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Elizabeth Fields · Calm Under Fire

• Col. John Boggs: Well, welcome back to Calm Under Fire. I'm Colonel John Boggs and I'm the president of Fortitude Consulting. And Fortitude Consulting is a executive leadership development and coaching firm. And today I'm joined by Elizabeth Fields, a leader whose experience spans nonprofit organizations, higher education, public media, and the military and first responder community. Her leadership approach centers on passion, discipline, and building strong collaborative teams that perform under pressure. Elizabeth, it is great to have you. Elizabeth Fields: It's wonderful to be here. Thanks so much for inviting me today. Col. John Boggs: Well, Elizabeth, you talk about passion and essential as being essential to leadership. Why do so many leaders lose that as they move up? Elizabeth Fields: It's a great question. I think what really happens is when you step into a leadership role, especially an executive leadership role, and often when you've been friends with your teammates and then you all of a sudden have to start supervising them, you're sort of thrown into this situation where you have to be the one that's enforcing things. Right and a lot of times depending on the organization you're putting in operations, new procedures, new policies, you're the one implementing them, again you're the enforcer and not a lot of people like that, right? That's human nature at the end of the day and so it gets tiring, right? Obviously not literally but almost every day you feel like you're getting punched in the nose. And it really does wear on you. So it's easy to lose that passion because you're put in a situation where you know it's better for the organization to have these policies and procedures in place. And it's smart and non-profit. You want to be mindful of donor money. But again, it's human nature not to like it. But thinking about this question, I realized... you have to remember to find ways to also bring the passion back to yourself. Because it is easy to lose, but you want to remind yourself of it. you'll see on my list of experience, I worked at Gary Sinise Foundation and I was put into the COO role. You know, we had to operationalize a lot of things because it was a small organization at the time and we were growing quickly. And it was hard because people just weren't used to that. But I was reminded often of why I was passionate about it when I would go, for instance, to a home dedication, right? They were dedicating homes to the most severely wounded veterans and first responders. And when you saw the impact, you had that passion back for a moment. and you can bring the passion back to the team. And it also taught me that others on the team, they might be losing passion and you had to figure out a way to remind them of the passion. So it was a combination of it's easy to lose passion because of these things, but find a way to gain the passion back and make sure the rest of the team is finding their way back to the passion, why they're doing what they're doing. Col. John Boggs: Well, you know, you work with Gary Shanice. That's just in and of itself. That's amazing. But you've also worked with other, you worked in other sectors. So... What leadership qualities transfer everywhere? Elizabeth Fields: So anytime I take a new leadership role, Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: I sit there and tell the team there's three things that are really, really important and that I have always held myself accountable to. One of them is actually accountability and the other thing is taking responsibility. But the third one is giving credit where credit's due. No matter where you go, giving credit where credit's due is imperative. I, at an early part of my career, I had a supervisor that would love to just take credit. It was very toxic and it taught me I'm never going to do that to anybody that is a direct report to me. It literally will build trust and respect and confidence in Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: the team. If you make sure the folks that did the good work, that you stand up and recognize them for it. It will help with team collaboration too. So that translates every single place I've ever been to. Col. John Boggs: Wow. Well, you know what? That builds trust. Can you talk about that, importance of trust? Elizabeth Fields: Yes, I've been in a lot of situations where you come into a toxic environment and the trust isn't there and Col. John Boggs: Hmm. Elizabeth Fields: you do have to lead by example. The trust is going to help build culture. I know I'm talking very generically here, but anybody that's ever been in these positions, if you don't have the confidence and the respect and the trust, forget your culture and forget trying to do what you're trying to accomplish. