Inside the Shift: How Leadership Styles are Evolving Post-Pandemic with Dr. David Cohen

In this episode of the HR Mixtape podcast, host Shari Simpson welcomes Dr. David Cohen, founder and senior consultant of DS Cohen and Associates. They dive into the concept of agile leadership and its relevance in today’s evolving workplace, particularly in light of shifting employee expectations post-pandemic. This conversation is timely as organizations seek to enhance employee experience and foster inclusive leadership while navigating the complexities of AI in HR.

Listener Takeaways:

• Learn how aligning organizational values with hiring practices can boost employee retention and engagement.

• Discover why emotional intelligence is crucial for modern leaders to adapt and thrive in dynamic environments.

• Explore strategies for fostering a culture of learning from failure to drive innovation and growth.

Hit “Play” to gain valuable insights that can transform your approach to leadership and HR practices!

Guest(s): Dr. David Cohen, Founder and Senior Consultant, DS Cohen and Associates

Episode Transcript

(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, like work. Now, your host,
Joining me today is Dr. David Cohen, founder and senior consultant
of DS Cohen and Associates. David is dedicated to

(00:24):
building organizations capable of sustainable growth through strategic leadership.
His expertise lies in aligning culture with organizational effectiveness
David, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast and

(00:52):
Sure, the book's called Selecting the Best,
Fostering a Workplace Driven by Values for Lasting Success.
It's been out about a month, a little over a month, and
it really has two parts to it. It's based on a case study I
did in Corpus Christi, Texas, with a plant that was really
a greenfield site, starting from scratch. So we worked with the new

(01:13):
leadership to identify what the values were gonna be, what
the culture was gonna be like, And then I trained them to hire people when
they needed to hire people, which took about a year to be
able to hire them right. And
I was even surprised by the results, because in the
first round, they figured they'd have to hire 100 people. So

(01:35):
I know they had to hire 95. So they said they'd hire
100, because they knew people wouldn't bug out. So they offered
it to 102, but 101 took the job. Wow,
because when people are asked why you take the job, they love the interview. They
love that they were being talked about them and not some
crazy stuff like what do you like and where you're going to be in five years and

(01:57):
all that really conversation about how they act
on the job. So they like that. And But
unfortunately, the company that owned it in Italy went bankrupt, and
it went into receivership, so the plant didn't continue being built. However,
it was salvaged by a consortium from Taiwan
and Mexico, and they started rebuilding it. So

(02:20):
they said, let's bring back our best employees. Well, some of those
employees moved away from Corpus Christi. One, in fact, moved
to Seattle, Washington, a much different place than
Corpus Christi. And he came back
on his own bill for a 25% cut in salary. It
turned out about 10 came back at at least a 10% cut in

(02:41):
salary. And when I asked them why, they said, because I
never worked in a place where leadership not only had your
back, but they were working right beside you. And every
decision they made, even if it was a decision that wasn't
going to be popular, or wasn't going to get them things
done as fast as it should be, or they thought it could be, it

(03:01):
was always a decision based on the values. And they said, I've
never worked here like that before. I wanted to come back. Then they came back.
And that's why I say, if you hire based on values, you
get people that are excited about working there. They have a great employee
experience and retention rates go way up, innovation

(03:24):
Yeah, for sure. And I think that kind of ties into the conversation that
honestly that I wanted to have today around agile leadership.
And what does that what does that practically mean for HR teams
today? And I guess how does it look different than
some of like the traditional leadership models that we've been taught in the past?
Well, if we go way back to when I started consulting in

(03:46):
the dark ages, you would say that Leaders
weren't supposed to have a sense of humor, and they were never supposed to show emotion.
They shouldn't show that side of them. You weren't strong. Now
it's a 180. Now it's about humility and it's about
showing, admitting that you'd failed at something and you'll learn from
it. Cause that's true. Nobody ever learned anything from

(04:09):
success. They learn more from the failures than the success of it. So
I think the leadership has evolved with that. It is a certain
amount of emotional intelligence that has come
a long way that people realize that we're more complete
human beings and that we have to adjust. Um,
It doesn't mean leaders are giving up on their goals, and it doesn't mean

(04:30):
leaders aren't giving up on their passion. It means that
they're smart enough now to say, okay, if this isn't
getting us where we want to go, what is? And
let's listen to different points of view. And I
think the best leader is one who might have
an idea, isn't ready to take action yet, but

(04:51):
ask people around him or her,
what are you thinking? And question them why they're thinking that
to understand it, to be able to formulate a better answer
than maybe they were originally thinking. And also engage
How do we get HR teams to think in that

(05:12):
Agile mindset? And the reason I ask this, even
if I'm back on my own, I stepped into roles where
I was expected to deliver the whole product, the
bow on it, perfect, ready to go, right? There wasn't that
iterative process that we actually see in Agile methodology, which We
know worse, but sometimes it's hard, you know, teams to

