Envision a leader

Envision a leader: A conversation about humanity in leadership.

What if leadership wasn't about perfection but about embracing humanity? In this episode of the comfy chairs, Kate Johnson sits down with Mandee Bowsmith to explore a new vision for what it means to lead. Together, they take aim at outdated leadership models and champion an approach rooted in psychological safety, emotional intelligence, and authenticity.

The conversation goes to the heart of what challenges leaders: how to foster trust, admit mistakes, and create safe environments for growth.

The episode calls on organizations to rethink their leadership development strategies and asks: How can we equip leaders to be lifelong learners and empathetic builders of culture? If you've ever questioned the systems that shape leadership today or sought a more human-centered approach, this episode will help you imagine a new kind of leadership.

• Connect with Mandee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mandee-bowsmith-ms-cec-75570148/
• Visit her website: https://www.bluenoteresources.com/

Got something on your mind? A tricky situation at work? A leadership topic you’re curious about? Share your questions here: https://www.one23ltd.com/comfyhq

www.one23ltd.com

https://www.instagram.com/one23ltd/

Music by Geoff Harvey from Pixabay

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome back to the comfy chairs, a podcast from 123 Limited.

(00:08):
This is your host, Kate.
I'm sitting down to write this introduction and the latest issue of the Harvard Business
Review has arrived.
With the cover story, we're still lonely at work.
It's subtitled, It's Time for Companies to Take a Different Approach to Culture.

(00:29):
We could substitute leaders for companies here.
There are countless theories, models, books, and opinions on what constitutes good leadership.
And this one headline adds to the growing idea that we're still getting it wrong.
Past and current leadership practice has led to this, a point in time when employees both

(00:53):
want and need different from their employers and leaders.
Today's guests and I share a similar HR background and now both work in leadership consulting
and coaching.
We also share the point of view that leadership demands humanity.
And when we first met, we rolled right into the importance of psychological safety, the

(01:19):
failures of modern leadership and how we can help and the role of emotional intelligence
at work.
So I'm excited for our conversation today and the chance to share ideas with and learn
from Mandy as we discuss the need for humanity and leadership.

(01:41):
Welcome to the comfy chairs, Mandy.
As we've discussed, I'd love to give my guests an opportunity to introduce themselves.
So let's take a moment for that, please.
Well, thank you, Kate.
Thank you for having me.
I appreciate the time.
And my name is Mandy Bosmith.
I own a company called Blue Note Resources, which is an executive coaching and HR consulting

(02:05):
firm based in Reno, Nevada.
And my sort of target audience at this point is government and human resources.
I've spent the last 24 years in municipal and state government human resources in Nevada.
And I find that it's a really interesting space.

(02:28):
And there are also not a lot of consultants who are focused on the government space and
focused specifically on government human resources as a space.
And so when I worked for government, I tried to make government better from the inside.
And now that I'm out of that, I'm trying to make government better from the outside.

(02:49):
One of the things I loved in our prep call, Mandy, was your observation or actually your
mission of putting human back in human resources, humanity into leadership.
Yeah.
And I think about human leadership myself that was very honestly, very attractive and

(03:09):
like, oh, this is a brain I want to encounter and experience because I think we're thinking
along.
Be careful.
It's crazy in there.
Hey, same, same.
But, you know, I think the place for us to start is kind of what, what in your opinion
about the modern workplace, quote unquote, whether it be bureaucratic or like we've both

(03:36):
known or other has contributed to this loss of humanity, both in human resources, but
more probably in leadership.
Because I would say the loss of humanity or the decrease just to be fair, since it's

(03:57):
not 100% loss, the decrease of humanity and leadership has made it possible for HR to
lose sight of it as well.
Yeah.
I think, you know, one of the things, so generally speaking, in my experience, one of the things

(04:17):
that adversely affects people who become leaders is that we don't train them to become leaders
or whether or if they have been trained to become leaders, we've backed the wrong horse.
We've picked the wrong person to experience the leadership training.
And there's no level playing field about who gets offered the opportunity to take advantage

(04:44):
of some kind of leadership training.
There's always some golden person that's been chosen by, you know, somebody and they get
all the training opportunities.
And in government, especially training, those are scarce.
When budgets get cut, the first thing to go is training because nobody thinks it's important
to accept HR people.
And so we're screaming, we need to train people more and they're like, well, we can cut your

(05:07):
job too.
And we're like, oh, that's fine.
It's okay.
Wait, wait, wait, okay.
Yeah, the trader, the traders can go.
Right.
We don't have to train anybody.
You're right.
But the problem is that compounds, right?
It's an exponential problem that I'm sure nobody thought, you know, I'm sure that when
the CFOs and the governors and the city councils and the mayors and the city managers all sit

(05:31):
down and think, what do we have to do?
And how do we get this budget right?
And how do we do it without laying people off?
Well, we, we get rid of training dollars because it's nothing but fluff.
They don't understand that that compounds.
So what you end up with is more of the same.
There's no innovation.
There's no creativity.
There's no growth in, there's no professional development.

(05:52):
And there's no reason for anybody to strive for something more because they know that
if they say, Hey, Kate, can I go to the, the Society for Human Resource Management Conference
in Washington, DC next year, you're going to say there's no money for that in the budget.
Absolutely not.
Why would you ask me such a stupid question?
And so then people stop asking, right?
And people aren't, not everybody is curious like you and me.

(06:16):
Not everybody is going to go dig into, you know, internet rabbit holes about things like
artificial intelligence models and how it affects human resources.
Right?
Yep.
It's so as, as an HR person, you, you have to sort of shove that on people.
You have to put it in front of them and say, trust me, you want to take a bite out of this

(06:37):
apple.
Right.
And so I think that that's, that's part of it.
The overall organizations, and I think this is probably true in private sector as well,
but certainly in public sector, we're, we're okay with okay.
And we keep being okay with okay.
Mediocrity is fine because mediocrity is not failing and mediocrity is not soaring.

(07:01):
And so there's nothing to, to make sure that we, you know, there's nothing to prove that
we fail if we just hold mediocrity, you know, and I think that there's also, you know,
in terms of the leadership today, right, they've been raised in that system.
Right.
They've come up through that kind of institution.
And what they value in terms of leadership is not their largest asset, which are the

(07:29):
humans.
They value things that are measurable and that are black and white and that can be put
into a pie chart and a graph and sold to a legislature or sold to a council.
It's hard to work in the gray.
And I think that that's one of the things that's one of the reasons why HR both has
a bad rap and a good rap because leaders don't wish to confront people.

