March 29, 2024 • 57 mins
Why do we have so many managers, but so few leaders? What does it even mean to be a leader? How do you become one? In this episode, I talk with Jennifer Borchardt, VP of Experience, Financial Services at Publicis Sapient about how to cross over into leadership.
The episode begins with Jennifer reflecting on her journey and how her view of leadership has evolved over time. Jennifer has worked in various roles within the sector, most recently leading an experience practice for financial services at a large global digital transformation consultancy. Jennifer and Devin discuss the difference between management and leadership, with the consensus that the two roles involve different skills and mindsets.
Jennifer emphasizes the importance of sharing a vision with a team and letting individuals figure out how to achieve it. Serious about mentorship, Jennifer shares her experience providing guidance to others in their careers, attributing her success to individuals who poured into her life and offered their insight and wisdom. The conversation concludes with Jennifer’s thoughts on humility, mentorship, meaning in work, and the importance of rest alongside labor.
00:00 Introduction to Leadership vs Management
00:08 The Importance of Vision in Leadership
00:54 Guest Introduction: Jennifer Borschart
02:44 Jennifer's Career Journey and Current Role
04:25 The Path to Leadership and Its Challenges
11:03 The Impact of Leadership on Personal Growth
12:09 The Intersection of Leadership and Personal Interests
15:23 The Role of Humility in Leadership
18:08 The Struggle Between Leadership and Management
27:19 The Role of Leadership in Financial Services
31:20 Taking Control of Your Life Through Financial Understanding
32:50 The Influence of Personal Background on Leadership
33:34 Is Adversity Necessary for Good Leadership?
37:24 The Importance of Rest and Reflection in Leadership
43:59 The Role of Mentorship in Leadership Development
48:43 The Impact of Intrinsic Motivation and Humility in Leadership
52:23 The Significance of Your Work and Its Impact on Others
56:14 Closing Thoughts on Leadership and Career Growth
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A production of Outserve Group LLC. Visit [www.devinwsmith.com](http://www.devinwsmith.com/) for more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
So, as a manager, it's just very tactical, very
hands-on either yourself oryou're telling people what to do
.
A leader shares the vision withtheir team and says this is
where we need to get to, andleaving it to the individuals to
decide how to get there.
Because why is somebody on yourteam?
Why hire them if you don'ttrust them to be good thinkers,
(00:25):
good doers, good actors?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Do you wanna de-commoditize your products and
services?
Do you wanna become adestination brand, increase your
revenue and have more controlover your pricing?
Well, you're in the right place.
Each week, we'll talk about howto create great customer
experiences and how to orientyour company to enable them.
I'm your host, Devin Smith, andthis is the Experience Leader
(00:55):
Podcast.
Welcome back, everybody.
I am so excited to bring thisnew episode to you.
We are talking to an old friendof mine, old colleague of mine,
Jennifer Borshart.
(01:15):
She and I have worked togetherin the banking industry and her
career has just taken askyrocket ever since she moved
on from the place that we bothworked and it's been really
exciting to see her get to dobig things.
And she was kind enough to comeon the show because we're
talking about leadership.
It's one of the things thatI've discovered, is one of the
(01:37):
things we don't have enough of,and maybe we'll never have
enough of it, but we need moreleaders instead of having a lot
of managers.
So, without further ado, here'sJennifer Borchardt.
Jennifer, thanks so much forbeing on the show.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
How are you doing this morning Good.
Thank you so much for having me.
I've really been lookingforward to this conversation.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Absolutely.
I.
You know so people, so thateverybody knows Jennifer and I
we go way back to really mystart in the product world.
We worked together at a bigbank I don't know if we're
allowed to say the name of thebank.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
A giant bank.
We'll just leave it at that.
A giant bank.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
We worked together at a giant bank.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yes, leave a little something to the imagination.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yes, yes, but that's where we got the opportunity to
meet and I was so, so impressedwith how smart and intelligent a
designer that you are, andobviously your career has has
shot off like a rocket sincethen.
So it's been.
That's been very cool to watch.
(02:50):
Tell everybody a little bitabout what you're doing right
now.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Well, right now I am working for a I don't know if
we're allowed to mention companyname, so I'll just say I work
for a large global digitaltransformation consultancy and I
lead the experience practicefor financial services in North
America which covers well, Iguess it'd be Central America
(03:18):
too.
So Canada, united States, whichis the biggest, and then
expanding into Central America,central and South America.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Wow, wow.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I've been in this role for just under a year In
January it'll be a year and it'sbeen an exciting ride this last
year.
I manage a large team of very,very talented, experienced
practitioners across a number ofpractices.
A lot of them are experiencedesign, but then also UI, visual
(03:49):
design, research, cx strategyand insights um design
operations the whole thing andin my in my career I've been
fortunate to have had experienceworking across all of those
crafts, and so now I now Ioversee a team that does amazing
(04:10):
work in all of those crafts.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Very exciting.
That is.
That is amazing.
You know, back back back in theday you know I was, I was still
more junior than you and stillI still consider myself more
junior than you.
In my career you have soared tosuch great heights, but it was
interesting to me to see how thepath that you took into
(04:41):
leadership you stayed in thefinancial space but, but you
know the things that you woundup influencing, wound up
expanding beyond design, whichis which is you know I, I did
some of the, some of the samestuff there, just because I
don't know, it was kind of hardto keep my, my hands out all the
(05:03):
, all the different spots.
I just care about so manydifferent areas of the business
and people have trusted me witha lot of things over the years,
and same for you.
What was it like going you knowwhen?
Because you worked at anotherbig bank after you worked at
another big bank, after you knowwe both worked at the giant
(05:24):
bank uh, yes, I've worked at alot of big banks a few of them
what, what you know, tell me,tell me about uh, what you saw
uh as you started to move up theranks.
Um, what, what you saw uh as faras uh leadership goes, and, and
(05:47):
, and how you tried to uh.
You know the lessons that youlearned while you were an
individual contributor that youtry to take into uh being a
leader well, um, the way thatone leads there.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
There, there are a lot of things that remain
fundamentally consistent, forexample, being a leader rather
than just a manager, and thereare definitely situations where
you need to manage versus whereyou need to lead.
It varies based on the companyculture, on the maturity of the
organization.
(06:24):
It varies based on the companyculture, on the maturity of the
organization, and even largecompanies can be not mature in
some very important ways.
It also matters very much.
The way that you practiceleadership matters very much on
who you're working with, who'son your team, and the
opportunities and strengths ofyour team, particularly those
(06:46):
who are reporting directly toyou.
As I've gone up the ranks, asyou say, the way that I lead and
the way that I have to lead isvery different.
So what I'm doing now in a verysenior leadership role is much,
much different than when I wasleading individual contributors
(07:09):
at that large bank, and so, yeah, it's continuously an
adjustment and, on one hand,I've been able to take the
lessons from when I was anindividual contributor, when I
was actively designing, but alsohaving to adjust my approach to
(07:35):
use listening and speaking indifferent proportions.
I actually find that I'mspeaking a lot less listening, a
lot more in my senior role thanI did when I was an individual
contributor, and changingexpectations is certainly it has
(07:58):
certainly been very important,and something that I realized
back when I was at my last largebank job a few years ago is the
importance of knowing at whataltitude you need to be working
at.
There are times where it's verynecessary to be in the weeds,
(08:19):
although if you have a strongteam that you've empowered, that
you trust, you don't need to bein the weeds quite so much.
But there are definitely timeswhere you have to be at the you
know the, the 50 000 footaltitude and be able to look
broadly, think, thinkstrategically and provide
(08:40):
guidance rather than management.
I liken it to navigating akayak.
If you're like a beginningmanager or maybe a project lead,
you have to always be doing alot of adjustments, a lot of
(09:02):
very, very active movementVersus.
At my level, it's more likesteering a cargo ship or
steering a cruise ship, becausethey're just broader, you know
broader impact you have to haveand also being able to code,
switch, speak differently, craftnot only the actual
(09:27):
communication but thecommunication style based on who
you're working with.
Working in, consulting, you'realways working with different
personalities, differentpersonalities within your team,
different personalities withinthe other capabilities that are
outside of experience, andcertainly different different
personalities, approaches,cultures, um, ways of working in
(09:50):
, um, in different conversationswith clients, and that has,
yeah, yeah, it's, um, it's, it's.
It's a little overwhelming whenI when I sit and think about it
, because there are there aredays where I just I feel like
I'm kind of just, you know,putting on my scuba gear and
(10:11):
diving into the waves, just justgoing, just going, just going
right into battle.
And at my lat, in my last role,which was, which was also a
consulting firm, a large firmbut but not nearly as large as
where I'm working now I learneda very apt way of thinking about
(10:36):
the challenges that we faceevery day.
I worked with a lot of peoplewho had been in the military,
and the example that this persongave was that, when you're
going into a very difficultsituation, to not think about it
, as this is going to bedifficult, this is not something
(10:56):
, this is going to be hard,excruciating, what have you, but
rather you are about to get thefull benefit of the challenge
and seeing situations ahead ofyou would sometimes feel
impossibly hard.
Reframing it as you're about tolearn something, you're about
to get the full benefit of allof the challenges ahead of you,
(11:22):
is a lot more productive andit's a lot more constructive.
It makes you open and humble toall of the challenges that lie
ahead and what it feels like tocome against the edges of your
own limitations, which I thinkis always very important to do.
(11:45):
We are capable of so much waymore than we might think, and
we're going to succeed a lotmore than we think.
And we're also going to fail alot more than we might expect.
And I believe that if you'renot coming up to the edge of
your capabilities, even if thoselimitations are self-inflicted,
(12:07):
we're not growing.
And this goes for life ingeneral, not just at work.
And yeah, I'm thinking a lot ofthe things I do in my leisure
time definitely bleed into myapproach as as a leader at work.
