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Cara Shortsleeve: Confidence Within- Valuing Yourself as a Bold Leader · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge Podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Lee Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Every week, we'll hear from someone who has taken a leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they face challenges or douse along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be freed.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Today I have Kara Shortsleeve.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: She is the Chief Executive Officer of the Leadership Consortium.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Kara joined Harvard Business School Professor Francis Frye and Thinkers 50 author Ann Morris to found the Leadership Consortium in 2018.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Kara joined as the CEO to launch and scale the business.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Since that time, TLC has forged strong enterprise-level relationships with 80 plus companies, including Google, Walmart, IBM, ServiceNow, L'Oreal, State Farm and MBA and dozens more across 50 plus countries.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: The ROI for clients is real.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Tlc has accelerated 4,500 plus leaders, 97% of them who say TLC increased their confidence and 99% of them who report increased goodwill toward their employer.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Prior to joining TLC, Kara spent 10 plus years in various leadership roles at Google and YouTube.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Most recently, Kara served as Global Director for GTM and Commercialization at YouTube, focusing on product and commercial strategy.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Bold Lounge.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Kara, Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: I'm thrilled to chat today.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm excited to talk.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: We had a really cool pre-session and we're going to jump right into being bold, so I would love to hear your definition of what bold means to you.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: I think it is the nexus of conviction and courage.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: I thought a lot about it.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: I think the conviction piece comes into play because you have to have enough in you in terms of a bold choice or a bold opinion, and then courage is operating, despite the fear and the discomfort.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: So how can you put those two together?
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: That's what I think of when I think of bold.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, I love that and I can totally visualize that and can actually see Fran drawing it on her blackboard.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: When you think of conviction and courage kind of coming together and it's that nexus of where they meet, what is one of your first bold moments, or a bold moment that comes to mind for you, based on your definition?
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm such a fan of the podcast so I listened to past episodes and just so enjoy people's first memories of when they had really bold moments.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: So for me I go way back to little itty-bitty Cara childhood days and always in my time we call them being tomboyce, but it was born a fabulous girl and loved all the boy activities, and so I just remember from like a very young age I was a crazy and fabulous athlete.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: My hair was as short as could be up through like sixth grade and I just remember having some comfort in like I am who I am and being very aware of you know I'm a bit of a snowflake here looking around in terms of where I fit.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: So to me I just I think probably it had to get baked into my being, you know, dna to be a little bit bold.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Knowing who I was, you know, always seemed a little bit different than some of the other fabulous humans around me.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's kind of when I was growing up, my mom said, do you need to play a sport or you need to play an instrument?
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: And I did both.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I just remember I was at soccer practice and then you, there were no girls and boys, it was just boys, and if you wanted to be a girl to play soccer, that's all day, and you just had to join a boys league.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: And so my mom signed me up and I was like, okay, cool, I never realized that I wasn't supposed to be there.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: So I kind of like have lived that way, like I didn't know I wasn't supposed to be in this meeting.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I didn't know I wasn't invited, I didn't know you didn't want to hear my opinion.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: You know, early 2030s, when you're in the corporate environment, you learn really quick.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, this is it where I insert kind of what I think.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, because I grew up in sounds very similar like it was.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: It was welcome to what I think and to have that conversation and to maybe have, you know, disagreement that you talk through and figure out and not just avoid and those types of things.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: So I think that's a great memory of yours.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Did you play any particular sport?
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, growing up I played many, many sports.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: I ended up sticking with overtime, which I played through college.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: We're both ice hockey and lacrosse.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Okay awesome that lacrosse is sort of a gen, you know has distinct rules and operating rhythms between the men's and the women's sport, but hockey, as an example, growing up it was if you were going to play ice hockey or you were playing with all the young labs, and so that's, that's what we did, and like you it's.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: You know, I have this recollection of I think I had the good fortune of maybe some of the conviction, part of the boldness.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: We're feeling very comfortable in those forums.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: But I've noticed a trend over time, like I've done well, probably in spaces and places that weren't necessarily built for me, but obviously that's, you know, that's a gift and that's not everyone's experience, and so I'm always aware to your point.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: You know, as we get to be adults and we look at the workplace, you know just thinking about sort of who is this space really built for and how do you make sure every you know everybody feels as comfortable showing?
