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Authentic Leadership: Suzanne Sitrin on Emotional Intelligence, Engagement, and Coaching Trends · Authentic Living

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Welcome to Authentic Living with Roxanne, a place where we have conscious conversations
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about things that really matter in our lives.
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And now here's your host, Roxanne Durhaj.
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Hello, everyone.
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It's Roxanne Durhodge again.
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Today, I have a special guest, Susan Citron.
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And she does the same kind of, I would say, leadership or focuses on the same types of
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leadership that I've been talking about for quite a while, is authentic leadership,
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authentic heart leadership, I would say.
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So Susan, welcome to Authentic Living with Roxanne.
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Thank you.
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I'm so glad to be here.
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Appreciate the invitation.
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So let's tell you a little bit about Susan, and we're just gonna jump right in because there's
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a lot of juicy stuff that we're gonna get into.
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She's been in the field for about three decades of hands on experience helping leaders at every
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level navigate the real changes of building an authentic leadership culture in their
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organizations from Fortune 500 boardrooms to emerging startups.
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She's seen what works and what doesn't when it comes to managing and motivating a diverse
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workforce.
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So lots of years, Susan, to really be able to give us a real good insight on what kind of
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works and what does not work.
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So tell us a little bit about you before we jump in.
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Did you always wanted to go into coaching and leadership?
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It was an thanks for that question.
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It was an interesting evolution because my first job out of school, I went to Indiana
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University, got a degree in marketing, thought I wanted to be in sales, and I got a job
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selling corporate training programs.
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And what that allowed me to do was to get a deep dive into learning and development and
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leadership development.
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And in the nineties, what was total quality management, a big buzzword.
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And through my process of educating myself to sell the programs, I realized my real passion
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was in coaching and developing others and into, in facilitation and training.
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So I took the opportunity to go to work as a corporate trainer, and it evolved from there.
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I became an internal consultant where I was responsible for the training and development of
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400 salespeople.
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And then ultimately, did all the leadership development.
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And what was great is I got a chance to work for a woman who ultimately became my business
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partner.
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So I was in my mid twenties and she was my boss.
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I was getting my MBA.
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We developed such a close relationship.
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We knew we wanted to go into business together.
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And so about five years later, we joined forces and we've been working together ever since.
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Wow, what alignment, which really speaks to what you do, right?
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Yes.
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It's a great testimonial when a leader you work for is someone you ultimately want to go into
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business with, which was our case.
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So I always say she was an excellent mentor and leader, and ultimately partner.
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So let's talk about authentic leadership.
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Right?
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Give us your definition of it and what it is and what it's not.
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Because I think it gets thrown around a lot, Susan, today.
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Yeah.
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It's kind of like the buzzy word that you hear.
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But tell us from your perspective and obviously years of working in it and with it, what it
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means to be an authentic leader or someone in authentic leadership style.
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I think in the simplest terms, it is about leading in alignment to what you value.
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And so that is one of the earliest exercises I do as a coach.
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I want my leaders to define how do you want to be seen, known, or described by others.
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And I want you to brainstorm at first all the things and ultimately call a list of your top
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three to five behaviors, characteristics, and that is your North Star.
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And then I literally and figuratively want people to post that in a place where they can
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see it all the time so they can challenge themselves to say, Did I act in alignment to my
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values?
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Did I show up the way I wanted to show up?
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And if I didn't, why is that and what do I want to do about it?
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Because we don't always show up as our best selves.
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But the self awareness that is so important is about recognizing when we do and don't show up
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as our best selves, and then course correcting.
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And if we don't know our North Star, we can't align ourselves to it.
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So truly, that's at the heart of authentic leadership.
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And I also speak often about building your emotional intelligence or your EQ.
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And that, as you know, I'm sure very well, having a strong EQ is much more important for a
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leader than having a high IQ.
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So building your EQ is another way to really be an authentic leader.
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And I'm going to assume again that most people listening know what EQ is, but tell them, tell
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them, I love that you simplified it, you just cut right through, right?
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You said value, alignment, action and congruence.
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You just kind of learn those three steps, really in any part of our lives if you think
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about it to some degree, that's a really good gauge.
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That's an internal gauge, right?
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Because when I coach or speak or train people, sometimes they get caught between kind of, am I
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misaligned or is the strategic objectives about where I'm at, is that misaligned?