(12:27):
So I'm I'm a rock climber.
I've been doing rock climbingfor over 20 years now.
I'm an instructor, um for for,for people who are older like me
and um, you know, making,making a, making a, a shift into
a physically and and uh,physically and intellectually
sometimes challenging um hobbylike rock climbing um.
(12:50):
You always, if you're gonnalearn, if you're gonna keep
getting better, you always haveto be falling.
You always have to be goingbeyond your um, going going
beyond your, your, yourcapabilities, and definitely
have used that a lot, especiallyin this new role, which has
been challenging every singleday, and I am grateful for the
(13:12):
challenge.
I go into the full benefit eachand every day.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Full benefit.
That's interesting languagethere and definitely targeted
towards reframing the mind,obviously, into thinking, okay,
there's something to get out ofthis which is good.
It's one of the things that I'mcurious about.
(13:40):
You've talked about some of thestuff that you've taken into it
, and one of the things you andI've talked about offline is how
rare you know you mentionedsomething earlier how rare it is
to find leaders rather thanmanagers, and that's not to talk
(14:02):
about it in an arrogant way,because you know you've been on
both sides of it.
Right, we've both been on bothsides of it.
Why do you think it is thatit's so rare to find somebody
who can lead rather than justmanage?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Well, leadership is very hard and leadership also
exists where people may notexpect it to be.
You can be a leader whereveryou are, whoever you are,
regardless of your title,regardless of where you are in
the organization, there's alwaysopportunities to lead.
(14:46):
Managing, I think, is a lotmore tactical.
You are taking control, orempowering somebody to take
control of very discrete tasksor opportunities, and there's a
lot of satisfaction inmanagement the satisfaction, the
(15:07):
joy of a job well done.
As a leader, you don't have thesame reward system and it can
be very hard to do that.
Management is, I think, verymuch an ego-filled endeavor.
You are taking charge and doingsomething.
(15:28):
You are telling people what todo.
Leadership is an act of humility, and humility is something that
I think a lot of people, myselfincluded, have to continuously
develop over time.
And leadership is something youhave to do consistently.
(15:50):
You can't just do it for anhour, for the duration of a
project, for the duration of arole, but it's something you
need to do every moment of yourlife and think am I doing the
next right thing?
And, by the way, the wholething about always doing the
next right thing?
And, by the way, the wholething about always doing the
next right thing is somethingwhich I can credit to my manager
or my leader, my people leaderat my previous role.
(16:11):
That's something I always thinkabout.
Leadership is setting a goodexample.
Leadership is doing the rightthing when maybe it feels like
it doesn't matter, when you knowyou're not going to be
recognized.
Um, and it's.
It's a lot more.
It's.
(16:32):
It's.
It's a lot, it's a lot broader,it's a lot harder to put, to
kind of put your hands or yourmind around yeah and yeah, and,
and so one one.
I guess one, one concreteexample of management versus
leadership is that if you're, ifyou're, managing a team, if you
(16:55):
, if you have, if you have ateam under you, a manager is
going to just tell everybody Iwant you to do this, I want you
to do this, and sometimes eveneven going and doing the task
yourself.
And doing hands-on work issomething everybody needs to be
able to do.
So, as a manager, it's justvery tactical, very hands-on
(17:17):
either yourself or you'retelling people what to do.
A leader shares the vision withtheir team and says this is
where we we need to get to, andleaving it to the individuals to
decide how to get there.
Because why, why is somebody onyour team?
Why hire them if you don't, ifyou don't trust them to be good
(17:37):
thinkers, good doers, goodactors?
Um, it's.
It's also, it's also kind ofthe difference between mentoring
and well, maybe, managing andmentorship.
Mentorship is all aboutcoaching, management is about
here's what to do.
(17:57):
Very, very different, andmanaging is going to help
somebody in the moment, butmentorship and leadership is
going to help somebody become abetter version of themselves and
have a lot of follow-on effects.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
But yeah, when things feel hard and you're feeling
stressed, it's so easy to justslip back into management and
saying step aside, I'm going totake control here.
And that's actually something Iwrestle with all the time.
I've gotten a lot better at it,but my micromanagement
(18:33):
instincts admittedly still comeout, but it's gotten a lot
better, and I think that,especially now that I have
direct reports who are verysenior, very accomplished
themselves, directors and seniorand senior directors, I don't
need to, I I shouldn't have totell them what to do, and I
(18:54):
don't have to tell them what todo.
They're very, they're amazing,amazing people, but Even so,
it's still hard not tomicromanage sometimes, and that
is because of me, not because ofthem.
And so one way that I've dealtwith that is to be very
(19:17):
transparent, very humble aboutsharing this journey with them.
Sharing, sharing this, thisjourney with them.
Hey, so-and-so, I, I just wantyou to know that I, you know I'm
I'm trying really, really hardto be, be, be more hands-off and
and and allow you to own thisand empower you to own this.
(19:38):
So if I'm ever too hands-on,you just, you just tell me this
is, this is an ego-free zone,and being being transparent
about that and being part andmaking them part of your own
journey and your own learningprocess.
I think I think has been hasbeen very beneficial and it's
embarrassing how late, how latein my career, I learned that.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Oh, I think that's that is.
It's humble of you to say that.
I mean, I would say it's funny.
You mentioned that because I'vebeen thinking to myself lately.
I'm still learning that, right,like I'm still learning how to
say Devin, don't step in, don'tstep in.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
And take over.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Lead, help them grow.
We can get focused on it.
There's a requirement therethat you're also thinking about.
You're also thinking about thepeople.
You said something thatabsolutely needs to go on a
shirt I got to turn it into ashirt and I'll give you a cut of
the proceeds but you saidleadership is an act of humility
(20:45):
.
Wow, that is amazing.
That is absolutely amazingbecause that's exactly right.
Leadership is an act ofhumility.
Good leadership, anyway is anact of humility.
And when you're doing that,you're saying this isn't just
about me, it's about the thingand it's about the people
(21:11):
accomplishing the thing.
And and everybody has something, everybody, you know, you, you,
you.
You use the term the fullbenefit right.
Use the term full benefit.
Everybody needs to get the thethey need to get the full
benefit.
Everybody needs to get the fullbenefit.
Everybody needs to get the fullbenefit.
And when you're thinking I'mgoing to step in, I'm going to
take over this, then that meansthat you're not getting the full
(21:34):
benefit and neither is theperson that you're taking away
the responsibility from.
Neither of you are.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Yes, you are robbing them of the opportunity to learn
, to fail safely and to grow,and a good leader does not do
that.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
And that's not to say good leaders do not
occasionally slip up and act thewrong way or do things that
maybe they shouldn't be doing,but to keep that in mind and
practice it as much as possible,because you're not going to be
in a role forever.
You're not going to be theleader forever, and I think the
best thing that you can do as aleader is to help nurture the
(22:17):
next generation of leaders andto always have people who you
can lean back to and delegate to, because if you don't, not only
are they not getting theopportunity to grow into the
kind of leader that they want tobe, but it also prevents you
(22:41):
from ever being able to take abreak, because you're always the
bottleneck, you're always thelimiting factor, and that is not
a healthy system.
When that kind of thing is inplace about right now are things
that I learned the hard way byfailing myself.
A few things I've learned fromseeing what other people have
(23:08):
done in not the most optimalways, but this, I think, is a
journey that a lot of leadershave been on, and it's necessary
to always approach these, toapproach leadership life, your
career, looking at it in termsof abundance and opportunity and
(23:34):
optimism.
I'm not an optimistic person.
I think of myself more as apragmatic person.
Maybe those aren't mutuallyexclusive person, maybe those
aren't mutually exclusive, butyeah, I'm I.
I can't tell you how much I'vebeen raked over the coals this
year, but I've also learned morein these last 11 months than I
(23:55):
have any any other time in my inmy career.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
So that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yeah, definitely, definitely, full, full benefit
each, each and every day.
And and helping others get thefull benefit too, but making it
easier on them, if I can.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
That that is.
That is one of the things thatI think makes makes for a good
leader is being willing to admithey, I didn't do this so well.
It makes you a great leader ifyou can admit to your team you
(24:32):
didn't do something well.
We've talked about the need forvision.
You mentioned that earlier.
The need for vision you got youknow.
To be a leader, you have to beable to share vision.
You know I wrote a piece onthis that will come out soon.
(24:54):
Just on the topic of leadership,I've written actually a couple
of pieces, but one of the thingsI talk about is the term
leadership.
It's kind of embedded in theterm.
Leading is embedded in the termand it requires you to have
(25:14):
somewhere that you're trying togo.
It requires you to have that.
There is something inherent tobeing a leader that requires you
to have a place you're tryingto go and to actually engage in
the act of helping other peopleget there as well, to try to
(25:35):
accomplish something of worth.
And so many times I myself andI've watched other folks fail to
paint the picture of wherewe're going and why it's worth
putting in the effort to getthere.
That's such a hard thing, Ithink, for some folks to get
(25:57):
that this isn't just a business,it's not just a business
function, we're not just chasingnumbers.
You have to be able to motivatepeople to go towards something
that's worth getting out of bedfor in the morning, and if you
can't do that, in my opinion,you cannot be an effective
leader.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
If you can't do that find your own meaning and being
able to communicate why the workis meaningful and helping
others identify how can theyfind meaning and connection from
the work that you're doing.
Being able to do that, I think,is also a really important part
(26:35):
of leadership, because puttingyour hours and your days and
your labor into something that'snot meaningful is it's
unfortunate.
I know that there's a lot ofpeople who have to just go out
and get work done, but for thoseof us who are privileged to
(26:58):
have careers and vocations wherewe can find meaning and we're
able to do it, primarily becausewe feel personally connected to
it, that it's something whichreally speaks to our souls.