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: up, feels welcome, right.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember one point the reps talking to my mom, telling my mom that I needed to play not as hard, that I was going to get hurt if I kept playing hard because I was getting laid out.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I was, I loved it.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: We even have like this little symbol like if I go down, mom, you can't come out.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: I'll raise my hand, I'm just catching my breath or whatever.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Because the first time I got laid out she ran out on the field.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: I was very embarrassed so I was like, okay, you would see my little hand like just coming up after I would fall.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: But the reps actually said she needs to not play as hard because she's going to get hurt.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: And of course it was coming from a, I'm sure, a caring place.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: But it fired me up even in second grade, which is when I first started playing.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: So, like you know, feeling welcome and knowing that you belong and feeling like you are meant to be where you choose to be.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: I guess for me, like it was all the way back to second grade and those are some of my old moments that I remember as well.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: So playing ice hockey and in the cross.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: I bet there's moments potentially people saying like, why is a girl here?
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Or why are you doing that?
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: And and as you pull those through your experience into high school, into college and then into your profession, and then you know adulthood, as you learn every day, like every now and then I feel like, oh, this is just like soccer, like you shouldn't have that opinion, or you should, you should be more quiet, or, you know, you should maybe mute that and not show this.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, did you ever find yourself, as you went through high school, in the college, like having some of those moments too, where you're like I'm not sure I'm welcome here, but I'm staying and I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing?
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say for sure, high school and college, and I'm so grateful that we're all through high school.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, like that's, that's gosh.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: If we meet somebody who has not felt some dissonance, you know, dissonance in high school, I would you know, I would, I would like to meet them.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I would like to study them.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, but more you know to pull that thread through, you know thinking sort of professionally.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: I will say one thing that I have noticed personally about myself you know your pros and cons to some degree of having strong convictions.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: I don't do well in environments where I am not mission values aligned with the surround sound, whether that's a manager or an organization, and so I think there's certainly there's certainly always a choice there, mm, hmm.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: So I think there's always the choice of do I want to push to try to evolve this context to be a better version of itself, or at what point do I want to sort of take my really fabulous skills and emotional energy and think about, you know, exiting and joining a different context.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: So I think earlier version of myself would always say you stay and you fight the fight and you change, you change the machine.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: But I think all the time I think that approach undervalues how awesome each of us are as individuals and how you know in many ways sometimes we can vote with our feet and create value in other organizations.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I don't know if you get better at that as you get older.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: At least for me, I feel like I got better at that because I was like I'm a machine kind of person.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I was like I'm going to change it.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: I have, you know, I could have the conviction, but at some point you need to realize that it isn't giving up, it's just taking a different path to where you're supposed to be, where your purpose and your passion are aligned.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: And then, when it happens, you're like, oh my gosh, why didn't I do that sooner?
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: You know, why was I banging my head against something that wasn't going to change or that I couldn't move Right?
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: But there's that moment of like let me try.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: And sometimes, in my case, like I feel like I tried too long sometimes and I should have learned from it sooner, but I wouldn't change a thing because I've learned from all my experiences, good and bad, and they all feed into, kind of what I'm doing today and how I hope to continue to learn.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: One of the things that the TLC does and helps individuals and teams and businesses understand is building their value and understanding their value, and you and I were talking earlier and it was one of the things that I think sometimes as I work with women and coach women, that it's hard for them to define where I'm like, sitting here going holy smokes like.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: You are incredible, you're talented, you have expertise, you have years of experience and you can do things that no one else can do.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: And here they are.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Let me list them out.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: But they themselves have a challenge defining their value.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: In all of your work, in the thousands of leaders you work with, what have you discovered that someone can do if they're trying to define their value, understand how they bring value to an organization?
