Dana Hanchin serves as President and CEO of HDC MidAtlantic. Dana considers the mission of providing affordable housing her lifelong work, driven by a sense of justice and love. She earned a B.A in Political Science from Kent State University and M.A. in Urban Studies from Temple University. She is also a graduate of Drexel University’s Leading for Change Fellowship program. In 2021, she received the Emerging Leader Award from the National NeighborWorks Association.
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Episode Transcript
Nicholas Paulukow
Welcome fellow seekers of leadership enlightenment to the Servant Leader’s Library, where we dive deep into the realms of wisdom, humility, and genuine connection. I’m your host, Nicholas Paulukow, curator of All Things Servant Leadership. And today we’re graced with the presence of a true beacon of inspiration.
Joining us in the journey today is Dana Hanchin, the maestro behind HDC Mid-Atlantic, where she wields the power of service with finesse and grace. Prepare to be enlightened and entertained, and perhaps a little mischievously inspired, as we embark on another enlightening journey through the corridors of Servant Leadership Excellence. With 25 years of experience addressing the complex needs of lower-income communities and building leading affordable housing initiatives, Dana Hanchin serves as President and CEO of HDC Mid-Atlantic.
Dana considers the mission of providing affordable housing her lifelong work, driven by a sense of justice and love. She earned a BA in Political Science from Kent State University and an MA in Urban Studies from Temple University. She is also a graduate of Drexel University’s Leading from Change Fellowship Program.
In 2021, she received the Emerging Leader Award from the National NeighborWorks Association. When not working, Dana enjoys riding her bike, mixing amazing cocktails, and taking long walks with her wife and two rescue pups. So, I’m thrilled to have Dana with us here today to talk about HDC Mid-Atlantic, a nonprofit organization that develops, builds, and manages affordable housing for low-income families and seniors in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, and her journey in leadership through service.
So, Dana, I’m sure our listeners are eager to learn more about you and your work. Let’s dive in right now. But before we get started, I need to understand what is the best drink you like to mix since I saw that you’re a mixologist.
Dana Hanchin
Oh, that’s a good question. Thank you so much, Nick. It’s a pleasure to be with you today.
And what an incredible introduction. I kind of felt like a dancer more than a leader.
Nicholas Paulukow
I love it.
Dana Hanchin
You just use such flowery words and I just felt like, you know, maybe it’s just because it’s a Friday, but I appreciate that introduction.
Nicholas Paulukow
Absolutely, you deserve it.
Dana Hanchin
I have many cocktail favorites. I will say that in my household, I am the visionary for making cocktails. And then I have my spouse who executes on that vision.
So not dissimilar to my role as a CEO where you’re creating vision and then you have people to execute on that vision and strategy around.
Nicholas Paulukow
Oh, I love that. That’s perfect.
Dana Hanchin
Yeah, some of my favorites are, I really love a bourbon sour, which is a play on a whiskey sour. So if you remember going to all these weddings, like all the Polish weddings you went to where the old men would go up and order whiskey sours, they’re way better than that. They’re way better than that.
So it’s like taking a classic and just making it, like just elevating it and using egg white. I’m a big fan of egg white in cocktails because it ends up making it frothy and then you feel like you’re having a slurpee.
Nicholas Paulukow
Oh, I love it. Our organization is having a bourbon and backups meeting coming up, like a seminar down at the press room. So sign up, we’ll get all your best recipes.
Dana Hanchin
Oh yeah, I don’t have far to go. It’s right around the corner.
Nicholas Paulukow
We’re gonna learn about all the different bourbons and we’re gonna have 15 minutes of a little bit of understanding of some protection for your business, but we enjoy having anybody with us.
Dana Hanchin
And you’ll coordinate transportation home, right?
Nicholas Paulukow
That’s right, Uber’s for everyone.
Dana Hanchin
Uber’s for everyone.
Nicholas Paulukow
Well, thank you for that. That is really awesome. Can you, Dana, give us a little understanding of yourself, kind of your career path? Like we heard this really, you’ve really gone through a wonderful path in your career. Can you give the listeners an understanding of where your career path started and what that leadership journey has looked like for you? What lands you where you’re at right now?
Dana Hanchin
Sure, I would say it’s a story that becomes certainly easy to tell in hindsight, but starting out in the field of affordable housing and community development, I never envisioned myself having a seat in the corner office. What was most important to me was to continue to hone my craft and learn and grow and make an impact in communities. And so certainly I will share a little bit about my family and sort of that story and how it connects to where I am today.
I was born in Western Pennsylvania in the Monongahela Valley. And of course, you heard that I went to Philadelphia to get my master’s in Urban Studies. So I was in Philly for almost 25 years, but I was raised in my early stages, from a kid up until about junior high, in Western PA.
I share this because my family comes from working-class roots. Both my grandfathers were steel workers. And that identity sort of rests very deeply within me.
We had talked earlier about work ethic and commitment and pierogies. So as you know, I think Pittsburgh does reign supreme on the pierogi. There’s some sort of family myth that exists out there for me that somebody once said we may be related to Mrs. T’s, the gigantic pierogi maker. But I don’t know if that’s true or not. In any case, that background and working-class history of my family really informed my own experience and also my father’s journey. You think about the way that we as a society have been organized in terms of economies and how families are created around jobs, and communities are built and how that transforms when you have a shift in your economy, right?
So you think about historically, we were an industrial-based society. Then we moved to a service-based society. And that’s an important aspect for me to share because my father, when he graduated from high school, went out to look for a job.
