It's Always About People: Empowering Local Leaders with Jake Bynum

Episode 93: Pocket Change Podcast

Listen and Follow

Full Transcript

Shea:

Hey, this is Shea.

Shea:

Welcome to the Pocket Change Podcast.

(Offscreen):

You have to say your lines!

Shea:

Where you'll learn better ways to spend, save and invest and take control of your financial journey. Carrie can't be here today, so I'll be hosting the podcast solo. And we've got a great episode where we're talking all about leadership. Our guest today is an expert in leadership. You may say he is a leadership junkie. And so, we're looking forward to chatting with him about his impact on West Tennessee and how you can be involved too.

Shea:

All right. We're excited to welcome our guest, Jake Bynum, Chief of Staff for the Chancellor at UT Martin. Welcome to Pocket Change, Jake.

Jake Bynum:

Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

Shea:

We appreciate you being on today. And we just want to get to know you. So, tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you to UT Martin.

Jake Bynum:

Absolutely. Happy to do it. So, born and raised in Weakley County. I tell people it's either my claim to fame, or the most boring thing about me that the only place I've ever lived is Weakley County. But, graduated from Dresden High School. Went to UT Martin. Had a career in banking and then was the county mayor in Weakley County for almost a decade. And then, in, about two and a half years ago, transitioned to UT Martin to serve as chief of staff for Chancellor Freeman. He had previously been at Chattanooga for nearly his entire career. And so, he started in August. And then I started the following May with this kind of thought around, while he understood higher ed, he had had a background extensively in enrollment management, and so he understood higher ed, there was maybe a need for somebody that understood the local community. And so, they did a search and I applied for the job, thought it was a great opportunity and a chance for me to serve an institution that I had been a huge, supporter of and an advocate for both as an alumni and as county mayor. And so, thought this is a great opportunity for me to serve. And so, I applied and they hired me. Maybe not the smartest decision they've ever made, but they did it, and I'm there now. And have been doing that, like I said, for almost two and a half years. And so, in addition to my role as chief of staff, that is where I spend the majority of my time. I also get to serve as executive director of the WestStar Leadership Program. And so, lots of operational stuff on the university side, and then some community and leadership development and stuff on the WestStar side.

Shea:

So, I'm sure you're glad you didn't have to run a campaign to get into this position?

Jake Bynum:

Absolutely. Yes.

Shea:

So, what makes you so passionate about leadership? I know the WestStar program has a lot to do with developing leaders. So where did that come from and what's that like?

Jake Bynum:

Yeah. So, I tell people. And my wife really tells people that I'm kind of a leadership junkie. And so, if there's a leadership program or a leadership opportunity out there, I'm going to search it out and kind of go after it. To the point that it's almost a little embarrassing when I talk about kind of my leadership journey. So, in addition to West Star and I've done my local leadership program, I was actually in the second class of the youth leadership program for Weakley County. So, I'm dating myself. Interestingly enough, my daughter's in a class, in the class now, and so a little kind of full circle.

Shea:

Two-generational. Yeah.

Jake Bynum:

That's right. So, did those two programs and then went on to do Delta Leadership Institute. Leadership Tennessee. At one point, I got a master's in leadership and public service from Lipscomb University and now enrolled in a PhD program in leadership, learning and decision making. And my wife keeps saying, like, “All these leadership programs, why do you like, shouldn't you know how to be a leader at this point?” But I'm like, “No.” And she was like, “If there was a Leadership America, you’d apply for it.”

Shea:

Like, what can you go for after a doctorate?

Jake Bynum:

Right. Like, where are we heading next?

Shea:

Yeah.