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: And it goes back though to giving that credit where credit's due and the responsibility and the accountability. You can't just say it, you have to actually do it. You 100 % have to do it and that's where starts to build trust and that's where it builds the respect and people get motivated and passionate and want to keep doing what they're doing. I've never been in a situation where if somebody doesn't trust you, that you're gonna build a respect to the team and that it's gonna actually be a successful situation. So yes, it's a vital part of leadership and a vital part of building culture. Col. John Boggs: Yeah, I love what you said because it speaks to, and you said it, leadership by example. It's great to say all the things, but if you're not doing it yourself, it doesn't matter. Elizabeth Fields: Yeah, it doesn't matter. say that to, I'm doing consulting now, I say that to clients too. I just did a HR training to an organization where they're having some trust issues. And I have to tell you that junior staff members had such great questions about, they don't do what they say they're gonna do, right? We talked through some scenarios and it's like, Col. John Boggs: Ooh, ouch. Elizabeth Fields: yeah, it's like, they're like, how can we trust that you're saying we can do this in our self evaluations if... the leadership isn't going to follow through. And it's so true, right? They already lost trust, and it's going to be hard. It's hard to build back after that. Col. John Boggs: Wow, absolutely right. You've worked in, again, going across industries. What changes? mean, well, particularly between a mission-driven organization like Gary Shanice and performance, what changes or does it change? Elizabeth Fields: know that it changes, right? Because as you pointed out early on, I've been in nonprofit most of my life. I've done a little for profit in the consulting side of it. And obviously in nonprofits, it is a little bit more mission driven. I mean, the fundraising team has to raise money, so that's performance. And then on for profit side, it's definitely be more performance based. But I don't think it changes. I think what you have to do is when you're in a leadership position, you go wherever you're going to go. that you're just going to tailor the situation to the circumstance that you're in. Right? And it's maybe finding a balance for the team to be both mission and performance mission driven. But I don't think your leadership style changes. I think it's just taking the leadership style that you've developed and tailoring it to the situation of the organization that you're in at the end of the day. Col. John Boggs: Wow, very good. What happens when plans change? When plans change quickly, I mean, what allows a leader to stay effective instead of being reactive? How do you stay effective when the plans are jumping all over the place? Elizabeth Fields: This is gonna sound like one of those generic answers. I Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: was thinking about this, it's been a long time since I've been on a podcast. I don't wanna sound really generic, but the truth of the matter is when plans change, when anything changes in an organization, you have to communicate. You have to communicate. And I'm not just saying communicate at once. If you think that you've communicated it enough, you probably have it. You can never over-communicate. I am well aware there are situations where there are some things that HR purposes or confidentiality that you actually can't communicate the full picture, but you gotta at least share as much as you can. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: Because if everybody goes siloed and they don't understand what's happening, right? Rumors start, the culture becomes toxic. You know, you start to lose that trust and respect. So if something's changing, you have to communicate. And I'm being serious about the over-communicating. You might think you've done it enough, and you probably haven't. Right? So at the end of the day, that's I've learned over the years. You're like, I told you five times, how did you not know this? You know? So everybody's different, right? Everybody has different personalities. So, and communicate it multiple ways, right? I mean, when I'm doing donor relations, you figure out how the donor likes to be communicated with. But you're gonna do that same thing with your teammates, right? So you might have to do email, you might be doing a Slack, a text, holding a team meeting, going to different team meetings, picking up the phone. mean, so because everybody has a different way of communicating, you have to do it a variety of ways too. Col. John Boggs: Wow. So, when you're working with the team and things are changing and you're communicating, you're over communicating, you're doing your best to over communicate. Is that help you? What does that do for the team? I mean, when you're trying to build a strong team and you know, my mind always goes to the team. You're building the team and I love that you talked about communicate, communicate because things change. Things do change. So how do you keep your team empowered and feeling strong like they can get things done? Like they can do stuff. without you looking over their shoulders all the time. Elizabeth Fields: goes back to a couple things right it's a kind of leadership that's in place I've I've come to environments where quite frankly people shouldn't be in leadership roles right Col. John Boggs: Mmm. Elizabeth Fields: and it's hard to get them to empower the team because they actually shouldn't be in roles that they shouldn't be in that role and there's there's times where you could have the greatest salesperson ever And because they're