Mastering Leadership: What It Takes to Move from a DOER to a LEADER | RR241

Janice Porter: 00:00:01

Hi, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode

Janice Porter: 00:00:04

of relationships rule. My guest today is coming to us from

Janice Porter: 00:00:08

Toronto, and I'm really excited to talk to her. Her name is

Janice Porter: 00:00:11

Vanessa unilumin. And Vanessa has is the author of the book

Janice Porter: 00:00:17

mastering leadership, what it takes to lead in today's fast

Janice Porter: 00:00:20

paced world about leadership. And she has also led her own

Janice Porter: 00:00:25

team. So there's gonna be some interesting conversation around

Janice Porter: 00:00:28

that. She's the president of Mosaic people development, and

Janice Porter: 00:00:32

for over 20 years has been helping clients to develop

Janice Porter: 00:00:34

leaders who inspire great results. She's a speaker, a

Janice Porter: 00:00:38

facilitator, a leadership consultant, and a certified

Janice Porter: 00:00:41

executive coach, and so much more. So welcome to the show,

Janice Porter: 00:00:46

Vanessa.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:00:47

Thank you, Janice, great to be here.

Janice Porter: 00:00:50

That it's great. Um, I want to start with the

Janice Porter: 00:00:53

fact that you were in the trenches yourself, you have gone

Janice Porter: 00:00:59

through that leadership, climb the ladder type thing yourself,

Janice Porter: 00:01:03

and so in. In doing that, there's so many things in there.

Janice Porter: 00:01:11

Like, first of all, how much has it changed since you were doing

Janice Porter: 00:01:15

that work has changed a lot? And there's and the second question,

Janice Porter: 00:01:18

which I know it's going to take a bit, so we'll just right, can

Janice Porter: 00:01:22

you share a personal leadership challenge that you faced, and

Janice Porter: 00:01:25

how you overcame it?

Vanessa Judelman: 00:01:27

Okay, I'm going to start with a challenge.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:01:29

And then I'm going to go into the change part. So Oh, my gosh,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:01:32

yeah, leadership is really challenging. It's not for the

Vanessa Judelman: 00:01:34

faint of heart. And it takes a lot of courage to be a leader.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:01:38

And that's why I really encourage leaders to get help

Vanessa Judelman: 00:01:41

get a coach, find a mentor, get training, because the thing that

Vanessa Judelman: 00:01:45

a lot of people don't realize is that when you go to university,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:01:50

when you go to college, and you learn a certain skill, you

Vanessa Judelman: 00:01:53

become an engineer, you become a marketing expert, whatever it is

Vanessa Judelman: 00:01:59

an architect, that's what you learn in school, and then you

Vanessa Judelman: 00:02:02

get promoted, because you're good at that job. But doing when

Vanessa Judelman: 00:02:06

you get promoted into leadership, for the first time,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:02:08

it's a completely different job. And most people don't realize

Vanessa Judelman: 00:02:10

that, right? And so they find it challenging, or they feel like

Vanessa Judelman: 00:02:13

they lack confidence. And that's normal, because it's a

Vanessa Judelman: 00:02:16

completely different job. And so for me, one of my challenges was

Vanessa Judelman: 00:02:21

working with people whose work style was different than mine.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:02:26

So I'm a very fast paced, action oriented, outgoing extrovert.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:02:33

I'm, I'm strategic, I like to move very quickly, I make

Vanessa Judelman: 00:02:37

decisions very quickly. And I love to see things happen,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:02:42

right? And for all of us, our strengths, when we overuse them

Vanessa Judelman: 00:02:46

actually become our weaknesses, right. And so for me, as someone

Vanessa Judelman: 00:02:50

who's very fast paced, and action oriented, I really was

Vanessa Judelman: 00:02:55

challenged by people on my team, who and I'm thinking of one

Vanessa Judelman: 00:02:59

person in particular, she was so challenging for me, Janice,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:03:04