He went to all the steel mills. His mom would pack him a lunch every day. He would go out and try to get a job, but no one would hire him because there was a war brewing.
So no one would hire him because they thought he was going to be drafted. So he just ended up enrolling in the Marines. This is an important caveat to understand me as a leader.
I say this because my dad met my mom while he was in the Marines at the end of his tour. They ended up getting married and having three little girls. My dad raised basically three little Marines.
So if you’re talking about servant leadership and then also being raised as a Marine where you’re supposed to get things done, hustle, don’t let anybody down, and it’s never fast enough or good enough, that’s sort of the undercurrent of how I operate. But what I really became aware of is as my dad came back from service, got married, had a family right away, worked three jobs. I remember as a little girl, my dad used to clean banks at night and we used to go in our pajamas and he’d prop us up on the counters while they were vacuuming all around.
So really trying to build a life for themselves. Through that experience, there was a program offered at that time in the mid-seventies through HUD that assisted people of lower incomes in purchasing homes. My parents qualified to participate in this program and HUD paid 50% of their mortgage, and they paid the other half and were able to become homeowners through that program.
Now that program doesn’t exist and it never will come back. So that was in the days where there was a significant prioritization for affordable housing at both a homeownership and rental level. But I will say this, and this is what connects to sort of, there’s so much more of the story in this in terms of my father’s journey because he became successful through just being a hard worker.
But when I was in college, all that experience and 20 years of experience of him in the workplace without a college degree at another point in time where then the pressure of the economy said, you have to have a college education in order to grow. So my dad ended up losing his job at a time where he had 20 years of experience, but no one would hire him because he didn’t have a college degree. So he was only able to get, I will say not entry-level jobs, but jobs for which he had far more experience and was overqualified.
That journey and witnessing that and watching my parents build a life and just work really hard and then constantly sort of just grappling with this notion of how to continue to thrive and then feeling like they got stuck because the pressure in terms of the expectations and requirements changed. Honestly, it was really devastating to my family and to my dad as an identity and as a father and a provider. So witnessing that and seeing that experience really affected me.
I also would share that, recognizing that my family as a white family had privilege in that because the programs that were offered to my parents at the time weren’t necessarily open to everyone. There was a practice that’s evidence-based and historically rooted in discriminatory policies that limited people’s ability to access programs. So I don’t know if the program that my mom and dad participated in, if they did not offer it to everybody, but for the most part, there was a historical track record of other people, people of color, not being able to access those same opportunities.
So even with my parents struggling to hold on to a middle-class livelihood, recognizing that if you were a person of color or if you didn’t speak English or if you were a single-parent household, things became far more complicated. When I went to get my bachelor’s at Kent State University, honestly, I wasn’t even thinking about college when I was in high school. I mean, honestly, I don’t even know how I graduated.
My mom would tell you that my junior year, she thought I wasn’t going to make it. I was like, really? I don’t even know.
I mean, you know, when you were a teenager, I was kind of an art punk, you know?
Nicholas Paulukow
So, you know, I-
Dana Hanchin
No, till you kind of get further through that journey, right?
Nicholas Paulukow
No, and you know, and I, so I picked the college in my backyard at the time we were living in Ohio. I did high school in Ohio. My older sister went to Ohio State and I didn’t like her.
So I didn’t want to go to Ohio State, even though it was 60,000 people. So I just went a little, I went north of Columbus and I went to Kent State. But I will tell you, I started out as a fashion design major.
As someone who really was seen as creative and artistic in high school, I was just thinking about, well, how do I monetize that? Well, I guess I can make clothes and people will buy them. But at the end of the day, it didn’t really work for me.
And I ended up exiting with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science. But I will tell you that where I really found excitement was in my minor in Geography, where I really took a look at economic geography and began to explore the impact of economies and the boom and bust cycles of economies in places and communities. Not only from a global perspective, but from a local perspective.
That’s when I started to center in on understanding the urban environment as a vehicle for families and businesses and communities to thrive. So I ended up going to Temple for my master’s degree.
Nicholas Paulukow
Right into an urban environment right there.
Dana Hanchin
Yeah, definitely. And so I will share that my mom thought I was gonna flunk out of high school, and I wasn’t really interested in learning in high school at all. But in college, I really became excited about learning.
That’s why I went to get my master’s degree because I felt like I just got started. I ended up graduating with honors in my bachelor’s degree and then getting my master’s paid for because of my academic accomplishments. Oh, congratulations, that’s amazing.
So I just say that because I was kind of, yeah, I was kind of a punk who didn’t really care about much in high school and just trying to figure things out as I go.
Nicholas Paulukow
Right, kind of like a lot of kids, even thinking today, right? Like there’s still this mantra of like, everybody should go to college and you won’t get a great job. And they’re so confused because some of them, I have four children.
So I have two that are twins that are seniors going through this. And they’re like, well, what if I don’t pick it perfectly? I’m like, this isn’t a perfect thing.
This is like, get into it, find out what your passion is. Because it’s so amazing, your story, I’m about to tear up because your story is identical almost to mine, not in the education part, but in the same journey. So right down the block from where you’re at was the banks that my dad took us to clean and to work, that’s crazy.
It just is. But we didn’t know any better. Our family was very close-knit and we didn’t have a lot.
But my father was like, if we work hard, we’ll get what we need. My grandparents must have gone through the similar timeframe, but since they were immigrants, they were put in boxes when they came here because they were different. They spoke German and Polish and Ukrainian.
