible that that speaks to your leadership for sure So very fortunate to have good people around me No, that's incredible So early on you know she made that comment to you that almost like a puzzle right making sure people are in the right spots within the organization You made a comment to me This is a few weeks ago where you had said how if someone isn't really working Well in a certain environment or a certain department that you do everything you possibly can to develop that person into another Skill set and in another department how much of that do you think goes into?

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

You know a leaders day-to-day Yeah, I mean I think you you need to keep that in mind right so every organization evolves and continues to grow and changes and adapts So your people you know you need to really evaluate are they in the right positions for them to succeed and for the organization to succeed I've had several different employees where they helped us Really their skill set was helping us get

to a certain level. And then at that point, it was like this skill set that they have now, where can I reposition them to continue to help us?

And they may have better, they can have a higher significant impact in another department or another in another role.

And I'm continuing to look at that position people. I'm really about strengths based leadership, right, putting people in position to succeed based on their strengths.

 

Matt Zaun 

So you mentioned a very important word, you mentioned impact. And it's interesting because at the top of every survey where people are asked whether they want working for an organization, they say they want to have an impact and they want fulfillment.

So there's two very powerful drivers. They want to know that they're making an impact and they want to feel fulfilled when they have fulfillment.

And lot of people, you mentioned questions and interviews. It's interesting because a lot of people when they ask the person interviewing them a question, a lot of

Those questions are based on growth and is there room for improvement and growth in the organization? So can you speak to maybe people that you've had on board that you've grown and maybe they started out, I don't know, maybe as an intern or maybe somewhere in the organization and they grew and grew into into other responsibilities within the university?

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

Yeah, I mean, I'm very proud of that, to be honest. I have many employees that have been working here over 10 years with me and the growth I've seen in them really makes me fulfill personally, to be honest.

One person that comes to mind is an intern and he started out as an intern probably about 78 years ago.

And from there, he just continued moving up, went from an intern to advisor to a manager to a director.

And he continued to progress every year. To the point where he was actually working very closely with me on strategic initiatives for the university.

And I, you know, I would say the growth I saw on him as a young person coming in just finishing college to where he became a really experienced professional was really exciting for me.

A few years ago actually he moved on, he moved on to another job and I think at first I was you know very disappointed of course right because he's so valuable to the organization but when I took a step back from it you know I would I really took took pride in the fact that his experience here at Westwood prepared him for his next opportunity and I think the next opportunity was a better fit for him long-term anyway so I was really happy for it you know and I think that's kind of the mindset I've been looking at in terms of developing our teams is continuing to provide training, development, mentoring, personally and professionally and and as they grow they're gonna help the university grow and they may end up somewhere else which is gonna be okay

 

Matt Zaun

You know, let's talk about that a little bit more. don't want to just glaze over this.

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

want to, I want to dive a little bit deeper because like it almost stings in a sense.

 

Matt Zaun 

Like when you pour into someone for years and years and years, I know there's a lot of leaders listening to this that they may feel potentially betrayed when their people leave.

So how do you justify that in your mind when you've given so much to someone, you've developed them so much and then they end up leaving?

What do you do?

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

there anything you tell yourself to kind of limit that blow? What I do is, and I'm not going to lie, like I said, it's, when you first hear the news, you're going to get frustrated.

It's normal, it's natural, right? But when I take a step back from it, I really care about the people in the organization and I want to take a step back and say, hey, is this opportunity the best for my employee personally or not, right?

And there's, and there's times like, okay, so for this one in particular, it's when he came to me, I'm

I was very disappointed at a very close relationship with him. And but when we take this, when he took a step back and described to me the opportunity, it made sense.

It made sense for him. was good opportunity for him. And I was happy for him. And when you look at it in those way and when you look at it in that way, then it helps soften the blow.

For sure. If anything, it makes me very happy to see that he got this opportunity because of the experience he got from Liscuit.

 

Matt Zaun

So one of the things that came to my mind that people listening, I don't want them to miss this, is this really does speak to one of the values that you have as an organization.

I think a lot of times organizations will say they have certain values. They might put the values on a wall somewhere, but they don't live them out to the best of their ability where you do.

know, one of the values you have is to be a great global citizen. And really you're living out your value because you developing people and then they may leave.

They go out into the world and now they are benefiting their communities across the globe even more.

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

Or so it speaks to you not only saying that you want to be a great global citizen, but you actually living that out And I think that really speaks to your leadership for sure.

I I appreciate that. mean, it's it's certainly a very important value for myself personally, but also For the university overall, you know, our focus has always been on Educating students from all over the world.

