About Denise Pickett
Denise Pickett, President of Enterprise Shared Services at American Express, has shared leadership advice in a 2016 interview. She stated that a leader fails when they prioritize their own success over their people's, and emphasized the importance of developing others, building followership, and empowering employees rather than micromanaging. Pickett defined success as balancing the expectations of employees, customers, and shareholders while staying true to one's values, and advised young professionals to focus on skill development rather than job titles.
In a 2016 sermon, Rev. Denise Pickett discussed the cost of discipleship, referencing biblical passages about prioritizing one's commitment to Jesus over family ties and possessions. She contrasted "cheap grace" with a more demanding faith, describing discipleship as involving love for others and perseverance through trials.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Denise Pickett's recent appearances.
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Transcript (1 segments)
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Denise Pickett0:00
I think the key to being successful as a leader is the minute you start caring more about your own success than your people's, you really do fail as a leader. So you have to have a real genuine care for developing people, for wanting them to be successful if you expect them to be motivated. My name is Denise Pickett, president of US Consumer Services at American Express. So I define success as it's really the sweet spot between exceeding expectations of your employees, your customers, and your shareholders, and staying true to your values. The way to be successful is if all the really great people want to work for you. It makes your job that much easier because you've built great followership over the years. So for me, it's all about building followership. I think the way to motivate is first have a mission-driven culture. People have to want to get up every day and come in and know why they're doing the work for the company that they are. And I think the second thing is you have to empower people. You can't micromanage and be in there making all the decisions, or frankly you won't grow leaders yourself. The best advice I can give to young professionals is make sure that you chase skill development and not levels. Make sure you move business units, work for different leaders, and volunteer for the tough tasks, and really develop your skills, and the levels will follow you.