So they really had a hard time connecting to the area and were kind of put in boxes and they had a really hard time getting housing. They always thought that somebody was trying to take it away from them. I just remember as a kid, they didn’t understand, they didn’t know how to assimilate the same way.
So my father then went into the Navy before he got drafted and met my mother. It’s the same story. Met my mother in high school at Lancaster Catholic.
My grandmother and mother came from upstate PA because they were out of work. Got here and they met at Lancaster Catholic because you didn’t have to pay back then. So my dad’s mantra was work hard, have faith, believe in something and always give back to those that have less than you do.
So that is the same story, right? And I was the same thing, high school wasn’t my thing. But then I got into my college career.
Thank goodness, those moms, my mom was like, go check this out. It spurred a love and you just found that passion. So sorry, I got us off track there a little bit.
Dana Hanchin
But that’s amazing. I think you just said something that was really powerful in terms of placing people in a box. Your grandparents were placed in a box and they were trying to figure out how to make connections and thrive, but they kept being limited by it.
I would just wanna recognize that moment, Nick, is that those boxes are still happening today, right? It’s very important that we do everything we can to figure out how to remove barriers and increase opportunities and get people out of those boxes or don’t put people in boxes, thinking they have to conform in a certain way. I would say that assimilation is not the goal.
It is really about inclusion and having a sense of belonging and that there’s room for everyone. So diversity of thought, diversity of experience, diversity of geography, of race, ethnicity, of religion, all of that. It makes our lives richer because of it.
Nicholas Paulukow
You’re absolutely right. I think it’s key, right? I get very passionate about it.
That’s what I love so much about the organization you love for many years, just the passion of serving others and doing it in such a humble way, but involving everyone and getting an understanding of how we can contribute as a community. Lancaster is very special too, but it is fascinating. It’s fascinating how we do, there’s so much judgment in so many areas that even at executive levels or other areas, it is very frustrating to me.
I was not brought up with that understanding, right? We’re all who we are. We accept each other for who we are, agree or disagree, but it’s really sad to see like even interviewing some other constituents of mine.
When I was growing up in the business, I was too young. I didn’t know anything. I was just not smart.
That’s not effective for other leaders to do that, right? We need to be like, you don’t drive a fancy car, so you don’t have any value to me. This is nonsense, right?
How do we break those barriers down everywhere for even people that like, how do we even help each other? That with what Lancaster County does, even a lot of my time on my volunteer work, we’re speaking about all the same things and we can’t seem to just figure out how to get together all the time. There’s so much passion of like, how can we even dynamically between same religions or even congregations have a hard time getting together, which is frustrating, I guess, but empowering to see that we’re making change.
Dana Hanchin
Yeah, no, and I think that’s an interesting point too about being of service to your community, which is very much an important value to give back. But it’s also important, I believe, to understand what you’re giving and if it’s actually leading to positive or bigger results. I have an opinion that I know people may not like. People are of service because it feels good to them to be of service.
But more importantly, you have to think about the impact of your effort on a system or on an organization or an issue and say, well, how am I really changing this? Charity is lovely, but charity focuses on the day-to-day. The long game is that we need to see substantive change happening in our communities, not just in Lancaster County in terms of what that looks like. Honestly, Nick, that is really, really hard work. It’s emotional work.
You talk about sort of diversity of opinion and ideas and ideologies and what action you can take together and what resources you need to bring to make that happen. Because you can bring people and talk about it all day, but it’s not going to matter. We can probably get 20 people to go dole out soup at a soup kitchen for people who are homeless. But ask them about building a shelter in their neighborhood to resolve the issue or to build more permanent housing. Then it becomes a little bit more challenging to figure out how to create some sort of consensus or strategy that we can execute on.
Nicholas Paulukow
Right, like in our world, even in business, we call them all symptoms, right? All these people are trying to solve the symptom, but what’s the root? The root’s hard.
You have to lean into the root and it’s uncomfortable and you gotta be willing to take that just a little bit further. I think that’s what’s really cool about the opportunity of leaders. You said one really unique thing that we hear all the time is that I’m the one with the vision and the others around me bring that vision alive, right?
We run an operating system called EOS, right? The visionary is generally the CEO, right? That has this big-picture idea, but then there’s an integrator that knows how to get it down through the organization and bring that vision alive.
I think that’s really important even in what you’re talking about, right? Many times we have a lot of people working on symptoms and they really want to help, but there’s not that collective vision to be able to execute on or solve for the root.
Dana Hanchin
It’s funny because I’m sure we could go over decades and find a game of whack-a-mole because we would totally rock at it. Sometimes I talk about the work that HDC does on a day-to-day basis as a game of whack-a-mole, right? There’s such a need for affordable housing.
We build the housing and guess what? The need is still there. You just keep banging away at it over and over and over again because inequality exists.
There’s a lack of supply. There are decades upon decades of discrimination and systems that don’t actually create an environment where we can do more around creating affordable housing. So I always talk about the game of whack-a-mole is dealing with the programs and resources you have right now to address it, but you have to look at the systems change.
You have to look at policy. You have to look at advocacy. You have to look at all the things that need to shift in order to make the current-day environment a little easier and the need to be addressed.
Nicholas Paulukow
And it becomes- And I think there’s a little bit of humbleness there too, right? As leaders, as growing up myself, many times it was kind of like you were taught to solve your own problem, right? Go solve your own problem.
