July 1, 2025 • 21 mins
In this episode of the HR Mixtape podcast, host Shari Simpson welcomes Tiffany Castagno, CEO and founder of CEPHR LLC, to discuss the importance of shaping a personal leadership brand in HR. This conversation is timely as organizations increasingly prioritize employee experience and inclusive leadership. Tiffany emphasizes the need for authenticity, vulnerability, and curiosity in leadership, offering insights on how HR professionals can navigate their unique styles while fostering strong, inclusive teams.
Listener Takeaways:
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Learn how to identify your core values and align them with your leadership brand.
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Discover why vulnerability and curiosity are essential for building trust within teams.
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Explore strategies for effectively sharing your leadership journey on platforms like LinkedIn.
Hit “Play” to gain valuable insights on enhancing your leadership presence in today’s evolving workplace!
Guest(s): Tiffany Castagno, CEO and Founder, CEPHR LLC
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
You're listening to the HR Mixtape. Your podcast with
the perfect mix of practical advice, thought-provoking interviews, and
stories that just hit different so that work doesn't have to feel, well,
Joining me today is Tiffany Castagno, CEO and founder of
Sephir LLC. Tiffany leads a boutique, HR,
(00:25):
and culture consulting firm helping small to mid-sized businesses build
strong teams and inclusive workplaces. She's also a
children's book co-author who is passionate about equity, acceptance,
Tiffany, thank you so much for jumping on the podcast with me today. Thank
(00:45):
you. Thanks for having me as a guest, Shari. We have talked a
lot on the podcast about different forms of leadership
development over the last couple of years. I feel like leadership
development is always like the top you know, top five or top
10 things for HR trends for every year that I've been in HR. But
I want to focus our conversation today really around,
(01:07):
you know, your personal leadership brand style
as an HR person. I think this is one of those opportunities where
we don't do enough talking about our own kind of
brand and how we want to show up, whether that's we want
that super white glove approach, or we want to be more collaborative,
or we want to be the question person who's really curious. So
(01:30):
with all of that as our setup, how do you go
about kind of shaping your own leadership brand around
that philosophy that so many of us HR people sit in, which is like that
people first approach of like giving and
showing up for people. We also have to have that leadership brand
This was such a cool question. I'm really grateful that you asked it
(01:51):
because a lot of times when I'm helping shape this for other leaders or helping
them shape their brand, it really is. You don't have to mimic yourself
after everyone else. And so I do pride myself on having my
own brand where I'm known for being very authentic and
for being collaborative and building community. And
that's so important. And of course, I'm an HR consultant, right? But even
(02:12):
as an HR practitioner, we need to be seen that way by
the folks who we are working with and partnering with in HR.
And I haven't always found that to be the case. So for me, I really
want it to be this collaboration, this partnership. And some people don't
like the word partnership because it brings but it's
really about how do we work together? You mentioned questions, questions
(02:34):
and curious questions are a significant part of
my leadership brand and how I like to lead. I like to ask
questions first and listen and really help people
feel seen, heard, valued and appreciated. And that seems to be working, so.
Yes, it definitely does. How do you help leaders get to
that list of non-negotiables for themselves?
(02:55):
And the reason kind of the context or the reason behind this question is, you
know, there's so much work that I think a lot of HR people have done either
with defining their values or knowing their why or
leaning into their strengths or whatever, you know, assessment that you want
to use. I feel like we've all taken a bajillion of them over
the years. But sometimes we get stuck in these leadership buzzwords. You
(03:17):
know, you got to be this way or that way. But I think being
genuine and unique to yourself is part of
creating that own brand. But how do you find that
uniqueness in the context of why you're doing your role? Because
I'm sure you've been in roles like this. I know I have been where my brand
(03:38):
and uniqueness sometimes gets masked because
of the leadership team that I'm working with or supporting. I
think that's changing for us in HR. I think we're able to come to the table
Yeah, it's I think we have to
have a list of non-negotiables, and quite frankly, that's how I
(04:00):
began to establish my own leadership brand. I was swiping and
adapting from what worked well under leaders whom I
reported, and then I was also taking from them. This
is what we don't want to do and the things that I've seen
as best practices in human resources that I know disengage. We've
looked at all the surveys, right? We've heard from the employees. We have the pulse. And
(04:21):
so one of those things in helping them find that confidence that
helps me is What are your own values? Now, we hope that
they're aligned with the business, right? But what are your walkaway points?
