Lead to Win with Carla Harris | Buffini Podcast
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Carla Harris started her extraordinary career on Wall Street in 1987, right before the financial markets crashed that fall. In the ensuing nearly 40 years, she persevered through and overcame challenges, rising to the top leadership echelons. Now the Vice Chairman of Wealth Management and Senior Client Advisor at Morgan Stanley, Carla is also a keynote speaker and author, generously sharing insights on how to be a great executive who leads with courage, clarity, and humility.
In a recent podcast episode of It’s a Good Life, host Brian Buffini spoke with Carla about her extraordinary career and the leadership lessons she has learned along the way.
Follow the (Right Kind) of Leader
As an executive on Wall Street, arguably one of the toughest places to work in business, Carla noted that she, along with many others she saw, put in long hours. What she didn’t see, she said, were “many examples of people that I wanted to be like.”
There was one leader, she added, who did have a trait she valued.
“One of the things I learned from him is that he already knew what he wanted to accomplish in a group meeting, for example,” she explained. “But he would engage everybody and have them put their fingerprints on the blueprint. So by the time the meeting was over, everybody thought it was their idea.”
Two other notable figures had a similar impact.
“I happened to meet Dr. Janetta Cole, who used to be the president of Spelman College, and former President Bill Clinton around the same time,” she said. “And both of them upon meeting made me feel like I was the only person in the room, and I remember thinking, ‘I want to do that.’”
“I want to be able to do that as a leader—make people feel seen, make them feel like they’re so important that they’re the only person in the room, in a room of 2,000 people, for example,” she added. “And so really focusing on people who had skills like that…those are some of the things that really informed my own leadership journey and my style.”
Be a Great Listener
Carla said that she feels one of her “superpowers” is being a great listener. That, she added, is something those who want to succeed in sales should also develop. Too often they are so busy talking that they fail to hear what their clients actually need.
She shared an example of a time when she was meeting with a major client. She approached it by asking, “If you’re only giving me 45 minutes today, and it’s just you and me, I really want to figure out what we can talk about where you feel like this was the best 45 minutes you spent today. How can I take this huge, very valuable platform that I’m sitting on and serve you?’”
“And that ended up being such an impactful conversation because the client knew that I was listening. He told me a lot of things that I’d never heard him say when I was in a meeting with my colleagues that I was able to take back, and we were able to leverage.”
The key, she added, is: “Serve, don’t sell. Because if you can serve well, you’re going to sell all day long.”
Mind Shift
Carla noted that many people, herself included, can get caught up in the trap of thinking they must do everything themselves.
“You have to consciously make a mind shift and say, ‘I’m not the person that gets it done. I’m the person that enables everybody else to do it—and to do it well,” she noted.
But by the same token, she added, you must remember that “the buck stops with you.”
“You need to make sure your team knows that you own it. And therefore, you have no intention of failing. So therefore, they can’t fail,” she stressed.
Listen to the entire podcast here.