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But before we jump into that, which I know you have lots to say about, let's talk a little bit
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about some of the elements of EQ that you think are so vitally important for anybody that's
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ever led or anybody starting off or emerging or even trying to shift maybe environments, what
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kinds of things they should consider thinking about gauging where they're at.
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So emotional intelligence is really, can be bucketed in four areas.
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Your self awareness, what do you know about yourself and how knowledgeable and insightful
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are you about the way you show up?
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And then what do you how do you use that insight to have self composure, self control?
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When the old adage of when I know better, do I do better?
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Am I able to regulate my emotions in times of stress and pressure?
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Do I maintain that composure where I show up in alignment to my values even when the stakes are
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high and there's a lot of things pressuring me?
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Then there's social awareness.
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What do I use about what I know about myself to try to understand how other people operate?
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And then how do I take all of that to optimize my relationships?
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How do I use my awareness of myself, my awareness of others, my ability to maintain my
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composure, to be the best version of myself, to optimize my relationships with other people and
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really get the most out of those relationships.
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Again, so simple, but not easy.
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If we think about when you would have started in the field and when I started Frontline, I
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think it was a concept.
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Right?
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It's kind of like we wanted people to be, let's use the word nice.
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It's so much more.
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Right?
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And in my book, The ROR, I talk a lot about leaders being aware of what they're like when
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they're stressed, what they're like when it's their crunch time, what it's like when you have
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say someone on your team that consistently triggers you.
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Like to go a little bit deeper instead of, oh, Roxanne's difficult.
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I'm just gonna put her in the bucket over there.
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It's more about her and less about me because when we can go inside, obviously as a coach you
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could speak to this immensely is that we can really recognize, okay, there's something
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happening for me internally.
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What am I doing about it?
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And if I'm not acting in a way that's in congruence with being able to deal with my
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feelings what do I have to develop in order to be able to more effectively deal with somebody
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that might be difficult?
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Absolutely.
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We have to look at ourselves before we look at anyone else.
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And I always say, I challenge my leaders, I coach to say, if someone who's working for me
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isn't successful, let me first ask, what am I not providing as the leader or what is the
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organization not providing to them to set them up for success?
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Before we turn to them and say, what are they not doing?
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Right?
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Cause it's typically about 60 to 70% about something the leader of the organization isn't
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providing to set someone up for success.
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And that does not excuse accountability by any means.
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But we have to look inward first before we look outward in any relationship.
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And I think that's a key fundamental.
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A lot of people think of authentic leadership as being fuzzy without accountability.
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We're not suggesting that by and so I'm so glad to Not at all.
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Pulled up.
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Right?
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Is that you're still keeping the employee or the teammate responsible for what the
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expectations of that role is.
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However, you're not going to the first line which is what's wrong with the employee.
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You you might be thinking, how's that bearing out behaviorally with the employee, you know,
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on her team or whatever.
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But I love the fact that you go to what is it as a leader that I'm misaligned with this
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employee or maybe how that employee is maybe potentially the strategic objectives of the
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business, how it's incongruent with what maybe potentially the employee is experiencing.
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Yeah,
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absolutely.
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I feel really strongly about that because there's a model we use in our leadership
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program that's this idea, if you think of a seesaw, our goal as leaders is to achieve
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results through others by balancing accountability, setting clear expectations for
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performance and setting high standards with inspiring them to want to perform and deliver
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on those objectives.
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And we have a proclivity typically in one, a leaning in one way or the other.
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That doesn't mean we're all or nothing.
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And our goal is to get that balance.
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But you want to inspire people even when your standards are high so that they want to run
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through a wall for you and do whatever they can to deliver because they're so motivated and
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inspired by who you are as a leader to them.
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Does that do you find that some leaders go, woah, that's a little bit that's a little bit
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much.
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That's a lot of responsibility.
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Know.
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Yes.
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Hear it, but I'm curious if you hear it, I have to inspire people?
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Don't I just have to like make sure they get things done and we kind of get through quarter
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by quarter?
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Yeah.
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So the leadership you're dealing with at any given point, are they open for that?
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Because that seems like a great goal in my opinion, but lofty.
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If I'm starting off and I went to leadership school in whatever form I went to, got the MBA,
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came up the ranks and I did well and so now I'm in this position and now I'm meeting with Susan
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who's saying you need to be inspiring.
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Yeah.
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To answer that initially, we I typically try to vet the leaders I work with by only really
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working with the ones who are open and have the growth mindset and believe there's always an
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opportunity to grow and be better.
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Because I'm sure you know really well that if it's a turnaround situation or they're forced
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to do it, it's going to be a really challenging dynamic.