What ethically can you live with and live without? And how do you want
to show up for the team that you're leading? How do you want, you know, what
do you want them to say when you're not around? And so for me, those
(04:42):
are some of the ways that I encourage people to do that. And
really looking at Being human, we at Stanford have
a value of being human at work. And that's what I encourage leaders to
do. We don't have to be perfect. We don't have to, we
can be vulnerable. We can show empathy. We don't have to have
all the answers. And being human at work really
(05:03):
helps to build trust with employees. So those are some
I love that. How have you incorporated that vulnerability? And
I'm thinking about my own career journey and there, I
mean, I hate saying this, but there was definitely a time in my career where I
looked at other women who were more
(05:25):
squishy, that's the word I'll use, more squishy in the office, a
little bit more vulnerable with your emotions. And I judged them. I'm
being fairly transparent. That's where I was. I judged them. The
more I grew and learned about emotions and
resiliency and how people interact with stuff, I realized
that everybody's different and emotions show
(05:46):
up in lots of different ways. And that's not something
we should be judgy of. Obviously, you still need to do your job
and all those things, but there is a part about being vulnerable
and authentic. How have you helped navigate finding
It's a little tricky, right? Because we get
(06:08):
to, I will never forget this phrase, and you mentioned buzzwords,
where we were told like, to be in leadership, you have to have
political savvy. And I was like, what does that even mean? Like,
you know, being in HR almost 20 plus years, there was a
time when we told people, don't talk about politics at work. So I'm like, well, what do they mean this
political savvy? But it was how do you navigate challenge and
(06:30):
change? But a lot of that, you know, we're telling people that we're
building these hard skills of like almost hard shelled
humans where that wasn't a thing. in
the past. And I think now it has become more squishy because
we've realized that people are going to trust and follow leaders
who they believe care about them. And you have to be a little squishy to
(06:50):
be able to do that. You have to be able to relate to them, which means you
don't have to walk exactly in their shoes or know exactly what's going on.
But you can take a pause, you can listen, you can let
different people lead the team meeting or carve out space
for that or in your one on ones. And I think that there's so
much, you know, even when we look at performance management, it's a lot of
(07:12):
times the manager talking to the employee about what they need to do.
But do we ever ask what they aspire to? I've asked leaders, you
know, they'll come to me with a problem with someone and I'm like, they're struggling in their role and I'm
like, What are their aspirations? And the number of times
people can't tell me, and you've been working with this person and
they're on your team, it's kind of frightening. So I would say just
(07:32):
the curiosity, right? Asking questions to understand is
certainly before replacing blame because often it's a process or
a tool that's lacking a resource, maybe some retraining versus the
Yeah, and it's so funny because I think back to, you
know, all the conferences I've attended or all the great speakers that are
(07:54):
out there, and they all show up on stage with these very
personal, vulnerable stories. And we look up to them, right? We
don't see that same kind of mirror in organizations. So it's
definitely something for us to figure out how do we want to bring that into our
brand as HR professionals. Let's get a little tactical though.
So if you're listening, I want to get into like, okay, how do we actually do
(08:14):
this? So if you are going down this journey where you're like, hey, you know what? I'm
actually going to get strategic about defining my own leadership brand. What's
what I will always go back to, what are your values? And
then behind that, how do you want to be seen by your team? What's
important to you? Because unless and until we
(08:34):
are aligned in values, if you value
DEI, for instance, and I don't, we're going to naturally struggle. And
there's always going to be this natural struggle within, I shouldn't say struggle,
but there's natural tension sort of in leadership and
between employees. But to understand what it is that you
value so that you can communicate that to the team. And
(08:55):
also looking at what are your expectations? And so underneath
those values are behaviors. What are the types of behaviors and
expectations? So not just focusing on the technical side
of the rote job description, so to speak, but looking
at what are the behaviors? What does good look like under here? Have
you defined competencies for the team? Have you been clear about
(09:17):
what their roles are and those expectations and what good looks like?
And even coaching when things maybe are not going
the right way? Are you giving full feedback? And those are things that
I always encourage people to really think about, as well as
just checking when we talk about vulnerability and leading people first, checking
in enough so that you understand when somebody may
(09:39):
be struggling or when you understand that something, this doesn't seem like
how Shari typically operates. I might want to ask some questions to
see if she needs some support. So there are so many things we could
I love that idea around linking
the behaviors to your own personal values. I mean, we all kind
(10:00):
of know that if we've worked on creating competency models in our organization, so
it's not necessarily a new concept, but I don't know that we always think about
it for ourselves personally, starting with the values and
then thinking about the behaviors like the way we want to show up. You
know, two different people could have the same value, right? Maybe the
value is that you want to be a great partner to your business.
