The New Portrait Of Leadership: Evan Frazier Of The Advanced Leadership Institute (TALI) On Which Legacy Ideas About Leadership Need To Be Discarded, And Which New Approaches To Leadership Should Be Embraced
An Interview with Karen Mangia
Vision: Your personal vision is your self-determined criteria for success. For organizations, your ability to inspire shared vision will help you be an effective leader.
We are living in the Renaissance of Work. Just like great artists know that an empty canvas can become anything, great leaders know that an entire organization — and the people inside it — can become anything, too. Master Artists and Mastering the Art of Leadership draw from the same source: creation. In this series, we’ll meet masters who are creating the future of work and painting a portrait of lasting leadership. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Evan Frazier.
Evan Frazier is a corporate executive, nonprofit leader, entrepreneur, author, and family man. He has extensive experience in both the public and private sectors. He is currently the president and CEO of The Advanced Leadership Institute (TALI) and sits on the Dollar Bank Board of Directors. In addition to receiving formal degrees from Cornell University and Carnegie Mellon University and executive education certificates from Harvard Business School’s Strategic Perspectives in Non-Profit Management and the Program of Negotiation at Harvard Law School, in March 2017, Frazier completed the Wharton Executive Development Program at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2008, Frazier launched his first book entitled Most Likely to Succeed: The Frazier Formula For Success®, which introduced his personal success framework to inspire youth and young adults to achieve.
Thank you for joining us. Our readers would enjoy discovering something interesting about you. What are you in the middle of right now that you’re excited about personally or professionally?
Professionally, I am excited about the growth of my organization, The Advanced Leadership Institute (TALI).
The initiative started in Pittsburgh in 2016 as a vehicle to promote Black executive leadership in the region. In 2020, the Richard King Mellon Foundation provided a $1 million grant to help support and scale our mission, raising TALI from an initiative at its founding to an official institute in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU) Tepper School of Business. About 180 professionals have completed one of TALI’s leadership programs. Fifty-nine corporations and other organizations in the Pittsburgh area actively support TALI, including BNY Mellon, Giant Eagle, Highmark Health, PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., and UPMC.
Although TALI has been educating, developing, connecting, and positioning Black professionals from Pittsburgh for executive advancement since 2019 with its signature Executive Leadership Academy program, in August, we started to reach executives from outside of the region with the National version of the program. By expanding our reach, we were able to deepen our impact on a national level. In addition to this milestone, we also launched the third year of our Emerging Leaders Program and will be kicking off the sixth year of our Executive Leadership Academy in January. It is through these efforts that we can work with rising to more senior-level Black professionals to help diversify the C-suite in American business.
Personally, I am excited about attending the 34th National Conference of the National Society of Minorities in Hospitality, an organization I co-founded in college, at my alma mater Cornell University and being inducted into the Cornell’s Hotel Society’s Hall of Fame.
We all get by with a little help from our friends. Who is the leader that has influenced you the most, and how?
I’ve been influenced by so many leaders in my lifetime, but in the context of TALI, I’d say Greg Spencer. I met Greg in my mid-20s, and he’s been a mentor ever since. He not only mentored me but created mentorship opportunities for many others by rallying community leaders to support Black professionals with higher aspirations, a critical part of TALI’s model. In fact, Greg supported me when I was launching TALI and served as our founding co-chair. His support has been invaluable.
But I’ve also been greatly influenced, just being from Pittsburgh. I grew up here and a lot of the city’s values of hard work, that you’ve got to push forward, are ingrained in me. My parents had the mentality that if there’s something you want, well, you work for it.
And Pittsburgh is not a really flashy city. We’re more kind of nuts and bolts. And that also is ingrained in my personality. I’m not flashy like that. And I think that’s a reflection of the region and the values that we have in the region and the kind of work ethic many Pittsburghers have.
Pittsburgh is a city that’s big enough to make a global impact with ambitious projects, but it’s also small enough for meaningful, mission-driven work to pick up speed and gain recognition.
Sometimes our biggest mistakes lead to our biggest discoveries. What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made as a leader, and what did you discover as a result?