because she required time to progress. very analytical. As a

Vanessa Judelman: 00:03:12

leader, she required a lot of detail from me. And to be really

Vanessa Judelman: 00:03:17

honest, I found that incredibly frustrating,

Janice Porter: 00:03:20

for sure, she was like the complete opposite of

Janice Porter: 00:03:22

you. So I can understand that totally

Vanessa Judelman: 00:03:24

polar opposite. She and she hated my

Vanessa Judelman: 00:03:28

work style. She hated my leadership style. For the first

Vanessa Judelman: 00:03:31

time in my career after leadership style. I was because

Vanessa Judelman: 00:03:35

I'm so caring and I, and I just give everything to what I do and

Vanessa Judelman: 00:03:39

to my team, and she hated my leadership style. She pushed

Vanessa Judelman: 00:03:42

back all the time. She told me she didn't appreciate many

Vanessa Judelman: 00:03:45

things that I did. But from her, I learned the most, of course,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:03:50

yeah, learn to slow down. I learned to write everything down

Vanessa Judelman: 00:03:55

for her. I learned to have agendas. I learned so much that

Vanessa Judelman: 00:03:59

has been so helpful. So she was really the most challenging

Vanessa Judelman: 00:04:03

person I've ever led. And the person I learned the most from

Janice Porter: 00:04:07

totally makes sense. And, and we I don't think

Janice Porter: 00:04:11

we know it at the time, especially on younger much

Janice Porter: 00:04:14

younger that that these people are meant to, you know, to

Janice Porter: 00:04:19

challenge us and to teach us something is funny, you know,

Janice Porter: 00:04:22

it's not funny, it wasn't funny last night but my little

Janice Porter: 00:04:25

granddaughter was here and she is four and she is hyper hyper

Janice Porter: 00:04:30

hyper. Okay, I can't I can't don't know what tonight's gonna

Janice Porter: 00:04:33

bring when she has Halloween candy in her but she didn't have

Janice Porter: 00:04:37

a nap at school yesterday. And I picked her up from school. And

Janice Porter: 00:04:42

she was fine in the car. We had this great conversation going

Janice Porter: 00:04:45

home and then we got home and we finished carving a pumpkin and

Janice Porter: 00:04:48

then all of a sudden she was like wild and she was running

Janice Porter: 00:04:52

around the house jump went upstairs was opening everything

Janice Porter: 00:04:56

was couldn't wouldn't listen to a thing. We finally after dinner

Janice Porter: 00:04:59

took her home Like we couldn't cope with her anymore. She was

Janice Porter: 00:05:02

unbelievable. But she's meant to teach us something this child,

Janice Porter: 00:05:06

she's come here for a reason. I mean, she is so because this is

Janice Porter: 00:05:10

what happened when my husband took her home. On the way home

Janice Porter: 00:05:15

in the car, she said, Grandpa, when I haven't had a nap, I get

Janice Porter: 00:05:19

crazy.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:05:21

Right? You knew that? What a wise child do

Vanessa Judelman: 00:05:25

that. She said,

Janice Porter: 00:05:26

I get crazy up and she did. So it's just a

Janice Porter: 00:05:30

stupid little story. But it's so the same thing in the sense that

Janice Porter: 00:05:35

they're not, we're not all built the same way. And we and we're

Janice Porter: 00:05:38

not, we have to learn to deal with all these other things. And

Janice Porter: 00:05:40

she'll learn as she gets older, hopefully that, you know, some

Janice Porter: 00:05:43

of that behavior wasn't appropriate. But anyway, so

Janice Porter: 00:05:46

funny. Okay, so the challenge, that person taught you a lot.

Janice Porter: 00:05:51

And so now, also, the second part was how leadership has

Janice Porter: 00:05:56

changed, right? Oh,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:05:58

boy, a lot, a lot. Let me tell you a story. I

Vanessa Judelman: 00:06:01

was just on the phone with one of my coaching clients. And he's

Vanessa Judelman: 00:06:06

only 30. Okay, only been working for eight years. And he said to

Vanessa Judelman: 00:06:11

me, Vanessa, the young people coming into the firm today are

Vanessa Judelman: 00:06:15

completely different. And I don't know how to motivate them

Vanessa Judelman: 00:06:19

and manage them. Because their expectations are different.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:06:22