(10:21):
And one person's behaviors of that is, like I mentioned before, a
white glove approach. Another person's behaviors to that might
be, I'm going to create all the great resources. So they always have
access to great resources, right? Two different behaviors, same value, but
going through that exercise really helps that come to life. How
have you seen the impact of leaders who bring these strong
(10:44):
brands with them? And I'm thinking specifically of leaders that are coming in
that are maybe new to an organization who've done this work already
and are bringing that strong leadership brand inside
of a new place with them. How does that come to life? How do
they show that to their new team or to their new organization?
(11:05):
I think one of my favorite tools, and I was just having this conversation a
couple of weeks ago, is having a new leader
transition meeting and having that leader really showcase,
this is who I am on a personal level, it's very human, right? Having
them understand, this is how I like to approach work,
so that their team understands that, but then that they're also curious and
(11:28):
listening on the other side, how do you like to approach work? How do you like
to be recognized and rewarded? And so thinking about how
both of those worlds from employee to leadership, how they can
combine and align is really healthy. I think
when you when you're clear, it creates transparency, which builds
trust and psychological safety, because if we're not clear
(11:49):
or if we start to make assumptions like Tiffany person,
she seems like she's a little bit too good to be true or I don't
know, maybe you've been burned by a leader in the past who didn't have a good brand
and maybe that's why this new leader is coming in. But we just want to be clear
about our intentions and be intentional about it so that we
can create meaning and these moments
(12:09):
that become engaging where we can retain our
Do you think there's been any innovation in
this space specifically around, you
know, brand leadership over the last, you know, five, six years.
I think because there's just, there's so many leadership books
out there. I mean, there's just a wealth of knowledge. But
(12:32):
I'm curious, have you run into anything that just feels really innovative or
a new approach to kind of tackling being a leader? Maybe
something even Gen Z is doing that we haven't kind of incorporated yet.
You know, for this, I always say, because you're right, it's overwhelming.
Every time I talk to someone, I get a new resource, whether
it's a podcast or whatever it is, and you're just like, how am I gonna make time
(12:54):
for all of this? And it's all great, and we have to be doing research to
build it into what we're doing, especially as HR, as we're becoming transformational
and looking at that. But I think, for me, it's always gonna be
just allowing for mistakes to happen, allowing for things
that we can't always control, And I think in
leadership, this is where sometimes it goes wrong. There's
(13:16):
so much fear and I have to look good. I have to be the role model. Role
modeling can be, hey, I made a mistake too. And accountability will
be always a go-to for me to allow for
that creativity and to show like we can make
mistakes. We can grow and learn as a team from them. Now,
of course, do we want everything to go right 100 percent of the time? That would be nice, but
(13:38):
that's not real life. And so grounding things in reality and
authenticity and also accountability to say,
hey, I have to give you some hard feedback, but we're going to work on this, but
I'm not going to be punitive about it. And even showcasing this
is a mistake I made and this is how I learn and grow to normalize that.
really to me is how we get through a period of creativity and
(13:59):
innovation. So we can have all the books we want, but if we don't have an environment
You brought up such a good point about a leader sharing their
story, their mistakes. I mean, we grow so much
from our mistakes. We grow so much from our failures. Those
are great stories to share. And I
(14:21):
feel that when you were sharing about how, you know, you kind
of want to show up in this perfection way as an HR person.
You don't necessarily want to be questioned or leave room for
questioning on your competency as an HR practitioner. And
I definitely began my career that way. I
would approach things very, you're going to get kind of the full package, buttoned
(14:43):
up, bow tie, here you go. There wasn't a lot of
collaboration or iteration or failure or opportunity to
kind of work along the process. And as I've gone through my
own kind of leadership brand and development, one of the things
that I've kind of created in my values and
the way it comes to life is I'm, I'm a curious person.