(07:54):
Leaders don't wish to have an adversarial position with their employees.
They rely on human resources to step in and be that adversarial to be bad cop in the conversations
and speak it.
Well, that's your job.
Well, no, actually it's not.
My job is to help you have that conversation leader.
My job is to create the structure that enables you to do that and to help you and provides

(08:20):
the necessary advocacy and support for the employees.
Absolutely.
To be safe in those places and when they need to, to also confront.
I want to go back to this great term you said that I agree with and I'm also struggling
with.
We're okay with okay.

(08:42):
I'm a little all over the place on that idea and I may be taking us down a rabbit hole,
but I'm going to do it joyfully willy-nilly because I have some conflicting thoughts in
that space that let's see if I can organize this well.

(09:03):
I think it's very important for organizations to understand here is what meets expectation
not mediocrity, but this is what is fully satisfactory and sufficient.
Some of the language out there is around satisfying and I don't think there's enough

(09:24):
of that because you hear people talk about, oh, we have to go above and beyond.
These 110% if you will, which is deeply problematic.
What we need is people to perform as expected.

(09:47):
I think what you're talking about though is we've gotten okay with people barely meeting
expectations and I 100% agree with that.
What I have seen in my past is what I call designing for the lowest common denominator.

(10:07):
That policies and interventions, training, HR practices are created with villains in
mind rather than good actors.
It's reactive.
It's not proactive.
It's reactive.
Yes.
Well, it's assuming that the people that work for you, regardless of what level or role

(10:30):
they're in, are incapable and intend bad things for the business.
It's inhumane in a lot of ways.
It's also dehumanizing.
Yes.
Yes.
Maybe dehumanizing is a better word than inhumane.
I would say both.
It's actually both because it does not treat people with care or kindness.

(10:53):
No.
No.
It assumes that rather than being a whole person who gets to be complex and flawed and
sometimes great and sometimes not, that everyone's the same and it's a bad sameness.
Yes.
This is not a one-size-fits-all world and I think that that's the problem.

(11:16):
That's also another problem I think that we have with leadership is that when I want
your audience to indulge me for a second, close your eyes, audience.
Oh, if you're driving, don't do that.
Thank you.
Don't do that.
If you're driving, okay.
If you're doing it, if you are not driving or operating heavy machinery or doing something

(11:37):
where closing your eyes would be bad, indulge me.
Close your eyes.
And envision a leader.
What is the image that pops into your brain?
So for most people, even woke people, even very self-aware people, even people who are

(12:05):
entrenched in leadership change and organizational change and development.
What comes to mind is a very presidential-looking white man in a suit and tie.
Tall, full head of hair.
Yes.
Again, white.
Yes.
Probably an indeterminate age somewhere between 50 and 70.

(12:28):
Yes.
A suit and tie.
Yeah.
Black or blue suit.
Right.
Red or blue tie.
Yeah.
Yes.
So that comes to mind.
I bet that if you took a poll of your listeners, most of your listeners would have come back
with that exact same image.
That right there is something that I think is fundamentally wrong with the leadership

(12:50):
conversation in this country and in human resources and in employment because leaders,
leaders that I have jived with, leaders that I want to follow, people that I go, yes, that
person, I would follow off a cliff, they don't look like that.
They don't look like that at all.

(13:10):
And they don't talk like how you think that image is going to speak.
And I think that that's one of the fundamental problems is the expectation that institutional
memory has about what a leader is doesn't jive with who the leaders actually emerge to be.
And the effective leaders emerge to be.

(13:32):
You know, this is in the notes that I sent you in preparation for today, one of the frames
I want us to consider in our conversation, if it works for us as we go, are some of the
traditional leadership theories.
I don't want this to be like a college survey course on them.

(13:52):
For one thing, I don't have them down pat myself, so I am not able to do that.
But I have enough familiarity, just enough knowledge to be dangerous.
And I think what you've kind of naturally brought us to with that envisioning prompt is the problem
of one of the older theories, even in just how it's how it's called, the nomenclature

(14:21):
is the great man theory that goes back to, I want to say the 1800s, if I remember correctly.
And it's this idea that there are men among us who are born to leadership, that they are
innately and inherently great men who can respond to the needs of their time.

(14:42):
The John F. Kennedy syndrome.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's fundamentally flawed in a number of ways.
One, the idea that we are born knowing how to lead is poppycock at best.
Yes.
And yes, for lack of a better word.

(15:02):
Yes, because I, we don't curse on this show.
We can curse in real life, but not on the show.
The very name of it too excludes half the population as well, when there are so many
studies that tell us that women tend to make better, more effective leaders.

(15:24):
The other thing, and I just want to bring this up because I'm feeling pedantic.
Let's think about people who we have thought in the past are great leaders.
Henry Ford, who brought us the assembly line, who brought us, well, he effectively charged
people into becoming unionized because they were treated so poorly.

(15:47):
But he was very, he was instrumental in, in assembly lines, in factory work, in sort
of the new American model of what a worker is.
The man was a fascist, racist, horrible human being.
He was not a nice man by any measure.

(16:07):
Is a right, but he is a great man in terms of leadership because he headed a company
that became very successful and was able to, to figure out how to build a new mousetrap.
I mean, so, so the equation is wrong.
Like I, I reject the premise of the great man because there are people who, who are

(16:33):
sold to us as great men that turn out to be really, really flawed just like everybody
else.
And then we get real disappointed because they're actually human.
And that's part of the problem, right?
We sell people as being more than human.
I, that leaders have to be more than human.
If I had a table, if I wasn't sitting in a chair, if I had a table, I would be pounding

(16:57):
on it just like in resonating agreement.
It is, here's the other side of that too, Mandy.
What a cruelty.
What a horrible thing to do to another human being to say, you must be perfect.
Yes.
When we put people up into that, it's putting people on a pedestal.

(17:18):
Yes.
And of course they're going to fall and we, we create that circumstance.
We also confuse certain abilities with leadership, which is why we end up backing the wrong horse.
I'm going to steal that phrase forever and ever now.
Ford is a good example.