You need to be able to do thatin order to be a good leader,
because otherwise you'remodeling the wrong motivations,
(27:20):
the wrong behaviors, but alsohelping other people finding
their own meaning and the wholeconcept of meaningful work is
why I've spent my entire careerin financial services.
Financial services and, morespecifically, well using my
(27:41):
talents as an experiencedpractitioner, as a thinking and
caring person, to enable peopleto have a healthy and informed
relationship with their money iswhy I do this, because what I
learned in financial serviceschanged my life.
It didn't just accelerate mycareer.
(28:02):
It changed my life and that iswhy I've done it for almost 30
years.
That's why I didn't go toGoogle or Meta or Amazon All
really, really great, greatplaces to work.
Do not get me wrong.
But the meaning for me was infinancial services, and one of
my favorite things that I've hadthe chance to do in my current
(28:26):
role is not just the awesomeprojects that we're doing, all
the great clients that we workwith, but connecting with our
early careers people and beingable to show them and have them
feel themselves.
Why.
Why financial services is suchan important thing, why this is.
(28:48):
This is where they might wantto consider not only not only
putting their talent towardsfinancial services, but being
educated and being aware ofthemselves and taking power over
their own financial lives and II've been.
That was.
That was definitely one of thebiggest accomplishments.
(29:09):
I think the thing, the thingthat I that I'm most proud of
this year um, I was.
I was in boston last week andwe had our holiday party there
and I got to.
You know, I got to.
I got to interact with many ofour senior officers and a lot of
very powerful and influentialpeople, but my favorite
(29:47):
conversations were with theearly careers people who said,
when you took us out to lunchand told us about investing and
why we need to do this and whywe need to learn about money, I
am inspired to buy a house.
I was inspired to open up myvery first brokerage account.
I started a robo-investingaccount and that just makes me
so happy.
Not because money makes theworld go round, although some
people would say it does, butbecause money isn't money, it's
(30:07):
not riches, it's choice, it'sopportunity and it's and it's
and it's it's power the power tolive your life as you want, the
power to make decisions and thepower to have um agency over
over where you live, what you do, who, who you engage with.
(30:27):
It's very, very important.
A brokerage account andcontinuously invest allowed me,
20 plus years later to takecontrol of my life and just flip
(30:52):
the table, put everythingbehind me and start anew on the
opposite coast, so moving fromSan Francisco to Charlotte.
Sorry about that was there was acat that just, uh, batted it
down.
Sorry about that.
I hope I didn't ruin yourpodcast oh no, not at all.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Just make sure you frame yourself.
Frame yourself in the middle,if you can okay, that'll that'll
.
That'll get taken out inediting oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, it'll be all good.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
These animals had better behave, that's all I have
to say.
Um, so, so, being being beingable to get out of a of a bad
situation and, um, being able toto restart my life the way that
I wanted to, is a direct resultof taking control of money and
(31:50):
understanding what it means,what it can do, what it can't do
.
Until I was pretty well into myfirst job after college, I had
very, very limited means.
My family immigrated to theUnited States, raised by a
(32:16):
single parent, really had very,very little, but I did have a
lot of support and a lot ofopportunities that I recognized
that influential people aroundme recognized that I needed to
go after, and so even evengetting to the point where I was
able to identify this issomething I need to do.
(32:37):
I need, I need to understandmoney and how to and how to, how
to make it work.
For me was also a position ofprivilege, because not everybody
is able to even get to thatpoint, let alone to all of the
other points that cameafterwards.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah, no, I definitely have enjoyed hearing
your story and to see where youcame from and I do think that
that influences.
I do think that influences, uh,how you, how you lead, in some
ways, just kind of knowing youknow the, the, the path that
you've taken, um, uh, to getwhere you are.
(33:16):
And I, I, I think that some ofthat you know in, you know, like
that kind of stuff developsgrit.
Right, it develops grit, itdevelops the ability to push
through stuff.
And I'm interested in hearingfrom you just how you think
about the necessity.
(33:38):
Is it necessary actually to gothrough adversity to be a good
leader?
Do you think it's necessary?
Speaker 1 (33:49):
No, I don't think it's necessary.
In fact, I'm not one toadvocate suffering.
I don't think.
Well, I went through a hardtime.
Everyone else needs to have ahard time.
If they have an easy time, thentheir leadership and their
lessons mean less.
No, I do not think it'snecessary.
A lot of people do go throughthat and there's a lot of people
(34:09):
who go through difficult times,who go through difficult
struggles that aren't able toextract the lessons and benefits
of it.
I think that it's entirelypossible to be a good leader and
I think that there's examplesof this to be a good leader by
having a caring family where youalways had more than more than,
(34:31):
and you had a lot ofopportunities and things seem to
come easy Easier.
Yeah, I think anybody, in anysituation has the potential to
be a good leader, but there isdefinitely, I mean, I think.
I think anybody in any situationhas the potential to be a good
leader, but there is definitely.
I mean, I think in some waysthere's definitely the benefit
of the struggle.
(34:51):
You're kind of forced to learncertain lessons that happen to
be very valuable.
But there's also a lot to besaid into having an easier path
in life, because then you canfocus a lot more directly and
inconsistently on your goals andthe vision that you have for
your own life.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, I think that it's interesting.
So I've spent a lot of timethinking about this and going
through hard things in my ownlife and there were years where
it just felt like I was at war.
You know, I was at war everyday and I noticed when I got out
of those struggles, um, Inoticed that, like you know,
(35:36):
because I remember while while Iwas in those struggles, um,
it's very hard.
It's very hard while you're inthat struggle to think far ahead
.
You're thinking about making it, making it to the next day or
the next week or the next month.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yes, Um or the next hour.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Right, yeah, you're, you're not thinking about.
Uh, you know where you're goingto be in five years.
You're not necessarily thinkingabout.
You may dream about some ofthat stuff.
It's not like it's impossible,but it's really hard.
It's really hard to think toofar into the future.
It's hard to spend a lot oftime reflecting when you're in
(36:14):
war mode.
Out of that, I realize thedifference between wartime and
peacetime, if you will.
Peacetime is when you can grow,it's when you can build, it's
when you can achieve new heights, and it's a different purpose
and they both have their purpose.
When I was in wartime, I thoughtyou know, man, people who have
(36:39):
it easy.
You know, like you know, I kindof had that attitude man, you
got it easy.
Like you're soft, like youdon't have, you know they.
You know, like you know I kindof had that attitude man, you
got, you got it easy Like you'resoft, like you.
You don't have, you know, youdon't have the ability to make
it through something like this.
And I started to.
I started to look at it as asan end unto itself and I
(37:00):
realized it's like there's valuein learning how to go through
adversity, and I do that.
That's a part of life animportant thing, because
everybody's going to face somekind of adversity in their life.
But peacetime is when you canreally grow and build and use
the lessons you learned throughthe struggle.
And if you, if you uh idolize,if you idolize that, that sort
(37:21):
of that wartime mentality, youcan never, you can never really
make the gains.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
That's right.
I mean the the rest is, as is,as important as as the labor.
When you're, when you'reweightlifting, your muscles are
not going to grow unless, unlessyou have that, that rest time
between sets, or not going tothe gym every day because you
can't you can't lift weightsevery day your muscles are not
going to develop in a in a not anon-physical sense.
(37:52):
Um, the whole reason for a dayof rest is so you can be
refreshed, be reinvigorated togo out and do good work, because
you can't just work, work, work.
You need to be committed to therest, and I'm speaking as
(38:15):
someone who has overworkedmyself pretty much my entire
life and only very recently,like this year, that I realize
rest exists for a reason.
It's a necessary part ofexistence, just as going to work
and working on the house ordoing anything.
(38:37):
You need to have that time torest and to reflect and to just
get re-energized, and that goesfor physical rest as well as
mental rest.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah, I agree, I fully agree, and I think that
the other thing about that isthat I've thought about, in
thinking, is struggle necessaryto be a good leader?
You know, is struggle necessaryto be a good leader?
I've, I've thought about the,the fact that a lot of the, a
(39:19):
lot of the, the gains that I had, um, from adversity, uh, or,
and, and, gains in, in, in, youknow, wisdom and and, and, uh,
any ability that that I may haveto lead, I'll leave that to
others to judge.
But um, uh, any ability thatthat I may have to lead, I'll
leave that to others to judge.
But um, uh, it came from.
It came from people pouringinto me.
It came from people pouringinto me.
I didn't.
There were things that that, um,you know, I think I learned
(39:42):
from adversity, but a lot of, alot of gains came from know.
You talked about a great boss,great leader that you had.
It was the same for me.
You know it's.
You know, I look back on my, onmy life and a lot of the things
that I learned about leadershipI learned from watching
somebody be a great leader yeahyou know, and and I still, to
(40:07):
this day, can rattle off thingsthat, that, uh, you know, best
boss I ever had, um, you know,like he would say things.
You said something earlier abouttrusting people, right?
I remember one of the thingsthat he used to say, uh, was
manage yourself.
He's like, if I, uh, I'm, youknow, I'm not, um, I'm not here
(40:28):
to stand over your shoulder.
Uh, I don't care where you work.
Uh.
Or, you know, as long as youget your stuff done, I don't
care where you work, I don'tcare when you take time off.
He's like I expect you to be aresponsible adult.
Um, and he, you know, he's likeI don't care if you work from
home a% of the time.
If I can't trust you to workfrom home, I can't trust you to
work here.
Why did I hire you?
(40:50):
You know if I need to worryabout that.
And he would always.
I remember he had a rule he'sdon't come.
Don't come to me asking forpermission.
Don't come to me asking forpermission.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Make defensible decisions and if I came to him.
That's a good point.
Yeah, that is a really goodpoint because if you're making
(41:33):
all of the decisions, thenyou're taking away agency from
other people, and it's soimportant, for I mean no matter
if you're the let me start over.