We have students from all over the world. have faculty from all over the world and having that type of I think cultural competency is important Oh for sure for sure.

 

Matt Zaun 

So we just talked about some exciting stuff, right?

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

So you you know, you're early on Can I mention something while we're whining back to be able to Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I just I just came to mind that we're talking about, you know When an employee comes to you and says I have another job offer and I'm taking it for example um There's been many of those situations over over the years and I I had just mentioned

to one that was a very positive one, where I was really happy for them. I want to be fair to the other side of it, which is, of course, there have been times when employees have come to me or have heard them come to some of our leaders and say, we're going to go take a job with ABC Company.

I know and we know that that might not be the best fit for them, but ultimately, sometimes it's a good life experience for them.

I've seen that. It's great because ultimately, any journey you take is going to be a learning experience. I think when I'm proud of it, sometimes there's been staff or employees have gone into other institutions and they've come back or expressed wanting to come back or someone actually have come back.

That really sets a lot about who we are as a university.

 

Matt Zaun 

Let's talk about that because when someone comes back, is there a process to get them back within the organization and play back in the culture?

What are those discussions like? Someone, even if it stings, like let's say you develop someone and you continue to develop them and they move on and they go into another organization, another role that you know based on all your experiences, not the best fit for them.

When they come back, is it almost like I told you so type situation, are you fully embraced?

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

Is there a different on boarding process? How does that play out? I mean, ultimately if they're sincere about their intent to come back and really be happy and work for Westcliff University, we're going to accept them with open arms and local through a normal interview process and hiring process for that.

But the way I view it though is, and I think many of leaders here view it the same way is, Westcliff University is one institution.

We are always trying to grow as an institution, look at best practices from other institutions and no matter what experience this specific employee may have at another institution that might not have been the best fit, they would have learned something that could help us.

West Coast University, once they come back, that's the way we look at it.

 

Matt Zaun 

Right. That's a phenomenal perspective. appreciate you sharing that. So we've talked about a lot of good stuff regarding, you know, you had a classmate that you brought on as a team worker, our team member.

We talked about the intern that you had, that you grew, you developed. And often when we talk about culture, we talk about like positive attributes about culture.

Okay. really like good stuff, positive. But based on how many students you have, there's a lot of different things that can happen, different situations that come up.

So what happens if there's like a really devastating situation that happens? How do teams come together regarding that? Can you speak to any maybe team member in particular that when something happens, maybe a certain situation, that person stands up and does.

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

what they need to do? Yeah, I mean, there was one that comes to mind. And he was our Biddingsburg coach.

And I think it goes to one of our core values, which is compassion. We unfortunately had a tragic accident to one of our student athletes.

And our Biddingsburg coach stepped up. He galvanized the university, the whole entire community at the institution. He rallied all the classmates and teammates of the students.

And went above and beyond to ensure that the students' family, parents, siblings, knew that we were here to support them.

And it was a sad event. I think our coach, he really stepped up to the occasion. one of the things he did was as soon as that had happened tragically, there was a funeral that was up north.

So we made sure that we bust up, I don't remember how many 50 to 60 baseball players to travel up north to be there for the funeral.

And then there's always, and after that there's a lot of ongoing support that we've tried to give for their family.

And really it's a testament to our baseball coach and also our athletic director as well who really showed a tremendous amount of leadership through compassion, I would say, in particular.

 

Matt Zaun 

How does that change a culture, change an environment?

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

I think it's huge. mean you do this because you care about people at the same time by doing this together.

It's going to create a culture that other people will see that, hey, we care about our students, we care about their families and that's what's most important.

So I think that You know, we don't we don't do that for the sake of culture. We do that because we try to get people But I think the the roping effects are naturally going to be positive, right?

So you know and that that that also helps attract You know other staff other coaches other student athletes With the type of character that we would like to have at West Cloth too How would you define culture when you when you think of the word culture?

 

Matt Zaun 

What are some of the pictures that come to your mind?

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

So when I look at culture, it's really about you know, how do people work together? How do people interact with each other?

Do they collaborate? Do they have compassion for each other? know, that's one set of culture like how do people work together?

I think the other side of is kind of alluded to it earlier is this sort of fast-paced culture, right?

There's so many different ways to describe culture. Can it be fast-paced? Could it be slow-paced? And for us, it's you know, I think the pace of the culture is important adapting to changes important and looking at all those different aspects, but

Ultimately, I think what ties culture together the most is the people. And if they care about each other, care about the students that we serve, then they're going to be a great fit for us, right?

 

Matt Zaun 

So I love what Zig Ziglar said a few years ago. I remember reading, he mentioned he needs motivation like a shower every single day, right?