Their work ethic is different. He's in a professional services

Vanessa Judelman: 00:06:26

firm. And it was a really interesting conversation,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:06:29

because he's right, the workplace has changed so much in

Vanessa Judelman: 00:06:33

the last eight years. And it's because of the pandemic, mainly

Vanessa Judelman: 00:06:36

right. When he started eight years ago, he worked in a

Vanessa Judelman: 00:06:39

professional services firm, he would sit right in a room with

Vanessa Judelman: 00:06:42

the other partners, and he would learn through osmosis, he would

Vanessa Judelman: 00:06:45

watch them he would see, he would see how they interacted

Vanessa Judelman: 00:06:49

with clients, right? People and you have to think about it,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:06:52

people who started in the last three years started work in a

Vanessa Judelman: 00:06:55

pandemic, in their bedrooms in their living rooms, right? They

Vanessa Judelman: 00:07:00

didn't have that ability to learn through osmosis. So one of

Vanessa Judelman: 00:07:05

the thought one of the core things that leaders need to

Vanessa Judelman: 00:07:08

learn today, that's so much different is number one, leading

Vanessa Judelman: 00:07:11

in a hybrid workplace. And number two, the way that you

Vanessa Judelman: 00:07:15

develop people now is completely different. I'm spending a lot of

Vanessa Judelman: 00:07:18

time with my clients, teaching them how to develop people in a

Vanessa Judelman: 00:07:25

virtual world, because our hybrid world is completely

Vanessa Judelman: 00:07:27

different.

Janice Porter: 00:07:28

Mm hmm. Yes. And I saw it with actually with my

Janice Porter: 00:07:33

daughter going starting a new job just several months ago,

Janice Porter: 00:07:38

working from home, she did actually go into an office and

Janice Porter: 00:07:42

meet with her boss and a couple of people a couple of times. So

Janice Porter: 00:07:46

she goes in there once in a while. But most of the time,

Janice Porter: 00:07:48

she's completely isolated by herself. And then sitting on

Janice Porter: 00:07:51

Zoom calls, trying to learn the product line and learn all this

Janice Porter: 00:07:55

stuff. And it's, it's just not the same. It's very, very

Janice Porter: 00:07:58

different for sure. So I can see that. And then also, just to

Janice Porter: 00:08:03

sort of sideline from that. I remember talking to a couple of

Janice Porter: 00:08:07

people who are in the business of the changing aspect of work

Janice Porter: 00:08:17

like that's their their work has changed and how I don't know if

Janice Porter: 00:08:21

I said this to you when we spoke previously, but the word

Janice Porter: 00:08:24

collaboration, actually, it's kind of a misnomer, in the sense

Janice Porter: 00:08:28

or not misnomer, but a an oxymoron because we're all, you

Janice Porter: 00:08:32

know, isolated in so many ways still, but that collaboration is

Janice Porter: 00:08:36

becoming more of a thing. And is an Would you agree with that,

Janice Porter: 00:08:41

first of all? Oh, yeah.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:08:43

I mean, collaboration is always core to

Vanessa Judelman: 00:08:45

leadership, because as a leader, you you have your job, right. So

Vanessa Judelman: 00:08:50

you have your own objectives and accountabilities. And you also

Vanessa Judelman: 00:08:53

have to get results through other people. That's your job as

Vanessa Judelman: 00:08:55

a leader, right, of course. So collaboration is always has has

Vanessa Judelman: 00:09:00

always been and will always be a part of leadership. And the way

Vanessa Judelman: 00:09:04

that you collaborate now is different because you can't walk

Vanessa Judelman: 00:09:06

over to someone's desk. Right? So the one of the core skills

Vanessa Judelman: 00:09:10

that I've been really working on with the leaders that I'm

Vanessa Judelman: 00:09:13

working with is coaching, right? Because you can be a really good

Vanessa Judelman: 00:09:17

coach virtual in in a virtual capacity in person over zoom.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:09:23