performing so well, they get put into a leadership role where they're not comfortable, where they don't want to be there, where they've lost their ability to do the sales, which is probably what they're passionate for. So it's hard for them to empower somebody. So then the team doesn't feel empowered because of that. There's also times where there's folks... your direct, your teammates, your direct reports, they don't understand how to be empowered or they don't feel Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: comfortable to be empowered. And they probably shouldn't be in those roles either, quite frankly. I think it's Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: a combination of how do you do it? But it's, it's personality and personality is hard to change. Col. John Boggs: Yeah, that's true. Elizabeth Fields: And you can keep working at it. don't say, you know, don't give the opportunity to empower somebody. I go back though, you asked me about without somebody looking over your shoulder. I mean, at the end of the day, if you've hired somebody to be in a role, at some point you have to trust them to do the role, right? Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: You have to be hands on and say, I'm going to respect you. I'm going to trust it because you've been put in this role. But Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: then if there are issues, you're having problems empowering them. They're having... problems with it, then you do need to address the situation right. Sit Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: down, have a conversation, find out what the issues are and try to make those adjustments and try to work through it with them. Use it as a teachable moment. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: But going back to like maybe everybody's not in the right role and that's okay too. Sometimes it is that. It's a Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: combination of things. Col. John Boggs: Wow, okay. You talked about accountability upfront and now we're really, we're kind of leaning on accountability there too. Can you talk me through... I'm accountable for this, but I'm not the one actually doing the work. I've got to support that person who's doing the work, but I'm accountable. This doesn't make sense to me. Why am I accountable when they have to get it done? Elizabeth Fields: So if you're in a leadership role, you're always gonna be accountable. I mean, at the end of the day, and I think a lot of times teams don't realize how much you're actually shielding them from a situation, right? I Col. John Boggs: Hmm? Elizabeth Fields: mean, until you're in that role, you don't realize like, people, you know, later on they'll come to me and say, we didn't realize how much you were shielding us from something. Now that we're in the kind of role we understand. But I'm going back to that teachable moment. You're going to be accountable, but you want to help the person that was responsible that's reporting to you to help them walk through the scenario that whatever happened so it doesn't happen again. So I'll give you an example about a teachable moment. I was in an organization. It was very toxic. The leader just wanted to keep everybody down. And then there was a leadership change. and I stepped into a leadership role and there was a woman who was in charge of grant writing, this is back in a non-profit, and it was a huge grant for the non-profit and she missed the deadline. mean millions of dollars, okay, and she was exceptionally, was, actually it was a... when it comes to grants, you have to report how you use the money. So it was actually the reporting of how we use the money. So it wasn't missing the deadline to apply for it, but obviously that will affect our ability to apply for the grant again. But she was very panicked, like, I'm gonna get fired, I missed this deadline, what do I do? Eventually she knocked on my door before I found out another way and she said this is what happened and I'm like, okay This is obviously not an ideal situation But she was convinced because of the last supervisor that she was gonna be fired on the spot and I sat down with her and I said What is it that happened? Let's outline what happened here so we could not have it happen again. I can call the organization and say something happened, we're getting it in, it ended up being fine, we got awarded money again. But I, you're not being fired. Obviously if you do this 10 times in a row there's a problem, you're probably going on a performance improvement plan and it's not looking good, right? But rather than punishing the person, it's like what can we do to adjust what happened, right? How can we get you some support? So you have to sit there going back to sort of also being like punched in the nose and that's why it's hard to you know You can lose passion because you're gonna be the person Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: that's gonna be in that situation but then it's Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: like let's make it so that situation doesn't happen again and let's communicate and come up with a plan and and Find out a way to avoid that situation happening. I think that all goes back to accountability Col. John Boggs: Okay, you said something that