Jada L. Peterson is the vice president of community engagement and president of Sky Cares Foundation. She is passionate about empowering the lives of marginalized people throughout the Chicagoland area. Her work experience across many different sectors has provided her invaluable insight when it comes to leadership. Rolling out spoke to Peterson about her style of leadership, how she defines success and her style of recruitment.
Please describe your leadership style.
My leadership style is simple. I treat others the way I want to be treated. When I hire someone, I immediately let them know that I hired them because I felt they were the best candidate for the role. My job is to provide guidance and transparency to ensure their success. I am collaborative, honest and authentic and I ask for the same in return.
How do you define success?
I define success by reaching a goal or accomplishing something that I have been trying to achieve. I feel that I am successful because I am doing what I love so it doesn’t feel like work. I’m happily married with healthy children, living in a home I love and no longer living paycheck to paycheck.
Finish this sentence: The best way to recruit great talent is …
By finding the person before posting the position. LinkedIn makes it easy to search by field and allows you to not only see how you might be connected to someone, but also whether they are looking and what type of position they want. Based on what you find, you might realize that the person you need has other qualifications that you didn’t realize you wanted.
Describe your networking style.
In person. I know this is the era of social media, but nothing beats in person contact. Nothing beats being able to look someone in their eyes and being able to pick up on their body cues. You can tell a lot about someone just by being in their presence and watching how they interact with people.
What two favorite quotes motivate you?
“Everything will be okay in the end, if it’s not okay, then it’s not the end,” John Lennon
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel,” Dr. Maya Angelou