That’s not really the solution, right? Being humble enough to say, hey, I’m this organization. We need to solve this problem together.
What other organizations can we partner with? We hear a lot in our community about partnerships, which is quite amazing. But talk to us a little bit. Oh, I’m sorry, go ahead. Go ahead, go ahead. Talk to us a little bit like, so I love the passion because I will totally derail us today about all of this because I have the same passions.
But so from your perspective, right? Of how difficult it is, how did you, from your father teaching you, right? But let’s talk about like, where did you learn to lead?
How did you develop those skills? Who, was there people that you mirrored or looked upon to learn this? Was it instinctive?
How did you become such a passionate and effective leader?
Dana Hanchin
Well, that’s a good question. I will also share this part of my story, Nick. Through all my work experiences, I’ve worked within a lot of great organizations and with a lot of great people.
I cannot recall one person ever saying, hey, Dana, I think you could be a really good leader. That is absent in my journey. I don’t know why, but I would say that when I decided I wanted to take my career to the next level and become an executive CEO, it was a decision I made for myself.
Honestly, it came at a moment in time when there were a lot of things happening in the world about how women were being viewed and treated in the workplace. Also, some things were happening where I thought, you know what, I cannot play second fiddle. I cannot be in second chair anymore.
I was fine with that. I was propping up other leaders, basically. I mean, my hand was just up, everybody’s back, telling them what to do and what to say, having the vision and the execution, and being fine.
Because the responsibility of leading an organization is overwhelming. In my mind, it really came down to one thing, not necessarily about whether I could do the job, but the people who depend on me to do the job. Just think about it.
How many people or employees you have in your workforce, they are working for you. Guess what? They have mortgages, they have school, they have education, they have college tuition, they have all these things that they have planned
for their families based on their employment with you. And if you screw it up, Nick, you may have to work through retention, right?
Nicholas Paulukow
Right, yeah.
Dana Hanchin
And so the responsibility of saying, if I don’t do well, I have 150 employees that I’m responsible for and their lives that they built, you know, because of the employment they have here. So that was my biggest hesitation to step into that role.
Nicholas Paulukow
Well, and you got two, right? You’re in a unique position, right? I mean, you have your employees that you lead that serve the people that you serve and all of the other people that you’re in essence trying to serve in a different manner has to be quite difficult, right? Like the demands of your workforce compared to the demands of a board or the state or the government or whatever, like that’s got to be extremely difficult. How do you navigate that?
Dana Hanchin
I don’t know. I mean, Nick, I think my brain is splintered in a thousand pieces every day. But so it’s interesting because I think about it a lot in terms of that.
I think it was instinctual for me. So like I was a kid in the neighborhood that was always organizing things, you know? Not necessarily like the best things, but the things that got you in really good trouble, right? Fun trouble, like, you know, I don’t know. And so I was always trying to like, yeah, I had ideas and I bring people together and I’m like, let’s make go-karts, let’s create a cleaning company, let’s put a pantyhose over our head and scare our neighbors, you know? So I’ve always, I think I’ve, and I’ve always had this sort of leaning towards just getting things done.
And if people, if I saw something that needed to get done, I didn’t wait for someone to tell me, oh, do this. I just said, let’s do this. And so that’s been part of my personality, which I think is about sort of how I was raised because my parents are get it, yeah, my parents are get it done kind of people.
They don’t wait. And if you’re, and honestly, you know, if you’re like my dad, there’s images growing up where I have memories where my dad was like, we’re leaving, we’re going to the mall. And it was, it wasn’t like in five minutes or a half hour, he walked out the door and he would pull out the driveway and like, we would be running with shoes in our hands.
Like that’s how fast you had to move. It was instantaneous. So, so it’s just always been sort of, yeah, you just, and I, and my dad owned a restaurant at one point.
And so he, I was nine years old. That was my first job. I got like, I actually didn’t even get paid.
You know, there was a video arcade next door. That’s why I mentioned whack-a-mole and why I love decades so much. Big plug for decades, because he would pay us in like the video tokens, right?
Nicholas Paulukow
Oh, that was smart.
Dana Hanchin
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, so just always, yeah, my mind was always moving and thinking, you always had to anticipate what was next and then take care of it.
Nicholas Paulukow
Yeah. Yeah, that’s an excellent word, right? Leading is kind of anticipating, kind of many of us say like, listen, as a leader, we have the people behind us, like you had mentioned earlier.
However, it’s kind of like a visual of like, we’re in a desert, we have everyone together and you’re as a leader are gonna walk forward to see, is there danger? Is it safe? And hey guys, let’s all come along.
And that’s a lonely place to be sometimes, right? Like it, and as you mentioned, a lot of stress, right? Everybody thinks that when you meet the leadership top, like this is a wonderful place to be.
Although it is, because you can make such great impact, but it comes with a lot of responsibility and a lot of sacrifice. It’s not, and so it’s amazing to hear that too. I was laughing too, because my father, I didn’t realize how much I was also an unpaid employee for my father when we worked many jobs.
I just thought it was kind of time to be with dad, you know what I mean? So I’m like, this is super cool. I’m with dad, he gets me an ice cream when we’re done.
But then like what you had said, I didn’t realize like solving bigger problems was really fun. And so I didn’t realize as I started to do that, we didn’t have any money to start these ventures. So my father would say, go earn it.
And I didn’t have any employees. So I started this landscaping company like at 11, right? And I was obsessed, right?