(15:03):
I like to ask questions and that behavior comes from
being, it shows up in being iterative as I
work on projects with other leaders instead of giving them the
fully baked. It's like, Tell me more about what you're trying
to accomplish. What is a perfect end goal? If money wasn't
an option, how would you want the end result to be? And
(15:24):
that curiosity has opened so many doors
and great discussions with other leaders. That
doesn't work for everybody, obviously. And so as
you define yourself, you definitely have to figure out what's your
fit. So let's talk about how this kind
of comes off the corporate page
(15:45):
and into your public page as a leader from a,
you know, a LinkedIn or a social media perspective, how
do you start to make that brand visible
I think, you know, you talked about storytelling, Shari, and it that
really is one of my favorite parts besides community building on
(16:07):
LinkedIn is to really build, of course, you get to build your brand
and you get to establish that. But within that, it's what are the stories that
make you come alive? How can you share your expertise there
and help others learn? And so there becomes a component of
mentorship. as well, which should be a part of leadership. And
I think whether you're an HR consultant in the corporate space
(16:29):
or you're consulting on your own, there's such a space
to bring both of those things together. I worked
in and out of corporate a lot during my career. And a lot of those things
brought, I worked in different industries. It really allowed me to broaden my
perspectives. And now that I work with small to medium businesses, to
bring that large corporate experience to them and to help them
(16:50):
create and innovate and have the structure that oftentimes they
don't have the resources to build. So it's still, I'm
seeing so many people who haven't built on LinkedIn and who
I'm trying to like nudge clients or nudge people who I know to
do that. It's, well, I mean, of course they have some paid tools, but it's
free for the most part to use your voice. It's one of my other favorite
(17:11):
things about LinkedIn. We can use our voice. We can activate things.
We are able to inspire people. There are so
many good things that come from that and it's free brand building basically. So
why would you not do that to attract candidates, to energize
your team? There's so many great things about being social.
Have you found that for some people it's
(17:35):
hard for them to feel like they're being authentic when
they're sharing in that medium? And if you have, how
have you kind of coached them to get over that? Because, you
know, I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn probably like you do too. And there's, you
know, there's posts that I post that are very corporate
sounding, right? They've got a very specific call to action.
(17:55):
And then there are moments where I'm sharing stories and being more personal.
you know sometimes they feel icky right but you you need to
get some information out there so how do you kind of get over that
for like the thing that holds you back from knowing that what you
have to say and what you have to share it's going to impact somebody
like we all have these amazing stories and we all learn from other people unless
(18:17):
we're willing to share that We can't help ourselves grow
And that's what you just said is the bowl on top, right?
That that is why we need to do it, because so many times
I've had people reach out into my direct messages and
say that really helped me. I'm so glad you share that
because maybe they're unable to say it or maybe they can't share that publicly,
(18:39):
but they needed a voice like you to be there. And we spend
so much time in our own heads worrying about you know, being
judged or what other people are going to say? Are they going to care about what
I say? Is this post going to be good enough? Is it going to resonate? What
will people think? And we ask ourselves all these hard questions if
we just do it. I mean, my first LinkedIn post, I sat there,
(19:00):
unbeknownst to me that I was like, my mug matched my But
I sat down one day and just recorded a video and
I was like, why am I going to post this? Should I post it? And I did all this. Just
do it. Just post it. It's going to resonate with someone. Is it
going to resonate with everyone? No, but we are not for everyone. And that's
(19:20):
Well, that was the tweetable moment of this episode. If you're looking
for one, I love that. I'm gonna keep that in my back pocket of
mantras that I collect as I talk to different people. All right,
one last question. I know this is kind of a tough one to end, but
what advice do you have for leaders who have decided they
need to rebrand themselves, whether it's they had a tough leadership
(19:42):
challenge or they made a big mistake and they're kind
of reevaluating who they are. How do
Yeah. And I think, you know, again, it's it's values. And
it's I always like there's a very simple way
to say, like, what do I need to start, stop and continue? And
if you are looking to rebrand, one good way, if you're open to that and
(20:05):
vulnerable enough is to ask people what was working for
them, what wasn't, what areas of opportunity. So just lean
into that. It's called getting curious. We all learn and grow.
