Ep. 4 - Tyler Smith-Strutz

Ask not. What your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. That's oftentimes the most righteous thing you can do is shake the table. I'm asking you to believe not in my ability to bring about change, but in you. There was always light if only we're brave enough to see it if only we're brave enough to be it. What's up Bulls and welcome to Lead On Podcast. A podcast designed to foster leadership development by talking to real leaders. Let's lean in and lead on. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hey Bulls, you're here with Sarah and Kelsey, and we're so excited to introduce to you Tyler Smith Struts, a senior director at CVS Health. Tyler graduated from University of Buffalo in 2007 with Dr. of Pharmacy. Upon graduating, he moved to Q.S. Florida as a pharmacist at Walgreens. Two years later, he moved to Rochester, New York to work for Unity Health. In 2013, Tyler began his career at CVS Health, where he has had numerous roles, including his current position as senior director for utilization management and clinical programs. Tyler is known for providing clinical excellence, having excellent communication and fostering high performing teams. Tyler enjoys spending ample time outside with his gray-hound radar. And Tyler also has been loving Lupin on Netflix. You should all definitely check it out. Thank you, Tyler, for being here today. How are you doing? Very happy to be here, and thank you for the kind introduction. Absolutely. Well, Sarah, we're so happy to talk to you today. Be a great conversation. So we'll go ahead and jump right in with our first question. So talk to us a little bit about what makes you a leader. All right. So I'd like to preface this question by saying that there are big L leaders and small L leaders. And what's the difference between the two? So a big L leader is someone that has a title or a your manager if you're working. That is-- that person is your leader. But small L leaders are anybody that's on a team. Every team needs a leader. And hopefully your big L leaders will also be small L leaders and will be the people who are taking charge and providing this structure that a leader provides. But I think people have a misconception that you have to be a big L leader to be a small L leader, and that's not true. And so what makes me a leader to go back to your question, I feel, is both of those parts. I have been given titles that do put me in leadership roles. But before any of that even happened, I believe I was a leader because of the leadership traits and leadership activities that I exhibited on the teams I was on at the time. Definitely. I really love that analogy because I think especially, in college, everyone thinks a leader is that person with a title. And so I love that you brought that up. And just the idea of adaptability and being that leader of the organization, whether it's has having that title or just being on a team and doing your part and standing up. So I really appreciated that Tyler. So thinking about all of that and your career path, how did you get to where you are with CVS and being a senior director today? Sure. So I'll admit that I have been involved in leadership activities throughout my student life and then into my professional career. So I would recommend that students or anybody listening to this podcast, being a leader, this small L leader, is all about practicing certain skills. And you can do it in any situation, even a bunch of people trying to figure out where to order takeout from. I mean, that can be a really structuralist, aimless, what do you want for-- and it takes forever to arrive at a decision. Or apply some leadership skills to it, provide some structure, keep the conversation moving and arrive at a agreement on tie, quicker than you would if you just left it up to everybody. So I'm sorry. So I got lost in my own analogy. They're back to your question about how did I get here and I was involved in student government, not at UB, but in high school. And actually, it wasn't UB. Just not like the big student union high level I was involved in a group through my particular school. And I was also involved in the speech and debate team in high school. And I think communication is a very key part of being a leader, but is separate from the question. I would-- I got to become a leader by practicing and using leadership skills on the teams I was on at the time. And those sorts of behaviors will get recognized. And then that'll lead to big L leader opportunities. But it doesn't-- you don't have to wait for those opportunities to begin to be a leader. So how I got to where I was is I developed certain skills and I intentionally practiced them. And then I flexed those muscles and continued to use them where I was. And then that will get noticed. And the other opportunities will come from there. Absolutely. I love that. And I think that makes a lot of sense. Especially when you talk about that little L leader to big L leader. You got to start somewhere small and eventually move your way up, so starting with some of those smaller scale student government organizations through school, doing public speaking, everything like that. I think it works and helps people really get to where they are. But one of the things that we wanted to talk a little bit more about is how you continue to grow and develop as a leader. Obviously, leadership starts pretty small and eventually can grow pretty big. But how do you continue to push yourself to be a better leader every day? The two things that I would focus on for becoming a better leader are using leadership skills and then reflecting on that use and seeing with a little bit of space and seeing how that went and how you could have done it better. Because if you wait for big L leader opportunities, you may not be as prepared as in everyday interactions. And I'm sure anybody listening to this podcast is on some kind of team, whether that's someone you live with, you and your roommates, you're on team, whatever your apartment is, right? And how those interactions are going to go. Or you're in a group project with school or work. Or you're always interacting with someone else. And you have the ability to establish shared purpose, work towards a common goal, brainstorm ideas, come up with solutions and execute those solutions. And