really got my attention. You said, how can we? And you said that a couple of times, how can we? And... I can't tell you how many times I've heard many people go beyond. As a matter of fact, they don't use how can we. They tell a person what to do, how to do it, when to do it. Elizabeth Fields: Yep. Col. John Boggs: They leave the person no room for making a mistake. And they feel that, well, I'm accountable, so I'm going to tell them how, when, where. And very often, they don't even tell them why. this. I'm not gonna tell you why Elizabeth Fields: Right. Col. John Boggs: we're doing this, but I need this done here when we're to can you have you been in situations like that? Elizabeth Fields: I've been on the other side of it and I think that's why I've built Col. John Boggs: out. Elizabeth Fields: this we mentality because Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: I didn't like being on that other side, right? I mean, Col. John Boggs: Yeah. Elizabeth Fields: I've been in a lot of different places and in some cases that's probably not a good thing, right? I did a lot of jumping earlier on in my career and even sometimes a little later. But it also gave me every single supervisor I have learned from, even the most toxic ones, right? Because I could sit there and say, I never want to be that person. Right, what did I learn from that that I can bring the next time I'm in a leadership role, whether it's like I was the first time midsize, an executive leader. If I catch myself doing that, then I make those corrections. Right, but that's where I learned that we mentality. Just telling somebody what to do, I mean. I don't think I, I don't even have time for that, right? You're busy doing your own thing. Why would you want to do that now that I think about it? I mean, I don't, it's actually baffling me when I'm like... Literally, how do you have time to sit there and micromanage? You know, it's it can't even Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: be fun for the leader. I'm guessing I don't know Maybe that's our personality going back to also there probably shouldn't be in that role, right? They probably were doing something great on the sales side And that's how the company thought they should reward them when it really maybe they should just put them in a more senior role You know in the sales team Saying okay you deserve a raise and we should give you a better title We'll make you senior director of sales and keep doing your thing rather than and putting them in a leadership Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: role because that's an opening. But I've never liked being in that situation, so that's where I developed this we. That we also helps build that team culture and that team collaboration that we've talked about. And that trust, going back to the confidence and the trust and respecting because you are embracing this concept and you're following through with it. You're not just saying it. Everything has that crossover at the end of the day. Col. John Boggs: Yeah, yeah, like a sports team. It's Elizabeth Fields: Megasports team, right? Col. John Boggs: like a sports team. They've got to pull together. They've got to pull together. Everybody has to do their part. Elizabeth Fields: Everybody has to do their part. I mean, it's interesting with sports. Not everybody likes them, right? But I appreciate, and not everybody's good at them, right? Not everybody's getting to the college or professional level. I also appreciate when parents still, I hate to use the word forced, but when they're young and they make them do like some kind of like, you know. the, I don't know, peewee soccer or tee ball, right? Even if they're never gonna continue, at least they've had some kind of exposure to what it's like to work with a team. Something's gonna come of that, right? If you're playing baseball, you might not like it, you might not understand it, but there's a reason why the coach is saying you should bunch in this situation and not. Hit a signal now it would be helpful if the coach would explain why right? There's a lot of strategy behind that and that doesn't always Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: happen But at least you've been exposed to an environment again, even if it was the most toxic presumably you'll learn something from it So I think sports and in playing on teams early on makes a really big difference for developing a leader and developing why you were asked to do something specifically to help the greater outcome and to make sure there's a successful outcome. Col. John Boggs: Have you had moments where... Things didn't go as planned. Things that this is going south fast or... Elizabeth Fields: Yeah. Col. John Boggs: How do you adjust? How does a leader adjust when the plan is not going well? How does a leader adjust? Elizabeth Fields: I definitely had situations where things didn't go as planned. those are the situations where you actually want to put it behind, you don't want to remember them, right? So it's hard to actually come Col. John Boggs: you Elizabeth Fields: up with what was the situation and what did I do? Col. John Boggs: Uh-huh. Elizabeth Fields: And... I'm gonna use an example of when I was more of like a mid-level manager, right? Because you're still developing those skillsets. If