I've learned some of my best lessons through making some of my biggest
mistakes. And if we can lean into that and embrace it,
not only do we help reestablish and rebrand our own
(20:26):
selves and leadership, but we're also now role modeling that
and mentoring other people on how to do it. So it's getting
curious, leaning into the good, bad and ugly of what's working well within
ourselves and maybe what skills we need to. We
need some upskilling and reskilling. And there's always opportunities to
improve. But I would also say, like, Give yourself some grace. There's
(20:47):
a reason people rebrand their businesses, right? We were not meant
to stay static and change is constant. So
Tiffany, such great advice overall. If someone
wants to learn more about you and your consulting business, how
Thank you. They can find me on LinkedIn, as we've been talking about,
(21:08):
because we need to be social, and also on our website at
I hope you enjoyed today's episode. You can find show notes
and links at thehrmixtape.com Come back
You're listening to the HR Mixtape. Your podcast with
the perfect mix of practical advice, thought-provoking interviews, and
stories that just hit different so that work doesn't have to feel, well,
Joining me today is Tiffany Castagno, CEO and founder of
Sephir LLC. Tiffany leads a boutique, HR,
(00:25):
and culture consulting firm helping small to mid-sized businesses build
strong teams and inclusive workplaces. She's also a
children's book co-author who is passionate about equity, acceptance,
Tiffany, thank you so much for jumping on the podcast with me today. Thank
(00:45):
you. Thanks for having me as a guest, Shari. We have talked a
lot on the podcast about different forms of leadership
development over the last couple of years. I feel like leadership
development is always like the top you know, top five or top
10 things for HR trends for every year that I've been in HR. But
I want to focus our conversation today really around,
(01:07):
you know, your personal leadership brand style
as an HR person. I think this is one of those opportunities where
we don't do enough talking about our own kind of
brand and how we want to show up, whether that's we want
that super white glove approach, or we want to be more collaborative,
or we want to be the question person who's really curious. So
(01:30):
with all of that as our setup, how do you go
about kind of shaping your own leadership brand around
that philosophy that so many of us HR people sit in, which is like that
people first approach of like giving and
showing up for people. We also have to have that leadership brand
This was such a cool question. I'm really grateful that you asked it
(01:51):
because a lot of times when I'm helping shape this for other leaders or helping
them shape their brand, it really is. You don't have to mimic yourself
after everyone else. And so I do pride myself on having my
own brand where I'm known for being very authentic and
for being collaborative and building community. And
that's so important. And of course, I'm an HR consultant, right? But even
(02:12):
as an HR practitioner, we need to be seen that way by
the folks who we are working with and partnering with in HR.
And I haven't always found that to be the case. So for me, I really
want it to be this collaboration, this partnership. And some people don't
like the word partnership because it brings but it's
really about how do we work together? You mentioned questions, questions
(02:34):
and curious questions are a significant part of
my leadership brand and how I like to lead. I like to ask
questions first and listen and really help people
feel seen, heard, valued and appreciated. And that seems to be working, so.
Yes, it definitely does. How do you help leaders get to
that list of non-negotiables for themselves?
(02:55):
And the reason kind of the context or the reason behind this question is, you
know, there's so much work that I think a lot of HR people have done either
with defining their values or knowing their why or
leaning into their strengths or whatever, you know, assessment that you want
to use. I feel like we've all taken a bajillion of them over
the years. But sometimes we get stuck in these leadership buzzwords. You
(03:17):
know, you got to be this way or that way. But I think being
genuine and unique to yourself is part of
creating that own brand. But how do you find that
uniqueness in the context of why you're doing your role? Because
I'm sure you've been in roles like this. I know I have been where my brand
(03:38):
and uniqueness sometimes gets masked because
of the leadership team that I'm working with or supporting. I
think that's changing for us in HR. I think we're able to come to the table
Yeah, it's I think we have to
have a list of non-negotiables, and quite frankly, that's how I
(04:00):
began to establish my own leadership brand. I was swiping and
adapting from what worked well under leaders whom I
reported, and then I was also taking from them. This
is what we don't want to do and the things that I've seen
as best practices in human resources that I know disengage. We've
looked at all the surveys, right? We've heard from the employees. We have the pulse. And
(04:21):
so one of those things in helping them find that confidence that
helps me is What are your own values? Now, we hope that
they're aligned with the business, right? But what are your walkaway points?