Jake Bynum:

But part of that then speaks to that kind of overarching story around why leadership development. And so, as a practitioner and as somebody who values leadership development, I also see that there's this need in communities. And so when we think about the work that we're doing, especially with West Star, is we think about that really as a community leadership development program. And so how are we equipping local community leaders to go out and develop additional leadership skills? And our classes have, the program has been in existence for over 35 years. This is our 37th cohort. And those programs, those participants in the program, have looked very different and varied, related to their leadership journey. And so, we have some seasoned leaders that have been in positions for a long period of time. And then we have people that step into that, that are very new to their leadership journey and the ways that they serve communities. And so that creates a really interesting and unique dynamic when we think about community leadership, but also the fact that we have leaders from all of the 21 counties in our alumni base, so over a thousand alumni over the last 37 years.

Shea:

Wow.

Jake Bynum:

Which is really kind of great, puts us kind of as really one of the premiere regional leadership programs across the state. But really and truly, when we think about all of the places and the people that we've touched, that has looked very different. Lake is our smallest alumni base. We really have only been able to recruit two individuals out of Lake County over the entire existence of the program. But we look at a place like Weakley County that has a ton of alumni. That's been because of proximity to the university and the amount of people that we've put in from the university. But then we've also had individuals from Shelby and Madison, who are much larger. But the thing that we think about is, is that the issues facing local communities, whether large or small, present themselves differently, but most of the time they're very similar problems. And so, having those conversations around how do we impact the future of these communities is really exciting.

Shea:

So, what would you say is your I don't know about favorite or, you know, leadership characteristic or trait? What comes to your mind when you say that?

Jake Bynum:

Yeah. So, I am of the opinion that most people want to say, “Oh, servant leadership is my very favorite leadership quality.” Because I think at our at our core, we want to be good people, we want to serve our communities, all of those sort of things. Really my very favorite leadership, kind of, quadrant is adaptive leadership. That's really kind of where I get the most excited when I think about leadership development. And when we think about adaptive leadership, it really is an understanding of kind of all of the leadership qualities and being able to then adapt yourself to the need of whatever the situation exist. There's some real work that we won't get into and I won't bore you with around some research around adaptive leadership. But one of the things that I really love about that is being able to kind of step away from a situation and look at the situation holistically and then determine what the need is, and then go back into the situation and determine which leadership quality needs to be implemented in that. And so, whether that's servant leadership, or authoritative leadership, those kind of things is really exciting to me when I think about that from a practitioner standpoint. But I do think that most people walking into our program and really programs across the state really think about it from this aspect of servant leadership.

Shea:

Yeah, I think leadership is, like, servant leadership and leadership is one and the same.

Jake Bynum:

Absolutely.

Shea:

You know, it is about service and serving other people. So, you also have a background in finance and banking, you said. And so, what's the thread that ties all of these roles together?

Jake Bynum:

Yeah, that's a great question. So, one of the things that I continue to talk about and that I said, and I had a great mentor in my banking career, her name was Andrea Hughes. She was my very first boss in my very first real job, there in the Dresden market. And she told me very early on, “People bank with people. People don't bank with banks.” They don't they really, I mean, at times we've seen where the market has driven things like people being very rate sensitive, whether that's both in investment or whether that's borrowing. But at the end of the day, people bank with people. They want to bank with somebody that they know and they trust. And so that was something she instilled in me very early on. And so when I think about kind of the through line to my entire career, that really has been partly what that's been based upon. I also have my degree, my undergraduate degree, was in business administration with a concentration in marketing. I thought I was going to be a marketer. I thought in my mind that I would get a job with First State Bank, which was the bank that I worked for at the time, and that I would go into the Dresden market and eventually something would open up in the marketing department and I would transition there. And that didn't happen. I spent all of my time in the local market because I really began to love consumer lending and helping individuals, like, make their dreams come true.

Shea:

Sure.