And so, for example, one of the one of my coaching clients that

Vanessa Judelman: 00:09:28

I was chatting with yesterday, she was really having a problem

Vanessa Judelman: 00:09:33

in meetings and keeping her meetings focused. And one of the

Vanessa Judelman: 00:09:35

things she said to me is, you know, Vanessa, I find she leads

Vanessa Judelman: 00:09:40

a group of project managers that I have to be so patient because

Vanessa Judelman: 00:09:43

the first 10 minutes all they do is complain. And as a leader, I

Vanessa Judelman: 00:09:47

want to be collaborative, and I want to give them space to vent

Vanessa Judelman: 00:09:52

but to be honest, it drives me crazy. So I said this is

Vanessa Judelman: 00:09:55

coaching. And one of the ways that you can coach is is As you

Vanessa Judelman: 00:10:00

know, coming from that place of curiosity, and tool that I want

Vanessa Judelman: 00:10:04

to share with your listeners is asking questions that start with

Vanessa Judelman: 00:10:07

the word watch. Because what questions are very open ended.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:10:11

And so the structure that I put in place, the coaching structure

Vanessa Judelman: 00:10:15

I put in place for her is, when you start a meeting, start with

Vanessa Judelman: 00:10:19

these three steps. Number one, what's working on this project,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:10:22

everybody start with the positive, it immediately gets

Vanessa Judelman: 00:10:26

people to recognize that you know what, there are things that

Vanessa Judelman: 00:10:29

are going well, then you start, then you move to what's not

Vanessa Judelman: 00:10:32

working, and literally type it on a whiteboard, you can do this

Vanessa Judelman: 00:10:35

on Zoom, you can do it virtually put a wipe, what's not working,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:10:40

then go through everything, what's not working. And the

Vanessa Judelman: 00:10:43

third column would be what can we do to overcome what's not

Vanessa Judelman: 00:10:45

working. That's just an example of how we can be collaborative.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:10:50

OCE people get them to think for themselves and solve their own

Vanessa Judelman: 00:10:54

problems all at the same time. So leaders are having to learn

Vanessa Judelman: 00:10:57

tools like that, to build collaboration in a virtual

Vanessa Judelman: 00:11:01

world.

Janice Porter: 00:11:02

That's a great, that's great. I think anybody

Janice Porter: 00:11:05

whether you're leading a team, or you're a leader, you know,

Janice Porter: 00:11:09

you're even an entrepreneur, solopreneur, but you have some

Janice Porter: 00:11:14

contract staff that you have worked for you every once in a

Janice Porter: 00:11:17

while, or you know, or regularly, but you have to learn

Janice Porter: 00:11:21

how to how to lead them to do what you want, how you want it,

Janice Porter: 00:11:26

and so on as well. That for me is is you know, I always thought

Janice Porter: 00:11:31

of myself, I was a teacher in my first life. And then I was a

Janice Porter: 00:11:35

corporate trainer. And in both cases, I'm in front of the group

Janice Porter: 00:11:39

I'm teaching I'm not coaching I'm teaching is totally

Janice Porter: 00:11:42

different thing. However, they're all looking to me for

Janice Porter: 00:11:45

the answers. Right? And, and, and I was extroverted. So I was

Janice Porter: 00:11:51

comfortable being in that situation. As I've gotten older,

Janice Porter: 00:11:55

I don't feel as comfortable about it as they used to. And

Janice Porter: 00:11:58

also, I think my confidence around well, I don't know, if

Janice Porter: 00:12:05

it's confidence, or I just don't like to delegate, I've become

Janice Porter: 00:12:09

real. Yeah. And I think you have to be able, I think I heard that

Janice Porter: 00:12:12

you say that in something I was listening to about delegating.