(17:38):
He was a great thinker.
He was a great, you know, logistician, if you will.
Sure.
Doesn't mean he's a great leader.
No, no.
And I think that there's also sort of putting the pressure on somebody that you've identified
early on in their life as a great man.

(18:01):
I mean, the fundamental psychological issues there, right, where you have somebody who
believes themselves to be this thing and then they miss the mark and there's no human.
It takes away the humanity of that person.
Yes.
Because they no longer have agency to choose who and what they will be.

(18:21):
They feel obligated to make themselves into the thing that they were chosen to be.
And that I think is, it's one of the fundamental problems sort of with parentage, right?
Like you always have ideas about what you want your children to be.
But there's also the idea that you must have an MBA from Harvard in order to be a good

(18:48):
leader or you must have gone to an Ivy League school or you must have a degree at all or
you must, you know, be of a certain gender or identify as a certain gender or you must,
you know, know these certain things.
One of the things that I've seen lately is there's been a lot of like for human resources

(19:09):
positions, a lot of importance placed on certifications.
Yeah.
Now, I'm somebody, I'm somebody who I do have a bachelor's degree and I have a master's
degree, but those degrees I got for myself, not because I want, and I was on the 12 year
plan for them too.

(19:29):
This is how, right?
But to say that somebody, just because I don't have that certification does not mean that
my 24 years of government human resources experience is not going to benefit your organization
or be valuable to what you're looking for.
And I think that that, that too is a fundamental problem we have.

(19:50):
And this is an HR bias too.
It is.
We, we look at resumes, right?
We look at, do you have a degree?
We look at where you went to school.
We look at what your major was.
We look at other jobs you had and we make value judgments based on a piece of paper,
right?

(20:11):
And we weed people out.
If you don't have a degree, you're not, you're not eligible for minimum qualification.
Why?
Why?
And I asked this because right now we are in the time of the great equalizer, the internet.
Right?
Yeah.
Like if, if I wanted to go to law school right now, I could go to law school because there

(20:33):
are many more opportunities open to me because of the worldwide web than there were 20 years
ago when, when I was just starting to build my career, right?
That is something I think fundamental to is this notion that academically educated people

(20:53):
are going to be better employees than people who've lived through things, who've worked
through things, who have been in jobs for a period of time and know their job backwards
and forwards.
Why don't we choose them?
Because the other feels safer and easier and we do the same thing to institutions that

(21:14):
we do to people that we hold them up as being a totality, that they are all things.
And I've, it's interesting in this context, the way, say a society or a company or a particular
government institution, when they have, you know, when they have a mistake that becomes

(21:42):
public, it's very, we do, we treat them like we treat people in leadership that we expect
perfection from them.
So there's no margin.
There's no margin.
Nobody feels, and this is so one of the fundamental things I think, and I'm sure we'll get into
this, but one of the fundamental things that I think is incumbent upon a leader.

(22:06):
If they're going to be, and I think you have to make a choice.
I mean, I think there are people who are innately good leaders in terms of humanity because
they're people people and they like interacting with people and, you know, but they're few
and far between because every, you know, once you get into a position of leadership, you,
there are suddenly 400 other things you have to worry about, right?

(22:29):
And anybody who's been in a position of leadership kind of knows that you have these sort of,
well, I'm going to do things differently.
And then you get in that thing, you're like, oh, I see why that guy did that.
Okay.
I'm going to have to figure this out.
Yeah.
But, but I think that the one thing, the one thing that every leader can do and not every
leader is going to like it.

(22:49):
Not every leader is going to be good at it.
Not every leader is going to even cultivate it is making a safe space for your teams to
make mistakes.
How does the human race learn?
Y'all, we make mistakes and then we figure out how not to make the same mistake over
and over again.
And if your team doesn't feel safe, if they don't feel like they can make a mistake and

(23:11):
keep their job, then you are not a good leader.
Fundamentally end of story period.
And that, right?
And, but that begets so many other things, right?
You make a safe space for somebody to just do the work and be, then they're also going
to, maybe take a chance on a thing that they wouldn't ordinarily have thought was possible

(23:34):
before.
And they can do that with the most brilliant idea in the 22nd century about governance.
And they can do that because failure is an option.
And understanding too that, that a human resource is analyst making a mistake is not failure
for the love of Pete, right?
It doesn't mean that the whole organization suddenly is turned upside down and everybody's

(23:58):
going to die.
That is not what I mean.
It means somebody made, somebody's human, somebody made a mistake.
Yeah, there are very few, very few at the end of the day, actual errors that we make
at work that have big catastrophic implications.
Catastrophic implications.
We used to jokingly say, you know, you never have a training emergency in my department.

(24:22):
Right, right.
Every team needs to be able to understand and identify what are the non-emergent things.
Now I've worked in healthcare.
There are things that are big deals.
Sure, government too.
So you don't want to minimize that.
Yeah, government.

(24:43):
My husband was my second guest ever and we talked about high reliability because of
his time in the nuclear navy.
There are, I do not want to minimize that there are some mistakes that can be made on
the job that are catastrophic.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
But just because even one, like one company may have an error that could be catastrophic,

(25:08):
it doesn't mean that the rest of the work has that same level of risk and intensity
to it.
Right, right.
We are so all or nothing.
Yeah, that's exactly it.
I want to back up a little bit.
The creating the safe place for mistakes where failing is not the end of the world for people.

(25:32):
Yeah.
100% agree.
What I think is really important for those of us that do the work alongside leaders is
talking to them about how and it's the great thing is it's not easy, but it is simple.
Just being honest about your own mistakes is where you start.

(25:53):
Yeah.
And communicative.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, I mean, I think that sort of this goes back to that image, right?
That you don't think that that person in that image has any vulnerability.
And the myth is, is if they show you that they have some vulnerability, like making mistakes

(26:15):
once in a while that they will be thought less of, whereas I think the inverse is true.
I think that the more a leader says, I don't know, that's why you're working for me because
you're smarter than me in this thing.
Can you tell me, you know, what do we do?
The more a leader engages their team, the more the more a leader talks through things with

(26:40):
their team.
You know, one of the things that I got the most mileage out of when I was the head of
a particular HR department was bringing the team in and talking through the problems that
was presented to me by my leadership about, you know, the HR department, right, specifically.