Jake Bynum:

And did some deposit relationships as well. I was the kind of one of the first business development officers that First State Bank had at the time. But what that what I would say is also a through line is this fact around that I understood sales to some extent because I had this background in marketing, and so there was a need to sell the bank and to create brand recognition around the bank. And one of the things I've always said is when you thought about Jake and Andrea, you thought about First State Bank, and when you thought about First State Bank, you thought about Jake and Andrea. And so, then that created this additional through line of, as county mayor, I had a brand that I was very conscientious of. The way in which I served the community, the message that we put out there, both through a campaign - and talk about really selling something! And we can talk about like what running a campaign looks like for a county mayor that's 30 years old and probably too young to get elected, but did convince people that that’s who they should vote for, all the way through to kind of where we are now at UT Martin. And so, both a brand of Jake Bynum and a known entity and a known, kind of ability to do the things that that I'm doing, but more importantly, like a brand around, Weakley County and the brand of UT Martin and the things that we're striving for to do in both Weakley as county mayor in that local community. And then the way we think about UT Martin as this institution that really, outside of the University of Memphis, is the largest higher ed institution in West Tennessee. And how do we serve not only the Martin and the Weakley County community, but how do we serve the entire West Tennessee region?

Shea:

Yeah, I think you can say, you know, you've been in marketing, now you're marketing leadership. That's right. You're still using that marketing hat. But so, you mentioned a little bit about the WestStar program. So, why do you think it's important for West Tennesseans to be involved in that?

00:11:50:11 - 00:12:18:18

Jake Bynum:

Yeah, I think again, I go back to there are challenges that our communities face every single day. And some of those challenges local leaders don't even know exist today. And the world is changing far more quickly than it was when the program started. And so, to some extent, the program looks very similar to the way it looked 35 years, 37 years ago. Where we go into local communities and spend about two days and we travel all over West Tennessee and, and even do a trip to Nashville. And some of that is in our core mission, and we're never going to change that. It's about local leadership and local communities. But then there are parts of it that are very different today than it was even two years ago. And part of that difference is that our communities are facing much different challenges. I actually had a conversation with somebody today that talked about, that we were talking about being a county mayor and there were county mayors post-Covid and pre-Covid. And pre-Covid, you had community leaders that really kind of just faced the same issues that just the same issues continued to come up over and over and over again. And really post-Covid, what we've seen is, is that the challenges that our local communities face are just ever evolving and going to be continually evolving. And so the issues that, that local leaders are facing now are not even the same issues that I was facing when I went into office the first time in 2014. When we think about some of our biggest challenges, some of them are the same, you know, economic development. You know what, like how are you bringing jobs into local community? Those kind of things are never, are always going to be the issues that local leaders face. And but then, data centers or land loss and how do you ensure that you're supporting your local ag community and not allowing developers to come in while also trying to answer the or solve for the problem of housing development and the need for additional housing. You know, when I started in 2014, the biggest issue when I started in 2014 was broadband expansion. And because of the investment that the state has put in and the federal government, especially post-Covid like that issue is virtually nonexistent anymore, right?

Shea:

It doesn’t seem like it was just ten years ago.

Jake Bynum:

Right. But now, today, I go back to the issues that I face as county mayor are issues that every single person in a leadership position, in a local community or an organization in a local community are facing. And those things are going to be things like child care, housing, transportation. And then some of those more foundational issues that we see. And so how do we have conversations about those things? How do we address those things? And then how do we, as local leaders, really take ourselves out of the silo that we sit in and put ourselves in a different position in order to have a more broad conversation about how do those affect our local communities?

Shea:

Yeah, I think, you know, it reminds me several leadership programs do like a poverty simulation, where you get to see firsthand what people in your community experience. And I think that's a good way for people to step back and see what is really happening, because this may not be happening in my family or in my neighborhood, but it is happening across the street or with another family.

Jake Bynum:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we do the poverty simulator. And I think that's an important exercise because it does take you out of your own personal perspective and put you into the perspective of other people. For anybody that has never done the poverty simulator, it's an interesting experience. I kind of jokingly say every time we do it, like people spend about ten minutes in that simulator and then they completely lose their mind and start making very irrational decisions. And some of that makes, some of that is performative. Like, I do understand some of its performative because you're assigned a role and you're, and you're trying to have fun, and we're trying to engage this exercise in a meaningful but also kind of enjoyable way. But the other side of that is, is that we, we have to point back to and say, “Look, like you went out and made very poor decisions in the course of about 30 minutes. And think about what that would feel like if you were faced with those decisions in real time, every single day that you got up.” And that, you know, there's some real psychological, development there around individuals that are having to make these very tough decisions in your local communities, that then don't have the capacity then to think about the ramifications and the consequences to those decisions. And so, having people that are in leadership positions at least understand what that perspective looks like, I think is a really important exercise when we think about how do we think about not only, how does this impact me from a local leadership position, but how does it impact the people that I'm serving?