What ethically can you live with and live without? And how do you want
to show up for the team that you're leading? How do you want, you know, what
do you want them to say when you're not around? And so for me, those
(04:42):
are some of the ways that I encourage people to do that. And
really looking at Being human, we at Stanford have
a value of being human at work. And that's what I encourage leaders to
do. We don't have to be perfect. We don't have to, we
can be vulnerable. We can show empathy. We don't have to have
all the answers. And being human at work really
(05:03):
helps to build trust with employees. So those are some
I love that. How have you incorporated that vulnerability? And
I'm thinking about my own career journey and there, I
mean, I hate saying this, but there was definitely a time in my career where I
looked at other women who were more
(05:25):
squishy, that's the word I'll use, more squishy in the office, a
little bit more vulnerable with your emotions. And I judged them. I'm
being fairly transparent. That's where I was. I judged them. The
more I grew and learned about emotions and
resiliency and how people interact with stuff, I realized
that everybody's different and emotions show
(05:46):
up in lots of different ways. And that's not something
we should be judgy of. Obviously, you still need to do your job
and all those things, but there is a part about being vulnerable
and authentic. How have you helped navigate finding
It's a little tricky, right? Because we get
(06:08):
to, I will never forget this phrase, and you mentioned buzzwords,
where we were told like, to be in leadership, you have to have
political savvy. And I was like, what does that even mean? Like,
you know, being in HR almost 20 plus years, there was a
time when we told people, don't talk about politics at work. So I'm like, well, what do they mean this
political savvy? But it was how do you navigate challenge and
(06:30):
change? But a lot of that, you know, we're telling people that we're
building these hard skills of like almost hard shelled
humans where that wasn't a thing. in
the past. And I think now it has become more squishy because
we've realized that people are going to trust and follow leaders
who they believe care about them. And you have to be a little squishy to
(06:50):
be able to do that. You have to be able to relate to them, which means you
don't have to walk exactly in their shoes or know exactly what's going on.
But you can take a pause, you can listen, you can let
different people lead the team meeting or carve out space
for that or in your one on ones. And I think that there's so
much, you know, even when we look at performance management, it's a lot of
(07:12):
times the manager talking to the employee about what they need to do.
But do we ever ask what they aspire to? I've asked leaders, you
know, they'll come to me with a problem with someone and I'm like, they're struggling in their role and I'm
like, What are their aspirations? And the number of times
people can't tell me, and you've been working with this person and
they're on your team, it's kind of frightening. So I would say just
(07:32):
the curiosity, right? Asking questions to understand is
certainly before replacing blame because often it's a process or
a tool that's lacking a resource, maybe some retraining versus the
Yeah, and it's so funny because I think back to, you
know, all the conferences I've attended or all the great speakers that are
(07:54):
out there, and they all show up on stage with these very
personal, vulnerable stories. And we look up to them, right? We
don't see that same kind of mirror in organizations. So it's
definitely something for us to figure out how do we want to bring that into our
brand as HR professionals. Let's get a little tactical though.
So if you're listening, I want to get into like, okay, how do we actually do
(08:14):
this? So if you are going down this journey where you're like, hey, you know what? I'm
actually going to get strategic about defining my own leadership brand. What's
what I will always go back to, what are your values? And
then behind that, how do you want to be seen by your team? What's
important to you? Because unless and until we
(08:34):
are aligned in values, if you value
DEI, for instance, and I don't, we're going to naturally struggle. And
there's always going to be this natural struggle within, I shouldn't say struggle,
but there's natural tension sort of in leadership and
between employees. But to understand what it is that you
value so that you can communicate that to the team. And
(08:55):
also looking at what are your expectations? And so underneath
those values are behaviors. What are the types of behaviors and
expectations? So not just focusing on the technical side
of the rote job description, so to speak, but looking
at what are the behaviors? What does good look like under here? Have
you defined competencies for the team? Have you been clear about
(09:17):
what their roles are and those expectations and what good looks like?
And even coaching when things maybe are not going
the right way? Are you giving full feedback? And those are things that
I always encourage people to really think about, as well as
just checking when we talk about vulnerability and leading people first, checking
in enough so that you understand when somebody may
(09:39):
be struggling or when you understand that something, this doesn't seem like
how Shari typically operates. I might want to ask some questions to
see if she needs some support. So there are so many things we could
I love that idea around linking
the behaviors to your own personal values. I mean, we all kind
(10:00):
of know that if we've worked on creating competency models in our organization, so
it's not necessarily a new concept, but I don't know that we always think about
it for ourselves personally, starting with the values and
then thinking about the behaviors like the way we want to show up. You
know, two different people could have the same value, right? Maybe the
value is that you want to be a great partner to your business.