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And they're probably not tremendously invested in their own growth and development.
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That, so I like to really work with high potential, high performing leaders who
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recognize there's something, there's an opportunity to be better and there's growth to
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be had.
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That's the first thing.
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And then I put a lot of emphasis, even just using the analogy of, think about the fact that
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your employees go home at the end of the day and they sit around the dinner table and they
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talk about you.
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They, you're either a daymaker or a daybreaker.
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And what do you want to be?
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And I know that's pressure, but if you think about leaders you've worked for over the course
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of your career, the influence and impact that leaders have, people stay or leave often
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because of who they work for.
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And so that, the pressure is real because you do have such an opportunity to influence and
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you have to take that seriously.
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Absolutely.
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And I love the way you couched it because I can think of in my own career when I was in
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corporate.
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And my career got elevated by a handful of phenomenal leaders in my career.
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But I can tell you, I can equal you know, the ones who I remember more though are the ones
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that were detrimental.
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It took away from my ability to focus on really why I was doing what I was doing.
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Yeah.
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Because I was just reporting to people that I would say the word toxic or so unaware that the
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opposite, like a fixed mindset to your point.
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So And you can only do so much and go so far when you're working for a leader like that,
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because they're a blocker.
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And so even if you're doing great work, we know that engagement, which is a word we hear all
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the time is driven by three areas.
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How you feel about your job, how you feel about your boss, and how you feel about the
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organization.
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And it's a three legged stool.
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And I, you know, can you get by if two of the three are met?
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Yes.
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But I believe that if you don't get the chance to work for a leader who has your best interest
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in mind and challenges you and pushes you, it's going to be hard to stay engaged, which is a
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direct correlator to productivity.
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So the essence is kind of working with your leaders, right?
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And like you're saying, you vet them.
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But let's say you get a contract and
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you have
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a bunch of leaders, but some of them are not they're not going along with kind of the
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concept of EQ and those types of how would you how do you kind of and this may be a general
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question or something you can pick off from contracts you've had in the past.
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How do you approach the ones that are less open Yeah.
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If they're part of a team and, you know, part of a strategic business unit that needs to get
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all aligned in order to to impact the business?
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Yeah.
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It's a great question.
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I always start with data.
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It's hard to argue with data.
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So whenever I begin a coaching engagement, I'm on a bit of a fact finding mission.
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Whether we do a three sixty survey as a starting point, or I just do qualitative
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interviews so that I can get some insight and aggregate themes that I share with the
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individual prior to beginning our coaching engagement, it is hard for them to challenge
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thematic feedback that they're hearing from others.
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And so we then co create a coaching plan based on the combination of insights that I get from
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my data collection tools, as well as self assessment, right?
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So that they feel they're a part of the input, but they're not the only part.
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They can't just look at it through their own lens, but they have to take into consideration
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the impact they're having on others.
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And oftentimes that helps people get over skepticism or at least recognize I'm hearing
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some pretty pervasive messages that I need to do something about that in combination with
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their leader is I make sure that I triangulate myself, my coachee, and their leader through
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the intake process and through the determination of the coaching themes prior to
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signing off on whatever plan and moving into coaching so that we do get that alignment
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before we move forward.
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That's not to say it's a perfect process.
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That's not to say every single person I've coached, it's been a home run because that's
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unrealistic.
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There are those who are just kind of blown away by their own progress and how much they've
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grown and evolved.
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And there are those who don't make much of a change because adults changing behavior in
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adults is challenging on a good day.
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It takes, there was a statistic I heard once it takes on average eighteen months for an adult
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to make a sustained behavior change.
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And that is with focused attention, determination, care, and consistency.
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So, and it's not linear.
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So someone has to really want it ultimately, even if they didn't at the beginning, you have
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to somehow hook them or they're just going through the motions and you're just not going
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to have that impact.
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Yeah, and I guess that's when you get into the who, what, when and why of who they're
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presenting as.
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There's still an individual but there must be things that if it's incongruent with some of
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what they're having to achieve, it's working through that to see what's blocking them.
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Yeah.
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And ultimately, are they in the right environment?
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There are situations where by the end of my coaching with someone, they realize this is not
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the right role for them.
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And I do think everyone benefits from that realization because I often say to my coach, my
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coaching clients as leaders is don't keep someone in a role where they are
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underperforming consistently because you're not doing them any service as well as not doing the
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organization or you as the leader any service.