putting that structure around things and flexing those muscles will improve those skills, especially if it goes well, analyze what went well, if it goes not well, analyze what caused it to go not well, and how you could avoid that in the future. And with that self-reflection, I think you'll be able to practice reflection and keep doing it. And you will certainly improve your skills. And I mean, I use both of those in my current role. I am also involved in leadership training programs. And I think that those sorts of activities play an important role as well for establishing a baseline. But really, I think they give the space to doing the other two things I talked about. I mean, nothing against the leadership business book industry. But I feel like a lot of those concepts are that complicated. Someone just filled it down and put it in a book about moving the cheese or what have you. And they get a catchy title. But I feel like people can mostly do this themselves. Yeah, absolutely. I think people forget that leadership really can be attainable. It's not hard. It's just learning about yourself and trying to figure out what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, but then how do you use them appropriately? And I think yes, those textbooks are great. But I think learning from other people, which is exactly what we started this podcast. Learning from other people is kind of the best way to do it. Because you can see yourself in others. You're like, oh, wait, I can also do that. That doesn't seem so bad right now. So for anybody listening, we promise you can be a leader. It's really not that hard. You can do it. And then-- that idea of self-reflection to and that ever learning from other people I think is key. Today's episode is sponsored by Prime Student. And as a UB student, I love Prime Student because I get a ton of benefits like fast and easy shipping, Prime Video and Amazon Music. Prime Student also helps my school year run smoothly. Finding school essentials can be stressful, but Prime Student makes my life so much easier. To sign up for your own six month trial at NoCos, go to primestudent.co/u@buffalo1 and sign up using your UB email. Let's get back to the episode. - So Tyler, you talked a little bit about programs and organizations you've been involved with. Can you kind of expand a little bit more since starting your career? - Sure, so CBS has a very robust leader internal talent development program. So there are multiple levels of it for leaders at different stages of their careers. And I became involved in one about a year ago called Leaders of Tomorrow that CBS, you have to be nominated for it. And thankfully I was nominated and was chosen. And so you get paired up with about, let's say about maybe 75 to 100 other colleagues from around the enterprise, all at roughly the same level. And you go through an 18 month leadership development experience where you learn some leadership skills, but a lot of it is just learning about different parts of the enterprise. And that's been a very rewarding process. And so I'm very thankful to have been involved in that. I know I sort of referenced the business book industry a little before, maybe not in such glowing terms, but I do, I am more involved in things like that, doing a little bit more reading on those types of topics and how to be a leader and what's new or what new ideas are there. And I guess I'll come back to just continuing to practice, continuing to lead, continuing to think about your interactions and try to make progress forward. - Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I love that CBS is able to offer something like that leadership development program. I think it's huge, especially when it's specialized in specific industries. It makes your job that much easier, it makes understanding what you do and the importance of it that much better. If I love it, they're able to offer that. And maybe you've learned, for this next question, maybe you've learned a little bit about it, specifically in this program and maybe you've learned a little bit along the way, but we'd love to know what leadership principles kind of got you where you are today, what's your secret sauce, what's your leader's style, how do you like to lead? - Sure. So I'm gonna break that. I'm gonna try to answer all three of those questions, separate. So the first was what leadership principles? So the first is credibility. It is very important. If you're going to be a leader that you're credible with the people that you're talking to. And so, how do you obtain credibility? Well, that usually through accountability. So I know I'm using a lot of really broad terms. What do I mean by this? Being accountable is doing what, committing to something that you can actually do and then delivering on it. So everybody's had group projects where you make a plan, and maybe it's not specific enough and then you come to the next meeting and no one's really done anything, right? And that's an example of three people who, I guess it was my mind that was three folks on this group project who weren't being very accountable, who weren't taking this seriously and moving it forward. Not that you have to do the whole thing yourself. Obviously that's not desirable either, but you do have to do the part that you committed to doing. So, let's imagine that same scenario but someone did bring what they were supposed to do. They've established credibility that they can be relied upon. And that isn't, and sort of anybody can do that, right? So that's the first part. You need that foundation of accountability and credibility. So people, you seem like someone who should be listened to, right? You're one of the most powerful things I think a leader can say is, I don't know, but I'll find out for you, right? You shouldn't just swing wildly and guess at things. No one expects everyone to know everything. But what they do expect is that you're not sort of answering things without, doing the homework and do diligence to make sure that your answers are correct. Not that you need to case everything down. If it takes you four weeks to answer something, it better have been really, really complicated, right? You do need to get back to people. You know, you, so it's a first is accountability and credibility. And then on top of that, another, I think principal is