And I had delivered four newspaper routes and it taught me how to collect money and deal with customers. And he had said, hey, listen, if you need an employee, you can pay me to do it, but I wanna teach you. And that was the coolest thing that I learned as a leader.
And I don’t know if he did it intentionally, but it seemed like it, right? Like he taught you like, if this is what you’re gonna do, this is what you’re gonna have to execute on. And he wasn’t getting rich, believe me.
But just the action of teaching me those things in those manner really helped me to understand that when you lead forward, it’s about educating and empowerment. And we hear so many like what we call bad leaders sometimes that are about dictating, right? And so I didn’t realize, it sounds like the same from your life that we got this wonderful education that we really didn’t even completely understand at that time.
But I know I’m very thankful for my father.
Dana Hanchin
Well, I would just say, my dad did lead very authoritatively, let’s just be clear. But I think there is something and as a Gen X leader, and I really do think that generations matter in terms of what leadership looks like now, which is more, it’s a collaborative approach to leadership. It is not top down.
It is not, don’t worry, I’ll make all the decisions and I’ll just tell you what to do. I mean, honestly, I don’t want those employees at my organization. If you’re just waiting to be told what to do, that’s not the environment we want to create.
So I want people to have intellectual curiosity. I want to cultivate a growth mindset. I want people to believe that regardless of title, everyone can be a leader.
They can initiate, they can influence and sort of take control if they see things that need to be improved, then suggest them. How do we create that space where their voices can be heard? We don’t always accept everything that’s recommended or changes or things like that.
But at the end of the day, they’re heard and we’re figuring out and we always talk about why we’re doing things or why we’re not doing things. I think leadership looks very different than my predecessors. There’s only three other predecessors at HDC and we’ve been around for 53 years.
So just coming in with this sense of wanting to be collaborative, wanting everyone to sort of understand their role as a leader, owning their body of work and not just their task list is such an important piece of how you make the machine run or how you make it thrive. That’s right. We’re pushing boulders up hills all the time, right?
All the time.
Nicholas Paulukow
Sometimes I feel like they’re rolling over me but outside of that.
Dana Hanchin
That’s that, what is it? The parable of Sisyphus, try to pronounce that. So it’s about that pushing that boulder up the hill and you get it all the way to the top and it rolls back over you.
Nicholas Paulukow
Right back on.
Dana Hanchin
But that’s the work every day. And I think what’s interesting about the role as a leader, you talk about sort of sometimes it can be a lonely place and oftentimes, as a leader, I think in terms of you wanna be transparent, you wanna share the why, but you also, you share the facts but then also you just need to make sure that you have trust within your organization.
Nicholas Paulukow
That’s right, that’s key.
Dana Hanchin
And being able to bring people in that are aligned with the values and the direction where you’re headed because even if you’re technically competent in your role, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t, you have to have both of those things.
Nicholas Paulukow
That is one, that’s key, right? So Patrick Lencioni talks about the five dysfunctions, right, right there at the bottom.
Dana Hanchin
There’s my book. I got your book.
Nicholas Paulukow
It is, it’s so amazing, right? And so true. And I will tell you as a leader, growing a company for 22 years, that’s one thing that took a very long time to figure out.
That inherently you wanna trust but leading through that and building it. And then you said trust, core values, amazing, right? Like you’re hiring, training, coaching, maybe even firing based on those core values really means a lot.
Like we realized, listen, we want to be with people that meet our mission. We as a for-profit still feel that we’re there to serve those that we support, right? And how do we do that if we don’t have like-minded people that wanna serve in a similar way?
And so that’s amazing. You’re like hitting all the bullets, right?
Dana Hanchin
And I would say, Nick, anytime your leadership team changes, you have to restart that whole process again because the dynamic changes. And I’ve been at HDC almost, it’ll be six years in June and I’m still working.
Nicholas Paulukow
Feels like yesterday.
Dana Hanchin
Right? And it is a work in progress. And because one thing that you realize as a leader that the only thing that happens consistently is change.
Right? And so you get really good at managing change even though other people around there like get panicked and like, oh my God, what’s gonna happen? And go, do not worry.
You know, we have built a strong organization that this one shift is not gonna collapse anything. We’re gonna adapt and we’re gonna move forward. I mean, COVID taught us that to a great degree.
Nicholas Paulukow
You’re absolutely right.
Dana Hanchin
Well, and I think that’s key too. What you’re saying is that also most people aren’t afraid to change if they’re empowered with education. And I think that’s what you’re saying.
Right? Like if they trust you and you empower them with education and then you move through together as one United Front people start to get used to that comfort. What I think has been terrible to see in certain circumstances is how when you bring an employee in that’s not been in a good environment and they’re like, well, what do you mean?
I don’t wanna be open. Like you’ll fire me. You know, or, and to me, like it just fires my passion for like, why?
Like why we’re human beings. Like, why do we, why can we not treat each other with respect? And that gets me fired up.
Dana Hanchin
Yeah, no, I mean, kindness is important. And kindness doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a, I know it’s a soft word, but it doesn’t mean that you’re sitting there, you know, giving around, giving hugs all day. I mean, it’s really, it just means about how are you delivering your message?
And can it land where people can hear it and feel okay about what it means to them and be able to ask questions? Even if they’re, even if it’s about their performance or it’s about a new initiative. I mean, I always find that as much as you do plan for the change that’s happening and the time it’s gonna take, every time I map that schedule out, I’m like, now I have to double it because it never goes as fast as I want.