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we hear this so frequently and you are right, you know sad state of affairs, but it is usually.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: We usually hear most from an underrepresented demographic, whether that's women or an ethnic or racial minority or religious minority.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: And I think this question of like, what is my value?
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: So I would say that the way we think about it is, you are someone who is prone to probably undervalue your you know skills, impact, etc.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: And this is something with which you struggle and most we say find data about it.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: So what is giving you that signal?
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: And sometimes just having to state where is it actual, true data that's giving you that signal, or is it a story?
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: You know of a story, of a story.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: So, sometimes finding what is reliable data about my value or my performance, and that would be, you know a friend in a meeting who can give you the candid feedback on your presence you did show up the way you hoped, or maybe you didn't.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: You know, so it doesn't have to be.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: You know that data can come from.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: You know from a human who's who's sort of on your side and helping you reflect on it.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: You know from a culture whatnot.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: And then then recency.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: So, thinking about, as you're thinking about your value.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Can you do that on a weekly basis?
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Can you do that on a monthly basis, because usually our crises and confidence come at a moment where we've thrown us off track or we've had a tough moment and that takes a disproportionate place in our version of the stories.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: And if you have the ability to look and say you know what, week by week, I feel as though this was a great week and I contributed to this and this and this, and then okay, if I have a one off that there and doesn't take my whole value equation, it helps you sort of contextualize.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: So if you can think about what data can you truly trust?
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: And then can you think about it on a continual basis such that the recency of any peak or valley doesn't really shake you.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, again, I know that's a little academic, but that's how, when we're thinking about coaching leaders through this, like the those that's the framework we really work.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: You know, we really sort of walk them through.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: And so you have to look at the data, because I think you start there and you understand how the data fits or how it may not fit or what additional data you still need.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Right, and I think whether you have a board of directors or whether you have a coach or whether you just have a really good friend who shoots it, you know you need that input to the kind of like okay, so what do you think you know, even asking three of your closest colleagues that you trust, like what is the greatest value I bring to the organization and there are ways that you can also reflect it back to them as well, so that it's growth evoking for everyone involved in the questioning.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: So, when it comes to being vulnerable as a leader, it is one of the harder things to do, but it is.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: For me.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I always felt an essential piece of leadership is showing vulnerability, meaning like I'm not perfect, I make mistakes, I'm.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: You know we're going to try something and it may not work.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: You know, really having that growth mindset from a leadership perspective, do you feel that vulnerability is something that's not used as much as it could be as leaders and if so, why?
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Or do you feel like we're starting to see people really be real, more so in their leadership roles, with all the work that you've done, yeah, I think we have certainly.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Like if you're looking at really broad strokes, we have certainly seen much improvement in terms of how much a leader is showing that vulnerability and authenticity.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: So, like if you're looking at like over the course of decade, you know, you're certainly in the right direction.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: I think what we see a lot of right now is leaders struggling with, corporate leaders specifically struggling with sort of the role that they are expected to play, both for their employees in the broader community.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: And so, as we know, you know, trust in our government is at an all-time low by you know all the public metrics, and many people are trying to sort of shift their hope and aspiration and putting it into business leaders and saying can you fix these endemic problems in our society?
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: You know employment, health, access to care, you know all these things.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: So I think what is happening is a lot of leaders who might feel very well-versed, sort of being themselves quote unquote in a certain domain, so maybe they're an expert in their sector or their business, you know but they're being asked to also share more broadly, outside of what might be sort of a traditional quote unquote work scope, and that's, I think, where people are having a hard time knowing where should I be authentic?
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Where does that serve me in the business and the community?
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Where does it not serve me in the business and the community?