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

Because we need to constantly be motivating ourselves.

 

Matt Zaun 

So when it comes to culture, and you mentioned about having team members that have been with you for quite a bit of time, how do you keep people motivated?

How do you keep people inspired regarding the mission and vision? it just strictly based on communication? it, do you strategize about the amount of meetings you have that you can inspire your team?

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

How does that work out? Yeah, I mean, to be honest with you, haven't fully figured it out and I'm still always trying to do better.

As we've grown, I used to know every employee at the institution. I used to interview every employee that got hired at the institution.

And for me, as we're growing now, it's harder for me to really communicate and interact with everybody. So to be more intentional about the direction that we're what are some of the goals for the coming year?

We put together more town hall events. I have president office hours and that's usually a lot of, it gets pretty full, every month I have staff, faculty signing up to talk to me, which is great.

It's a great way for me to get to know everybody and see what's going on from their perspective. But yeah, I mean, I think a lot of that is just going to be, you have to be intentional about communicating your vision, your mission, your goals.

So they can get excited. are they working towards? is the big strategic vision of the university that their individual activity and job and tasks that they do every day is contributing to that?

So I think that's a big part of it. Another point I want to make is that we're fortunate, right?

We're growing. So with growth means there's a lot of new initiatives, new projects, a lot of things that we want to improve and change happen, right?

And I think that's what makes it exciting for a lot of our staff. It's a balance of course, right?

you want to make sure you're not growing too fast, you grow the right way with quality in mind, which we have.

We have the outcomes to show that we have quality, continue to have high quality standards in all of our programs.

But I do think that that allows a lot of our staff and faculty to get a little more excited and more motivated when they see, hey, we're going to grow, adding new programs, we're doing all these good things that are going to contribute to serving the student community around us.

 

Matt Zaun 

How often do you think a leadership focus on the future versus the present?

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

I think it depends on the position. But for me, I'm always trying to think about the future. I think every leader needs to think about the future.

and really figure out, you know, how do we serve the same students or how do we manage the same type of staff or advisors on our team in three months and six months and twelve months, right?

Because it's going to get their sooner or later and we always got to make sure we're preparing for a future situation, right?

 

Matt Zaun 

So when you mentioned it depends on the position, are you working with certain team members that are exclusively focused on not only the future but the messaging going forward and the communication that they should be, they should be there inspiring other team members?

Do you focus on that?

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

Yeah, I mean that's a big part of the discussion for us for sure, know, as we speak to the leadership team, we're always trying to figure out where are the better ways for us to kind of communicate the future of the of the organization, provide a role map, know, for a lot of our staff members and you know, we can do better, we can do better.

We've seen it. It helps. We're going through an IT implementation and laying out the roadmap. That's not a two-month process.

can take a long time. laying out the roadmap so people understand this is how long it's going to take, but it's coming has helped us a lot.

And we've learned from it. We did do a great job in that previously and now we're doing a better job.

We're always continuing to see how we can do better in different areas.

 

Matt Zaun 

Well, thank you for sharing that. And I appreciate how much you are a leader of leaders. I've learned so much from you in the last few weeks.

And I really appreciate our conversation today. There's three things that I'm going to take away from our conversation. The first is I really appreciate you mentioning the interview process.

And one of the things that you're focused on is the comparison. You mentioned you asked the question, where else did you apply?

And then you compare, what are the attributes that compare to Westcliffe University? thought that was genius. The second piece is you truly

about your core values. You know, when everyone listening to not focus on the words of values, but focus on the company or organizational core stories that exemplify the values you say you have.

And Dr. Lee, you do that exceptionally well. You not only say the value that you have, but you live it out and you prove that time and time again.

I really appreciate that it speaks to your leadership. then the third and final piece is I asked you about the communication.

If there was a specific strategy and you immediately said we're still figuring that out. I love that. I think that that really speaks to your leadership that you don't have it all figured out, that you are it is continuing to grow.

But you mentioned intentionality is key having those president office hours and what that means, intention and intentionality is so important.

So those are my three takeaways. I know people listen and got other takeaways, those who are my three. But if people want to learn more about you or the university in general, where's the best place they can go to get that information?

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

information. The university website is westcliff.edu.

 

Matt Zaun 

They also contact me on LinkedIn as well. Perfect. I'll include that in the show notes. People can just go and click from there.

But thanks again. really appreciate our conversation today.

 

Anthony Lee (Westcliff University)

Thanks, man. I wanted to say I appreciate the praise that you gave me today. But honestly, none of that could happen without the great team around me.

So just fortunate to have a very dedicated and committed team around me for us continue to succeed. But thank you.