(27:04):
But how do we, like, here are my ideas.
And I'm sitting in a room with like, you know, eight people going here are my ideas.
Here's what I'm thinking about this.
Like, are we, is this a mountain out of a molehill or is this really a thing?
Because you don't want to put your resources at a thing that's not a thing.
So is it a thing?
And then you get input and then you, you, you have the conversations, but the thing

(27:26):
is, is you also leader must be willing to be told by a subordinate that you're wrong.
And you must be willing to hear that.
And you must be willing to consider that that may actually be the case.
That is another place where I think we don't do leaders any service.

(27:46):
You are not right because you're in a position of leadership.
That that doesn't automatically make you write and absolve you of, you know, accountability.
In fact, it, it means that you are more likely to be wrong.
Absolutely.
Because you have more exposure, you have more responsibility.
Absolutely.
You are more likely to be wrong about things than the people at the frontline.

(28:10):
Yes, absolutely.
And so if you, as a leader are saying, I got this thing wrong, but here's how I got to
the wrong decision.
Tell me where I, tell me where I zagged when I should have zigged.
You know, if you have a team that feels comfortable enough to have those conversations with you
as leader, you're going to have a dynamic team that performs really well, but also you're

(28:32):
going to have a team that isn't afraid to come to you and say, Oh, I did this mistake.
I did this thing.
And here's what I, but I have a solution.
That's the other thing is encouraging people to come up with solutions.
Don't encourage people to fix other people's problems because that's, that's where you
have a, he said, she said, they said, whatever in a government, that's when you lose the

(28:53):
thread that's going to end up in some kind of public workers request or some kind of
lawsuit.
Right.
Yeah.
And that's sort of key control of that.
But if you make it okay for your team to come to you and say, Hey, Kate, I, boy, I think
I screwed this one up.
Can I talk through it with you?
And you have the time and attention and respect to sit there and say, yes, let's walk through

(29:21):
it.
Let's figure out what happened.
What you've just done is, even if that person has made a mistake and even if it's catastrophic,
what you've allowed them to do is process through it with you safely.
Right.
And, and you as a leader may have to take heat with your people, but it was all, you

(29:46):
know, and this may be a failing, but my thing was I will take the heat.
Right.
Oh yeah.
My team is not going to take, I'll take the heat, not my team.
So whatever it is, tell me, because I want to know going into, I don't get lambasted
was a matter of get blindsided.
You tell me something is happening and, and I will go to the mat for you every time, even

(30:07):
if I think you're wrong, because there's something to, there's the belonging, there's
the community toss, there's the team piece, but there's the humanity and the respect of
you are an autonomous being who has your own thoughts, feelings and ideas.
And while we try to shove you into this institutional box for eight to 10 hours a day and make you
learn your chump change, this you are able to make decisions and you have judgment and

(30:39):
you have the ability to, to do good work and to bring the good work forward.
And in order for you to keep doing that, you know, you got to get past fear, you got to
get past mistakes, you got to get past all of those things that make employees timid,
that make employees not want to go to their bosses, that make them not even want to go

(30:59):
to HR or want to go to HR before they go to their bosses, which is always a problem,
right?
Because then you're in the middle of an argument, you didn't even know you were having, you
know, like those kinds of things.
I think that, that leaders in particular, it's so important that we start training everyone

(31:21):
on leadership skills.
Yeah.
There's something I want to stick my oar in here, Mandy, that I think is so important
to clarify.
Psychologically safe environments are not consequence free environments.
Oh, no.
Because I have, because people tend to be so black and white.

(31:42):
No, no, I'm glad you're calling this out.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I have heard way too many people in executive roles look at things like just culture or
psychological safety and immediately have this reactionary resistance to it because they

(32:06):
think that those practices mean that people can just get away with anything, which kind
of circles us back to what we were talking about before of lowest common denominator
thinking that people are out to do bad things and form the business where part of psychological
safety is having high accountability where you know that if I, if I make an error, even

(32:35):
if all the things that you talked about, the transparency, the discussion, that depending
on the nature of it, depending on the organization and the circumstances, it may result in an
unpleasant consequence.
Yes.
But the trust that you have in your leader to do, to deliver that consequence, and let's

(32:59):
just go to the very extreme, like say, losing your job to be done in a humane way that is
consistent and kind of dependable still makes it safe.
I'm not saying like, oh, I feel safe because my job may be at risk, but no, I am safe with
this person.
Right.
And I, and I would argue that you probably are going to, that, that kind of safety breeds

(33:27):
a different kind of employee and a different kind of loyalty.
Exactly.
And I'm going to do a team and to a leader and the other thing is modeling the behavior,
which a lot of leaders, if you have leaders listening to this, to this episode, and I
talk about modeling the behavior of being vulnerable and, and admitting to mistakes,

(33:49):
they're going to be like, Oh, no, no, no, because the minute they see weakness, somebody's going
to come from my job.
So I have to tell you though, the last, the last time I was in a position of big leadership,
there were times when I was like, please, please God, come get my job.
Please do.
Because there are things that are happening that are so crazy to have banana pants that

(34:10):
you're just like, are you, what, like, did we wake up in an episode of punked?
What happened?
And so there's this and everybody feels really close to the vest and everything's proprietary
to, you know, and, and that's a problem with job descriptions.
That's a whole other tangent we can go on to is this, you know, and the ownership idea.

(34:30):
I want people to own their position.
I want them to own their desk and I want them to be experts in the thing that they're in,
but I also want them to be generalists to the extent that if the phone rings and they
ask them some question about another division in their apartment that they can reasonably
have a conversation with the person on the phone and know who to get them to for a one

(34:52):
transfer, you know, right?
And that's a business thing, right?
That's an organ.
That's a business, a customer service business.
That's sort of measurement, but it's also a human one, right?
Because because you think about the knowledge that you have, we too often compartmentalize
our employees or our teams into you're in charge of this one and you're in, so you're

(35:16):
in charge of A through D and you're in charge of E through F and you're in charge of this
and never the tween shall meet.
So if some, if I go to the D through F person and say, Hey, my name is Mandy Bo Smith, can
I get some help?
I can't help you.
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
Well, okay, but I don't know what that means.
It says human resources specialist on your title.
I don't know what D through F means.

(35:38):
So can you help me with the thing?
Right?
That also is a demonstration of inhumanity and we have to teach our teams that, that
we need to, we need to serve our customer in the same way that we want to be served.
Yeah.