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: So I think it's we have gotten better and I think the context has gotten more challenging for leaders, and so you're seeing great examples of people bringing authenticity to the fore and being vulnerable and therefore you know getting great outperformance in their business, and you are seeing others with some obvious, sadly, some big public slip-ups, and that's challenging.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: The short version is you should be a little bit more vulnerable and authentic if you want people to trust and believe you.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: So we know that to be true.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: The connection to trust, right, the connection to trust and being vulnerable and being real, because a lot of the things we see in and I did a post on this earlier this week someone has instant success overnight in their sleep and this and that, and you know, like it's just not real.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: There's such thing.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Maybe there's that one in gazillion, whatever that is, but I still don't believe it, you know.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: And so I think you know from the perspective of people really understanding that it takes work, it takes success, it takes failure, it takes, you know, stumbling and figuring it out, and as long as you're working to get better and figure it out, like your team can only respect you more for that right and all within reason.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying just go all out and make mistakes and not do not be accountable.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: No, except the thing I think ownership is one of the key things in leadership that some don't practice as well as others.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I know I was listening.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: I know you had Amy Edmondson on the show a while back.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: She's one of our professors within the TLC program and she I just have such great respect for her and her work, which obviously spans many great topics.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: But her sort of latest work around sort of intelligent failure, right, kind of wrong.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Right, you know the right kind of wrong.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: And it goes to this idea of you know there's nobody has all the answers.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: We know nobody has all the answers.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: The person who makes like the quickest, fastest mistakes is going to iterate fastest and therefore perhaps get to the correct place.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: So I'm a huge fan of encouraging not just authenticity but quote, unquote, real talk around what is working, what is not working, because that's the only way people can get better and business.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: You know people and the things they build.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think one of the things that you also do really well in the TLC is help people understand not only how to accelerate right their trajectory or their understanding of their own leadership, their style, but also how to sustain in environments that change right.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: So, as you have worked with so many leaders and organizations and ones that are kind of iterating and figuring it out, what are the organizations that are doing it better than the?
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: other ones.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: And what are the organizations that are doing it better than the other ones?
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Yep, I would say the biggest common, like the DNA that is shared across those organizations, are a learner mentality.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: So you can call that growth mindset and you can call it.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: You know there's a lot of different things we call that, but it is an organization, like it is, consists of humans who are in learner and not know where mode.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: So they are aware, you know, in that just that simple frame changes so many things in terms of how fast an organization can metabolize change.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: So I would say learner slash, growth sort of methodologies, ideologies, humans and then, as crazy as this sounds, sort of operational excellence, because what ends up when you need to change quickly, what ends up getting in the way more often than not is all the systems and infrastructure around how to best communicate sort of the change in directions and enable people to make fast changes in directions.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: So it's do you have the systems in place?
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Do you have the decision making sort of processes clear to everybody?
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Do you know?
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: So it's all the ideas of if you want to change, you know, if you want to make, make a fast turn, you need all the infrastructure supporting the machine to also be able to pivot.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: That's the other piece of sort of the learner mentality, and then do you have the systems that are ready to enable all the humans is where to get re-educated fast and then pivot and their responsibilities to deploy, right to deploy, like act and deploy.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, we see, this is our current state, which is different than what we thought it would be.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: And now to pivot, or we're going to flex into the next step, but it might be different than what we had on our original plan.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Being an ops person true to the core, I think one of the challenges as a leader throughout my career in an academic healthcare environment where where I worked was the machine has an order and it has a level of autonomy it does give you as a leader, but it also has a limit, and that's probably where the tension for me came at times.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: And I think they're there purposely and they're there for a reason, so, but sometimes I feel and it can be in any private organization there are too many of them.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know like should it really take 90 days to post, you know, an opening.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Sometimes the system is ready or the leader is ready, but the system has some checks and balances along the way.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Is there anything that you found in your own experience being bold and how you've worked with these huge organizations, which I'm sure Google and YouTube yeah, saukany, and you know new bounce I'm sure they've got some checks and balances in there where you're like, hmm, do we really need all those or could I just got in the go yeah what are some of the things you've learned in there to kind of work with that so you can still be as agile and responsive as a leader?