effective communication. So whether that's verbally during presentations or one-on-one conversations, I know everybody doesn't like presentations and that's fine or through email. I mean, a surprising amount of communication and the interactions that I have with other people, even before the pandemic is through email and being able to express yourself accurately and succinctly. And goodness, I would say practice that, but we all get enough emails when we get more, but to practice that so that you can express your ideas and be understood and understand what other people are trying to say. And then the last is exposure. So one of the, there's a, that I'm gonna plug a business book now, there's something called the PI model for an advancement and it's performance, image and exposure. And I think a lot of folks feel that, you know, how do you get ahead? Well, it's performance and performance is absolutely critical, but it's the bedrock of this. If you don't perform well in your current role, no one's gonna consider you for a higher level leader role. And at the same time, just doing your current role well is absolutely not a ticket to advancement. So, you know, you have performance and that sort of is the credibility accountability I talked about before, and then it's image and an exposure. An exposure is the most important. A surprising amount of life is showing up, meaning that, you know, if there's a position, apply for it, if you want. I mean, take a step forward. If they're looking for someone to do the first presentation in class, take a step forward, you know, whatever it is, try, you'll likely do better than you thought you would and, you know, you will 100% not get that promotion if you don't apply for it, right? And maybe you get out competed and maybe there's a better candidate than you. And that's disappointing. But, you know, at least you know you tried and lost, you know, better to have loved and lost than never have loved it all. So. - Absolutely. Yeah, I love that. I think the idea, especially for our student listeners that are in class, like just raise your hands and you'll go first because that exposure and that practice, especially in the classroom, that's the safest place to kind of jump out of your comfort zone because everyone's there to learn and everyone's trying to learn. So I really appreciate all those kind of principles that you follow. - Yeah, so the next was what's the secret sauce? So for me, so this is something that's maybe not as obvious. For me, the secret sauce is authenticity. So, you know, I know a lot, some people have work personas, you know, maybe a different way of behaving that they'll do. Obviously, maybe I'm more formal in the office than I am when I'm in my personal life. But for me, it's very, it's difficult to constantly have to feel like I'm on in my business role. You spent enough time there. So the secret sauce for me is genuineness, authenticity and sort of bringing yourself to the role. - Like the most sustained and best way that I could have imagined leadership, like that as you're talking, I'm like, oh my God, it makes perfect sense now. Like, yes, that, okay, the secret sauce, I got it. That was the kind of contestant's question anymore. - That was great, thank you. - So Tyler, our last question and we're wondering if you are willing to share the best piece of advice that you've been given. - Sure, so my best piece of advice was the, what I said before about most of life is showing up. And I think it's attributed to someone, I'm not sure, but and I'm not, you know, I sort of forgive me, but I don't remember who gave me that advice, whether I read it and I should have tripped it to the person originally wrote it or whether someone mentioned that to me. But you know, it's true that. At least in my experience, when opportunities present themselves, you will often face less competition for those opportunities than you think you will, right? There's a, in your professional career, there's a supervisor job that opens up. Less people are going to apply than you think. In your personal life, there's a, you know, an opportunity to sort of be the social hub of your friend group and to sort of set that up and plan things. Most people will go along, if you're like, hey, let's go to the zoo next Saturday, 90% of the time people are going to say, yeah, that sounds great, right? So, you know, I think that, that stepping forward while it can be uncomfortable is always going to work out better than you think it will and likely will work out well, you know, you'll get the result that you want. That's my advice. Awesome. I love it. Yeah, I mean, I think it all, it all makes sense just being able to show up and, you know, even if you're not 100% sure what's going on, like how I figured out and that's okay, not knowing is part of being a leader. Like you're not going to know everything. You mentioned that before and we definitely appreciate hearing that again. But it's nice to hear that. It's nice to be like reassured that like, yeah, you're going to figure it out and all you to do is just show up. Just come in, hang out with us. But I think that goes back to also how we start and end our podcast and lean in and lead on, we want folks to really just show up, lean into it, show up with your best self, do the best that you can and lead from there. And that's really the best you can do. So I think that advice works perfectly. It ties in exactly with what we talked about, the principles of our podcast. So I love being able to hear that. Thank you so much. Well, that was all the questions that we had for you. I just wanted to thank you so much for your time. We so appreciated listening to everything you had to say. All the wonderful advice you were able to provide for us and our listeners. I think it was really valuable and I really hope that students and the folks listening really walk away with something today and try to show up and be their authentic selves and no matter what they do. So thank you so much for your time. We so appreciate everything you talk about today and we look forward to talking to you soon. Absolutely. Well, thank you for the invitation. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of lead on. We hope you join us next week to discover more secrets of great leadership in the meantime, lean in and lead on. [Music]