(10:21):
And one person's behaviors of that is, like I mentioned before, a
white glove approach. Another person's behaviors to that might
be, I'm going to create all the great resources. So they always have
access to great resources, right? Two different behaviors, same value, but
going through that exercise really helps that come to life. How
have you seen the impact of leaders who bring these strong
(10:44):
brands with them? And I'm thinking specifically of leaders that are coming in
that are maybe new to an organization who've done this work already
and are bringing that strong leadership brand inside
of a new place with them. How does that come to life? How do
they show that to their new team or to their new organization?
(11:05):
I think one of my favorite tools, and I was just having this conversation a
couple of weeks ago, is having a new leader
transition meeting and having that leader really showcase,
this is who I am on a personal level, it's very human, right? Having
them understand, this is how I like to approach work,
so that their team understands that, but then that they're also curious and
(11:28):
listening on the other side, how do you like to approach work? How do you like
to be recognized and rewarded? And so thinking about how
both of those worlds from employee to leadership, how they can
combine and align is really healthy. I think
when you when you're clear, it creates transparency, which builds
trust and psychological safety, because if we're not clear
(11:49):
or if we start to make assumptions like Tiffany person,
she seems like she's a little bit too good to be true or I don't
know, maybe you've been burned by a leader in the past who didn't have a good brand
and maybe that's why this new leader is coming in. But we just want to be clear
about our intentions and be intentional about it so that we
can create meaning and these moments
(12:09):
that become engaging where we can retain our
Do you think there's been any innovation in
this space specifically around, you
know, brand leadership over the last, you know, five, six years.
I think because there's just, there's so many leadership books
out there. I mean, there's just a wealth of knowledge. But
(12:32):
I'm curious, have you run into anything that just feels really innovative or
a new approach to kind of tackling being a leader? Maybe
something even Gen Z is doing that we haven't kind of incorporated yet.
You know, for this, I always say, because you're right, it's overwhelming.
Every time I talk to someone, I get a new resource, whether
it's a podcast or whatever it is, and you're just like, how am I gonna make time
(12:54):
for all of this? And it's all great, and we have to be doing research to
build it into what we're doing, especially as HR, as we're becoming transformational
and looking at that. But I think, for me, it's always gonna be
just allowing for mistakes to happen, allowing for things
that we can't always control, And I think in
leadership, this is where sometimes it goes wrong. There's
(13:16):
so much fear and I have to look good. I have to be the role model. Role
modeling can be, hey, I made a mistake too. And accountability will
be always a go-to for me to allow for
that creativity and to show like we can make
mistakes. We can grow and learn as a team from them. Now,
of course, do we want everything to go right 100 percent of the time? That would be nice, but
(13:38):
that's not real life. And so grounding things in reality and
authenticity and also accountability to say,
hey, I have to give you some hard feedback, but we're going to work on this, but
I'm not going to be punitive about it. And even showcasing this
is a mistake I made and this is how I learn and grow to normalize that.
really to me is how we get through a period of creativity and
(13:59):
innovation. So we can have all the books we want, but if we don't have an environment
You brought up such a good point about a leader sharing their
story, their mistakes. I mean, we grow so much
from our mistakes. We grow so much from our failures. Those
are great stories to share. And I
(14:21):
feel that when you were sharing about how, you know, you kind
of want to show up in this perfection way as an HR person.
You don't necessarily want to be questioned or leave room for
questioning on your competency as an HR practitioner. And
I definitely began my career that way. I
would approach things very, you're going to get kind of the full package, buttoned
(14:43):
up, bow tie, here you go. There wasn't a lot of
collaboration or iteration or failure or opportunity to
kind of work along the process. And as I've gone through my
own kind of leadership brand and development, one of the things
that I've kind of created in my values and
the way it comes to life is I'm, I'm a curious person.
