Talk CNY Miniseries: Leadership Lessons - Leading with Purpose: Lessons in Resilient and Reflective Leadership

In this episode of Talk CNY: Leadership Lessons, presented by NBT Bank, Todd Muscatello, the Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, gets candid about a defining moment in his career. 

Todd began his journey with Excellus BlueCross BlueShield in 2003. A year after being on the job, he made a strategic move that propelled him forward but also ushered in some of the toughest yet most rewarding moments in his career. However, through resilience, reflection and the power of intentional leadership, Todd built the foundation for long-term leadership success. 

Tune in to this episode of Talk CNY to hear Todd’s advice for rising leaders as well as his take on the importance of intentional leadership and growth. 

Talk CNY: Leadership Lessons is presented by NBT Bank. 

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Host: Brittni Smallwood LinkedIn

Transcript

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Welcome to the Talk CNY miniseries Leadership Lessons where we sit down with business and community leaders to discuss the personal and professional lessons that have led them to where they are today and serve as a guiding light forward. Our guest today is Todd Muscutello. He is the Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield. He began his journey with the company back in 2003 when he stepped into a role as a leader and he was the leader of the mid-market sales and account services teams in Rochester. Then what happened after that was a defining moment within his career. A year later, he stepped into a role as the vice president of sales, and Todd openly describes how this transition was the toughest, yet the most rewarding moment within his career. He describes how resilience and intentional leadership led him to where he is today, someone who created a firm foundation for long-term leadership success. Welcome, Todd. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to it. It is a pleasure. We're looking forward to it as well. So as you look back over your career, what are some of the challenges that you faced and how did you overcome them? Oh boy. That's a good one. You said it. I started in 2003. I was a first time manager. I had never led a team before, and I got about a year under my belt and actually felt pretty good, and then a unique thing happened. The vice president of sales at the time left to pursue another job, and I talked myself into applying at a time when I still look back and say I wasn't ready for that. Amazingly, I got the job and spent the next three years-ish having a really, really hard time. The word I used to describe it a lot is it was like quicksand. It wasn't until 2007 that I got my first professional mentor and started to spend some time actually working with somebody on a growth and development plan. Prior to that, I didn't even know what that was. One of the things that he talked me into doing was doing a feedback survey. I did something unique. I didn't just send it out to all of my peers and the usual names. I sent it to everybody who worked for me at the time, and I stood up in front of him at an all staff meeting and I said,'I don't care if you don't know me at all or if you've worked with me every day for the last couple of years, I need you to tell me what you think.' It was a five-question survey that asked really, really open-ended, really good questions, and about 80% of them replied to me. That feedback survey to this day was the defining time of my career. The feedback I got gave me two things. The first one was a recollection, realization, excuse me, that there were a lot of people pulling for me. I was actually doing a lot of things really well. I didn't feel it. I didn't see it. I wasn't confident in it at all, but it was there and the folks who responded were saw it or they believed in it. There was a small percentage of them that were saying, yeah, you got a lot of work to do. I went in this multiple year period of time where I very intentionally, which is one of my favorite words, committed to my development plan, and I went on a multi-year journey of - I can do this. I've got the confidence. Now I know I can do this. I built my foundation up. That is the story of my entire career is that two-three year window where I was really down and kind of built myself back up with a lot of help from a lot of people who gave me really good feedback. Wow, it's really beautiful how you were really intentional about all of that and you were open to growing. So how did resilience, and you kind of mentioned it as well, intentional leadership. How did both really propel you forward? Yep. There are three words that I've latched onto over the years. The first one is relationships. A really good leader builds really good relationships. You work on them when you don't need something from the other person. A really good leader doesn't need an org chart. You lead by being able to influence people to accomplish a common goal, and the third ties back to them both. You have to be real intentional with both of them. If you don't own your own development plan, if you don't commit to doing it yourself, like putting your time in, committing your energy, understanding you are accountable for your own growth, your own development, the people who figure that out, those are the great ones. Those are the ones that spend time on relationships and actually build them. Those are the people who spend time on the skill of influence and actually develop it. It took me a long time to get there, but once I figured that out and was really intentional about it, my career turned around. As you worked on your development plan, what would you say are some of the biggest leadership lessons then as you worked on yourself and your leadership? Yeah, a long-term growth plan, a long-term development plan is a series of sprints, which turns into a marathon. So in 2007 I started something that I still do to this day. All of these