At some points, I have put too many things on my shoulders, which has created various challenges, like lack of balance and burnout. However, these challenges helped me learn about the importance of effective delegation. When I am strategic about structure and think through other people’s strengths, I have discovered a greater sense of balance and endurance which I think is key to being an effective leader.
How has your definition of leadership changed or evolved over time? What does it mean to be a leader now?
I’ve always believed that a leader is someone who can inspire a shared vision. However, over the years, I have realized it’s not just about seeing the vision but inspiring others to act, contribute, and share it. Part of leadership is finding ways to energize others to want to help their organization in a meaningful way.
Success is as often as much about what we stop as what we start. What is one legacy leadership behavior you stopped because you discovered it was no longer valuable or relevant?
In my early leadership days, I often deflected praise. However, over time, I’ve come to see the value in simply saying, “Thank you.” It’s not about seeking attention, but rather appreciating the recognition of hard work and using it to fuel further efforts for the cause or organization at hand.
What is one lasting leadership behavior you started or are cultivating because you believe it is valuable or relevant?
Over time, I’ve come to appreciate that there are many types of leaders. Leadership shows up differently in everyone, and what works well in one scenario might not in another. However, the key is to identify the type of leadership that is going to be most appropriate and effective for the circumstance.
What advice would you offer to other leaders who are stuck in past playbooks and patterns and may be having a hard time letting go of what made them successful in the past?
This is a call for self-reflection. It’s crucial to step back, assess the situation, and get feedback from others to gain diverse perspectives. Taking the time to genuinely be open to and reflect on this feedback helps you get a sense of the bigger picture.
Many of our readers can relate to the challenge of leading people for the first time. What advice would you offer to new and emerging leaders?
Invest time in understanding your vision, so you can set clear goals for yourself and your team. Most importantly, inspire your team to reach these goals by getting to know them and understanding what motivates each person. Moreover, demonstrate that you genuinely care about them and your organization.
Based on your experience or research, what are the top five traits effective leaders exemplify now?
- Integrity: It’s important to have a strong set of principles and values to live by and guide you to do the right thing.
- Vision: Your personal vision is your self-determined criteria for success. For organizations, your ability to inspire shared vision will help you be an effective leader.
- Self-awareness: Everyone has blind spots, but when invite critical feedback from others, it helps you become more self-aware.
- Lead from Your Strengths: Identify your areas of strength and what makes you unique so that you can enlist support from others who possess the strengths in areas that might be weaknesses for you
- Treating People Fairly: It’s all about treating others how you want to be treated, but also how they want to be treated. When you treat people with respect and fairness, you build a sense of trust and give them space to share their expertise and skills. As a result, people are more inclined to buy into your vision and help you execute it.
American Basketball Coach John Wooden said, “Make each day your masterpiece.” How do you embody that quote? We welcome a story or example.
This quote resonates with me. It nudges us to give our all every single day to make it count. I believe in rolling up my sleeves and giving it my best shot, whether that’s at work, in the community, or spending time with my family. Tomorrow is not promised, so we should try to achieve what we can each day.
What is the legacy you aspire to leave as a leader?
I hope to continue diversifying the C-suite in Pittsburgh. The region is like a testing place for important new ideas and technologies that could change the world. People here work together and help each other, and the city is focused on building a better future for everyone. It’s a place where businesses and individuals can develop and speed up their groundbreaking ideas that will shape the future.
I’d like to leave a legacy that you can dream big and achieve your vision if you’re deeply committed. There will always be roadblocks and challenges, but if you are dedicated, willing to persevere, and have the right people in your corner, then there’s nothing you can’t do.
How can our readers connect with you to continue the conversation?
The best way to do it would be to join me on LinkedIn. I’m pretty active there, so I welcome people to reach out directly. They could also visit TALI’s website, taliinstitute.org.
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to experience a leadership master at work. We wish you continued success and good health!
About The Interviewer: Karen Mangia is one of the most sought-after keynote speakers in the world, sharing her thought leadership with over 10,000 organizations during the course of her career. As Vice President of Customer and Market Insights at Salesforce, she helps individuals and organizations define, design and deliver the future. Discover her proven strategies to access your own success in her fourth book Success from Anywhere and by connecting with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.