Janice Porter: 00:12:16

That's one of the things you have to learn to do as a leader.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:12:20

Oh, for sure. And, again, it's one of those

Vanessa Judelman: 00:12:24

skills that are critical, that is critical for leadership, but

Vanessa Judelman: 00:12:27

most people don't know how to do it. And the reason it's critical

Vanessa Judelman: 00:12:30

is delegation has so many different purposes. So one of

Vanessa Judelman: 00:12:37

the purposes of delegation is just for you to get things off

Vanessa Judelman: 00:12:41

your plate that you shouldn't be focusing your time on, right.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:12:43

Whenever I say whenever I speak to leaders, I get them to write

Vanessa Judelman: 00:12:46

down their priorities, what are your key goals and priorities

Vanessa Judelman: 00:12:49

right now? And then I get them to look at their to do list and

Vanessa Judelman: 00:12:52

say, Okay, let's look at what's on your to do list. Now, what's

Vanessa Judelman: 00:12:56

aligned with that and what's not? And what do you need to let

Vanessa Judelman: 00:13:00

go up? Because sometimes leaders don't delegate because they like

Vanessa Judelman: 00:13:04

doing something, right. But it's not their job to do it anymore.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:13:07

It was maybe like two jobs ago. Number one, you have to be

Vanessa Judelman: 00:13:11

willing to let go. So one of the benefits of delegation is you

Vanessa Judelman: 00:13:15

get to let go stuff and get it off your plate. The second

Vanessa Judelman: 00:13:17

benefit is for your team, because they get to learn. And

Vanessa Judelman: 00:13:21

one of the key motivators for people in the workplace is

Vanessa Judelman: 00:13:24

learning and growth. People want to learn and grow. Okay, another

Vanessa Judelman: 00:13:27

benefit of delegation is succession planning. You know,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:13:30

if you decide to leave your organization or move to another

Vanessa Judelman: 00:13:33

department in your organization, you need a successor. And so

Vanessa Judelman: 00:13:36

you're building and developing your successor. Its delegations

Vanessa Judelman: 00:13:40

a retention strategy, again, because people want to learn and

Vanessa Judelman: 00:13:42

grow. So delegation is not only for you, it's for your team as

Vanessa Judelman: 00:13:46

and the organization as well, there's so many

Janice Porter: 00:13:48

benefits. Mm hmm. So when I think about people

Janice Porter: 00:13:54

being elevated to leadership roles for the first time, and

Janice Porter: 00:13:58

things like that, I think of the Peter Principle, I can't help

Janice Porter: 00:14:02

it. But you know, so often I've seen people get put into an, as

Janice Porter: 00:14:07

I recall, the Peter Principle is sort of being at the level of

Janice Porter: 00:14:10

your incompetence, right, that you move to a level that you

Janice Porter: 00:14:14

that is too much for you or you're not ready for or you're

Janice Porter: 00:14:16

in the wrong place. How often does that happen? And how can it

Janice Porter: 00:14:20

be avoided?

Vanessa Judelman: 00:14:22

Well, it happens every time someone's

Vanessa Judelman: 00:14:23

promoted.

Janice Porter: 00:14:25

Okay, yes,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:14:26

I call it new level new devil, right? Every

Vanessa Judelman: 00:14:29

time you're promoted, your job actually changes. So I coach a

Vanessa Judelman: 00:14:34

lot of people who I call it transition coaching, who

Vanessa Judelman: 00:14:37

transition from maybe VP to SVP or director to VP or SVP to

Vanessa Judelman: 00:14:43

President. I have a client now who's just been promoted to the

Vanessa Judelman: 00:14:46

role of president within her organization. So if you think

Vanessa Judelman: 00:14:50

about it, when you're when you're leading for the first

Vanessa Judelman: 00:14:52

time, there's actually a really interesting book called The

Vanessa Judelman: 00:14:54

leadership pipeline, and they talk about the six passages of

Vanessa Judelman: 00:14:57

leadership in the book, right? So if you're passage one leading

Vanessa Judelman: 00:15:01

yourself, your job is to show up to work on time, be accountable,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:15:07

have ownership over your job, be really good at what you do and

Vanessa Judelman: 00:15:10

be a team player, the minute you move into passage to have

Vanessa Judelman: 00:15:13

leadership, when you're managing other people for the first time,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:15:15

your jobs just changed. Now you're not only accountable for

Vanessa Judelman: 00:15:18

yourself, but for you have to get results through others, then

Vanessa Judelman: 00:15:22

passage three is managing other managers accountable for

Vanessa Judelman: 00:15:25

yourself. And now you have to get results through managers,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:15:28

you have to get results through their people. So yeah, every

Vanessa Judelman: 00:15:31

time you move into a new level of leadership, you have to learn

Vanessa Judelman: 00:15:35

new skills. That's and and you have to learn to be more

Vanessa Judelman: 00:15:39

strategic, for example, that's just, that's just a fact.