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: So I think the thing that I maybe observed most throughout those settings so to your point, I worked in some small scrappy places.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: I worked in some real, real large and you know still still scrappy but big places at Google and YouTube and absent the actual systems, which of course will be super different and hard, you know, for listeners to sort of contextualize.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: I think the framework that I always found super useful was being clear on which decisions can you decentralize.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: So how many decisions can you push down into a team or an organization?
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: And a lot of times the way people think about that is the importance of the decision and then how easy it is to walk it back.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: And there's sort of a two by two when you think about if it doesn't, if the ramifications of the decision are somewhat contained and it's easy to walk back, that should never cross your desk.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Your teams should be cranking through those every day.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: If it has smaller ramifications and it's harder to walk back, that could also be one that you allow you say I'm going to decentralize, I'm just going to let people make those decisions and go, and then you as a leader need to be thoughtful about if it has broad ramifications and it's hard to walk back and when you actually think about many of the decisions that end up getting stuck in what might be that 90 day process you mentioned.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: There's probably decisions going into that machine that don't need to go into that machine.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: So it's, how can you help your team understand?
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Here's what does need a broader level of consensus.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: But that means here's all these other things that we should all have no excuse not just to be cranking through in order to keep up pace.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: I love how you framed it up of what decisions need to be centralized and which ones don't.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Where do we need to go back and actually look at our decision making processes or trees, and maybe let's update it to a little bit of 2024 versus 1999.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: So I think there is that that can happen with an organization too.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: That's how we've always done it, which is I cannot stand that.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: I know that's hard.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: I know you can't either.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: So maybe it's time to think about how we ask the question to when we're struggling with some of the things that can be frustrating or feel like they're just slowing us down and our ability to succeed, which is we want to help the organization be successful and meet its mission ultimately, Right, and I think that can depend on where you like.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: If you are the leader, how do you make that happen?
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: And if you are a operator in the system, how do you make it happen Exactly?
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my advice to the operators in the system is know your audience, know how they make decisions.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: So, if you're working in an academic setting where you've had these constraints in place for two decades, do the legwork to go back and look at 10 contentious decisions that were centralized versus those that weren't, and how do they end up.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: So there's ways you can probably tailor your message to the audience to reduce the aversion to change.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not easy.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it definitely is on the learning along the way, and the more you learn this earlier, how to ask the question or how to challenge in a way that doesn't feel as challenging to who may you want to be working with.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: So I was a chief at four years old.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: So in the sense of like having the ability, in the sense of influence and autonomy, it was very high.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: But some of the things that I think I don't know if I had as much savvy at certain times that I needed to ask some of the questions in a way, more so to challenge without feeling challenging.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: So, anyway, just openly sharing my own learning along the way.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: So tell us what the leadership consortium I've been talking about this whole time.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: But I would love to kind of intro what it is, because one of the things that I talked about in your intro was that the TLC has increased the confidence of the leaders who reported it by 97%, and 99% feel better about the organization that they work for.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: So tell us a little about the leadership consortium and then about the connection to confidence.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: So I will do that.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Let me start with the origin story on TLC.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: I think that you'll see why I think we built it the way we did and why we are so mindful of this idea of confidence.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Frances Fry, who I know you had on recently, and her wife, ann Morris, and I started the business back in 2018.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: And the idea came from a lot of work that Frances and Ann had been doing with organizations around really cultural excellence and they had become sort of a fabulous duo to call in to some degree when the house was on fire.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: So if something has gone awry and your gender equity is off or there's some sort of cultural class talk or something happening, and their point of view was like it's amazing to get to do that work and it's amazing to serve organizations in a time of deep and desperate need.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: And also, what could we be doing with organizations forward thinking organizations way early, so that they are not ending up in this place of having sort of real gaps in their cultures and therefore their ability to drive business results, which is obviously everybody's end goal?
