Angela Pittman- Vanderweide, DSW, MSW
Angela has over 30 years of experience in progressively responsible executive leadership roles, including private, non-profit, state, and local government. Through that lived experience, Angela has developed the ability to partner with others to enhance performance and meet organizational, fiscal, and client outcomes. Angela has subject matter expertise and national expertise in health and human services leadership (neuroleadership model), organizational development, consultation, change agility & implementation, resource capacity building, fiscal and performance oversight, organizational culture and climate effectiveness, and workforce retention. In addition, Angela has over 20 years of university teaching and training experience, including in the classroom, synchronous, and asynchronous methodologies. Angela provides subject matter expertise and presents nationally on leadership, building a resilient workforce across HHS, cultivating a healthy, resilient organizational climate, and establishing continuous quality improvement to improve child welfare performance measures.
Angela holds a Doctorate of Social Work (DSW) degree from the University of St. Thomas, in Minnesota. Angela recently published an article entitled Leadership Rebooted: Cultivating Trust with the Brain in Mind” which forwards a model of leadership that is aligned with human service organizations’ mission, values, and ethics. Angela lives in NC on a small family farm with her husband (the COO) and daughter. She loves to be outside, plant and tends the garden, hike, read, cook plant-based, whole food meals, and research all topics of social work.
- Published author on neuroleadership in human service organizations and other topics related to child welfare and health and human services.
- Depth of and demonstrated understanding of the statute, policy, and quality practice within human services with a focus on child welfare.
- Demonstrated commitment to cultural humility, diversity, inclusion, and equity in the workforce and service delivery.
- Accomplished relationship builder who engages the workforce, partners, and community to achieve short and long-term strategies to meet organizational, fiscal, and client outcomes.
- Work extensively with federal and state partners, organization directors, executives & Secretaries, legislators, Judges, non-profit and for-profit organizations, and university and private college systems.
MY LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY
My experience of twenty-eight years leading large, public, integrated health and human services organizations has been the driver of my evolving leadership style. Through both successes and failures, I have identified my strengths, built upon those, and gleaned even more from my failures. My strengths include a strategically focused vision that balances quality service delivery, fiscal stewardship, and a focus on positive organizational, fiscal, and client outcomes through the most essential tool of service delivery – the workforce – professional social workers and caseworkers. Authentic engagement, investment, and incorporating feedback loops with all levels of the organization drive my leadership strategies. Further, building a trauma-responsive organization, including workforce wellbeing (addressing secondary traumatic or cumulative stress) through a variety of supports for the multi-generational workforce, helps forward trust and retention. To that end, my leadership style is focused on implementing neuroleadership behaviors, in order to create a healthy, resilient culture and climate.
Fostering belonging through a diverse, inclusive, and equitable organization and cross-culture communication strategies to foster authentic relationships based on respect and a notion of cultural humility is crucial to organizational success. Cultural humility is a lifelong process of self-reflection and self-critique whereby the individual not only learns about and respects another’s culture, but one starts with an examination of her/his own beliefs and cultural identities. Cultural humility requires us to adopt a posture of learning from those who are different from ourselves. And it takes risk – the risk of being uncomfortable, vulnerable, and taking a stance of inquiry. As people reflect and develop consciousness about their own biases, they begin to embrace the notion of cultural humility and life-long learning, challenging power imbalances, and addressing institution equity issues. By doing so relationships are strengthened, psychological safety, and trust improves.