So requiring everybody to askfor permission is very damaging,
and when somebody comes to mewith an issue, I want them to
come with at least thebeginnings of a solution or what
have they tried.
And when I go to my leadership,I make sure that I always have
(41:59):
at least the outline of apotential solution.
That solution could be entirelyincorrect, but it shows
initiative and it shows that youare taking ownership of how to
make things better.
And anybody who insists thattheir team comes to them with
(42:22):
permission and that theythemselves need to be the
arbiter of solutions is not aleader.
They are a manager.
Even if their title is ceo,they are a mere manager and
they're not a leader.
And back back to something else.
You said that the the importanceof having people who've poured
into you ongoing, ongoing,meaningful success, is a team
(42:48):
sport.
It's not something you can do onyour own.
It's not something you shoulddo on your own.
The whole reason you have ateam, the whole reason you live
in a community, is becauseeveryone has something to learn
and everyone has something toteach and contribute.
And a leader identifies whatare the strengths and what are
(43:09):
the the contributions that otherpeople could make, and what are
the things that that yourselfare most capable of, what are
the things that that youyourself need to learn, and
where and where and from whomcan you learn that?
Um, and, and I I think, I thinkwhen you take that approach and
you recognize that everybodyhas something to teach you, you
(43:32):
often discover that they havestrengths and things to teach
that you didn't even realize.
And when they feel empowered,when they feel trusted, when
they feel safe, then they'regoing to show you more of
themselves, and the more youknow about people, the better
you can connect with them andthe better you can lead.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Go ahead.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
I was going to say.
I feel very much that I am thesummation of all of the amazing
people I have known in my life.
One of the things that I wish Iwould have pursued is
mentorship.
I wish I would have had amentor.
I haven't had.
I didn't get the mentor untilvery, very late in my career.
(44:17):
But hey, better late than never.
And so because of that, Iintentionally mentor a lot of
people maybe not a lot of people, I'd say I have five mentees
right now and that mentorship isso important for success.
And I encourage my mentees tohave other mentors too, because
(44:41):
what I can teach is notnecessarily what someone else
can teach is not necessarilywhat someone else can teach.
Mentorship is one of the mostimportant ingredients for
success, because if someone canlay out a path that worked for
them, you can start to imaginesomething that would work for
you, and if that person issomeone who you can personally
(45:06):
relate to, then that can be evenmore powerful.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
How does someone make themselves attractive to a
mentor?
Speaker 1 (45:18):
I wouldn't say attractive to a mentor.
Well, you mean as a mentee, assomebody seeking out a mentor.
Right out a mentor, right, I Idon't necessarily think they
need to be an attractive mentee,but they need to understand
that they, that they ultimatelyown their path and that they
ultimately own that mentormentee relationship.
(45:39):
So so, seeking out a mentor andsaying, hey, I would, I would
really appreciate yourleadership.
And and also be specific, whyare you seeking this person out
as a mentor and then also havinga clear and articulate story
about what's something which you, as a mentee, are interested in
(46:02):
, what are ways that you want togrow, what are some ways you
would like to work with thementor?
So, putting a bit of effort inand having that grounded in
openness and introspection and,of course, humility, a theme
which seems to be coming upagain and again and I think that
(46:24):
seeking out a mentorshiprelationship is a form of
leadership you are leadingyourself to a better place.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
That, hey, I like that, I like that.
And again, I mean, when we talkabout leading others, there is
a necessary component of beingan example.
Right, there's a necessarycomponent of being a modeling.
What you're hoping others willdo and that's why you can be a
(46:56):
leader, no matter what yourposition is is because you can
model that, regardless of whereyou are.
And I've noticed that I startedgetting promotions when I was
(47:31):
working for others the thingsnecessary to make the
organization work for everybody,to care about, the things that
kept the lights on that's when Istarted getting offered
positions of leadership wasbecause I wasn't chasing after a
position of leadership.
(47:54):
I was saying, hey, I want tomake sure that I understand how
this works, or I rememberanother great boss that I had.
(48:15):
He said you get promoted afteryou're already demonstrating
that you can do the work.
That's true, yeah, and Iremember just I started to learn
about business.
I started to learn about whatkeeps the lights on, and that's
what wound up getting me.
I remember two big milestonesin my career.
It was because I started caringabout the business of what we
did and wanting to help withmaking the business work that
(48:38):
you know.
The response from those leaderswas thank God, somebody else
who actually cares about thiscome up here.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Yeah, yeah, that's.
That's that's why, that's whyputting your efforts in, in
focusing yourself on somethingthat has meaning to you, is so
critical.
You need, you need, you need toreally care, you really need to
be able to, to connect yourselfto it.
And this, this same awesomemanager, leader, leader that I
(49:05):
had, who taught me the value ofhumility, also said when he,
when he, when he hires people,what he looks for is not
necessarily their hard skill,but, as he said and I hope you
can bleep this out that theyhave a high give-a-shit factor,
which is, which is veryimportant, the person.
People need to care, becauseit's it's so much easier and so
(49:28):
much more rewarding to lead ateam who cares about the similar
things that you do, that youboth care about the mission that
you are on, together, workingtowards this vision, that you
both understand and that youboth care about.
You both care about.
(49:52):
And so, even though you can andshould seek to be a leader, no
matter what your position is,there is something which is
fundamentally different inleadership at a higher level
versus at a lower level.
At a higher level, your actionsand your words and your, your
behaviors have so much moreimpact and amplification, and so
you need to be very, verythoughtful, intentional, mindful
(50:17):
and careful about what you weredoing and saying at all times.
And you know that that thatgoes not only for outward things
Like you can't gripe to people,you can't gripe to your team
but there's also some internalthings, and this is what was
(50:41):
harder for me.
Even though I consider myself anintrovert, I'm still very
social and I love connectionswith people, and that's actually
the most important thing for me.
Wherever I'm working, noteverybody wants to be friends
with the boss.
You're going to come out of aconference room and everyone
(51:02):
else will have gone out fordrinks or for dinner and they
didn't invite you becauseEveryone else will have gone out
for drinks or for dinner andthey didn't invite you because
the dynamic of having the bossthere is just not as comfortable
and you also get recognized alot less and the rewards of a
job well done are much fewer andfurther between than if you're
(51:23):
an individual contributor andyou've designed something great,
you've written this amazingarticle or you have created the
ultimate PowerPoint, just forexample.
You don't, you don't get, youdon't, you don't get those those
kinds of rewards as leaders.
It comes.
It can be weeks or months oreven years before you get the
(51:43):
acknowledgement that that yourwork is appreciated, and so
being able to personally connectand find meaning in the work
that you're doing yourself isanother reason why that's so
important as a leader, becauseyou're probably not going to get
the recognition you hope for.
So you have to have the meaningand satisfaction within
(52:06):
yourself, and that, to me, was areally, really difficult
adjustment.
I'll just admit that.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
Yeah, I totally get that and I think that is, in my
opinion, some of the secretsauce of great leadership is
having that intrinsic meaningand motivation.
You know, one of the things Iused to tell my teams is that I
(52:35):
design because I look at designas a way to improve people's
lives.
The reason I'm in design isbecause I look at it as a way to
improve people's lives.
I can make somebody's lifebetter just by making a simple
interaction easier or moreenjoyable.
I can have an impact on theirday and if I do that enough, I
(52:56):
can have an impact on, you know,on their month, on their year,
on their life.
And you know when I look atthat and what I was doing and
telling them that I was tryingto convey and to impart to them
a reason to ascribe meaning tothe work that they were doing.
Yeah, I get that we might not becuring cancer all the time here
(53:20):
right, we're probably nevercuring cancer here but that
doesn't mean that your workisn't significant and that it
doesn't have meaning.
And when you have meaning toyour work, you are able to keep
going in spite of not gettingthe pat on the back or getting
(53:41):
the accolade in front ofeverybody else, because the
reason you're doing it is not tohave somebody clap.
The reason you're doing it isbecause of the effect that the
work has on somebody else's life, and that's there whether
anybody claps or not.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
Yeah, it's more in intrinsic motivation, and again
it's humility, motivation andagain is humility.
You can't go into anything likethat in a prideful way.
You need to see it as an act ofservice.
(54:22):
You need to see it as your verysmall contribution to something
which, hopefully, will becomemuch larger.
Speaker 2 (54:26):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Jennifer, this has been fantastic.
Tell, tell folks where they canfind you, how can they connect
with you.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
I am on LinkedIn.
You can find me, jenniferBorchardt, on LinkedIn, and you
can also.
You can also find me at my inmy, my current, my current,
where I'm working.
Now, that consulting firm I'mgoing to say what it is is a
wonderful organization calledPublicis Sapient and I yeah, you
(55:00):
can find me there.
Look for me on LinkedIn.
Do not Google me, because whatcomes up first is not something
that I'm, that is not me.
But go on LinkedIn, jenniferBorshard.
Look on LinkedIn, the digitaltransformation leader at
Publicis Apiant.
That is me.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Awesome, awesome.
Speaker 1 (55:21):
I'm not really on social media.
I've kind of phased that out ofmy life.
So LinkedIn is probably thebest place for people to find me
.
I'm always posting open roles,so if you're looking for a job,
you should follow me, because Ipost dozens of roles a day.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
I can attest to that.
I follow Jennifer on LinkedIn.
She was always posting roles in.
She was always posting rolesand I know that if business ever
doesn't go the way I want it togo, I know whose door I'm
knocking on.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
Yeah, I mean, I may be knocking on your door one day
, who knows?
The world is full ofopportunity and also uncertainty
.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
Indeed indeed, jennifer.
Thank you so much for being onthe show.
Speaker 1 (56:10):
Thank you, thank you for having me.
This has been a great, greatexperience.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (56:15):
Awesome, all right, what a great conversation that
we had with Jennifer.