(05:35):
kind of shift that mindset to think about iteration and
Well, I think one of the first things is people pay attention to what you reward. They
pay attention to what you pay attention to. It's like a child pays attention
to what the parents do. Same thing, they're paying
attention because you as a leader in HR control

(05:55):
their success, so to speak, control their performance review. Will
they get an advancement? Will they get a bonus, et cetera? Wouldn't
it be nice if somebody in HR, some leader
can stand up to somebody and say, you know, I think it's really
great you failed at that the other day because we can
learn from it, move this so far ahead. and

(06:17):
celebrate the failure, but on the condition that the learning
is shared with everybody. See, it's not the fact that I shared because
it's corporate knowledge thing. And if we can spread
the corporate knowledge and not hold on to it, but unfortunately
with organizations, I won't mention any names, big

(06:37):
name consulting firms that come in and millions of dollars in
the interview employees. And the only way they can
Yeah, that's what it is. And I won't mention the names of the companies or
up in a way. Uh, the reality is simple is
the, how do I put this? I

(07:01):
had a friend of mine at one of the major banks that I was working at. We brought a
team together saying one of these companies is coming in to interview us. you
know nothing about anything except this one specialty. Because
if you're the only one who knows that specialty, they can't let you go. So
even though you know better than anybody else the other stuff, just talk about the one
specialty. If we can get people to get past that

(07:24):
and say, what is it that you contribute holistically?
I think it'd be a whole lot better. But unfortunately, that's
gonna take a lot of the outside influences are gonna
Well, and what a waste of money for an organization if you have leadership inside
approaching your employees like, hey, only say this. They're

(07:45):
not going to get their value out of it. But you're right. If the mandate is, hey,
we want you to reduce costs, that's going to involve... And he wanted them
Yeah. Yeah. You know, as
you think about HR coaching,
training and development. And I'm thinking specifically in that leadership

(08:08):
development. So you think your middle, your middle managers, your directors,
how do they think about training, agile thinking?
That's a great question. It's really interesting.
It's, I
was working recently with a firm that's on
the verge of being able to move for the first time some entry

(08:31):
level people into supervisory roles, but
they knew they weren't ready from a management point of
view, from even a knowledge point of view of like policy. So
they put together a program, which I think was brilliant, is
they asked put together a series of programs, one's on
how do you get people motivated more? How do you hire

(08:55):
better? How do you roll this up that first line supervisors do? And
they're having the senior executive team teach the course, not me.
to teach them, and when I did the training of
the senior leadership team, that's share the mistakes
you made, be you made. because not

(09:17):
every hire you made worked and not everybody you try
to help develop, developed. And there's
a difference between a development conversation and a,
you know, putting somebody on a performance improvement
plan. You have to know to draw the line at some point and
talk about that. What, you know, what is it? So you

(09:39):
can, they can draw and know it's safe because
you did it. Because they just don't want to be able to say, you
know, my boss wants me to do this, I gotta do this. There's more
than one way to get there. And I might not have the right answer at
this time. You know your staff better. So get to
know your staff. Do you know your staff who they are? Not

(10:04):
And a lot of managers don't know that. And if they don't know that,
they've taken the human factor out. So who are you?
Are you going through struggle? So many in your family have cancer. Are
your kids struggling at school? Are your kids the outstanding athlete?
Is your wife or husband doing something somewhere else that has
just gotten a big recognition or reward? Get

(10:28):
to know them as people. what do they aspire to? Because
your job, when your job defines you, you're limited. So
as a manager, you have to know more about it. I was working with a
company in Calgary that is owned
by an investment firm who decided
to cut staff, decided to make it lean and

(10:49):
mean. But before that, they were very agile, they were very creative,
they were very into staff. The biggest complaint I got in focus
groups was, Well, they've cut people, they expect us
to do more with less. I don't have time on Monday morning to come in
and give everybody donuts, share coffee for 15 minutes
and all the weekend wasn't where their minds at. And

(11:10):
I realized by knowing that I could support
them. I can give them the resources they need. If it was
emotional, they needed it. But now I can't do that. And
people are resigned because I'm not caring about
Yeah. It made me think about a scenario that

(11:30):
I was talking to somebody about the other day is when you get a
new leader, let's say you've been in an organization, you get a new leader. Often
that leader doesn't go back and review your resume. to see
what your graphic experience is. They only know you've
been in your current job. And it's much harder to you
to get to know all the skills that person can actually bring

(11:53):
Yeah, I just wrote a LinkedIn article on the
whole idea of promoting from within versus
hiring somebody at the CEO level from the way out. And the
corn thrower research and others, fascinating. Those promoted
from within, far outlast those
that are brought in from the outside. Those brought in from outside usually

