Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, VALLEY NATIONAL BANCORP
Valley National Bank's Ira Robbins Talks Leadership and Millennials
Ira Robbins, President of Valley National Bank, discusses leadership development and working with millennials on "Caucus: New ...
About Ira Robbins
In a 2018 interview on "Caucus: New York," Ira Robbins, then President of Valley National Bank, discussed leadership development and working with Millennials. Robbins stated that a leader has a responsibility to provide employees a path and opportunity to achieve their expectations, adding that any manager not executing this is an "ineffective manager." He described Millennials as wanting leaders to be engaged in their personal lives and to understand what drives them, while still maintaining appropriate separation. Robbins said he believed he could connect with younger professionals due to his relatively young age as a bank president.
Transcript (4 segments)
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Interviewer0:06
So is it fair to say that part of leadership development is getting people, teaching people, helping people to see their—I call it the bigger picture, the forest from the trees?
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Ira Robbins0:20
Karen shaking her head, that is it, absolutely. You know, Larry talks about stakeholders, the stakeholders, the employee. And every employee has a different desire as to what they want in life. And I think it's a leader's responsibility to make sure that they've provided a path, an opportunity for that employee to achieve whatever their expectations are. And that's incumbent upon every single leader, upon every single manager. And if they're not executing that, then I would say they're an ineffective manager.
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Interviewer0:45
As a pretty young president, probably one of the youngest in the state, in the nation, do you think you have some advantages in dealing with younger professionals, dealing with leadership?
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Ira Robbins0:55
Absolutely. I think I can connect a little bit better with them. We mentioned earlier about, you know, as a leader, how engaged you get with an employee on a personal basis. And I think the Millennials are a really good example of that, right? Because they want you to be engaged in their personal life. I want you to have an understanding as to what really drives them, what really makes them come to work every single day, what makes them get up. Now, having that separation so you still have the ability to provide them the leadership that they need and the guidance is important, but having that vested interest in what's important to them, I think, is important.