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So the same thing could be said from a leader's coaching if they realize this just isn't a fit
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and I'm just fighting uphill every day.
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If you're in a fortunate enough position to make a different choice, that's sometimes the
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end result.
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Yeah.
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Because if you're trying to find the right fit, like you said, for people to bring out the best
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in them and sometimes people just hang on because I'm supposed to be able to get through
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anything.
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And if it's a misaligned fit, like you said, it's not not good for the employee.
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It's definitely probably not good for the leader in that employee or their teams or the
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environment just overall.
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And how do you deliver that?
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Let's say it's a contract and you got a bun maybe, let's say a small handful.
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Let's say let's say a bunch of people that you know are not doing well or maybe not in the
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right fits.
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How do you approach that with the individual or also maybe with their leaders?
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So there's a couple different ways that I engage with organizations.
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I do a lot of the C suite and high level leader coaching one on one.
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So through our various, I really get to know them and I'm, I end up working with them on
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average nine months from assessment.
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The minimum coaching contract is six months.
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But prior to that, we're doing that intake assessment process, feedback review,
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triangulation with the leader, then we move into coaching.
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And so it does come about naturally.
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Did, for example, one of the assessment tools I often use is a DISC assessment, a work style
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assessment, which you're probably familiar with.
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And literally the format I use, because it comes in a lot of different formats.
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There's one page where it describes your ideal work environment based on your DiSC profile.
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Now that obviously in and of itself is not going to be the thing that makes someone say
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I'm not a fit, should leave.
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But it's a great opportunity to have a conversation to say, do you feel like your,
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your behavioral style is saying that these factors are important in your work environment?
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You're not going to get all of them.
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Are you getting some of them?
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If you're not, why is that?
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Can you advocate for yourself so you can try to get those?
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Do you need to adapt based on the environment?
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Are you okay adapting?
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Because plenty of people like to shift from who they are to challenge themselves based on their
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work environment.
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But we ask those kinds of thought provoking questions so that we may together come to the
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realization.
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And I wouldn't say it happens often, but that being said, organizations are constant.
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They're living organisms.
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So they're changing all the time.
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And what was the environment may change a merger and acquisition, a downsizing, a
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restructuring.
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And what was a good environment no longer is a good environment, maybe over the course of our
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coaching.
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So kind of those combination of things, we may come to that decision together.
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Now, the other way I enter an organization is by working with senior leadership teams.
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And my work with them is to really understand who are you as individuals?
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How does your style influence and come together to make up the collective style of this
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leadership team?
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What's working, what's not?
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What do you want to do to optimize the way you work together in the interest of leading this
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organization and creating the culture you want based on the goals you have as an organization
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over the next eighteen to twenty four months?
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And what will often happen in that process is they'll say, the team will say, we don't have
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anyone who challenges us in this way.
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We need to either augment our team or stretch someone so they take on this role because it's
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a gap for us, and it's preventing us from being more agile and nimble or actually executing
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versus just ideating.
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There's a lot of insights that will make people realize we have too many people of this style
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on this team and we need to make some adjustments.
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We don't have anyone of this style on this team.
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We need to bring them in.
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We need to elevate someone.
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We need to shift someone.
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So we have those conversations in different ways and can come to the insight that either
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like, what do I need to do to make myself a fit?
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If it's not a fit, what do I wanna do about it?
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My job isn't obviously to coach someone out of an organization, but in the rare cases it
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happens.
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It does.
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Of course.
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And I what I love about the approach with the teams is that collectively they're coming up
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with it and recognizing, well we don't have this role, who has the qualities that could,
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who's excited about doing this, who has capacity or just like we have a gaping hole
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with, none of us have the skills.
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I think that's a really nice approach because then it's not about any one of them but it's
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collectively.
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If we can work together to get to the best end in eighteen months, we need to be able to set
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up, set the right stage through the process, which to me feels very, very empowering.
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Yes.
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Oh, I get so excited working with teams and watching them figure out how to be the best
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versions of selves and then realizing the collective power they have to really, they are
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the culture.
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Sweet leadership teams are the culture.
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Are you modeling what you want people to do?
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Are you and so I'll have leadership teams create group norms or a team code.
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And then what are you doing to live and abide by that code?
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You and I started this conversation of, I ask people what your values are.
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I do the same thing with teams.
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What are your collective values?
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What do you hold yourselves and each other accountable to doing in the best interest of
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this organization?
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And when you're not doing well at it, how willing are you to call each other out in the
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most positive way?