Janice Porter: 00:15:43

So I have to ask this question, because it with

Janice Porter: 00:15:48

the way works changed over the years. And with the the, there's

Janice Porter: 00:15:54

still a very small percentage of women in the top leadership

Janice Porter: 00:15:57

positions. But it's getting a little bit better, I hope, I

Janice Porter: 00:16:00

think, do you see changes in leadership with more women at

Janice Porter: 00:16:05

the top? Do you see in in not in leadership? Well, yeah, in

Janice Porter: 00:16:10

leadership, do you see changes because women are now in those

Janice Porter: 00:16:13

visits are in those positions?

Vanessa Judelman: 00:16:15

I do women and men are different, we lead

Vanessa Judelman: 00:16:18

differently. You know, women do tend to work more. I mean,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:16:27

there's there's actually strengths and weaknesses that

Vanessa Judelman: 00:16:30

women bring to the table. For example, a lot of women don't

Vanessa Judelman: 00:16:35

share their accomplishments. So on one hand, women are amazing

Vanessa Judelman: 00:16:39

leaders, because they're incredibly compassionate, great

Vanessa Judelman: 00:16:43

listeners really care about their people. But remember, all

Vanessa Judelman: 00:16:47

of your strengths, when you overuse them become your

Vanessa Judelman: 00:16:50

weaknesses. So sometimes women care too much that they don't

Vanessa Judelman: 00:16:53

give difficult feedback. Or women are not trained to share

Vanessa Judelman: 00:16:57

their accomplishments. So you may see a woman getting promoted

Vanessa Judelman: 00:17:00

into passage to have leadership, but she's gonna be overlooked

Vanessa Judelman: 00:17:04

for the next passage, because there's a man who's younger than

Vanessa Judelman: 00:17:07

her, I see this all the time, who's getting promoted over her

Vanessa Judelman: 00:17:09

because he gets his own horn all the time, and shares his

Vanessa Judelman: 00:17:11

accomplishments. Why because he's, that's how that's how he

Vanessa Judelman: 00:17:14

was taught as a boy. And so that's one of the things that

Vanessa Judelman: 00:17:17

women leaders need to know you have to share your

Vanessa Judelman: 00:17:20

accomplishments, you can't think that someone's going to notice

Vanessa Judelman: 00:17:23

what your accomplishments are. It's your job to share them and

Vanessa Judelman: 00:17:27

to speak up. That's

Janice Porter: 00:17:28

really good. Yeah, I like that. I like that.

Janice Porter: 00:17:34

So what would you say the top three things are that it that it

Janice Porter: 00:17:41

takes to lead with impact?

Vanessa Judelman: 00:17:44

So I have a great question. I actually have

Vanessa Judelman: 00:17:48

a leadership model, which has three pillars, I call it the

Vanessa Judelman: 00:17:51

three pillars of leadership success. So the three pillars

Vanessa Judelman: 00:17:55

are as a leader, you have to know yourself, manage your team

Vanessa Judelman: 00:17:58

and lead your business. So the Know yourself is self awareness.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:18:02

So what are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? How am I

Vanessa Judelman: 00:18:05

overusing my strengths? Are they become weaknesses? What kind of

Vanessa Judelman: 00:18:09

environment do I create? How is that motivating and

Vanessa Judelman: 00:18:11

demotivating? For the people on my team? How do I build trust?