(35:58):
We need to serve our customer in the same way that we want our leaders to treat us and
we need to treat our leaders in the same way that, that we want them to treat us.
And it's difficult, right?
Because there's that hierarchical power authority thing and it's, you know, the speaking truth
to power and the, that, that whole idea just having a, just saying hello in the morning.

(36:22):
Yeah.
Saying, Oh, did you have a nice holiday weekend?
You know, how's Jimmy's soccer?
You know, like, yeah, really benign things.
I like the example of the, you know, Oh no, I have the, the D through F. You're a B. I

(36:42):
can't deal with you.
I like that example for what we're talking about because we do need structure at work.
We need expectations.
We need things like there are a thousand of them and three of us.
We're going to break this up this way to make it possible.
And then you have to free people to work within that structure and empower them to do things

(37:08):
like, okay, Mandy, I am happy to deal to help you with this today.
I want to let you know next time that you'll want to contact my colleague who typically
has responsibility for employees that are in your part of the alphabet.
Because they're going to be your best, most consistent person.

(37:29):
Right.
So let's get through this.
And then I'm going to make certain you have Jane's contact information.
Yeah.
I had, I had a team that was struggling to get things done because they were letting
a client group that they served basically use them for all the calls where there had

(37:51):
been, you know, an agreement between our teams that we would do X, a vendor would do Y, and
the client needed to contact us for X, the vendor for Y.
They were contacting us for everything.
And instead of gently redirecting and setting the boundary, the team thought they had to

(38:15):
do everything.
Yeah.
No, no, no, we've made this agreement.
Right.
And we're empowered to say, I'm happy to deal with this for you today.
I'm going to make certain you have the information to contact the vendor though, because that
is the best right place for you to take this question.
Right.
So we use systems to support people, but then we lock them into it.

(38:39):
Right.
You know, it's kind of we, we deface them and make them blocks in a spot.
You know, we're talking, we're talking about humanity a lot.
We're talking about what dehumanizes people.
We're talking about inhumane behaviors.
Where I'd like us to go next is getting a little bit clearer about what makes a human

(39:05):
leader.
When we say humanity and leadership, what does that entail?
I think there are things like acknowledging fallibility.
An error is inevitable.
Yeah.
Which means that there has to be a certain amount of vulnerability in place to understand

(39:31):
I make errors and I'm going to be authentic about that.
That's sort of where I start.
I don't want to drive the whole descriptor, but those are the points.
I think if, if we understand fallibility, how that creates opportunities for vulnerability,

(39:52):
which in turn allows us to be authentic, what else makes for humanity and leadership?
I think authenticity is huge, but I think that it's very difficult in a professional
environment.

(40:13):
It's hard to be your authentic self in such a rigid environment as an employer situation.
While I do personally put a lot of stock in the authenticity that I strive to show people
in terms of who I am and why I do the things I do, it's not always going to be the case.

(40:36):
I think that it's also not something that can be learned necessarily, but vulnerability
certainly can be learned.
Making oneself more vulnerable can be learned.
As a leader, I think admissions of fallibility or admissions of being human to a team is

(41:01):
massive, creating that safe space is so positive and huge.
Now, yes, we all know that there is always one team member that takes advantage of that
safe space and that gets to be problematic, but that's why you have friendly neighborhood
HR professionals who can help you out with that.

(41:22):
The other thing more than anything is being communicative because you can still make a
safe space and not tell anybody anything, not be communicative at all.
You can still be vulnerable and still not be communicative.
Being communicative and bringing people into the conversation, I think a lot of times when

(41:44):
we pull up that image that we thought about at the top of the show, that's a solitary
image.
That is a one-person image.
There's not a team behind him in that picture.
That's I think where we also go wrong is that leaders also think of themselves as being
on an island alone and that they may have the ultimate responsibility for the team or

(42:10):
for the policy or whatever is occurring, but that they didn't get there by their selves.
It takes a village.
It takes a team.
It takes all the parts working in sync in the right way to get the job done and an acknowledgement
of that off the bat that the leader is a member of the team, not the leader of the team even,

(42:37):
a member of the team because there are going to be times I think when if you have an open
and communicative leader, they're going to identify people on their team that have skills
in places they didn't know they had them just because they're having conversations.
What you're talking about is this, I feel like it's a cocktail of empathy, curiosity,

(42:59):
and discernment.
There is also appreciation.
I'm reminded of the Clifton strength individualization of recognizing that people are unique individuals

(43:19):
and appreciating and celebrating that is so important.
That is, I think, part of being a human, human leader is I empathetically understand
that you see and experience things differently than I do.
Instead of thinking, well, what's wrong with you, thinking this is a cause for celebration,

(43:45):
that we are different.
And it impetus for curiosity to understand why do they think the way they think?
What do they feel the way they feel?
What has brought them to that?
Because there may be something completely valid that you as a leader have not ever considered
because that's not your experience.

(44:06):
I like bringing in discernment here too, if I can take the wheel for a second because
I think it's very important is that we get clear that humanity in leadership does not
mean touchy-feely, soft, fluffy, kumbaya.

(44:33):
It is also about difficult decisions done in a way that reflects the needs of people.
It is about things like you will not take advantage of the safety of this team.
It is things like I'm going to deliver feedback to you with compassion in order to improve

(45:00):
the errors and the poor performance.
That humanity also accounts for response to the fallibility, the vulnerability in ways
that honors the person.
Which I think means what we're talking about is making space for people's intrinsic worth

(45:25):
first and foremost and then having the behaviors that support people's best work.
And to your point, you don't have to know people's life stories or in fact, I would
say do not make your team at work your number one social group because that leads to problems.

(45:55):
But caring about it and understanding that if you have a team of eight direct reports,
they are not all eight clones of each other.
There is clone hiring that we know a lot of leaders do.
They may be some people that you think are clones.

(46:17):
A good leader surrounds themselves with people that are different and have different experiences
and come from different places that all come together to give you a cohesive product or
a cohesive set of recommendations.
You have to treat each individual as they come.