years later, I still use the same PowerPoint document that I did back in 2007. That is my development plan, and it's got four things in it. One, a specific relationship, like a name of someone who I know, either I or my team or the person is counting on me to have a better relationship with. An acumen thing, like something in my business. I just want to be able to speak to better as a leader to support my team. One goal that is I'm going to get better at my job today, and then I always refer to it as it's a selfish one. It's okay, one that I want to get better for where I want to go in my career, and I refresh it every six months. Oh, that's beautiful. And I've been doing it since 2007. That was going to be my follow-up question. How often do you do that? I started that PowerPoint. I know it sounds terrible. I'm still using a PowerPoint, but since 2007, I haven't stopped. No, I like that. I've heard a lot of leaders also talk about kind of having their dashboard, something that they go back to and look at. And that's mine. Oh, that's great. When you look throughout your life, whether it's personal or professional, who would you say or what would you say has made the most indelible mark on your life? You have to be very open to being influenced from everybody. It doesn't mean you have to adopt everything. You just have to be willing to learn even the ways you don't want to be as a leader. To answer your question though, it's my dad. My father. My dad was a mid-level manager at a newspaper in Albany for 37 years. The greatest memory I have of my dad is this indelible thing that he had within him that the greatest professional gift in the world was people working for you. He felt so honored that there were people who actually looked at him as the boss. He always referred to it as they're looking for me to table. He said that all the time, so much so when you're a teenager, you roll your eyes. That was me with my dad, but my brother, my two sisters, we all heard that countless times. He loved the honor of leading people, and my dad's been gone 15 years. I still have that in the back of my head all the time. How no matter how stressful it gets, and it does, no matter how challenging it gets, the difficulties of leading a team, I still come back to that little voice of my dad saying, remember pretty lucky you got people who are counting on you to lead them. And I'll never forget that. That's beautiful. As I was doing my research for today's interview, I noticed that there was an employee of yours who ended up going to the hospital and you showed up at the hospital. Just to make sure that he was okay. I said, 'Wow.'. I do remember. Yep, I do remember that. That's amazing. What type of legacy would you like to leave as a leader? I work for a guy now who, a couple of people now, pardon me, who I admire greatly, and one of them said something to me a while back, I'm not really worried about my legacy. He was conveying to me just trying to do the best job I can, and that's enough. This was a small passing comment. It wasn't even like some brilliant thing, and I'll remember that for a long time. I believe a great leader builds and develops a great team. I've got eight people who work for me today they are incredibly hardworking. They're remarkably dedicated. They are remarkably loyal, not just to me, but to our company and what we try to do with our mission. They're also just some of the best people I've ever met in my life, and I get to spend every day with them. Over the last few years, there have been, well, I guess over my entire time with them, many of them have been promoted. I've given them other opportunities. One of them I brought onto the team. She had no sales background at all. She was in finance, and I remember looking at her going, no, she's the person I could sit across the table with and believe, and I hired her in a sales role. This was 20 years ago. Another one of them was in human resources, and I needed a company to run, excuse me, a person to run a company, one of our sister companies. I think people thought I was crazy. I hired her because she was one of the best cultural leaders I've ever met in my life. I look at where they've gone in their careers, if I was going to say what my legacy is, that's it. That's it. I love where they are today. The one lady who I hired 20 years ago, Mary, to see where she is today, professionally at this point in her life, personally and professionally, 20 years later. That's it. I'm good. Yeah, I'm quite happy with that being my legacy. Now we're going to our rapid fire section. Okay, let's do it. So within this podcast, we like to have some fun, so we'll give you these cards in just a moment, and the goal is for you to go through them. Rapid fire means to answer them within 30 seconds and then move on to the next one. Alright. All right. You ready? Challenge. Here we go. How do you stay motivated during difficult times or setbacks? One of the guys who works for me said this to me a few years ago, four years ago, and I've adopted it. He said,'Never waste a good crisis.' And I remember when he I'm like, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. A challenge, a crisis, a complication, a roadblock, a barrier. No better opportunity. You want to be a great leader. You have to lead when it's hard. Most people can lead when it's easy. Having a mindset that says,'This is my opportunity.' This is a really cool thing for a leader. Well said. Next. Yes. All right. How was that on 30 seconds. You did great. What aspects of your work bring you the most joy and fulfillment? We just talked about it. It's seeing the people who I get to work with every day. The people who work for me and seeing them grow. Their career growth is the greatest fulfillment. How do you continue to grow and refine your skills? It's that PowerPoint that I will keep with me for the rest of my career. I work for the chief operating officer, who's obviously got a pretty big job and still every six months I still send him the PowerPoint and say,'Here's what