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: And so we built the leadership consortium because we had a hypothesis that if we worked with leaders, sort of as they were coming into their sort of their real executive roles.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: We could help them develop more inclusive, courageous, creative mindsets and therefore both be stronger leaders, but then also sort of ensure that their organizations sort of an amplifier effect, in that those organizations then created the conditions for more and varied humans to thrive.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: So one of the big things we think about with our curriculum at TLC is we have a core belief that transformational change can happen fast.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: So that's our core belief.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: If the right conditions are set, and one of them is audacity, which is quite like being bold folks who are leaning into the discomfort of growth.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: But within the right conditions we believe we can really accelerate leaders.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: And the reason why we care so deeply about confidence is Our hypothesis, much like yours.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: At the top of the call is many of these leaders who might be talking to you saying I'm not 100% sure on my value or I'm not sure if I'm showing up the way I need to be.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: We're big believers that people have so many of the raw skills and so much of the raw talent, and so much of our service to them is helping them understand that, helping them hone in a little bit, shore up a place that they might not have as much exposure.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: So certainly a skills-based education.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: However, most of what we want people to understand is they are providing unique value.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: They are sort of coming up in organizations because they have been excellent in certain domains and to have confidence around their ability to then sort of extend that impact through the organization.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: And so we measure confidence because we feel it's a huge indicator that somebody is ready to therefore take big swings.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: You know you will if you have the combination of I feel more confident and I feel like my employer has my back, which are the two sort of metrics we look at.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Then you see leaders taking really bold action and taking risks and taking big swings, and that's what ends up driving real forward momentum for both the leader, of course, but also their businesses.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: So you know, long way of saying that's why we care so deeply about confidence, because so much of this is many of us have it within us.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: We just got to, we got to bring it out, we got to bring it into.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: You know we need, you know the word we play with is swagger Like we need people to understand their value and that's gonna just unleash so much forward impact for both for both them personally and for the organization.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and bolder organizations or more audacious organizations have that freedom to make decisions, to fail, to learn from their failures, to take risks that are thoughtful and pragmatic but you know, you're not 100% sure it's guaranteed it's gonna work and they actually have better results, they're more creative, they have a lower turnover, like these are all things that you know just from you know my own research on being bold kind of what it leads to and it ultimately leads to this.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: The second thing that I talked about in the intro and then that you measure is that feeling goodwill toward your employer.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: So tell me a little bit more about that and the connection.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Yep, the reason why we care about that is the way we think about high performance and this.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Anne and Francis have written some amazing work.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: You can read on this it's in one of their books called Unleashed but we believe humans thrive in the presence of high standards and deep devotion.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: So what high standards mean is we can probably all do far better than we even imagine we can.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: We just need somebody to show us a really high bar.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: And humans are amazing creatures and we aim to hit the high bar.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: We go for it, and any athlete will know that like that's why you have a coach right, like somebody was telling you that you can do better than you even thought you could.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: What deep devotion means is not sort of deep devotion to Kara as necessarily a human it's.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: I'm deeply devoted to you succeeding in this organization and in this job, for the mission, right For the mission, or more as a human, to say, like, lee, I'm gonna set a really high goal for you, but you know what, if you need the coaching, I'm here.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: If you need a support here, you know.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: So I want you to take a big swing and you can do that because you have the confidence that I'm gonna sort of set yet well and train you and you know, if you get it wrong, I'm gonna coach you and get you back on track, gotcha.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: So the reason we think about that metric, about like goodwill to the organization but these leaders are not gonna take big swings and they're not gonna push the envelope and they're not gonna pitch that really wacky idea that actually is gonna move the business forward if they don't feel like the organization has their back and they're skilled enough, you know.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: So the way we think about it is they're coming in now with the confidence that they do know what they're talking about and their ideas do have merit, and we want to know that they feel their organization has their back, because then that sort of goodwill to the org that that's them saying you know what?