(46:39):
You got to meet them where they're at.
And sometimes that means treating people a little differently than you treat somebody
else.
Not because you like them better or whatever, but because it's grace.
You're giving somebody grace.
If you have an employee who has a death in the family and they just are not doing well,

(47:03):
recognizing that that is something that will absolutely affect 90% of the humans walking
this earth in terms of the place they spend most of their time every week and giving them
some grace, whether that's some time off, whether that's some shifted responsibility

(47:24):
for a time.
But the answer is not you're not performing well and I'm going to fire you on top of the
fact that you just lost a loved one.
That's not the answer.
The answer is also not, oh, well, Joe has come to me and complained because I'm treating
you differently.
So now I'm going to do what Joe thinks he wants me to do and take away the grace I've

(47:44):
given you.
No, it's saying Joe.
Yes.
If you experienced something in this vein, I should give you the same consideration that
I gave Sally.
Yeah.
I'm glad you noticed I treated.
You know why?
Because you're a human.
Yeah.
I'm glad you noticed that I treated Sally different.
Because I am always going to treat you with all of you with the same level of respect.

(48:09):
Your treatment will be equitable.
Yes.
But it will be based on your need.
That's right.
And consistent.
You can still be consistent.
Yes.
You can still be equitable.
And you can, I think a leader, this is something I kind of want to put out there too.
A leader needs to be decisive, not divisive.
Beautiful.

(48:30):
Right?
I think that that sort of sums up in a way a good leader makes decisions, right or wrong.
They'll make a decision.
Right?
But they are not looking to divide people.

(48:51):
They're not looking to divide the team.
They're not looking to divide the organization.
They're looking to make a decision and move things forward.
And so you cannot, in your interpersonal dealings with your team, be divisive either.
Because the only outcome to that is friction.
The only outcome to that is adversity in terms of the team.

(49:13):
And so communication, vulnerability, letting people know that you are a resource and a
safe space.
Communication.
Communication and communication.
And being decisive, not divisive.

(49:34):
And making sure that people know that the decisions you are making are not without great
consideration.
That's another thing, right?
As an employee, you sometimes have the perception that your leaders are making decisions willy-nilly
or unawm without having considered input.

(49:58):
And sometimes that is the case.
Let's be honest.
Sometimes that is true.
But a good leader and a humane leader is going to make sure that their team knows that any
decision that they're making that will affect the team is a considered decision.
That the reason that that person has been put in that position of leadership is because
they're going to take the shots for that decision.

(50:21):
Your job as a team, so employees that are listening to this wanting to understand about
the leader, your job as an employee in that team is to give the best information, the
best data, the best understanding of whatever the project is, whatever the issue is to that
leader that you can so that they can make the most informed and most considered decision.

(50:47):
And not being afraid to give that information.
The leader needs to make a safe space, but make a growth space, a knowledge space.
It's okay for you to spend some time researching a certain topic on your work computer.

(51:08):
Those kinds of things that seem so silly when we talk about them, when we say them out loud.
The other thing too is allowing for some sociability within a team.
Right?
Allowing for people to get to know each other and get to understand kind of how their colleagues
work.

(51:28):
How does the rest of the team work together or not?
And why?
It's connections and across the board we're talking about making connections.
There's the person to person.
There's decision to reason.
There's people to purpose that the human leader sits at the center of this web or nexus of

(51:55):
connections and illustrating those constantly for your people is the work there.
And that happens through communication, through role modeling, through what you respond to
and what you don't, all of those pieces, but creating connection is some of the ultimate

(52:19):
work there.
Yeah.
And it's hard.
I mean, I think that we're not saying that this is easy.
Yeah.
And we're especially not saying that this is easy for the type of person that has usually
been tapped to become the leader, right?

(52:41):
Because in my experience, those people are typically not people with warm, fuzzy personalities.
But we can teach people to become the leaders we want them to become by starting early in
their careers.
Well, this is something I think we need to go to next is what is the scaffolding to support

(53:04):
humanity in leadership?
And I tend to be, and maybe I oversimplify, but I tend to think in threes.
And you're talking about the very first one.
Are we preparing people?
Does the work environment both actively and even somewhat passively prepare people for

(53:29):
what leadership looks like at that particular organization?
Right.
But with intention, even if it is passive, then you brought this up well at the start
selection.
Are we choosing the right people?
Are we backing the right horse?
And then development.
So before, during, and after, you've got to have this whole structure around that prepares

(53:54):
people.
They understand what it's going to entail.
We are without bias as much as humanly possible, making choices around the right leaders at
the right times for the right roles.
And then we continue to grow them that getting into a leadership role does not mean that

(54:15):
you're done.
In fact, I think, I think if you are in, particularly if you were an executive, you're in a C-suite
role and you think that you have no learning, the board should, the board should remove
you.
I feel very passionate about that.
No, I agree completely.
I think that if you get into a position and you've decided you're all done learning and

(54:35):
growing, then you can be all done.
Yes.
For real.
Yeah.
Because, but I think, you know, I think a fundamental part of changing what we see now in terms
of leadership is to introduce the concept of career level training that when you, when

(54:56):
you hire onto, when you hire onto organization, you have to do mandatory training classes,
right?
Because the federal government says, Hey, HR, you have to train everybody on sexual harassment,
prevention and awareness.
You have to train everybody on drug alcohol awareness.
You got to train everybody on, I don't know, defensive driving, got to, whatever.

(55:17):
Why isn't leadership one of those?
Why isn't on day one, when you onboard somebody and you're trying to tell them the culture
of your organization, why isn't one of the, the pillars, we're going to teach you how
to be a leader.
Now, we're also going to give you the agency to choose whether you actually want to be

(55:37):
a leader or not, but we're still going to give you the training because we think it's
beneficial for you to understand the nomenclature that you use throughout the organization and
to understand why the leaders in this organization are making the decisions they're making and
how they apply to you.
I want to offer a slightly different take.
That yes, we need to be providing preparatory training that can support people going into

(56:02):
leadership.
I think rather than training on leading, I think we need to teach people how to learn
effectively and productively through their entire careers because that is, if you enter

(56:22):
a leadership position and think you're done, I'm repeating myself.
I'm absolutely repeating myself.
But you're absolutely right.
Leaders need to be the first learners.
A learner is a leader.
A leader is a learner.
I think if we create not just learning cultures, which is often where we focus, does the culture

(56:46):
support learning?
Let's teach people how to be great learners, which I have no surprise opinions about what
makes for ongoing effective learning.
And frankly, I think it starts with empathy, which then drives us to curiosity, which drives

(57:12):
us to courage, which then allows us to have the endurance to start all over again because
we have success along the way of learning because we begin with that moment of there's
something here that I see, I understand it may not be my experience, but I can be empathetic

(57:37):
and now I'm getting curious about it.
And I think if we can bake into entry level positions, the training that helps people
become lifelong, active, voracious learners, that's going to make entry into leadership
so much easier because leaders need empathy, curiosity, courage, and endurance as well.