you're supervising three people, still supervising three people, whether it's 50 people or three, hopefully you're still embracing these same philosophies and they're gonna help you only improve how to do it over time. So when you have 50 people, you've developed a little bit more refined skillset at that point. So I'm going go back to my fundraising days when I really focused on specifically major gift fundraising in nonprofit world that's typically a gift that's $10,000 or more. In big organizations it's $100,000 gifts or more. And it takes a long time to build a relationship with somebody. to give that kind of money. You first have to identify whether or not they have the interest and then the capability to do it. And then on average, the industry says it takes 18 months to build this relationship and then successfully close a GIF at that level. I was in a university in a regional office. I had three people reporting to me. I was working with a couple, they were both alums, they were active as volunteers, they gave smaller gifts. I mean, they were like the perfect major gift prospect. And it came time to solicit them and... They went literally dead silent. mean, they just dropped off the face of the earth. I mean, they stopped coming to events. They weren't talking to their fellow alums. I mean, it was just Col. John Boggs: Bye. Elizabeth Fields: like, was like, man, what did I do? I destroyed this complete relationship that they had with the university, which is definitely, forget the gift, right? That's just not a good scenario, right? And my team is watching this. This was a situation where I had a very toxic supervisor who taught me a lot about I don't want to be this way. And she was asking me like, what did you do to these people? right? You didn't Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: do it right. And I was sitting there thinking what can I do to make this better because they're not responding and what I learned in that scenario was I'm going to tell them it's okay to say no. I sat there and wrote out to them and I don't remember what subject line I used to get them to finally respond, but I was like, if this isn't the right time, we want you to reengage. Your friends missed you. Literally, it's okay to say no to this gift. It's more important that you are reengaged with the university than it is for us to get, I think it was $250,000 at the time. Let's just get them back in the fold and reengage because that cultivation period can continue. Clearly wasn't the right time. They just, I think they were embarrassed to say no at the end of the day. But what was so important is this, I think as a leader, is that my team saw that you can do this. You can help change the situation and if the gift doesn't happen, the university still functions, right? There's not gonna be, even with a toxic supervisor, I didn't lose my job. Now they don't know that I got reprimanded left and right for giving somebody an out, but Col. John Boggs: Ha ha ha. Elizabeth Fields: they didn't have to see that part, but they saw that, you know what, we can change it and if we don't get the gift, it's okay. So that wasn't something that went as planned and that should have been an easy close. So it was Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: very concerning, it was stressful. I was like, what's happening here? People are like, why did you not un-repar their names? Why did they stop coming? I don't know. I asked them for money and apparently it was a bad idea. Col. John Boggs: Goodness. Goodness. Well, if a leader wants to strengthen their team immediately, what's the first thing they should be focused on? Elizabeth Fields: couple things and I've repeated I said this a couple times but it's because I mean it I really really mean it Col. John Boggs: All right. OK. Elizabeth Fields: so I sat there and said no it's a combination thing it's going back to communicate right 100 % that communication Col. John Boggs: Okay. Elizabeth Fields: is key making sure you're doing that give credit where credit is due but I think the other thing is is that if you say you're going to do something you do it You have to, you can't sit there and say, and this is gonna be a ridiculous, it's not even an Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: example, but let's just say, hey, you know what, on Friday we're gonna bring in pizza because whatever reason, you Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: better bring in the pizza, right? At the end of Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: the day, right? I mean, again, this is like a, it's not even an, well, it could be an example, right? There's Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: much more serious situations than that. And if for some reason you can't do what you said you would do, Go back and communicate as much as you possibly can of why it wasn't possible. Again, you always go to situations where you might not be able to communicate everything because there's HR situations going on. But if you do not follow through on something that you said, it's a problem. People will remember that and that's where people start losing confidence in you and respect and you don't want that to start happening. You can't get that back. So I think that's a critical part. Col. John Boggs: That's