I really appreciate her beingwilling to come on the show and
to talk about this, especiallyfrom her perspective, having
worked at such largeorganizations and getting to see
(56:36):
things work at scale and beingable to help people to grow
their careers.
I love her insights and herphilosophy around hiring and I
think that everybody could takea note from that to look beyond
just the resume, to look beyondjust the normal qualifications
and look at the aptitude of theperson, look at the personality
(56:58):
there and then let them shine,let them do their thing.
But being a leader obviouslyrequires you.
It requires you to be willingto do things without having the
certainty of whether or not it'sgoing to work, and that's one
of the things that's going toset you apart from being just a
manager as opposed to being aleader.
So if you enjoyed what youheard here, what you saw here, I
(57:22):
would really appreciate it ifyou shared it with somebody that
you think could get somethingout of it.
Maybe, I don't know, maybedon't share it with your boss,
that's probably going to landyou in hot water, but you could
send that to some of yourcolleagues and you know, give it
a like, give it a subscribe and, until next time, keep out
serving your competition on yourrelentless pursuit to become an
(57:46):
experienced leader.
See you next time.
So, as a manager, it's just very tactical, very
hands-on either yourself oryou're telling people what to do
.
A leader shares the vision withtheir team and says this is
where we need to get to, andleaving it to the individuals to
decide how to get there.
Because why is somebody on yourteam?
Why hire them if you don'ttrust them to be good thinkers,
(00:25):
good doers, good actors?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Do you wanna de-commoditize your products and
services?
Do you wanna become adestination brand, increase your
revenue and have more controlover your pricing?
Well, you're in the right place.
Each week, we'll talk about howto create great customer
experiences and how to orientyour company to enable them.
I'm your host, Devin Smith, andthis is the Experience Leader
(00:55):
Podcast.
Welcome back, everybody.
I am so excited to bring thisnew episode to you.
We are talking to an old friendof mine, old colleague of mine,
Jennifer Borshart.
(01:15):
She and I have worked togetherin the banking industry and her
career has just taken askyrocket ever since she moved
on from the place that we bothworked and it's been really
exciting to see her get to dobig things.
And she was kind enough to comeon the show because we're
talking about leadership.
It's one of the things thatI've discovered, is one of the
(01:37):
things we don't have enough of,and maybe we'll never have
enough of it, but we need moreleaders instead of having a lot
of managers.
So, without further ado, here'sJennifer Borchardt.
Jennifer, thanks so much forbeing on the show.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
How are you doing this morning Good.
Thank you so much for having me.
I've really been lookingforward to this conversation.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Absolutely.
I.
You know so people, so thateverybody knows Jennifer and I
we go way back to really mystart in the product world.
We worked together at a bigbank I don't know if we're
allowed to say the name of thebank.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
A giant bank.
We'll just leave it at that.
A giant bank.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
We worked together at a giant bank.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yes, leave a little something to the imagination.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yes, yes, but that's where we got the opportunity to
meet and I was so, so impressedwith how smart and intelligent a
designer that you are, andobviously your career has has
shot off like a rocket sincethen.
So it's been.
That's been very cool to watch.
(02:50):
Tell everybody a little bitabout what you're doing right
now.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Well, right now I am working for a I don't know if
we're allowed to mention companyname, so I'll just say I work
for a large global digitaltransformation consultancy and I
lead the experience practicefor financial services in North
America which covers well, Iguess it'd be Central America
(03:18):
too.
So Canada, united States, whichis the biggest, and then
expanding into Central America,central and South America.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Wow, wow.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I've been in this role for just under a year In
January it'll be a year and it'sbeen an exciting ride this last
year.
I manage a large team of very,very talented, experienced
practitioners across a number ofpractices.
A lot of them are experiencedesign, but then also UI, visual
(03:49):
design, research, cx strategyand insights um design
operations the whole thing andin my in my career I've been
fortunate to have had experienceworking across all of those
crafts, and so now I now Ioversee a team that does amazing
(04:10):
work in all of those crafts.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Very exciting.
That is.
That is amazing.
You know, back back back in theday you know I was, I was still
more junior than you and stillI still consider myself more
junior than you.
In my career you have soared tosuch great heights, but it was
interesting to me to see how thepath that you took into
(04:41):
leadership you stayed in thefinancial space but, but you
know the things that you woundup influencing, wound up
expanding beyond design, whichis which is you know I, I did
some of the, some of the samestuff there, just because I
don't know, it was kind of hardto keep my, my hands out all the
(05:03):
, all the different spots.
I just care about so manydifferent areas of the business
and people have trusted me witha lot of things over the years,
and same for you.
What was it like going you knowwhen?
Because you worked at anotherbig bank after you worked at
another big bank, after you knowwe both worked at the giant
(05:24):
bank uh, yes, I've worked at alot of big banks a few of them
what, what you know, tell me,tell me about uh, what you saw
uh as you started to move up theranks.
Um, what, what you saw uh as faras uh leadership goes, and, and
(05:47):
, and how you tried to uh.
You know the lessons that youlearned while you were an
individual contributor that youtry to take into uh being a
leader well, um, the way thatone leads there.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
There, there are a lot of things that remain
fundamentally consistent, forexample, being a leader rather
than just a manager, and thereare definitely situations where
you need to manage versus whereyou need to lead.
It varies based on the companyculture, on the maturity of the
organization.
(06:24):
It varies based on the companyculture, on the maturity of the
organization, and even largecompanies can be not mature in
some very important ways.
It also matters very much.
The way that you practiceleadership matters very much on
who you're working with, who'son your team, and the
opportunities and strengths ofyour team, particularly those
(06:46):
who are reporting directly toyou.
As I've gone up the ranks, asyou say, the way that I lead and
the way that I have to lead isvery different.
So what I'm doing now in a verysenior leadership role is much,
much different than when I wasleading individual contributors
(07:09):
at that large bank, and so, yeah, it's continuously an
adjustment and, on one hand,I've been able to take the
lessons from when I was anindividual contributor, when I
was actively designing, but alsohaving to adjust my approach to
(07:35):
use listening and speaking indifferent proportions.
I actually find that I'mspeaking a lot less listening, a
lot more in my senior role thanI did when I was an individual
contributor, and changingexpectations is certainly it has
(07:58):
certainly been very important,and something that I realized
back when I was at my last largebank job a few years ago is the
importance of knowing at whataltitude you need to be working
at.
There are times where it's verynecessary to be in the weeds,
(08:19):
although if you have a strongteam that you've empowered, that
you trust, you don't need to bein the weeds quite so much.
But there are definitely timeswhere you have to be at the you
know the, the 50 000 footaltitude and be able to look
broadly, think, thinkstrategically and provide
(08:40):
guidance rather than management.
I liken it to navigating akayak.
If you're like a beginningmanager or maybe a project lead,
you have to always be doing alot of adjustments, a lot of
(09:02):
very, very active movementVersus.
At my level, it's more likesteering a cargo ship or
steering a cruise ship, becausethey're just broader, you know
broader impact you have to haveand also being able to code,
switch, speak differently, craftnot only the actual
(09:27):
communication but thecommunication style based on who
you're working with.
Working in, consulting, you'realways working with different
personalities, differentpersonalities within your team,
different personalities withinthe other capabilities that are
outside of experience, andcertainly different different
personalities, approaches,cultures, um, ways of working in
(09:50):
, um, in different conversationswith clients, and that has,
yeah, yeah, it's, um, it's, it's.
It's a little overwhelming whenI when I sit and think about it
, because there are there aredays where I just I feel like
I'm kind of just, you know,putting on my scuba gear and
(10:11):
diving into the waves, just justgoing, just going, just going
right into battle.
And at my lat, in my last role,which was, which was also a
consulting firm, a large firmbut but not nearly as large as
where I'm working now I learneda very apt way of thinking about
(10:36):
the challenges that we faceevery day.
I worked with a lot of peoplewho had been in the military,
and the example that this persongave was that, when you're
going into a very difficultsituation, to not think about it
, as this is going to bedifficult, this is not something
(10:56):
, this is going to be hard,excruciating, what have you, but
rather you are about to get thefull benefit of the challenge
and seeing situations ahead ofyou would sometimes feel
impossibly hard.
Reframing it as you're about tolearn something, you're about
to get the full benefit of allof the challenges ahead of you,
(11:22):
is a lot more productive andit's a lot more constructive.
It makes you open and humble toall of the challenges that lie
ahead and what it feels like tocome against the edges of your
own limitations, which I thinkis always very important to do.
(11:45):
We are capable of so much waymore than we might think, and
we're going to succeed a lotmore than we think.
And we're also going to fail alot more than we might expect.
And I believe that if you'renot coming up to the edge of
your capabilities, even if thoselimitations are self-inflicted,
(12:07):
we're not growing.
And this goes for life ingeneral, not just at work.
And yeah, I'm thinking a lot ofthe things I do in my leisure
time definitely bleed into myapproach as as a leader at work.
(12:27):
So I'm I'm a rock climber.
I've been doing rock climbingfor over 20 years now.
I'm an instructor, um for for,for people who are older like me
and um, you know, making,making a, making a, a shift into
a physically and and uh,physically and intellectually
sometimes challenging um hobbylike rock climbing um.
(12:50):
You always, if you're gonnalearn, if you're gonna keep
getting better, you always haveto be falling.
You always have to be goingbeyond your um, going going
beyond your, your, yourcapabilities, and definitely
have used that a lot, especiallyin this new role, which has
been challenging every singleday, and I am grateful for the
(13:12):
challenge.
I go into the full benefit eachand every day.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Full benefit.
That's interesting languagethere and definitely targeted
towards reframing the mind,obviously, into thinking, okay,
there's something to get out ofthis which is good.
It's one of the things that I'mcurious about.
(13:40):
You've talked about some of thestuff that you've taken into it
, and one of the things you andI've talked about offline is how
rare you know you mentionedsomething earlier how rare it is
to find leaders rather thanmanagers, and that's not to talk
(14:02):
about it in an arrogant way,because you know you've been on
both sides of it.
