Alfreda Norman is a longtime Dallasite and dedicated civic leader committed to community development. Before retiring in 2024, she served as Senior Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, where she ran public relations, communications, outreach, and community development in an area spanning Texas, northern Louisiana, and southern New Mexico. Prior to that, she held jobs with Bank of America and Dallas’ Office of Cultural Affairs, where she worked to bridge institutions and the communities they serve. Recently, Alfreda sat down with Lili Clark of the Learning from Leaders podcast to discuss building trust, working across interests, and operating from a perspective of abundance.
“Trust is an essential strategy for anything that you do.”
Alfreda Norman
Trust as ‘Currency’
From her years working on behalf of the community, Alfreda came to understand that the basis of community is relationships–and that the basis of relationships is trust. As she describes, “being engaged in the community…[is] being in relationship”—and Dallas is a “relationship town.” Forming relationships allows for real change to occur because relationships foster understanding and trust: “When I care about you, [and] you care about me, then we can have conversations. We can disagree about things, but we have each other’s best interests in mind.”
Alferda details how during the Great Recession, many individuals lost trust in the Federal Reserve. To them, the institution was impersonal, unapproachable, and responsible for the recession. Over time, Alfreda worked to build trust with the community, learning in the process that “trust is about all the little things that you do: being accountable, being transparent, having conversations, admitting you’re wrong, listening, valuing people, having humility, being authentic.” To do this, she met with the individuals most critical of the bank to understand their perspective and adjusted the bank’s messaging to use everyday language rather than financial jargon. As this experience showed her, building trust is a daily practice that is just as important as eating a healthful diet: “If you do these things on a continuous basis, like a good diet, you get really good outcomes and you build this muscle called trust…Trust is an essential strategy for anything that you do.”
Alfreda Norman’s Leadership Lessons
Leadership is Working Together to Create Positive Change
To Alfreda, strong relationships between individuals make Dallas a special place—and one where real change can happen. These relationships make coalition-building possible, which allows organizations and stakeholders to pool resources, share expertise, and strategize to solve big issues across the city. In approaching problems together rather than from siloed positions, leaders can see differing perspectives and create sustainable solutions together. Alfreda further describes Dallas as “a place where you can make a difference…where you can immediately get started on some big dreams.” It is the combination of this can-do spirit and willingness to work across interests that makes Dallas a place where real change happens.
Leadership is Operating from an Abundance Mindset
One of Alfreda’s best pieces of advice for leaders is to work from an abundance mindset. As she outlines, Texas is a place of abundance: “We have abundance of resources. We have abundance of geography and space…We have a diversity in our economy. We’re a minority majority state. We have a diversity in our people and our backgrounds.” While a deficit mindset insists that there isn’t enough to go around, and that some must do poorly for other to do well, an abundance mindset recognizes that there are enough resources for everyone to achieve success. Alfreda believes this perspective is especially important when it comes to equity and access: acknowledging that there is enough for everyone, and that our successes, as a society, compound.
Leadership is Mentoring the Next Generation
When reflecting on mentors who have had a profound impact on her life and career, Alfreda recalls an individual who taught her about grace in authority, which means acting from a place of forgiveness rather than judgement. Another impactful mentor, a former boss, taught her to be a cheerleader for her employees by encouraging, congratulating, and advocating for them. Alfreda further highlights how mentorship is another example of forming strong relationships: “mentorship is a two-way street. When you are a mentor, you get just as much out of the situation.” Providing mentorship is additionally a way of building a legacy. As Alfreda reflects “your legacy is all that relationship building and all that time you’ve spent with people…you see individuals who are growing and doing amazing work, and you might’ve had a little bit to do with that.”
Listen to the Podcast
Alfreda Norman’s career was built on thoughtful leadership that harnessed the power of trust and relationship building. Now, she’s putting her leadership skills to use through her work at various nonprofit and community organizations. In addition to serving on Southwestern Medical Foundation’s board, her service spans a wide community and philanthropic ecosystem, including roles with the Communities Foundation of Texas, the Meadows Foundation, and the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University. Through these commitments, she exemplifies how to lead across sectors, always anchored in the communities she serves.
