Beth A. Bixby | Tides Family Services CEO
What does it really mean to create a culture to serve others? I have been lucky to have been mentored by Brother Michael Reis, who always believed in leadership from the bottom up. At my core, I have always been a servant leader at home, at work with our clients and with the staff that do the difficult work day to day.
Servant leadership addresses the responsibilities and relationships between parents and children, educators and students, and employees and customers. It entails placing the needs of others at the forefront of every organization.
At Tides, we believe that to carry out our mission, everyone, from the CEO to the caseworkers in our outreach and tracking program, is part of the whole. And everyone – with the exception of our officers and clerical staff – carries a caseload. Most of our administrators began their careers at Tides as interns or first-year caseworkers. They know the streets and neighborhoods that our kids come from, because they walked them. And more than one of our staff members grew up in the communities where our offices are located for access to those we serve.
Because our staff has walked the walk and talked the talk, we are engaged with our hearts and our heads. This holistic approach to street counseling and our entrepreneurial style of management has sustained our agency for more than a quarter-century.
In the end, employees have a voice and we listen as a team working together to reach our goals.