Nicholas Paulukow
I think that’s a well said. One thing that I also found out kind of hearing you too, which is very, very neat, right? Like from the aspect of kind of leading, we talk about trust and then we get commitment and it kind of is going through Patrick Lencioni’s kind of book, but then also kind of empowering those team members.
And what I found in many of my years where I messed up as a leader is when I got upset, like why am I upset about the situation, right? Like I would go and think about it. And I realized that we didn’t properly state like what is truly those values.
And every time I sat back and said, man, one of my core values is we before me, why am I so upset? And it took quite a few years to be like, you know what? It’s not that the person is bad, we just are not aligned potentially in those values.
How do we get in that alignment? And that was really a game changer to then be able to properly communicate to know that we’re either on the same page or we’re not.
Dana Hanchin
We’re not. And that’s such an important component, I think, is you coach people up into where they need to be or you realize you may have to coach them out. And that’s what’s being kind.
If you can coach them out. Yeah. And so I think that that’s, I mean, and that weighs heavily on us as leaders because we’re human, like you said, we are human.
And I think sometimes I will, I say I need to remind myself of that as well, because you know that you’re just going on all pistons, like what, I don’t even know if I’m using that right. I don’t know cars, but you know, and you’re doing like you may have a packed schedule and your schedule looks like you’re addressing 10 different, very unique, mutually exclusive things. And so you talk about your brain being split and all that you have to manage.
And sometimes you have to, I have to pull myself back and say, okay. And people will remind me and I’ll be like, okay. And it’ll ground myself in like, okay, I need to step back.
This is the human element of it. And I just sometimes need a little ping to get me back in that zone. Because like, you know, as someone who’s just, again, raised in a way of where you show up and every time you come in the office and you knock it out of the park.
One of our values is excellence and striving for excellence is exhausting. No joke, let alone that, I would say, I think let alone just trying to manage the work and how you’re striving for that every day. And one of the things that we did this last in 2023, Nick, is that we had our core values and very clear messaging around it.
But we, you know, they were still, it was still not necessarily ambiguous, but like, what does it mean to everybody in this organization? How do you distill it down into behaviors? And so, you know, we did that for every value that we have.
And we have about three or four behaviors that basically identify that. So like we have a value called community. And one of the first things we state is the behavior that shows up there that says, I am welcome here.
Nicholas Paulukow
And that means that- But see, what you’re doing is you’re creating that clarity regardless of who it is, regardless of what position they’re in. And I think that so many organizations miss that part because we come in to execute, we come in to drive. And when there’s that harmony on the same page of, do we all understand what these values mean?
It also, I think you probably notice, maybe, maybe not, that now people talk about it in that manner. So like when we defined it so detailed, it’s like, well, I don’t think the actions of what you’re doing right now are really a five-star experience. Like, we know what that is.
So like, how can we get on the same page? It created a language for an individual to be able to talk to their fellow employee without this feeling of like tattling or negativity. And it’s like, hey, did you go beyond the status quo?
Like, did you take that extra step to call the client back? Did you follow up? Did you send a nice message?
And you’re able to then, it’s amazing when you can see it populate through the organization.
Dana Hanchin
I mean, that’s peer accountability where you feel comfortable in saying, we all agree to uphold these behaviors. And each one of us can be like, hey, you know what? One of our behaviors is that I am kind and supportive in giving feedback.
And so sometimes feedback comes at the wrong time. You could say the same thing on a different day, no problem. On another day, totally, it just sets you off.
But being able to say, I understand you want to give me this feedback. I’m not able to receive it very well. And so there’s just ways that I think we can use these behaviors that we define as points of engagement when things get a little crunchy.
And that’s one of the things I think too that I think is really hard in the workplace and as a leader is to make sure you’re creating space where conflict or discomfort or dissension or confusion, they exist and it’s okay, but we have to call it out and work through it. And if we’re just gonna be in denial about it or we’re adverse to moving through it, we’re not gonna make progress. That’s one of, Patrick, I can’t pronounce his last name.
Nicholas Paulukow
Oh, Lencioni.
Dana Hanchin
Lencioni, that’s one of the things he talks about, right? As how well you can engage and move through conflict. And that is something that I’m striving for.
Every day here at HDC is to make sure that we have that space where we can have differences of opinion. That is actually a creative process, to be different and iterative and come up with better outcomes. These are all tied in together.
But it’s not easy.
Nicholas Paulukow
I mean, when we talk about leadership, some of the people that are moving up into leadership or trying to find their career, they think it’s mystical, right? But it’s messy, like it’s learning. And I think what I’m hearing from you is like, you gotta lean in, you gotta hit the uncomfortable, but push forward, come today for excellence.
Try to strive to be better one moment at a time, right? I’m an all or nothing guy, so I have to constantly watch myself of saying, okay. It’s okay, I can just do one thing each day and build up to it.
That is a struggle. But I think Seth Godin has a book that says like, just start by doing, right? And it’s about like just taking one step.
I think the thing that I laugh about so much, but it’s like a reprogramming of your brain. It’s like, well, I wanna go to the gym and I wanna exercise to the January. And he goes, well, that’s the end.
You wanna be at the gym exercising, but what is the one thing you gotta do first? He goes, you gotta get dressed. So one day just walk in, put your clothes on, sit in the sofa and say, I got dressed.