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Right?
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But there has to be trust.
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There has to be comfortable having comfort, having conflict.
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We have to feel it's okay to hold ourselves accountable.
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It's all those things.
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Team dynamics are fascinating to me.
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They are absolutely, aren't they?
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It plays out if somebody's not after they've agreed to the goals and then somebody's not
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going on.
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How the team actually keeps them accountable in a respectful kind way.
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Sometimes it can be bumpy, but ultimately that they could self course correct collectively
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based on what they've already agreed with you.
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It sounds it's a fascinating and when you introduce somebody or if you let somebody go or
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all those variables, then you have to reintegrate and formulate and all those things,
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not to take it so lightly.
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Out there in the, you're in Chicago, out there in the kind of the global economic space that
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we're at, what are you seeing a lot with companies that are coming forward wanting
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coaching now?
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I've gotten this great opportunity.
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I'm actually working with a private equity firm as a partner to them.
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So when they bring new companies under their portfolio, and so it's a lot of fast growing,
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not quite startups, they're at like the next stage from startups and they're moving to that
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next stage of growth.
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And so as part of bringing them into the portfolio, I get the opportunity to go in and
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do an assessment of the leadership team and then say exactly what you and I just talked
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about for the leadership team to know, as well as the private equity firm who's just invested
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in them for them to know where are the growth opportunities, where are the gaps?
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We have these aggressive business goals over the next twelve to eighteen months.
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Is this leadership team poised to be able to accomplish those?
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Not to make changes like pushing people out.
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They've already, they bought them because they're confident in who these people are, but
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they just want that data to support how do we need to augment and develop this leadership
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team based on this new stage growth they're in.
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So that's really exciting.
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And for example, I just recently worked with a CEO of the portfolio company that they bought
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to understand his team.
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And then someone on his leadership team has asked me to come in and work with his team.
26:48
So one of the C suite leaders is now having me come in to work with the next level down
26:53
leaders to do that same exercise in the interest of aligning down the levels of the
27:00
organization.
27:02
If this is who our leadership team is, what do I, as one of those leaders need to make sure my
27:07
team is doing so that we're creating line of sight for people and really getting all of us
27:12
singing off the same song sheet.
27:15
Their change is happening at an increasingly rapid pace.
27:20
So that is what I'm seeing.
27:23
And I'm seeing the need to be agile and nimble, but leaders need to help people cross that
27:32
bridge of change.
27:34
I just was coaching a leader this morning who I would say is part of an organization that is
27:39
changing too quickly and people cannot get across the bridge fast enough.
27:46
And my best coaching to him is there might be a very good business reason why you're making
27:53
these changes, but if you don't help navigate the human side of that change and help people
28:00
understand why it's happening and help them buy into it, you will not be successful in
28:06
executing whatever changes because you won't have people to do it.
28:10
So that's a lot of what I'm finding myself coaching individuals on and even teams on to
28:18
that, to the point, because there's just, it could hurt your head how many things are
28:23
changing rapidly and the lack of insight and awareness.
28:29
And again, it goes back to emotional intelligence because leaders need to just be
28:33
aware.
28:33
If I don't do a good job helping someone get on board with whatever we're doing, they will
28:44
leave and I will have to go back to square one.
28:47
And maybe that's an opportunity to bring in a new person who's right for the organization now
28:53
that it's a different organization than it was before, but I'm better off really trying to
28:59
show up as an understanding leader who, again, I can hold someone accountable for this is the
29:04
way we're growing and evolving and I need you to figure out how you can get on board with
29:09
this.
29:10
But I'm also going to support you and provide you what you need if you're trepidatious, if
29:16
you're if you're struggling with something so that you can be successful.
29:22
And it's a major responsibility for the leader.
29:25
So he or she has to really take care of themselves and really understand how they're
29:32
managing because with the rapidity of growth, like you said, it's so rapid with with private
29:36
equity firms.
29:37
If they bought a company, it's there's not much lag time to slow down.
29:42
They have to be on point, Absolutely.
29:44
You
29:45
And think about the that you have to navigate a changing culture.
29:49
Right?
29:49
They were used to this very entrepreneurial growth oriented, but familial culture of the
29:55
founders and a few people and kind of organic growth that all of a sudden is scaling so
30:01
quickly because you're moving to that next level.
30:05
Perhaps the founder isn't the right leader anymore.
30:08
And do they recognize that?
30:10
Are they willing to step into a different role?
30:13
Let someone else step up to take the organization?
