NMP - April 2017 - 66

special focus on LEADERSHIP

a special focus on LEADERSHIP

To Lead or Not to Lead ...
Personality traits and qualities of a successful
loan servicing manager and leader in the
mortgage marketplace By Vincent Spoto

uccessful
organizations
have one thing in
common: High
caliber
professionals
capable of leading and
managing human capital toward
the achievement of stated goals
and objectives. While not
necessarily unique to the
mortgage industry, today's
challenges faced by senior loan
servicing managers are indeed
daunting and require only the
strongest managers to face
them "head-on."
"Truly good managers are
hard to find," says the senior
chief operating officer of a
residential mortgage loan
servicing organization
associated with a large West

S

Coast-based commercial bank.
He goes on to say that: "Given
the increased regulatory maze
that mortgage loan servicers
are faced with today, only the
strongest managers are able to
attract, motivate and inspire the
very best people to navigate the
rough terrain. Ever increasing
regulations often times result in
increased frustrations for many
servicing professionals-so
much so that 'throwing-in the
towel' is often seen by many as
the alternative of choice.
Motivating and inspiring staff at
all levels to collaborate with
borrowers on developing
creative ways of staying in their
homes by avoiding foreclosure
is a 'win-win' for everyone."
Having very strong and
capable leaders is one of the

APRIL 2017 n National Mortgage Professional Magazine n

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66

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only real ways to ensure
servicers can attract and retain
good staff, forge operational
consistency and plow ahead to
be successful and separate
themselves from the pack.
Servicing managers today
must direct an organization that
provides "high-touch" servicing
and collaborates with borrowers
to retain homeownership. Faced
with an ever-changing
landscape highlighted by new
rules and regulations (whether
those espoused by rating
agencies, auditors, the
Consumer Finance Protection
Bureau, or other consumer
protection agencies), ever
increasing demands placed by
senior management to control
costs and do more with less,
demands associated with
managing a diverse group of
staff, and the ongoing theme of
driving continuous process
improvement, today's servicing
managers face a myriad of
challenges they must tackle in
order to be successful. Clearly,
a key ingredient for success lies
with people. Having the best
managers who can attract (and
retain) only the best staff is an
obvious and seemingly simple
solution.
Sounds simple, right? Well for
starters, senior leaders of any
organization must hire only top
managers that are capable of:
l Recruiting only the best staff;
l Fostering a culture of strong
leadership;
l Cultivating a disciplined set
of standards;
l Training and motivating staff
to excel; and
l Recognizing and rewarding
top performing staff, while
concurrently being able to
deal directly with substandard performers (and
make "tough" decisions
accordingly).
But hiring the very best
requires investment; it
necessitates spending money
that many organizations are
unwilling (or unable) to do. For
this reason, failure rates for
some organizations today
continues to increase.
As leaders, after recruiting the
very best people, successful
servicing managers must
delegate tasks to the
appropriate members of their
respective teams, as well as
place reliance on key cross-

a special focus on

functional constituencies. The
ability to delegate and depend
on others is essential to
building trust. However,
successful servicing managers
must always keep in mind that
"responsibility is assumed and
not assigned;" as such,
managers must be cognizant to
provide staff with a clear
roadmap of stated objectives,
but not a step-by-step list of
'how-to' tasks by which to
achieve them. If managers find
it necessary to 'micro-manage'
their staff and lay-out every
detail, they most likely have not
hired the right people for their
servicing organization.
Yes, strong leaders must hire
the right professional staff ...
but after hiring them and laying
out objectives, it is critical to
empower staff to take whatever
actions are necessary to get to
the "finish-line." Strong leaders
must build a high level of
rapport and trust that will
quickly permeate the
organization. On the back-end,
strong leaders must develop a
robust system of metrics and
Key Performance Indicators
(KPIs) to ensure that
performance of professional
staff is in line with stated goals,
objectives and expectations. In
this regard, "inspect" (primarily
through via the use of KPIs) vs.
"expect" is critical.
There are five core
competencies that successful
servicing managers must have.
In addition to hiring the right
people, they must have proven
abilities to:
l Foster a strong leadership
culture;
l Develop a set of disciplined
standards and create a
robust set of metrics to
continuously monitor
performance;
l Delegate tasks and empower
staff to build trust and
inspire motivation;
l Provide staff with the tools
and training necessary to do
the job; and
l Recognize and reward
superior performance, while
simultaneously dealing
directly sub-standard
performers (as applicable).
Delegating key tasks and
establishing disciplined
standards fosters a strong
leadership culture within the
organization. Additionally,

a s
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NMP - April 2017