Right, we've both been on bothsides of it.
Why do you think it is thatit's so rare to find somebody
who can lead rather than justmanage?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Well, leadership is very hard and leadership also
exists where people may notexpect it to be.
You can be a leader whereveryou are, whoever you are,
regardless of your title,regardless of where you are in
the organization, there's alwaysopportunities to lead.
(14:46):
Managing, I think, is a lotmore tactical.
You are taking control, orempowering somebody to take
control of very discrete tasksor opportunities, and there's a
lot of satisfaction inmanagement the satisfaction, the
(15:07):
joy of a job well done.
As a leader, you don't have thesame reward system and it can
be very hard to do that.
Management is, I think, verymuch an ego-filled endeavor.
You are taking charge and doingsomething.
(15:28):
You are telling people what todo.
Leadership is an act of humility, and humility is something that
I think a lot of people, myselfincluded, have to continuously
develop over time.
And leadership is something youhave to do consistently.
(15:50):
You can't just do it for anhour, for the duration of a
project, for the duration of arole, but it's something you
need to do every moment of yourlife and think am I doing the
next right thing?
And, by the way, the wholething about always doing the
next right thing?
And, by the way, the wholething about always doing the
next right thing is somethingwhich I can credit to my manager
or my leader, my people leaderat my previous role.
(16:11):
That's something I always thinkabout.
Leadership is setting a goodexample.
Leadership is doing the rightthing when maybe it feels like
it doesn't matter, when you knowyou're not going to be
recognized.
Um, and it's.
It's a lot more.
It's.
(16:32):
It's.
It's a lot, it's a lot broader,it's a lot harder to put, to
kind of put your hands or yourmind around yeah and yeah, and,
and so one one.
I guess one, one concreteexample of management versus
leadership is that if you're, ifyou're, managing a team, if you
(16:55):
, if you have, if you have ateam under you, a manager is
going to just tell everybody Iwant you to do this, I want you
to do this, and sometimes eveneven going and doing the task
yourself.
And doing hands-on work issomething everybody needs to be
able to do.
So, as a manager, it's justvery tactical, very hands-on
(17:17):
either yourself or you'retelling people what to do.
A leader shares the vision withtheir team and says this is
where we we need to get to, andleaving it to the individuals to
decide how to get there.
Because why, why is somebody onyour team?
Why hire them if you don't, ifyou don't trust them to be good
(17:37):
thinkers, good doers, goodactors?
Um, it's.
It's also, it's also kind ofthe difference between mentoring
and well, maybe, managing andmentorship.
Mentorship is all aboutcoaching, management is about
here's what to do.
(17:57):
Very, very different, andmanaging is going to help
somebody in the moment, butmentorship and leadership is
going to help somebody become abetter version of themselves and
have a lot of follow-on effects.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
But yeah, when things feel hard and you're feeling
stressed, it's so easy to justslip back into management and
saying step aside, I'm going totake control here.
And that's actually something Iwrestle with all the time.
I've gotten a lot better at it,but my micromanagement
(18:33):
instincts admittedly still comeout, but it's gotten a lot
better, and I think that,especially now that I have
direct reports who are verysenior, very accomplished
themselves, directors and seniorand senior directors, I don't
need to, I I shouldn't have totell them what to do, and I
(18:54):
don't have to tell them what todo.
They're very, they're amazing,amazing people, but Even so,
it's still hard not tomicromanage sometimes, and that
is because of me, not because ofthem.
And so one way that I've dealtwith that is to be very
(19:17):
transparent, very humble aboutsharing this journey with them.
Sharing, sharing this, thisjourney with them.
Hey, so-and-so, I, I just wantyou to know that I, you know I'm
I'm trying really, really hardto be, be, be more hands-off and
and and allow you to own thisand empower you to own this.
(19:38):
So if I'm ever too hands-on,you just, you just tell me this
is, this is an ego-free zone,and being being transparent
about that and being part andmaking them part of your own
journey and your own learningprocess.
I think I think has been hasbeen very beneficial and it's
embarrassing how late, how latein my career, I learned that.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Oh, I think that's that is.
It's humble of you to say that.
I mean, I would say it's funny.
You mentioned that because I'vebeen thinking to myself lately.
I'm still learning that, right,like I'm still learning how to
say Devin, don't step in, don'tstep in.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
And take over.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Lead, help them grow.
We can get focused on it.
There's a requirement therethat you're also thinking about.
You're also thinking about thepeople.
You said something thatabsolutely needs to go on a
shirt I got to turn it into ashirt and I'll give you a cut of
the proceeds but you saidleadership is an act of humility
(20:45):
.
Wow, that is amazing.
That is absolutely amazingbecause that's exactly right.
Leadership is an act ofhumility.
Good leadership, anyway is anact of humility.
And when you're doing that,you're saying this isn't just
about me, it's about the thingand it's about the people
(21:11):
accomplishing the thing.
And and everybody has something, everybody, you know, you, you,
you.
You use the term the fullbenefit right.
Use the term full benefit.
Everybody needs to get the thethey need to get the full
benefit.
Everybody needs to get the fullbenefit.
Everybody needs to get the fullbenefit.
And when you're thinking I'mgoing to step in, I'm going to
take over this, then that meansthat you're not getting the full
(21:34):
benefit and neither is theperson that you're taking away
the responsibility from.
Neither of you are.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Yes, you are robbing them of the opportunity to learn
, to fail safely and to grow,and a good leader does not do
that.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
And that's not to say good leaders do not
occasionally slip up and act thewrong way or do things that
maybe they shouldn't be doing,but to keep that in mind and
practice it as much as possible,because you're not going to be
in a role forever.
You're not going to be theleader forever, and I think the
best thing that you can do as aleader is to help nurture the
(22:17):
next generation of leaders andto always have people who you
can lean back to and delegate to, because if you don't, not only
are they not getting theopportunity to grow into the
kind of leader that they want tobe, but it also prevents you
(22:41):
from ever being able to take abreak, because you're always the
bottleneck, you're always thelimiting factor, and that is not
a healthy system.
When that kind of thing is inplace about right now are things
that I learned the hard way byfailing myself.
A few things I've learned fromseeing what other people have
(23:08):
done in not the most optimalways, but this, I think, is a
journey that a lot of leadershave been on, and it's necessary
to always approach these, toapproach leadership life, your
career, looking at it in termsof abundance and opportunity and
(23:34):
optimism.
I'm not an optimistic person.
I think of myself more as apragmatic person.
Maybe those aren't mutuallyexclusive person, maybe those
aren't mutually exclusive, butyeah, I'm I.
I can't tell you how much I'vebeen raked over the coals this
year, but I've also learned morein these last 11 months than I
(23:55):
have any any other time in my inmy career.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
So that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yeah, definitely, definitely, full, full benefit
each, each and every day.
And and helping others get thefull benefit too, but making it
easier on them, if I can.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
That that is.
That is one of the things thatI think makes makes for a good
leader is being willing to admithey, I didn't do this so well.
It makes you a great leader ifyou can admit to your team you
(24:32):
didn't do something well.
We've talked about the need forvision.
You mentioned that earlier.
The need for vision you got youknow.
To be a leader, you have to beable to share vision.
You know I wrote a piece onthis that will come out soon.
(24:54):
Just on the topic of leadership,I've written actually a couple
of pieces, but one of the thingsI talk about is the term
leadership.
It's kind of embedded in theterm.
Leading is embedded in the termand it requires you to have
(25:14):
somewhere that you're trying togo.
It requires you to have that.
There is something inherent tobeing a leader that requires you
to have a place you're tryingto go and to actually engage in
the act of helping other peopleget there as well, to try to
(25:35):
accomplish something of worth.
And so many times I myself andI've watched other folks fail to
paint the picture of wherewe're going and why it's worth
putting in the effort to getthere.
That's such a hard thing, Ithink, for some folks to get
(25:57):
that this isn't just a business,it's not just a business
function, we're not just chasingnumbers.
You have to be able to motivatepeople to go towards something
that's worth getting out of bedfor in the morning, and if you
can't do that, in my opinion,you cannot be an effective
leader.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
If you can't do that find your own meaning and being
able to communicate why the workis meaningful and helping
others identify how can theyfind meaning and connection from
the work that you're doing.
Being able to do that, I think,is also a really important part
(26:35):
of leadership, because puttingyour hours and your days and
your labor into something that'snot meaningful is it's
unfortunate.
I know that there's a lot ofpeople who have to just go out
and get work done, but for thoseof us who are privileged to
(26:58):
have careers and vocations wherewe can find meaning and we're
able to do it, primarily becausewe feel personally connected to
it, that it's something whichreally speaks to our souls.
You need to be able to do thatin order to be a good leader,
because otherwise you'remodeling the wrong motivations,
(27:20):
the wrong behaviors, but alsohelping other people finding
their own meaning and the wholeconcept of meaningful work is
why I've spent my entire careerin financial services.
Financial services and, morespecifically, well using my
(27:41):
talents as an experiencedpractitioner, as a thinking and
caring person, to enable peopleto have a healthy and informed
relationship with their money iswhy I do this, because what I
learned in financial serviceschanged my life.
It didn't just accelerate mycareer.
(28:02):
It changed my life and that iswhy I've done it for almost 30
years.
That's why I didn't go toGoogle or Meta or Amazon All
really, really great, greatplaces to work.
Do not get me wrong.
But the meaning for me was infinancial services, and one of
my favorite things that I've hadthe chance to do in my current
(28:26):
role is not just the awesomeprojects that we're doing, all
the great clients that we workwith, but connecting with our
early careers people and beingable to show them and have them
feel themselves.
Why.
Why financial services is suchan important thing, why this is.
