Leadership insights from FOCUS St. Louis’ Yemi Akande-Bartsch

Hear more from Akande-Bartsch on The BizSTL Podcast.

Yemi Akande-Bartsch starts each day with a simple note to self: Everything is solvable. Sometimes, she may not even know the specific issue that she’ll be tasked with solving that particular day. But that brief, level-setting reminder sets the tone for the kinds of days that she wishes to have. “It has not failed me yet,” says Akande-Bartsch, president and CEO of FOCUS St. Louis. In her role, Akande-Bartsch trains budding local leaders to become engaged civic stewards equipped with the skills needed to lift their communities. “It’s a beautiful thing to put them in the driver’s seat,” she says. “Not just in terms of advancing a particular cause in their community but in terms of their own career as well.”

• Humility goes a long way. So does listening.

• When I first moved here, there were a lot of individuals that I wanted to get to know. The great thing about St. Louis is there are a lot of people who will say yes. A couple of folks reached out to me and said, “You don’t know me, but you’re new, and I’d like to meet with you.” Those folks include Betsy Cohen of the Mosaic Project and Dr. Melanie Adams, the former director of the Missouri Historical Society. That was so heartwarming for me. It was the first time that had ever happened to me in any city that I’ve lived in.

• In every city I’ve lived in, I’ve always created a map of the different leadership ecosystems, because I want to understand the challenges and also build relationships. You should always seek to build relationships across sectors, even before you need those relationships.

• How do you build your ecosystem map? When I first moved here, I read reports on some of the challenges that our region has had, as well as reports on some of the progress that has been made. I reached out to a number of professors, including Dr. Terry Jones at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. He’s written extensively on the issues of the region. I did a lot of listening. That led me to understand the diverse perspectives that exist here.

• I have a journalism background. The who, what, when, where, how questions help you get to the facts. But when you start asking the why questions, you can get to the heart of the issue.

• For leaders who are new to St. Louis, what I always advise them to do is have a 20- or 30-minute conversation and get to know an organization and understand the history of how they’ve gotten to where they are. Then ask them, “If they could leapfrog to the future, what does it look like, and how can you be a part of it?”That’s a starting conversation that has helped me get to know a lot of different sectors in our region.

• I often like to close meetings by asking how I can be of service to someone. They might think, Oh, I thought you wanted something from me. Actually, I want to be of service. Let me know how.

• When I was in grad school at the University of Oklahoma, there was a paper that we had to write where we had to make a justification: Are you a natural born leader, or is it something you can learn? I advocated that leadership is something that you can learn. Develop a strategy. Be purposeful with your next steps. What are the skills that you have? What gaps do you need to fill in?

• I always tell folks to do what makes them happy. What is something you can do all day and not really feel like time is passing? Once someone knows what they’re really, really good at, they can go anywhere with it.