30:16
They took the organization from A to B to C.
30:19
Is someone else the better leader to take them from C to D to E?
30:23
And oftentimes that's what happens if the originator is not the best pick to be on, go on
30:30
to be the CEO or something like that, right?
30:32
Absolutely.
30:33
You hear that a Yeah.
30:35
Sounds like it's fascinating times.
30:40
Clearly, businesses obviously have to evolve and pivot accordingly to what's happening.
30:46
And the emotional times that we're in financially with global change in reference to
30:53
the world economy, companies that are smart enough to recognize that and to create the
30:59
space to give support for change are the ones that are gonna be successful.
31:06
Susan, this has been I think you and I can probably chat for a lot longer.
31:10
But
31:11
Absolutely.
31:12
Is there any last words that you wanna share with us before we let you go?
31:15
And I know that you have an exciting program you wanted to talk about.
31:19
Just if you wanted to share anything and then tell where the people can get ahold of you and
31:23
what the program is that you have that you're offering.
31:26
That would be great.
31:27
We believe really strongly that our job is to try to build the best organizations one leader
31:34
at a time.
31:35
Right?
31:35
So we do that at many different levels, but one of the things we offer is a twelve month
31:40
leadership program for kind of new and up and coming leaders.
31:43
So you're leading people, but you're fairly new in the role and you really want to build that
31:47
toolkit to make you an effective leader.
31:49
So our program is called Living as a Leader.
31:52
We do it in two different ways.
31:53
We go inside of organizations and provide it for a group of leaders within that
31:58
organization, but we also do an open enrollment format where we take leaders from all different
32:02
companies and they get a chance to connect over the course of a year.
32:05
It's a 12 series.
32:07
It happens monthly for half day sessions.
32:10
And in between, you get a one on one sixty minute coaching session with a very experienced
32:15
leadership coach to help reinforce and support the learning you get through this program.
32:20
So we do it twice a year.
32:22
Our next one will launch in April 2026, and enrollment will open in December or January.
32:28
So we're always welcoming new organizations into the fold.
32:32
And you can learn more about it.
32:34
My company is called Blue Birch Consulting.
32:36
So www.bluebirchconsulting.com or suzanne@bluebirchconsulting.com if you wanna
32:42
reach out to me to learn more.
32:44
Awesome.
32:45
Awesome.
32:46
So what what am I taking away today?
32:48
I I think it's it's reinforcing a lot of things that I already speak and train on, but I think
32:54
it's to Susan's point, it's like when you're leading, looking at the frame of what could I
33:03
be doing differently as the leader to help the employee align with what the overall corporate
33:12
goals are and versus what we are seeing happening to what's wrong with employees' z.
33:17
So look at it from that frame because that will be that much more vital to creating the change
33:23
versus it being about a person.
33:25
It's more about potentially structurally what might be needs to be fixed within yourself as
33:31
the leader or within kind of the macro of the environment.
33:34
So that's the sweet spot that I'm taking away.
33:37
I'm so glad.
33:38
I'm so glad.
33:38
And what can you do to show up as your best self and to recognize the power that you have?
33:43
Like you said at the beginning, it's that's a lot of pressure on a leader.
33:46
It's okay if it feels like a little pressure, long as it's positive pressure, just, just know
33:50
the impact you have on someone's well, well-being at work.
33:56
Absolutely, absolutely.
33:58
Well said.
33:59
So for everyone again, Susan, thanks so much for taking your valuable time.
34:03
Thank you for having me.
34:05
Anytime.
34:05
And for us and my team, we're launching the ROR course and life coaching programs starting
34:11
later on this year.
34:12
Reach out to me at roxiannebroxianberhonch dot com.
34:15
We'll give you some more information.
34:17
For those leaders that are burnt out and you know you need to learn those elements of
34:21
resilience, it's a six week course with coaching.
34:24
Again, Susan, thanks so much.
34:26
And for everybody, if you've not subscribed to the podcast, a lot of you listen, but you don't
34:31
subscribe.
34:32
Please go on and subscribe.
34:34
Give us a review.
34:34
This allows us to get amazing guests like Susan to come on again.
34:38
Okay.
34:38
Take care, everyone.
34:39
I will chat with you soon.
34:41
Thanks for tuning in to Authentic Living with Roxanne, creating the space for positive,
34:47
healthy change.
34:48
Roxanne is a keynote speaker, psychotherapist, and coach.
34:52
To work with see you next time on Authentic Living with Roxanne.