I'm working on six months from now.' I still do that. It's me. It's how I stay intentional about my development plan, and I'll keep doing that for as long as I possibly can. That's beautiful. What drives you to get up early and lead every day? I am one of those really, really weird people, and I say that with all sincerity. I can't wait to go to work in the morning. I love my job. I love my company. I love my team. I can't wait to get there. I work from home a lot. I just turn on a computer so I can get at it every day. I'm the same weird guy who can't wait to come home at the end of the day. So I look at that as I got it pretty good. If you can wake up every morning and like going to work, but you also have a good balance where you can go home at the end of the day and leave it all behind. I married my best friend, and I have two beautiful kids. One's getting ready to go off to college. My dog. Every part of my personal life, I can't wait to get to at the end of the day. That's beautiful. You found joy within the process of both. I did. I love that. What personal values guide your leadership and decision-making? I really believe good leaders are not afraid to make tough decisions. I'm not saying it's fun, but they're willing to do it. There's something, I think everybody, me included, still messes up from time to time, but being very intentional with,'I'm going to make a hard call, somebody's going to get negatively impacted by it.' they want to do that you're saying we're not going to do. Having a heart with it, having some compassion with That's beautiful. How do you stay curious and open to new ideas? Here's a really, really brilliant idea. You ready? You just ask. Those eight people that I get to work with every day, they're smarter than me. So if they were here, they'd all be chuckling. They know they're smarter than me. Aida, who's here today, she's smarter than me. You ask people for their opinion. You'd be amazed how people want to give you their opinion. They want to be a part of a decision. They want to influence what we're doing as a company or as a team. You just have to ask. Early part of my career, I didn't ask. I tried to play Superman. I had the cape on all the time. I got it. I'm going to convince everybody I'm right. I'm going to convince everybody I know what I'm doing. I'm not going to look like, I don't know. I'm not going to look like I need help. That was a lot of the reason for the quicksand. And by the way, it's really cool to have a team who every once in a while will look at you and go, you're doing it again. And I've got a few of those who will remind me every once in a while, Hey, I'm pretty good too. Why don't you ask my opinion? That's a pretty cool thing. I love that you've got a great team. Yep. How would you characterize your leadership style overall? I really hope my dad would be proud of the way I am. I learned a lot from those first couple of years. I believe very deeply that shaped the rest of my career. And if I have these eight people every day that for some reason come to work and decide to follow me every day, they're brilliant. They can go anywhere they want, and I look at that as I'm doing something right. Sometimes I question what it is, but my leadership style is them. They're my leadership style. If they're doing well and they still want to come to work every day and put up with me, we're doing pretty good. And like I said with the legacy question, that's enough. I can go with that. That is beautiful. Thank you. That is beautiful. Well, it was a pleasure listening to all of that. Thanks for having me. So as we're preparing to close, my question for anyone who is, whether it's the beginning or the middle of their journey and their goal is really to be the best leader possible, what advice would you give to them? Whether it's a book or something for them to learn, what would you say to them? There's a million things I can give. There's probably books out there I can give you the name of. I can't stress to you enough. You will be much more successful if you focus on relationships. If you actually intentionally put time aside to get to know the people who you rely on, who rely on you, who your team relies on, and who relies on them. That's important. Not just up everywhere across the company, all levels. You spend time on relationships, at some point you are going to be in a difficult situation. That's a leader. Yeah. That happens all the time. The bigger the circle you have around you of people who have a good relationship with you that want to help you be successful, the easier it will be to deal with the tough spot when it happens. Yes, you can study. You can read books. You can take an extra class. All of those things are important. Don't get me wrong. The thing that I wish I did in those first few years, I just wish I took a step back, caught my breath, realized I don't know everything. I don't have to do everything myself. Build my circle. That would've made those first few years a whole heck of a lot easier. Spend your time there right away the minute you want to be a leader now, don't wait till you get there the minute you want to be a leader. Put time in there. Well said. Well, thank you so much. You've taught us a lot today about resilience, reflecting and leading intentionally. Thank you so much, Todd. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. It was truly a pleasure. If you'd like to learn more and hear more of Todd's in-depth responses, they will all be available on social media. Also, the Talk CNY miniseries Leadership Lessons is available across all major podcast platforms and on centerstateceo.com. I would recommend NBT Bank to any business. My name is Chris Polimino and I'm the president of Atlas Fence. Chris had decided to purchase Atlas Fence from the previous owner. He had previous connections at NBT Bank. NBT Bank provided me equipment financing doubling our entire production workforce. It's important to me as a business owner that the decisions of our banking relationship are made locally.