(58:04):
I almost feel like that's like a preparatory course to the leadership.
I almost feel like maybe that should be the mandatory thing.
But one of the things I've been working on as I've been in this space of consulting and
coaching and thinking about leadership and thinking about the message that I sort of

(58:30):
want to deliver to people, one of the other things that I think you'll agree is a problem
is accessibility, right?
The having access to the training at all.
And I think that there are societies and associations and whatever that deliver amazing training,

(58:53):
but you have to be a member, right?
Or you have to pay a higher price because you're not a member.
Or again, the training budget is the first thing to go.
One of the things that I've been working on is an affordable and accessible leadership
program.
And the idea behind this was literally because that idea of having leadership or leadership

(59:22):
skills or whatever, and to your point, I'll get how I got here, is so fundamentally important,
I think, to employees coming into an organization, to understanding the cultural landscape, right,
of what they're coming into, but also to understand the words that are being used.

(59:42):
Within that, within what I'm working on is sort of a leadership 101 model where I talk
about things like communication and vulnerability and empathy and critical thinking skills and
strategic thinking skills and creative thinking and how it all applies to an organization.

(01:00:09):
And the reason that I sort of undertook this, and it's not ready yet, so it's sort of a
sneak of what I'm working on, the reason I undertook this is because, you know, at my
last employer, I know how much money those people make.
And I know that those people can't afford $250 for a leadership course.
And they can't afford three days away from their family, and they can't afford to pay

(01:00:31):
for the hotel and the room aboard, even with whatever reimbursements may be available to
them.
And nine times out of 10, they're going to be told no anyway, right, because they're
either not the chosen person or there's no money in the budget or whatever.
And so making a product that I think would be accessible because it's available on the

(01:00:56):
internet as asynchronous training, right, and also having it at a price point that I
know that somebody may be able to afford that is in a position that, you know, I'm thinking
about at my former employer, I think would some would in a way level the playing field

(01:01:16):
for people.
And so that's something that that I'm working on to put out there in the marketplace and
in this conversation as a way for people to start looking at this kind of training they
wouldn't ordinarily get and doing exactly what you said, developing curiosity about

(01:01:40):
the concepts about, you know, what's going on, starting to ask questions, whether in
their organization or without, and then also giving them sort of empowerment outside of
the organization, but some empowerment with their new knowledge to go to their supervisors
and say, Hey, I took this class on my own dime.
I'd like to take further ones.

(01:02:00):
Will you help me do that?
And here's you know, here's what I've learned and here's how I think it can be beneficial
and hey, I want to take Sally and Joe with me to the next one.
Can we do that?
You know, and obviously I'm thinking down the road, but I'm thinking about what would
have been something that me as an employer growing up the way that I or an employee growing
up the way that I did, I would have taken advantage of an offering to me that, but

(01:02:29):
hey, you want to spend 20 bucks a course, there's this, if you're interested, I would
have taken advantage of that, right?
And I know that there are other people that would have to.
And not only in terms of leadership and what we're talking about like overarching leadership
of the team or whatever, but also there's one part of this I want to call out and that
is especially in government and I would assume the same is true in private sector.

(01:02:53):
We don't train supervisors.
So when somebody comes out of a journey level position or you know, advanced journey level
position and comes into a position of management or leadership in government, we typically are
like, Oh, well, you've been a plumber for 30 years.
Congratulations.
You're the new deputy director of public works.
Yeah.
Right.
They don't know a thing about public works.

(01:03:14):
And so, so giving the other model that I'm working on is something I call supervisory
college, which is just basic supervisory skills, also accessible and affordable.
But the same thing applies, right?
It's giving people tools, practical common sense tools that their employer should be
giving them.

(01:03:34):
But I don't trust their employers to give it to them.
So I'm going to try to do it.
Well, they, this, this really does circle back to where we started.
One of the challenges of increasing the levels of humanity in leadership and in the workplace
overall is overcoming the, frankly, the status quo.

(01:03:58):
Yes.
Because people, nature and people, we love homeostasis.
We love same and predictable.
Yes.
And one of the reasons employers don't do this is because they haven't done it.
And the disruption to begin doing it, even if they, even if they see the value, even

(01:04:23):
if they want to be able to, individuals can't necessarily overcome the inertia of this is
how we've always done it.
And, and, and,
Part of that, though, is, is from the leadership, right?
Part of that is the message.
Oh yeah.
Well, it's also, it, it benefits people that have the authority and power.

(01:04:45):
Right.
Spectacularly.
Yes.
Right.
Like it's, it's unfortunately, it's this closed system that constantly recreates itself.
When you have people in power with authority and privilege, they are, of course, even if
they want different, the system's going to support them not changing it.

(01:05:06):
Yes.
And so, yeah, there are, it's what we talked about again before.
Sometimes you can change from the inside.
Sometimes change can only come from the outside.
And things like making easily accessible, entirely affordable information and training

(01:05:27):
available to people on the inside can be a way to start to move that, that lever.
Yeah.
And it's also a way to start, you know, kickstart a conversation.
And I think that that's, I mean, what you just described is exactly the reason why large
organizations don't change.
Yeah.
It's because it's, it's easier to bear the pain of remaining the same than it is to

(01:05:50):
bear the pain of change.
And change is by its very definition uncertain.
We don't know what it would look like.
We can set a goal or a vision for what we want it to look like, but we don't know.
Yeah.
I will, I will spare you because I have one of the courses that I'm, I'll say piloting

(01:06:12):
right now.
I've been able to do it with an intact team, but I want to eventually make it a thing that's
out in the world, not just with this one client.
It is about change management and the effort and energy that's genuinely needed for it.
Yeah.
When we were talking about the great man, one of the things that I thought about was

(01:06:39):
those are, those are so often as well, people that have access to resources.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it'd be very, it'd be very easy.
And it is tempting to talk about the white patriarchy and the problems that we have
societally there, there is of course, that is a contributing factor, but there are also

(01:07:04):
you know, socioeconomic as well as racial and gender issues that continue to contribute
to that even though as a whole, we have all rejected the great man theory.
We still live in that space where it's a default because our systems don't support different.