a critical part. If you say it, you'd better do it. Elizabeth Fields: You do it. And if you can't do it, explain why you can't do it to the best of your ability. Col. John Boggs: Wow, that is very sound advice. After all your experience. What still drives you to lead and to support others and to keep doing what you're doing? What's your inspiration? Elizabeth Fields: So, I was a consultant, I don't do as much leadership anymore, right? I mean, my firm, we offer a fractional executive service, so I do go in and act as a leader in a temporary situation. And sometimes I do have people reporting to me, so I'm reminded of, know, to practice the things I'm sitting here sharing with your audience, right? It doesn't happen as often, but I... I walk, I'm home based, I walk into my office Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: every day and you don't see it but I have a bulletin board that Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: has the things I need and then there's a section of this board that has a lot of thank you notes and things like that that I've collected over the years, it keeps me motivated. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: But there's one quote that I look at every single day that actually... I best answers the question that you just gave me. Because even as a person, I want this to happen. So if I can read you the quote, think that like best sums up, sums this up. Col. John Boggs: Lovely. Elizabeth Fields: Yeah, and I wish I knew who. I would love to call this person and say thank you so much, but I can never find out who actually said this, but I absolutely love it. This is all that somebody remembers me of for being a leader, then I feel like that I've succeeded. It says, it goes, I want to inspire people. I want somebody to look at me and say, because of you, I didn't give up. Col. John Boggs: Wow, because of you. Elizabeth Fields: Yeah, I just, it is so true. You know, it is just so Col. John Boggs: That is. Elizabeth Fields: true. If somebody didn't give up because of me, then good. I don't know what else to say. I feel Col. John Boggs: That's wonderful. Elizabeth Fields: like I've accomplished what I needed to accomplish. Col. John Boggs: wow. Well, Elizabeth, that was fantastic. Thank you very much. So how do people reach you? This was a very thoughtful conversation and I loved it, but how do people reach you? How do they connect with you if they wanna learn more about you or your business? And this is an opportunity, talk about your business for a second. Elizabeth Fields: So I have a consulting firm. We've been in business for about five years. It's called Jackson Fields Consulting. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: And we work primarily with nonprofits. I do actually have a couple of the for-profit clients right now. Typically small to mid-size nonprofits. And we do focus a lot on operations. Nonprofits are not good with operations at the end of the day. They're there to often get... Started because it's a passion prop a project for somebody and they forget that you you do have to run it like a business at some point our regulations Legal regulations that you have to follow so we do a lot of bill operation build and Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: mention that we do a fractional executive service we go in there and serve as a fractional executive director or COO During times of transition it keeps in consistency and a lot of times put in strategic planning We'll do typical fundraising and marketing plans, but it's a lot of operation Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: And I've built that I say we going back to weeks I do have a team that you know depend of experts depending on what the contract is Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth Fields: The best way to learn about the business I would say go to Jackson fields consulting comm The best way Yeah, Col. John Boggs: Jacksonfieldconsulting.com. Elizabeth Fields: Jackson fields consulting comm the best way to connect with me and I love connecting with people would define me on LinkedIn. I'm on there a lot. I post a lot of business stuff. I do this thing called Tuesday Tips and I actually do similar stuff to what we just did. And that's just Elizabeth Fields. I mean, you can look me up, see what I look like now. you know, might be a common name, but think you'll be able to track me down. LinkedIn's great. Go to JacksonFieldsConsulting.com works. I think those are probably the best avenues for Col. John Boggs: Okay. Elizabeth Fields: your audience. Col. John Boggs: Okay. That's great. Okay, folks, this is you go to Jackson Fields, Jackson Field, consulting field, like the cookie. Okay. Dot com. Or Elizabeth Fields: fields. Like the cookie fields. Yes. Col. John Boggs: you can find Elizabeth on LinkedIn. Elizabeth, thank you very much. This has been wonderful. I greatly appreciate it. And to the listeners out there, Remember, leadership is just too important to get wrong. And you got a lot of good advice and a lot of good tips from Elizabeth. And tune into her Tuesday tips and you'll learn a lot more. okay. Elizabeth Fields: Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. Col. John Boggs: Elizabeth, thank you. And to everyone else, I'll see you later. That's it, out here.