Shea:

Right. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's super impactful to take a step back to take a look at that. So, for those who may be interested in West Star or any listeners in the future, what's that process look like for choosing applicants?

Jake Bynum:

Yeah. So pretty open and pretty broad. So, we just have kind of gone through the most recent recruitment and selection process. So, we do have a new class that we’ll announce on November the 9th of 32, kind of exceptional leaders from across West Tennessee. We try and be intentional around where those individuals come from. And so, we try not to have too many from one single place. And so, this year's class represents 15 of the 21 counties. So excited about that. From various different backgrounds and industries and walks of life and, you know, those kind of things. But, typically, what that looks like is applications typically open up somewhere around August the 1st and then close out sometime around October the 1st. Or, August the 1st to September the 1st. And then we try and do class selection sometime early October. And then, and you can, you can enter into that kind of funnel a couple of different ways. So, you can reach out to a WestStar alum, and there are lots of them, like I said, over a thousand in West Tennessee. And some of them are going to be very much the people that you would think about in your local community. If anybody's been in the leadership game very long, in a rural community, especially, more than likely they've gone through WestStar. And so, reach out to somebody. Or that application lives on our website. And so, you can go out there and just self-apply. You don't have to be nominated necessarily. You do have to have a couple of letters of recommendation. The application is about five questions, I think, maybe even three questions. And then some additional biographical information that we asked for. And then what that looks like is we have a group of individuals. We have somebody from nearly all of our 21 counties that sits on the selection committee that reviews those applications and then scores them and makes the determination around who should be in the next class. And we, like I said, not all. So, we take 30 individuals from West Tennessee into a class, and then we have a different kind of process for individuals that apply through the university. We allow for some additional seats for the university because we own the program. And so, we want to make sure we've got some people in the program as well. But, we do that in a way that not the top, not necessarily the top 30 individuals that scored get in. Because, again, we want to be really cognizant of the fact that we're trying to be more inclusive across West Tennessee. And so, we may be making determinations around class selection based upon a number of factors. But, but all the time, in every senario, we look at those applications and say, is this application valuable? It does have to have value. It does have to score well. And then, will that individual be able to make an impact in their local community?

Shea:

Yeah. That's great. There's another program for educators. You have WestTeach and our Leaders Education Foundation is proud to support that. And so, tell us a little bit about West Teach and what the educators learn through that?

Jake Bynum:

Yeah, absolutely. And first, I want to say thank you to leaders, for the great work and the support, really, since the very beginning.

Shea:

Well, absolutely.

Jake Bynum:

And so, we are so appreciative because that program would not be possible without that financial support. But that program looks similar and different all at the same time. So WestStar typically runs December to June. And so, it's about a six month process. The WestTeach program is a four month program. And we only do, we do one overnight. So, they do for the very first session. They do an overnight. And then everything else is a day trip where all of the WestStar sessions...

Shea:

Cause they’re out of the classroom for a day.

Jake Bynum:

Right. That’s right.

Shea:

So yeah, that's a lot, big commitment.