(28:48):
This is where they might wantto consider not only not only
putting their talent towardsfinancial services, but being
educated and being aware ofthemselves and taking power over
their own financial lives and II've been.
That was.
That was definitely one of thebiggest accomplishments.
(29:09):
I think the thing, the thingthat I that I'm most proud of
this year um, I was.
I was in boston last week andwe had our holiday party there
and I got to.
You know, I got to.
I got to interact with many ofour senior officers and a lot of
very powerful and influentialpeople, but my favorite
(29:47):
conversations were with theearly careers people who said,
when you took us out to lunchand told us about investing and
why we need to do this and whywe need to learn about money, I
am inspired to buy a house.
I was inspired to open up myvery first brokerage account.
I started a robo-investingaccount and that just makes me
so happy.
Not because money makes theworld go round, although some
people would say it does, butbecause money isn't money, it's
(30:07):
not riches, it's choice, it'sopportunity and it's and it's
and it's it's power the power tolive your life as you want, the
power to make decisions and thepower to have um agency over
over where you live, what you do, who, who you engage with.
(30:27):
It's very, very important.
A brokerage account andcontinuously invest allowed me,
20 plus years later to takecontrol of my life and just flip
(30:52):
the table, put everythingbehind me and start anew on the
opposite coast, so moving fromSan Francisco to Charlotte.
Sorry about that was there was acat that just, uh, batted it
down.
Sorry about that.
I hope I didn't ruin yourpodcast oh no, not at all.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Just make sure you frame yourself.
Frame yourself in the middle,if you can okay, that'll that'll
.
That'll get taken out inediting oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, it'll be all good.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
These animals had better behave, that's all I have
to say.
Um, so, so, being being beingable to get out of a of a bad
situation and, um, being able toto restart my life the way that
I wanted to, is a direct resultof taking control of money and
(31:50):
understanding what it means,what it can do, what it can't do
.
Until I was pretty well into myfirst job after college, I had
very, very limited means.
My family immigrated to theUnited States, raised by a
(32:16):
single parent, really had very,very little, but I did have a
lot of support and a lot ofopportunities that I recognized
that influential people aroundme recognized that I needed to
go after, and so even evengetting to the point where I was
able to identify this issomething I need to do.
(32:37):
I need, I need to understandmoney and how to and how to, how
to make it work.
For me was also a position ofprivilege, because not everybody
is able to even get to thatpoint, let alone to all of the
other points that cameafterwards.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah, no, I definitely have enjoyed hearing
your story and to see where youcame from and I do think that
that influences.
I do think that influences, uh,how you, how you lead, in some
ways, just kind of knowing youknow the, the, the path that
you've taken, um, uh, to getwhere you are.
(33:16):
And I, I, I think that some ofthat you know in, you know, like
that kind of stuff developsgrit.
Right, it develops grit, itdevelops the ability to push
through stuff.
And I'm interested in hearingfrom you just how you think
about the necessity.
(33:38):
Is it necessary actually to gothrough adversity to be a good
leader?
Do you think it's necessary?
Speaker 1 (33:49):
No, I don't think it's necessary.
In fact, I'm not one toadvocate suffering.
I don't think.
Well, I went through a hardtime.
Everyone else needs to have ahard time.
If they have an easy time, thentheir leadership and their
lessons mean less.
No, I do not think it'snecessary.
A lot of people do go throughthat and there's a lot of people
(34:09):
who go through difficult times,who go through difficult
struggles that aren't able toextract the lessons and benefits
of it.
I think that it's entirelypossible to be a good leader and
I think that there's examplesof this to be a good leader by
having a caring family where youalways had more than more than,
(34:31):
and you had a lot ofopportunities and things seem to
come easy Easier.
Yeah, I think anybody, in anysituation has the potential to
be a good leader, but there isdefinitely, I mean, I think.
I think anybody in any situationhas the potential to be a good
leader, but there is definitely.
I mean, I think in some waysthere's definitely the benefit
of the struggle.
(34:51):
You're kind of forced to learncertain lessons that happen to
be very valuable.
But there's also a lot to besaid into having an easier path
in life, because then you canfocus a lot more directly and
inconsistently on your goals andthe vision that you have for
your own life.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, I think that it's interesting.
So I've spent a lot of timethinking about this and going
through hard things in my ownlife and there were years where
it just felt like I was at war.
You know, I was at war everyday and I noticed when I got out
of those struggles, um, Inoticed that, like you know,
(35:36):
because I remember while while Iwas in those struggles, um,
it's very hard.
It's very hard while you're inthat struggle to think far ahead
.
You're thinking about making it, making it to the next day or
the next week or the next month.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yes, Um or the next hour.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Right, yeah, you're, you're not thinking about.
Uh, you know where you're goingto be in five years.
You're not necessarily thinkingabout.
You may dream about some ofthat stuff.
It's not like it's impossible,but it's really hard.
It's really hard to think toofar into the future.
It's hard to spend a lot oftime reflecting when you're in
(36:14):
war mode.
Out of that, I realize thedifference between wartime and
peacetime, if you will.
Peacetime is when you can grow,it's when you can build, it's
when you can achieve new heights, and it's a different purpose
and they both have their purpose.
When I was in wartime, I thoughtyou know, man, people who have
(36:39):
it easy.
You know, like you know, I kindof had that attitude man, you
got it easy.
Like you're soft, like youdon't have, you know they.
You know, like you know I kindof had that attitude man, you
got, you got it easy Like you'resoft, like you.
You don't have, you know, youdon't have the ability to make
it through something like this.
And I started to.
I started to look at it as asan end unto itself and I
(37:00):
realized it's like there's valuein learning how to go through
adversity, and I do that.
That's a part of life animportant thing, because
everybody's going to face somekind of adversity in their life.
But peacetime is when you canreally grow and build and use
the lessons you learned throughthe struggle.
And if you, if you uh idolize,if you idolize that, that sort
(37:21):
of that wartime mentality, youcan never, you can never really
make the gains.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
That's right.
I mean the the rest is, as is,as important as as the labor.
When you're, when you'reweightlifting, your muscles are
not going to grow unless, unlessyou have that, that rest time
between sets, or not going tothe gym every day because you
can't you can't lift weightsevery day your muscles are not
going to develop in a in a not anon-physical sense.
(37:52):
Um, the whole reason for a dayof rest is so you can be
refreshed, be reinvigorated togo out and do good work, because
you can't just work, work, work.
You need to be committed to therest, and I'm speaking as
(38:15):
someone who has overworkedmyself pretty much my entire
life and only very recently,like this year, that I realize
rest exists for a reason.
It's a necessary part ofexistence, just as going to work
and working on the house ordoing anything.
(38:37):
You need to have that time torest and to reflect and to just
get re-energized, and that goesfor physical rest as well as
mental rest.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah, I agree, I fully agree, and I think that
the other thing about that isthat I've thought about, in
thinking, is struggle necessaryto be a good leader?
You know, is struggle necessaryto be a good leader?
I've, I've thought about the,the fact that a lot of the, a
(39:19):
lot of the, the gains that I had, um, from adversity, uh, or,
and, and, gains in, in, in, youknow, wisdom and and, and, uh,
any ability that that I may haveto lead, I'll leave that to
others to judge.
But um, uh, any ability thatthat I may have to lead, I'll
leave that to others to judge.
But um, uh, it came from.
It came from people pouringinto me.
It came from people pouringinto me.
I didn't.
There were things that that, um,you know, I think I learned
(39:42):
from adversity, but a lot of, alot of gains came from know.
You talked about a great boss,great leader that you had.
It was the same for me.
You know it's.
You know, I look back on my, onmy life and a lot of the things
that I learned about leadershipI learned from watching
somebody be a great leader yeahyou know, and and I still, to
(40:07):
this day, can rattle off thingsthat, that, uh, you know, best
boss I ever had, um, you know,like he would say things.
You said something earlier abouttrusting people, right?
I remember one of the thingsthat he used to say, uh, was
manage yourself.
He's like, if I, uh, I'm, youknow, I'm not, um, I'm not here
(40:28):
to stand over your shoulder.
Uh, I don't care where you work.
Uh.
Or, you know, as long as youget your stuff done, I don't
care where you work, I don'tcare when you take time off.
He's like I expect you to be aresponsible adult.
Um, and he, you know, he's likeI don't care if you work from
home a% of the time.
If I can't trust you to workfrom home, I can't trust you to
work here.
Why did I hire you?
(40:50):
You know if I need to worryabout that.
And he would always.
I remember he had a rule he'sdon't come.
Don't come to me asking forpermission.
Don't come to me asking forpermission.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Make defensible decisions and if I came to him.
That's a good point.
Yeah, that is a really goodpoint because if you're making
(41:33):
all of the decisions, thenyou're taking away agency from
other people, and it's soimportant, for I mean no matter
if you're the let me start over.
So requiring everybody to askfor permission is very damaging,
and when somebody comes to mewith an issue, I want them to
come with at least thebeginnings of a solution or what
have they tried.
And when I go to my leadership,I make sure that I always have
(41:59):
at least the outline of apotential solution.
That solution could be entirelyincorrect, but it shows
initiative and it shows that youare taking ownership of how to
make things better.
And anybody who insists thattheir team comes to them with
(42:22):
permission and that theythemselves need to be the
arbiter of solutions is not aleader.
They are a manager.
Even if their title is ceo,they are a mere manager and
they're not a leader.
And back back to something else.
You said that the the importanceof having people who've poured
into you ongoing, ongoing,meaningful success, is a team
(42:48):
sport.
It's not something you can do onyour own.
It's not something you shoulddo on your own.
The whole reason you have ateam, the whole reason you live
in a community, is becauseeveryone has something to learn
and everyone has something toteach and contribute.
And a leader identifies whatare the strengths and what are
(43:09):
the the contributions that otherpeople could make, and what are
the things that that yourselfare most capable of, what are
the things that that youyourself need to learn, and
where and where and from whomcan you learn that?