Vanessa Judelman: 00:18:14

That's the first pillar, the second pillar, manage my team is

Vanessa Judelman: 00:18:18

all about how do I coach? How do I develop my team? How do I give

Vanessa Judelman: 00:18:22

feedback? How do I move my team, maybe from underperforming to

Vanessa Judelman: 00:18:28

performing or to become a high performing team, and then lead

Vanessa Judelman: 00:18:32

your business is all about leading and managing change. And

Vanessa Judelman: 00:18:36

in an order in, in an environment where 70% of change

Vanessa Judelman: 00:18:39

initiatives fail, mostly just don't know how to lead change,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:18:42

that has to be a priority for leaders. Lead your business is

Vanessa Judelman: 00:18:46

about executing strategically, it's about being very focused on

Vanessa Judelman: 00:18:50

your priorities and managing your time effectively. So so

Vanessa Judelman: 00:18:56

that's why leader leadership is very complex, right? Because

Vanessa Judelman: 00:18:59

there's so many different components of leadership. And

Vanessa Judelman: 00:19:02

what I've tried to do in sharing these three pillars with leaders

Vanessa Judelman: 00:19:06

is to take that complexity leadership and really narrow it

Vanessa Judelman: 00:19:10

down into those three things, those three pillars or areas.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:19:15

Okay, that

Janice Porter: 00:19:15

makes total sense. So, not everybody's a

Janice Porter: 00:19:19

leader, and not everybody. In my estimation, not everybody has

Janice Porter: 00:19:24

that has the qualities to be a leader. Would you agree or not?

Janice Porter: 00:19:27

Because you teach leadership? Were you coaching? Yes. So do

Janice Porter: 00:19:31

you ever come across people in leadership positions that you

Janice Porter: 00:19:36

think they're that they are in over their head that that's not

Janice Porter: 00:19:39

the right fit for them?

Vanessa Judelman: 00:19:41

Well, I do believe because I've seen it,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:19:43

everyone can be a leader, okay. Everyone can be a leader. And

Vanessa Judelman: 00:19:49

the two things I want to see are skill and Well, number one, you

Vanessa Judelman: 00:19:53

can learn leadership skills. Okay, fair enough. Oh, many

Vanessa Judelman: 00:19:56

leaders are horrible leaders because it's, it's quite

Vanessa Judelman: 00:19:58

frankly, it's not their fault.

Janice Porter: 00:20:00

Yeah, they haven't had the they didn't

Janice Porter: 00:20:02

haven't been given the tools. Yeah. Yeah.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:20:04

They don't know. They don't know that, Oh,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:20:05

it's my job to coach and develop people and give feedback. And

Vanessa Judelman: 00:20:08

oh, and then they they just learned from some other bad

Vanessa Judelman: 00:20:12

things or that they had who wasn't properly anyways. So part

Vanessa Judelman: 00:20:15

of it is skill. The other part is, well, do I like it, I want

Vanessa Judelman: 00:20:18

to do this. I've had people who were promoted into leadership

Vanessa Judelman: 00:20:22

roles. And they've said to me, you don't Vanessa, I don't like

Vanessa Judelman: 00:20:25

it. I want to be an individual contributor. And they've gone

Vanessa Judelman: 00:20:27

back to doing that. And I've had people who've said, now that I

Vanessa Judelman: 00:20:30

have the skill, the will is now there. It can go both ways.

Janice Porter: 00:20:37

Yeah, I think I guess you're right. I, I

Janice Porter: 00:20:40

remember wanting to looking at somebody I know that was in a

Janice Porter: 00:20:49

teaching situation, and and thinking about going into

Janice Porter: 00:20:55

administration, which is a completely different thing, and

Janice Porter: 00:20:59

got a chance to test it. And it felt it wasn't for him because

Janice Porter: 00:21:02

he was too far removed from the kids. So you know, not to say, I

Janice Porter: 00:21:07

guess that he couldn't have learned the skills that he

Janice Porter: 00:21:09

needed. But did he want to?