Jake Bynum:

There's a huge commitment, both from a teacher obligation standpoint. And we're cognizant of the fact that we are taking teachers out of the classroom that are there to do instruction. And so that's part of the reason why we only do the one day. The other part is, is there is a financial obligation on behalf, on the part of the school system to say, not only are they paying typically the tuition for a teacher to participate, but also then incurring the cost of a substitute in that classroom when the teacher is out. And so, also want to thank our local school systems for their support of that program. And that cohort looks a little smaller. It's anywhere from 15 to 25 individual teachers from across West Tennessee. But, and the sessions also look a little different. Some of the sessions look the same. So, we do the poverty simulator with them, as well. We do some of the same programing. And then some of it looks different because over the last couple of years especially, we've started having conversations with our local educators that have participated in the program and said, “What do you want to see?” That's one of the things that I love about how we design programing, both for WestStar and WestTeach is we allow for an exercise called Craft Your Curriculum. And so, allowing individuals to kind of tell us what they need, and then we try and design curriculum based around that. And what we started to see with teachers was, is they wanted resources that they could take back into their classroom. And so, what are organizations and resources that teachers then could look at to take into their classroom, while also being really cognizant of the fact of that the program was designed and developed to connect classrooms, communities, and corporations. And so, how do we then also put teachers in places and spaces that they wouldn't typically experience? And so, we do some factory tours with them and then also constantly thinking about how do we take those opportunities and really provide teachers with an opportunity so that they have a basis of understanding of what that community looks like? But also this thought around community leadership is different for a teacher. My wife's a third-grade teacher. She wants to be a third-grade teacher. She wants to be in her classroom. And then she wants to go and take care of our kids in the afternoon. And so, she doesn't have a lot of time to do community development. And so, how do we develop those teachers to be leaders in their classroom, in their school community, and then more broadly in their local community?

Shea:

And I think, you know, teachers are seeing firsthand a lot of the issues that are facing the communities through families and students. So, it gives them a great opportunity to see those resources, bring them to the classroom, bring them to the family. So, I think it's great. It's another way to just infuse that knowledge and information out to those who need it.

Jake Bynum:

Yep. Absolutely.

Shea:

With educators and working in higher ed, and you also work with students a lot of times, what are some of the things you see young people are facing, you know, in relation to leadership and development? What are what do you see?

Jake Bynum:

Yeah. You know, one of the things that we talk about a whole lot around our student population. And so, I have the benefit to also oversee a student leadership development program called the Ned Ray McWherter Institute. And one of the things that we talk about on a pretty regular basis, especially with this with Gen Z, is they look different than their previous generation, and the next generation will different than Gen Z does. But really and truly a conversation around grit, and ensuring that our students have both the knowledge that they need when they graduate to do the jobs that the workforce demands, but also an understanding around, really, what does it take to be successful, both in the classroom, outside the classroom, and those extracurricular activities? Because we understand that students need those opportunities as well. And then how do we take those skills and transition them into the workforce? And one of the things that we really talk about at Martin is, is how do we develop that whole student? How do we make them successful? And then how do we ensure that they have all the things that they need not only to be good at a job when they graduate, but also how do they become good citizens? The majority of our students are going to come from West Tennessee, and the majority of those students are then going to go back to their regular community. And so, how do we provide them with opportunities and experiences that allow them to not only be really, really good at a job, and they got a degree in something, hopefully. But then how to they become good citizens? Some of the challenges that we see with our students. So, most people think, “Oh, a student will stop going to class, and so then they fail out.” The majority of students leave higher education not because of academics, but because they interacted with some barrier along the way. And typically, that looks like not being able to support themselves financially outside the classroom. And so, doing a lot of work around student support, a lot of work around student success. So, some of our students come to us less prepared than others. And so how do we support those same students? Chancellor Freeman has had the mantra over certainly the last year around “Every student, every time.” And so, if we serve every single student, every single time in the way that they need to be supported, then they can be successful. And so, be very intentional about student success and their matriculation through the institution.

Shea:

We might have still that – “Every member, every time.”

Jake Bynum:

That's right.

Shea:

We can use that at Leaders.

Jake Bynum:

You can take it.

Shea:

So, what is the biggest lesson you learned in managing a county government?

Jake Bynum:

Oh, gosh. So again, I go back to like, all of this is just people. It's just people. So, most people that don't deal with county government on a regular basis do not understand that a county mayor, much different than a city mayor.

Shea:

Yeah.