(12:15):
leave within 24 months and not very successful. Those
brought in from outside have a better return on the inside,
have a better return on investment, and last a lot longer because
they know the cult. They know, exactly, they know more than job description. They
know the people, they know the culture. And somebody from the outside,
you know, the worst thing somebody comes in the new job is, well,

(12:38):
when we were at so and so, this is the way we did. But those new
CEOs come in thinking they were hired as the shining star
CEO because of what they did the other place. So that's
Yeah. Yeah. When you think about Agile leadership
from a metrics perspective. How can HR measure that

(12:58):
making this change is actually having a bottom line impact on
That's a hard one. I'm not sure. You
know, what are you trying to measure? Why are you trying to measure it? You know,
what's the, you know, what's the anticipated impact?
So if you can answer those questions, you probably put some sort of a rubric together

(13:19):
to figure it out. But, you know, I'm
not sure. Leadership's so hard to define to be in with, because
it's not an abstract, it's not an intangible. it's,
you know, people's behaviors are there, then you feel them. But
the problem is, is that unless you know
what they are, and know what to expect, then you

(13:42):
can't measure it. So I can't answer
I think you're the first person who's ever given me an honest answer about a tough
You can't answer it. I can BS you
with some academic stuff. Hang on, let me look at my
iPhone under chat GPT and give you an answer. But

(14:02):
Yeah, you're so right that it's in terms of the organization and
the business objectives and all those kinds of things. As
you've worked with, you know, lots of different organizations, what are
some of the leadership skills that you
I think living your values and

(14:26):
speaking to your passion. I think if they
exemplify their values, especially under tough
times, if they hold people accountable
and fire them for a violation of values, even if they're their
best employee financially, it sends a
clear message to the organization. I've seen it happen. CEOs

(14:49):
are always, oh, I can't do that. I said, I'll tell you
what. do it. And I almost guarantee you
that the new person's results are going to exceed them. Because
they're so happy. He got rid of that pain in the neck. Yeah,
that now they're cooperating. Now they're coming back to you. So I think
that's a big thing. Live your values, live your passion. And

(15:10):
I think if you're new in the organization, Never talk
about your past organization. And before you come in,
find out what the behaviors that made the organization coming into
successful. They might've moved away from them, but find out
what originally made them successful and have a back to the future exercise

(15:31):
Such a good idea, and such a good challenge for
the HR community, that concept of firing
your best producing person if they're not living your
values, because ultimately, that actually is holding your
Yeah. There's a great Ted Lasso episode where they benched a
star player. Right. And it's the same concept. We get a positive

(15:55):
Walton from UCLA benched Kareem
because he wore facial hair and the rule was no facial hair. He
benched him. The best player, you bench him. Why?
He didn't follow the rules. They still won, right? So,
you know, and everybody learned a lesson from that. I

(16:17):
mean it. This is, you know, we have a certain discipline on our team. And
even if you're our superstars scoring 50 points a game, You're
not going to play if you don't go by our rules. And over
and over again, you hear that about in
sports teams, anyhow, of the person getting benched because they
didn't come to practice, did something wrong, and the team still won.

(16:40):
Yes. When it comes to setting clear expectations and
holding people accountable to that, every leader that
I've ever worked with that has done that, Super successful.
Yeah, I agree with you. And the team members feel
supported even when they get in trouble. Because they're like, well,
I chose to not follow the rules. So like, I

(17:02):
can't really be mad that I got a consequence when it was so clear here
But it only helps in the white tradition. That leader
sets that line out clearly. It's not a moving target
for some. And for others, it is a moving target.
Yeah. You know, as we kind

(17:22):
of wrap our conversation, you look ahead to some of the evolving trends
or insights around like being agile in leadership. What
do you think HR should really be paying attention to right
Well, it's not on topic, but HR, first of all, should have
the discipline not to jump feet first into AI. They

(17:44):
should realize that it's in its infancy. And
there are many, many, many, many issues with it that
haven't even been discovered yet. But I think HR has
to pay attention to the fact that people

(18:05):
come to work for a certain reason, and assuming they
come to work for the way they used to come to work, or why they
work, has changed. And
I don't know, it's just being the next generation, I think that
Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z,

(18:26):
have all come to certain realizations since
pandemic. There's more to life than just making a
dollar. And there's more than life than pleasing your boss. And
they've come to realize when you die, You
can get 50 hours a day to work. You can have everybody
at work love you. Retire 10 years later, you pass away.

(18:53):
Right? So what's more important about life?
And then what do I do to maintain this wellness
about who I am and where I'm going? I think they gotta pay

(19:13):
I hope you enjoyed today's episode. You can find show notes
and links at thehrmixtape.com. Come back