(01:07:29):
So doing something like here is a web-based, very affordable, not cheap, but affordable
resource for anyone and everyone that you know, regardless of race, gender.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's agnostic to that.

(01:07:49):
It sounds like, I mean, and that was part of the reason for coming to that kind of a
solution was, you know, I think I said at the top, I tried to make change within government
and it's exceedingly difficult.
And you know, now that I'm out of government, I don't want to change any less.

(01:08:11):
I don't want the change for that culture in that organization any less that I did than
when I worked there.
I still care for those people.
I care for what they do.
I care for civil service.
I care for serving constituents and doing what's right for people.
But now I recognize that I'm doing it from the outside.

(01:08:31):
So I need a way to bust in.
And I know that sounds so thuggish, but at the end of the day, it's bring it to people
and they will come.
Show them that there's something out there that they can take advantage of and they will
and it will become a platform for me to grow and learn about people and about pedagogy

(01:08:58):
and about how, you know, how adult learning works in a different way than I knew before
and those kinds of things.
But also, I think that there's no harm in giving people more tools to do their jobs.
The harm we do is not giving people enough tools and it doesn't have to be money.

(01:09:19):
It doesn't have to be training per se.
It just needs to be respect and safety.
And that gives people a lot of room.
The humanity part of it, the giving people room, you know.

(01:09:43):
And I think that that can be taught in a lot of ways.
And certainly people are much more, they're much more willing to take on ideas like this
when in good times than in bad times.
But it's incumbent upon people like us who are having these conversations and who are
putting these ideas out there to do something with them, not just to have the conversation.

(01:10:08):
Yeah.
I agree entirely.
It has to be.
There are the ideas and the opinions and the theories and frameworks that we build off
of them.
But then we have to make it consumable so it's clear and understandable for other people,
a little bit attractive, but then wildly and readily and easily applicable.

(01:10:32):
Yes.
Yeah.
So when we say, hey, be more human at work, create more psychological safety, what do you
mean by that and how do you do it?
Right.
And that is our responsibility and our field with the type of work we're doing is to be
able to say it's not just, oh, you should.

(01:10:54):
Hey, this is the better way because and here's how.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's the good work.
It is the good work.
And there's a lot of it to be done, which is good for me and you.
Yes.

(01:11:15):
Woo.
Because, yeah, to that point, that is our business.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's, I love getting to work in a space where there is business need, but also kind
of this calling to serve and to help.
You talked about caring for civil servants.

(01:11:38):
We all need our government to run well, to be run by people who understand people needs.
We are a government ruled people and if we can make government better, most of my work
was with and has been with healthcare.
We all need healthcare to operate well.

(01:12:00):
Right.
Frankly, if I look even more broadly at leadership, we know the impact that leaders and managers
have on the work experience.
People by and large, the vast majority of us need to work financially or psychologically.
There are lots of reasons for it.

(01:12:22):
We spend so much time at work.
We need leaders to be good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There is a reason for why we spend time talking about this.
Yeah.
And it's not just our business.
It's because it is a way to serve.
Yeah.
And it's fundamentally important, I think, to furthering the goals of good business.

(01:12:52):
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
I'll get back on my leadership.
Hobby horse too.
One could argue that every role in our lives offers the opportunity to lead.
Absolutely.
We're both parents.
That is a type of leadership.

(01:13:12):
Students have the opportunity to lead neighbors, people in faith communities, direct employees.
Everything we do in our lives gives us the occasional opportunity to be leaders.
And leaders have impact in the moment.

(01:13:33):
And that just ripples throughout the rest of the interaction and the people that were
involved lives.
So we want to do it well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Even if you're just leading yourself, you want to be doing that as special people.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah.

(01:13:54):
Yeah.
Well, Mandy, I like to, when it feels like we're getting to kind of a natural closing
point.
I like to ask for two or three big ideas or key takeaways.
How would you like to kind of cap the conversation yourself?

(01:14:18):
I think, wait, it's kind of hard to distill things down.
But I think ultimately the most important takeaways are a leader has to be a communicator.
And a leader has to be able to put aside institutional notions that they may have grown up within an

(01:14:48):
organization in service of the operation of the team, you know, for the ultimate goal.
And that means making themselves vulnerable and allowing their teams to be vulnerable.
And again, communicating, right?
The communication is key.
And helping people understand where they fit in an organization, like how what they do

(01:15:10):
matters is also key in terms of human leadership.
And my goal is to put humanity back in leadership because I think that humans offer endless
ability.

(01:15:31):
And we just need to be given sort of the right set of circumstances to fly.
And the idea that that can be nurtured in a way by a good leader.
And I've experienced it myself.
I had a good leader and it nurtured a lot of growth in me.

(01:15:51):
And I think that as leaders, instead of focusing on the fact that we are leading a thing and
part of the boss structure of whatever organization we're in, we should say that we are leaders
of people first.
And that our first job is our first duty or first responsibilities to the teams and the

(01:16:14):
people we serve in terms of those teams.
And to be, you know, I know that there's the Simon Sinek idea of servant leadership, but
I don't buy into that completely.
But I do believe that a leader does serve their team.
And that by doing that, you model the behavior you're hoping to get out of your team.

(01:16:36):
And also communication.
Did I say that?
I don't think I think I forgot that one.
Communication.
You must communicate.
You did a good job.
It was the very first thing, actually.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think, um, yeah, who works for whom is the first answer?
Any good leader has to question.

(01:16:59):
Any good leader has to ask.
And the answer is I actually work for them.
Right.
So that they can do the work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think the only thing I would want to add is that the goal of leadership is never perfection
because people are not perfect.

(01:17:20):
No.
No.
The goal is a little better, a little better every day.
Yeah.
But that's also the beauty, right?
That's the beauty in the process, in the building.
Yeah.
The important.
Mandy, this has been delightful.
I am, I'm looking forward to revisiting our conversation when I do my edits.

(01:17:45):
And it's awesome.
Yeah.
It's, I'm so glad we found each other.
Me too.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Yeah.
Thank you for joining me in the comfy chairs.
If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and share it with others who

(01:18:07):
are passionate about leading and learning.
And don't forget if you have a question for our new comfy HQ series beginning in January
2025, I'd love to hear it.
Check out the link in the show notes to submit your question and be part of the conversation.

(01:18:28):
Until next time.