Jake Bynum:

County mayors have very little authority. They have very little people that actually answer to them. So, you know, I don't get to tell the sheriff who to arrest. I don't get to tell the highway supervisor what road to fix. I don't get to tell the register of deeds what deed to record. They all get to operate independently. And so really, it becomes about influence and it becomes about relationships. And that's always been something that I have thought that I did fairly well was the relationship piece. Also dealing with, so, I have 18, or had 18 county commissioners. We did not always see eye to eye on every single issue. But how do you manage those relationships? How do you have conversations? How do you prioritize both resources? Because at the end of the day, we're talking about taxpayer dollars, and that means people's money. And people get really, really interested when you start talking about their money. And so really managing those relationships. And then how do you have conversations around moving your community forward while also acknowledging the fact that there are individuals that really like the way that their community looks? And so how do you value individuals that love the look and the feel of their local community, while also understanding that it's really important to think about how we move the county forward, how we implement new programs and opportunities. You know, again, I talk about broadband. You know, that probably, most people would identify that ass my legacy project. I wouldn't necessarily, but most people would say. I was at the very cutting edge in the start of that conversation. And so, when I took office, about 25% of the county in the rural areas had access to high speed, affordable internet. And now about 95% of the county has access to that same technology. And that was very intentional work, but there was a lot of relationship managing along the way with that.

Shea:

Yeah. It just sounds like a huge balance. I mean, you have to balance taxpayers and other elected officials and taxpayer money and all of those things. That's what that's what I'm getting from all this leadership talk.

Jake Bynum:

Yep, that’s right.

Shea:

There’s this huge balance.

Jake Bynum:

It is. It's a, it is balance. But it's good work. It was work that I absolutely loved. I tell people, until the time that I left, it was the best job in the world. I couldn’t imagine doing anything different. Until I found the new job, and now I can't imagine doing anything different there, so.

Shea:

That's great. So, we've got a couple of financial related questions since we call it the Pocket Change Podcast. What is the best piece of financial advice you've ever been given?

Jake Bynum:

Yeah, so one of the best pieces of financial advice that I have said, as somebody who worked at a financial institution is, is I think everybody ought to work at a bank or credit union. Because it does show you kind of what to and, more importantly, what not to do. You know, I ended up dealing with a lot of individuals that, sometimes through, the majority of time, through no fault of their own, landed in situations that, really created some financial challenges for them. And so being able to see kind of how people enter into those issues, and then being able to kind of understand, “Oh.” I still get nervous every time I have to pull out my credit card, and put something on it, because that can spiral really, really quickly. You know, one of the, one of the things that we looked at, even as county mayor, we implemented a prosperity task force. So, Mayor Conger up here had done a lot of good work around an anti-poverty task force. And, and I said, really and truly, we want to talk about prosperity. And so, we're going to do a prosperity task force. And done really intensive work around, what does that look like? And understanding that people have to have options around financial decisions, and they, more importantly, have to have education around financial decisions, because not everybody walks into that space in the same way.

Shea:

That's right. Absolutely. So, if you found just some extra change in your pocket, not a lot. We're just talking some pocket change. What would you spend it on?

Jake Bynum:

So, this is probably going to as anybody that knows me, this is kind of going to come as no surprise that I'm a little bit of, of a clothes guy that I would, I would take any extra pocket change and probably go out and buy a new tie and a new pair of shoes. That might be a little hard to do with some pocket change.

Shea:

You’ll have to go collect it in the couch.

Jake Bynum:

That's right, that's right. But if there's extra money lying around, if my kids don't take it first, then I'm gonna spend it on clothes, probably.

Shea:

There you go. Well, we appreciate you being on the podcast today, Jake.

Jake Bynum:

Thank you.

Shea:

We really appreciate you sharing all these leadership, just information with us. And we're excited to promote not only the WestTeach program for educators, but WestStar. And we just thank UT Martin for all they do for our communities.

Jake Bynum:

Thank you. So glad to be with you all.

Shea:

Thank you.