Next day, put your clothes on, drive to the parking lot. I got to the gym, drive home, I’m there. Just start by doing a little, not all or nothing.
So that’s pretty neat. That’s amazing to hear it with such passion that you bring. I think that’s amazing.
Dana Hanchin
Well, I would say it’s funny, Nick, because I’m an all or nothing person too. And I don’t know what that means.
Nicholas Paulukow
We’re like twins.
Dana Hanchin
Well, I don’t know. I feel like, and as a leader, I have to remember that too, because I’m all in and I am, boom, you know? And if I’m out, there’s just like, you don’t get many chances to come.
Honestly, I feel like when I’m done, I’ve already reached it and I’m out. So it’s, but it is, that’s one thing I know. I feel one of the things, when you are a leader, but also in your journey, your professional career, you get feedback on how well you’re doing and what you need to be doing to improve.
And I will say to you that what I need to improve has been the same thing I needed to improve at 25 as I do now. It is my perpetual journey to address this one thing.
Nicholas Paulukow
You’re just fine-tuning it all the time, right?
Dana Hanchin
Yeah, it’s like, I’m getting better at it. But when I say, we would like you to do this differently, I’m like, I know, everybody does, and I’m working on it. And it’s that journey.
And it’s interesting too, because as leaders, I think this notion of, we talk about reading books and things like that and leaders being calm in the face of a storm and calm when there’s ups and downs and how do you create a steadiness so that people have confidence in the organization? And it’s interesting because people like us that are passionate, right? And I say we’re passionate because we believe deeply in what we’re doing, right?
And that’s why people get attracted. That’s why people wanna do business with you and wanna join HDC and figure out how to advance our affordable housing mission. That’s like, Dana, your passion is so amazing.
And then there’s this opposite effect of what happens when your passion isn’t amazing, right? Because you have to sort of balance that out and know like in some days, like I may not be coming in on my best day and I don’t have the passion and everyone’s like, what’s wrong, what’s wrong?
Nicholas Paulukow
I’m like, can I just have- You need from the top down, right? What is the matter?
Dana Hanchin
I don’t like, nothing’s the matter. I’m just tired. And I just, just for now, I just wanna be like, just kind of flat.
And they’re like, that’s not who you are. I’m like, I know, but it is who I am. You just don’t see all those facets because you do have to bring it.
And how much as leaders, I will say, I feed off people’s energy who give back because you give so much. And when you get a little bit back of that same energy, it just keeps you going. And it’s so powerful.
Nicholas Paulukow
Yeah, it does. Yeah, I think that’s well said too, but see, I think that’s an indication of your leadership, right? You’re open, you’re being open and honest to just say, like today, my wife and I have a thing when we’re at home now.
And it says, when we wake up, we both don’t have 100% every day, right? And so some of us might have 50%, some of us might have 80%. So we wake up and say, listen, where are you at today?
And I’m like, oh man, I’m at 50. She goes, well, I got the 80 today. I’m gonna carry the 80 and we’ll just do this or vice versa.
And we just call it out, it’s weird.
Dana Hanchin
That’s Brene Brown.
Nicholas Paulukow
There you go.
Dana Hanchin
Yeah, so it’s funny you mentioned that because I don’t do that with my wife. I do it with my COO, my second in command at the end of the day.
Nicholas Paulukow
Oh, that’s smart.
Dana Hanchin
Or when we meet, I say, what do you have in your tank? And she tells me and I tell her what I have in my tank. So at least I know the gauge of where she’s at because that helps me understand how we enter into conversations.
So you’re right, she could come in and be like, it could be 10 a.m. in the morning. She’s like, I’ve already had a day where I’ve got 10% left. And I’m like, great, I’m at 90, we’re gonna go.
Or at least I know how I manage that moment with her.
Nicholas Paulukow
How you show up.
Dana Hanchin
Yeah, how I show up for her is that I’m gonna help her get to a higher percentage or just be with her at that low percentage and be like, that’s okay. We’re gonna get through it and figure it out.
Nicholas Paulukow
I love it. I mean, I think ultimately what we’re saying as leaders is it’s about being what Lencioni says, humble, hungry, and smart. And smart isn’t intelligence.
Smart is just drive and ability to understand people, right? And I find also being open, like what you mentioned. Hey, something happened at our organization the other day.
I got all the staff together and said, this is my fault. Like, just own it, right? And if you trust the people, the people appreciate you being a human being.
Like, I screwed this up. This is what we’re gonna do. This is how we’re gonna lead through it.
And that’s scary, right? Because I got the leadership team together before and I’m like, are you guys freaked out about this? Like, it was nothing earth-shattering, right?
But you care so much about your people and you wanna make sure that they can live great lives and take care of their family. And so you overthink it sometimes too, right? But I’m like, listen, you just gotta own it, right?
If I’m the leader, I might’ve not created the problem, but you know, you just gotta lead through it.
Dana Hanchin
Yep, I will say that the two things that I do more than anything are say, thank you and I’m sorry.
Nicholas Paulukow
Yes.
Dana Hanchin
You know, like that is what it takes as a leader to recognize people’s success and uplift them and their work and express gratitude. And then also when you screw up is to apologize and take corrective action immediately. Don’t just say you’re sorry and then say we’re gonna work on something, we’ll get back.
And then a year later, maybe you’ve done something or maybe it fades away, but employees remember that. You have to show up and you have to follow through. That’s show up and follow up are the two things I say.
How to be successful, that’s it, you know? That’s like so much of the game.