Um, and, and I I think, I thinkwhen you take that approach and
you recognize that everybodyhas something to teach you, you
(43:32):
often discover that they havestrengths and things to teach
that you didn't even realize.
And when they feel empowered,when they feel trusted, when
they feel safe, then they'regoing to show you more of
themselves, and the more youknow about people, the better
you can connect with them andthe better you can lead.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Go ahead.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
I was going to say.
I feel very much that I am thesummation of all of the amazing
people I have known in my life.
One of the things that I wish Iwould have pursued is
mentorship.
I wish I would have had amentor.
I haven't had.
I didn't get the mentor untilvery, very late in my career.
(44:17):
But hey, better late than never.
And so because of that, Iintentionally mentor a lot of
people maybe not a lot of people, I'd say I have five mentees
right now and that mentorship isso important for success.
And I encourage my mentees tohave other mentors too, because
(44:41):
what I can teach is notnecessarily what someone else
can teach is not necessarilywhat someone else can teach.
Mentorship is one of the mostimportant ingredients for
success, because if someone canlay out a path that worked for
them, you can start to imaginesomething that would work for
you, and if that person issomeone who you can personally
(45:06):
relate to, then that can be evenmore powerful.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
How does someone make themselves attractive to a
mentor?
Speaker 1 (45:18):
I wouldn't say attractive to a mentor.
Well, you mean as a mentee, assomebody seeking out a mentor.
Right out a mentor, right, I Idon't necessarily think they
need to be an attractive mentee,but they need to understand
that they, that they ultimatelyown their path and that they
ultimately own that mentormentee relationship.
(45:39):
So so, seeking out a mentor andsaying, hey, I would, I would
really appreciate yourleadership.
And and also be specific, whyare you seeking this person out
as a mentor and then also havinga clear and articulate story
about what's something which you, as a mentee, are interested in
(46:02):
, what are ways that you want togrow, what are some ways you
would like to work with thementor?
So, putting a bit of effort inand having that grounded in
openness and introspection and,of course, humility, a theme
which seems to be coming upagain and again and I think that
(46:24):
seeking out a mentorshiprelationship is a form of
leadership you are leadingyourself to a better place.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
That, hey, I like that, I like that.
And again, I mean, when we talkabout leading others, there is
a necessary component of beingan example.
Right, there's a necessarycomponent of being a modeling.
What you're hoping others willdo and that's why you can be a
(46:56):
leader, no matter what yourposition is is because you can
model that, regardless of whereyou are.
And I've noticed that I startedgetting promotions when I was
(47:31):
working for others the thingsnecessary to make the
organization work for everybody,to care about, the things that
kept the lights on that's when Istarted getting offered
positions of leadership wasbecause I wasn't chasing after a
position of leadership.
(47:54):
I was saying, hey, I want tomake sure that I understand how
this works, or I rememberanother great boss that I had.
(48:15):
He said you get promoted afteryou're already demonstrating
that you can do the work.
That's true, yeah, and Iremember just I started to learn
about business.
I started to learn about whatkeeps the lights on, and that's
what wound up getting me.
I remember two big milestonesin my career.
It was because I started caringabout the business of what we
did and wanting to help withmaking the business work that
(48:38):
you know.
The response from those leaderswas thank God, somebody else
who actually cares about thiscome up here.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Yeah, yeah, that's.
That's that's why, that's whyputting your efforts in, in
focusing yourself on somethingthat has meaning to you, is so
critical.
You need, you need, you need toreally care, you really need to
be able to, to connect yourselfto it.
And this, this same awesomemanager, leader, leader that I
(49:05):
had, who taught me the value ofhumility, also said when he,
when he, when he hires people,what he looks for is not
necessarily their hard skill,but, as he said and I hope you
can bleep this out that theyhave a high give-a-shit factor,
which is, which is veryimportant, the person.
People need to care, becauseit's it's so much easier and so
(49:28):
much more rewarding to lead ateam who cares about the similar
things that you do, that youboth care about the mission that
you are on, together, workingtowards this vision, that you
both understand and that youboth care about.
You both care about.
(49:52):
And so, even though you can andshould seek to be a leader, no
matter what your position is,there is something which is
fundamentally different inleadership at a higher level
versus at a lower level.
At a higher level, your actionsand your words and your, your
behaviors have so much moreimpact and amplification, and so
you need to be very, verythoughtful, intentional, mindful
(50:17):
and careful about what you weredoing and saying at all times.
And you know that that thatgoes not only for outward things
Like you can't gripe to people,you can't gripe to your team
but there's also some internalthings, and this is what was
(50:41):
harder for me.
Even though I consider myself anintrovert, I'm still very
social and I love connectionswith people, and that's actually
the most important thing for me.
Wherever I'm working, noteverybody wants to be friends
with the boss.
You're going to come out of aconference room and everyone
(51:02):
else will have gone out fordrinks or for dinner and they
didn't invite you becauseEveryone else will have gone out
for drinks or for dinner andthey didn't invite you because
the dynamic of having the bossthere is just not as comfortable
and you also get recognized alot less and the rewards of a
job well done are much fewer andfurther between than if you're
(51:23):
an individual contributor andyou've designed something great,
you've written this amazingarticle or you have created the
ultimate PowerPoint, just forexample.
You don't, you don't get, youdon't, you don't get those those
kinds of rewards as leaders.
It comes.
It can be weeks or months oreven years before you get the
(51:43):
acknowledgement that that yourwork is appreciated, and so
being able to personally connectand find meaning in the work
that you're doing yourself isanother reason why that's so
important as a leader, becauseyou're probably not going to get
the recognition you hope for.
So you have to have the meaningand satisfaction within
(52:06):
yourself, and that, to me, was areally, really difficult
adjustment.
I'll just admit that.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
Yeah, I totally get that and I think that is, in my
opinion, some of the secretsauce of great leadership is
having that intrinsic meaningand motivation.
You know, one of the things Iused to tell my teams is that I
(52:35):
design because I look at designas a way to improve people's
lives.
The reason I'm in design isbecause I look at it as a way to
improve people's lives.
I can make somebody's lifebetter just by making a simple
interaction easier or moreenjoyable.
I can have an impact on theirday and if I do that enough, I
(52:56):
can have an impact on, you know,on their month, on their year,
on their life.
And you know when I look atthat and what I was doing and
telling them that I was tryingto convey and to impart to them
a reason to ascribe meaning tothe work that they were doing.
Yeah, I get that we might not becuring cancer all the time here
(53:20):
right, we're probably nevercuring cancer here but that
doesn't mean that your workisn't significant and that it
doesn't have meaning.
And when you have meaning toyour work, you are able to keep
going in spite of not gettingthe pat on the back or getting
(53:41):
the accolade in front ofeverybody else, because the
reason you're doing it is not tohave somebody clap.
The reason you're doing it isbecause of the effect that the
work has on somebody else's life, and that's there whether
anybody claps or not.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
Yeah, it's more in intrinsic motivation, and again
it's humility, motivation andagain is humility.
You can't go into anything likethat in a prideful way.
You need to see it as an act ofservice.
(54:22):
You need to see it as your verysmall contribution to something
which, hopefully, will becomemuch larger.
Speaker 2 (54:26):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Jennifer, this has been fantastic.
Tell, tell folks where they canfind you, how can they connect
with you.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
I am on LinkedIn.
You can find me, jenniferBorchardt, on LinkedIn, and you
can also.
You can also find me at my inmy, my current, my current,
where I'm working.
Now, that consulting firm I'mgoing to say what it is is a
wonderful organization calledPublicis Sapient and I yeah, you
(55:00):
can find me there.
Look for me on LinkedIn.
Do not Google me, because whatcomes up first is not something
that I'm, that is not me.
But go on LinkedIn, jenniferBorshard.
Look on LinkedIn, the digitaltransformation leader at
Publicis Apiant.
That is me.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Awesome, awesome.
Speaker 1 (55:21):
I'm not really on social media.
I've kind of phased that out ofmy life.
So LinkedIn is probably thebest place for people to find me
.
I'm always posting open roles,so if you're looking for a job,
you should follow me, because Ipost dozens of roles a day.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
I can attest to that.
I follow Jennifer on LinkedIn.
She was always posting roles in.
She was always posting rolesand I know that if business ever
doesn't go the way I want it togo, I know whose door I'm
knocking on.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
Yeah, I mean, I may be knocking on your door one day
, who knows?
The world is full ofopportunity and also uncertainty
.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
Indeed indeed, jennifer.
Thank you so much for being onthe show.
Speaker 1 (56:10):
Thank you, thank you for having me.
This has been a great, greatexperience.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (56:15):
Awesome, all right, what a great conversation that
we had with Jennifer.
I really appreciate her beingwilling to come on the show and
to talk about this, especiallyfrom her perspective, having
worked at such largeorganizations and getting to see
(56:36):
things work at scale and beingable to help people to grow
their careers.
I love her insights and herphilosophy around hiring and I
think that everybody could takea note from that to look beyond
just the resume, to look beyondjust the normal qualifications
and look at the aptitude of theperson, look at the personality
(56:58):
there and then let them shine,let them do their thing.
But being a leader obviouslyrequires you.
It requires you to be willingto do things without having the
certainty of whether or not it'sgoing to work, and that's one
of the things that's going toset you apart from being just a
manager as opposed to being aleader.
So if you enjoyed what youheard here, what you saw here, I
(57:22):
would really appreciate it ifyou shared it with somebody that
you think could get somethingout of it.
Maybe, I don't know, maybedon't share it with your boss,
that's probably going to landyou in hot water, but you could
send that to some of yourcolleagues and you know, give it
a like, give it a subscribe and, until next time, keep out
serving your competition on yourrelentless pursuit to become an
(57:46):
experienced leader.
See you next time.
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