(15:03):
I like to ask questions and that behavior comes from
being, it shows up in being iterative as I
work on projects with other leaders instead of giving them the
fully baked. It's like, Tell me more about what you're trying
to accomplish. What is a perfect end goal? If money wasn't
an option, how would you want the end result to be? And
(15:24):
that curiosity has opened so many doors
and great discussions with other leaders. That
doesn't work for everybody, obviously. And so as
you define yourself, you definitely have to figure out what's your
fit. So let's talk about how this kind
of comes off the corporate page
(15:45):
and into your public page as a leader from a,
you know, a LinkedIn or a social media perspective, how
do you start to make that brand visible
I think, you know, you talked about storytelling, Shari, and it that
really is one of my favorite parts besides community building on
(16:07):
LinkedIn is to really build, of course, you get to build your brand
and you get to establish that. But within that, it's what are the stories that
make you come alive? How can you share your expertise there
and help others learn? And so there becomes a component of
mentorship. as well, which should be a part of leadership. And
I think whether you're an HR consultant in the corporate space
(16:29):
or you're consulting on your own, there's such a space
to bring both of those things together. I worked
in and out of corporate a lot during my career. And a lot of those things
brought, I worked in different industries. It really allowed me to broaden my
perspectives. And now that I work with small to medium businesses, to
bring that large corporate experience to them and to help them
(16:50):
create and innovate and have the structure that oftentimes they
don't have the resources to build. So it's still, I'm
seeing so many people who haven't built on LinkedIn and who
I'm trying to like nudge clients or nudge people who I know to
do that. It's, well, I mean, of course they have some paid tools, but it's
free for the most part to use your voice. It's one of my other favorite
(17:11):
things about LinkedIn. We can use our voice. We can activate things.
We are able to inspire people. There are so
many good things that come from that and it's free brand building basically. So
why would you not do that to attract candidates, to energize
your team? There's so many great things about being social.
Have you found that for some people it's
(17:35):
hard for them to feel like they're being authentic when
they're sharing in that medium? And if you have, how
have you kind of coached them to get over that? Because, you
know, I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn probably like you do too. And there's, you
know, there's posts that I post that are very corporate
sounding, right? They've got a very specific call to action.
(17:55):
And then there are moments where I'm sharing stories and being more personal.
you know sometimes they feel icky right but you you need to
get some information out there so how do you kind of get over that
for like the thing that holds you back from knowing that what you
have to say and what you have to share it's going to impact somebody
like we all have these amazing stories and we all learn from other people unless
(18:17):
we're willing to share that We can't help ourselves grow
And that's what you just said is the bowl on top, right?
That that is why we need to do it, because so many times
I've had people reach out into my direct messages and
say that really helped me. I'm so glad you share that
because maybe they're unable to say it or maybe they can't share that publicly,
(18:39):
but they needed a voice like you to be there. And we spend
so much time in our own heads worrying about you know, being
judged or what other people are going to say? Are they going to care about what
I say? Is this post going to be good enough? Is it going to resonate? What
will people think? And we ask ourselves all these hard questions if
we just do it. I mean, my first LinkedIn post, I sat there,
(19:00):
unbeknownst to me that I was like, my mug matched my But
I sat down one day and just recorded a video and
I was like, why am I going to post this? Should I post it? And I did all this. Just
do it. Just post it. It's going to resonate with someone. Is it
going to resonate with everyone? No, but we are not for everyone. And that's
(19:20):
Well, that was the tweetable moment of this episode. If you're looking
for one, I love that. I'm gonna keep that in my back pocket of
mantras that I collect as I talk to different people. All right,
one last question. I know this is kind of a tough one to end, but
what advice do you have for leaders who have decided they
need to rebrand themselves, whether it's they had a tough leadership
(19:42):
challenge or they made a big mistake and they're kind
of reevaluating who they are. How do
Yeah. And I think, you know, again, it's it's values. And
it's I always like there's a very simple way
to say, like, what do I need to start, stop and continue? And
if you are looking to rebrand, one good way, if you're open to that and
(20:05):
vulnerable enough is to ask people what was working for
them, what wasn't, what areas of opportunity. So just lean
into that. It's called getting curious. We all learn and grow.
I've learned some of my best lessons through making some of my biggest
mistakes. And if we can lean into that and embrace it,
not only do we help reestablish and rebrand our own
(20:26):
selves and leadership, but we're also now role modeling that
and mentoring other people on how to do it. So it's getting
curious, leaning into the good, bad and ugly of what's working well within
ourselves and maybe what skills we need to. We
need some upskilling and reskilling. And there's always opportunities to
improve. But I would also say, like, Give yourself some grace. There's
(20:47):
a reason people rebrand their businesses, right? We were not meant
to stay static and change is constant. So
Tiffany, such great advice overall. If someone
wants to learn more about you and your consulting business, how
Thank you. They can find me on LinkedIn, as we've been talking about,
(21:08):
because we need to be social, and also on our website at
I hope you enjoyed today's episode. You can find show notes
and links at thehrmixtape.com Come back
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