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting here and I'm gonna take this risk that I wouldn't have taken last year, because I know Google's taught me to do this thing and they're invested in my development and they believe in me and so, therefore, I'm gonna go take this big swing.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: That's why it's super powerful.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: So as leaders go through the TLC and the curriculum and connecting, they're not only connecting within the organizations, they're connected with other leaders across other organizations as well, which is also the beauty of it.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Like you're not alone, like oh yeah, that's normal.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, here's the other thing.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: The thing that's so amazing is.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: So the short answer is yes, we bring in.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: We're big believers, you know, in the power of difference period.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: So the power of difference is we're big believers and difference is a huge catalyst, especially in a growth moment or an educational moment, right?
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: So having a lot of difference literally helps your synapses fire differently and your brain do different things.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: So if you're trying to develop somebody, having difference is really powerful.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: So it's neat because you have leaders from different, very different sectors.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: We have for-profit, we have nonprofit, we got big companies, we've got small companies, you know.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: So in a lot of ways, you might look and say what am I gonna learn from you?
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: Know a person over here in a totally different sector, in a totally different country, and lo and behold, many of the things we experience as leaders of a certain level is how do I articulate this vision better?
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: How do I enlist the team to really get behind this?
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: I've got a tough change that's coming.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: How do I ensure I deliver it in the right?
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: way.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: And having the fodder of people having done it in very different settings is hugely valuable Because right there, you have finished your research project, because you got 10 different examples of people who've done it differently and then, as opposed to you having to go work in those 10 environments, you've now learned it and you can internalize that and adapt to your plan.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Right and you know you're not alone and you now have a community of people also to talk to and to bounce off of, cause I know that's always helped me as I've gone through, you know, different levels of leadership and different challenges and even successes, cause now the bar is high and we did.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Now we're going to put that goalpost right and we're all probably guilty of that every now and then, of moving it when it shouldn't be moved.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: You know high is good, like we're really good, but could we do better and can we go to the next level?
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: I think having a community around that is so important, yeah.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: Well, on the beautiful, like it's just the check, like am I crazy?
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: You know I'm crazy.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Or and then either answer is great.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Someone's like we're totally crazy and I am too.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: So like you're or no?
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: you're not totally crazy.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: You know, I see that, I see that over here too, yeah.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: So no matter you're in, you know, community in community, with those humans in it, either Whether they share the experience or don't share the experience is perfectly validating, you know, because, like it can feel really lonely in some of the role that the participants in our program play because they're tough, they're big, tough jobs, and it can feel lonely at the top.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: So 100% that's the need, part of what we do.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: So, as we close out, I think some of the things that are challenging when you're taking bold steps or you're kind of like realizing your confidence and what you can do or where there may be a limitation, is taking that first step and trying to understand what that is.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: And if you think about kind of your bold string, your thread that you've pulled through your entire life and career, come all the way back to ice hockey, to now, like, what advice or what guidance would you give someone to like, explore, be curious.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be a loud step, it can be a quiet step, but what would be some of the first things that you would advise someone just to do?
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: If you want the smallest first step, I would say say it out loud whatever's on your mind, ask the question, or say it out loud to another human, like it's pretty amazing when you put something just out, when you literally let it out of your head and you put it out into the world.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: So if you're pondering a change or you're you know anyway, I would say put it out to the universe.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: You know, that's your first, your first, smallest step.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: And then second advice we always give is just start.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Like just start.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: There's never going to be a better time to change.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: Like change is always hard.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: There's never going to be a better time.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: Whatever the thing is, I'm sure you're terrified of it.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: We all are when we do these new and different things, and it doesn't get less scary.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: You just get through it and you start seeing the rewards.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: So our invitation is just start.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, say it out loud and just start.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: Start when you don't feel ready.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Most likely that's the best time to do it, because you're not going to feel ready.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you might not ever feel ready, and I certainly as a human who I've taken many career pivots and they all felt super scary and I never felt ready.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: So not that that's the right answer, but just to validate it for any of you listeners who feel like I'm not ready.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: You're in good company of not feeling ready.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: None of us feel ready.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: None of us feel ready and just start.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, excellent.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: All the information about the Leadership Consortium, Cara and her work are below in the episode notes.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Through the continuum of bold stories vulnerability to taking a leap you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.