Nicholas Paulukow
We’re all in the seat because we’re good at our seat, right? Like Charlene is a wonderful person in your organization. There’s absolutely no way I could do her job, right?
But like she owns her seat, she knows it. It’s really great, right? So I think it’s important too to celebrate everybody’s seat, right?
Like you’re born, you get it, you want it. You have the capacity to do it. And so I think that’s great.
There’s one thing that we have this thing called the 24-hour rule. So if you have had conflict or frustration with someone, we teach, listen, you praise in public and you give correction in private. But if you were offended and even if it was an accident by someone, you have 24 hours to address it with them.
Because if you don’t, when you show back up, it’s gonna show up. And so how do we get in front of it? And so we try to teach that over and over again, just to be like, listen, I don’t care how small it is.
We had a scenario that somebody was like, listen, I felt left out. Whoa, like that wasn’t the intention. So 24-hour rule, we get it out and we move on.
And so I think that’s a, I hear you saying similar things, right? Just confront it, be open and honest.
Dana Hanchin
Well, I mean, it’s that sort of sense of like being okay with conflict, right?
Nicholas Paulukow
Yeah.
Dana Hanchin
And if you’re not, I mean, you know, I know you have employees that are not okay with dealing with conflict and they just want to kick it down the road or say, why don’t you handle it? I’m like, you know, I don’t think you want me to play referee or serve as your parent between two children that are having problems communicating, especially at certain C-suite levels.
Nicholas Paulukow
That’s right.
Dana Hanchin
I would expect that to happen or to then say, what other supports can you have? Like mediation through HR, if you don’t feel comfortable, depending upon the type or issue of conflict that may be being managed.
Nicholas Paulukow
Yeah, we say, I’m not gonna take your monkey.
Dana Hanchin
Yeah.
Nicholas Paulukow
Don’t tell me your problem because you want me to own it. Like I’ll help you own it. What advice do you need to own it?
I think that’s kind of a fair statement, right? Kinda as we wrap up too, one thing that Patrick Lencioni has this really cool exercise that you’re saying that you’re talking about is it’s called the team effectiveness exercise. And it has a document, but the premise of it is that you get your team together after you feel that you have trust and you go around the room and the leader goes first and everybody writes the name down of every person in the room and they answer two questions.
What’s one thing that gives you like that you do really well for the group or what is the thing that amplifies you in the group? And what’s one thing that you could do differently or what’s one thing that you could improve on? And so Patrick makes it way more eloquent in his writing than I do.
So I apologize there. But what was amazing is then they say, okay, the rules of engagement are you have to listen, the leader goes first and listens to every person say the good things. Then you go around and everybody says the things that the one thing that they want you to work on and you cannot debate, discuss or have a conversation about it other than one clarifying question.
And so we’ve done this many times, but it’s like, oh man, like I know, like you had said earlier, oh, I know that, all right, I’ll work on that. But what was fascinating is it helped other team members in a safe place be able to learn how to give feedback to their other fellow members. And I didn’t realize the impact of that when you facilitate it, they were actually open.
And it’s not derogatory things, it’s just kind of, you know, and it brought a team together really tightly. So I thought, as you were talking about that, I thought I’d share that with the listeners too.
Dana Hanchin
Yeah, absolutely, that’s a great one. I was just gonna add, we do something similar and maybe I don’t know where it came from in a book, but we call it stop, start and continue. What are the things you wanna stop, what are the things you need to start and what do you wanna continue doing?
Nicholas Paulukow
Oh, I like that, I like that, yeah. Well, so as we kind of wrap up today, I know I’ve taken you off track here. I understand when we got started listeners, she has a meeting and I’m probably past that time.
Dana Hanchin
I just texted him to say I’m running late, so we’ll see.
Nicholas Paulukow
Oh no, I am so sorry. Well, let’s, as we wrap up, what would you tell other leaders that are listening, ones that are trying to become leaders, those that are in leadership positions, could you kind of give us some words of wisdom from your perspective as we wrap it up today as your leadership style?
Dana Hanchin
Well, I always strive to be aspirational and inspirational in my leadership because I remember myself as an employee in other organizations and whenever the leader would step out and speak, I wanted to be inspired and I wanted to see the pathway forward. And so I try to remember that in my leadership style and I don’t believe in perfection, but it’s something that I strive for. And I also think this notion of humility and accessibility are very important so that if you show up on site, someone may not even know that you’re the president and CEO, right?
Because you’re not coming in with ego or prestige or position, you’re just showing up and wanting to make connections with your employees. So in my role, I’m always focused on the relationship and making sure that I’m a person by which regardless of where you are in the organization, you feel comfortable in being able to connect with me.
Nicholas Paulukow
I love it. That is well said. I appreciate you sharing.
I’m gonna take a few notes on that one when we’re done because I’m gonna borrow that if you don’t mind. All right, everyone. Dana has another appointment, so let’s wrap this up today as the curtains draw on another riveting chapter in our Servant Leadership Library.
I extend my heartfelt gratitude to our exceptional guest, Dana from HDC Mid-Atlantic for gracing us with her wisdom and her wit. Remember folks, leadership isn’t about wielding authority, it’s about serving with compassion and courage. So until next time, keep leading with your hearts and serving with style.
This is Nicholas Paulukow signing off, reminding you to stay humble, stay committed to the noble path of servant leadership. Goodbye for now, and may your leadership journey be as epic as a bestseller in our Leadership Library.
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