Vanessa Judelman: 00:21:12

Yeah, the other thing that leaders have to

Vanessa Judelman: 00:21:14

understand is, for all of us, there's a way to lead

Vanessa Judelman: 00:21:17

authentically and you have to discover that's part of that

Vanessa Judelman: 00:21:19

first pillar of know yourself, you have to discover what it

Vanessa Judelman: 00:21:23

looks like for you to lead authentically. And I think a lot

Vanessa Judelman: 00:21:25

of people have this model of leadership as an extrovert,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:21:29

being an extrovert, you're walking the halls and you're

Vanessa Judelman: 00:21:31

connecting with people and you're shouting out to people.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:21:33

No, but I've worked with many. And I think that's why the book

Vanessa Judelman: 00:21:36

quiet by Susan Cain was so popular because she said, No,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:21:41

you know, and in terms of definitions, extroverts get

Vanessa Judelman: 00:21:46

their energy from others introverts their energy from

Vanessa Judelman: 00:21:48

themselves. It's not how friendly or outgoing you are at

Vanessa Judelman: 00:21:52

all. And so I work with a lot of introverted leaders to say,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:21:57

Okay, it's not going to feel authentic for you to lead in the

Vanessa Judelman: 00:22:03

same way, someone who's highly motivating and extroverted with

Vanessa Judelman: 00:22:06

lead. So let's talk about what it looks like you're an amazing

Vanessa Judelman: 00:22:10

listener, how can you really dial up your listening? You are

Vanessa Judelman: 00:22:14

really good at creating structure for people, how can we

Vanessa Judelman: 00:22:17

leverage that? Right? And so every leader comes with their

Vanessa Judelman: 00:22:22

strengths, and that's what you need to lead from.

Janice Porter: 00:22:25

Okay, so I jumped right in at the beginning. So

Janice Porter: 00:22:29

now I just want to back up for a second and say, Okay, how did

Janice Porter: 00:22:32

you get to this? How did you see that this was your, your secret

Janice Porter: 00:22:39

sauce that you this was your piece that you needed to teach

Janice Porter: 00:22:43

others or coach others how to be great leaders? How did you go

Janice Porter: 00:22:47

from being in the trenches, so to speak, and climbing that

Janice Porter: 00:22:50

ladder to now working for yourself and teaching others?

Vanessa Judelman: 00:22:55

So like you I went? When I was at McGill

Vanessa Judelman: 00:22:59

University in Montreal, I was an English major. And my mom said,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:23:03

What are you going to do with an English degree? She was a

Vanessa Judelman: 00:23:05

teacher, she said, Go to teachers college, I spent an

Vanessa Judelman: 00:23:07

extra year I became a teacher I worked with at risk youth. After

Vanessa Judelman: 00:23:12

getting a few binders thrown at my head, I thought, oh, you

Vanessa Judelman: 00:23:15

know, I don't think this is for me. And I got an amazing job at

Vanessa Judelman: 00:23:18

a training and consulting firm. And I worked there for 10 years.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:23:21

And in that organization, I worked with global companies. I

Vanessa Judelman: 00:23:25

had business development role, I had a junior Consulting and a

Vanessa Judelman: 00:23:28

senior consulting role. Then I moved in house, I thought enough

Vanessa Judelman: 00:23:31

of consulting, I'd have to be a leader myself, moved in house.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:23:33

And that's where I was in the trenches, and I built teams, I

Vanessa Judelman: 00:23:36

inherited teams that were low performing, I built high

Vanessa Judelman: 00:23:39

performing teams, I worked with people who, as I mentioned, who

Vanessa Judelman: 00:23:41

loved my leadership, sadly, didn't. And that was the best

Vanessa Judelman: 00:23:44

experience. And after doing that, for many years, I thought,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:23:47

Okay, now I'm ready to grow on my own. And what led me to being

Vanessa Judelman: 00:23:52

a leadership consultant coach was actually, I mean, I always

Vanessa Judelman: 00:23:55

love working with leaders because I feel like leaders

Vanessa Judelman: 00:23:58

really set the tone in an organization. And if you can

Vanessa Judelman: 00:24:02

work on a leader to develop their skills and confidence, it

Vanessa Judelman: 00:24:04

has just tremendous ripple effects across their lives,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:24:09

across their teams, laws, even their home lives, right. And

Vanessa Judelman: 00:24:13

when I was on my second maternity leave, I actually had

Vanessa Judelman: 00:24:16

the experience of having a horrendous leader who made my

Vanessa Judelman: 00:24:20

life so miserable. And she was a very what I call unconscious

Vanessa Judelman: 00:24:25

leader, she had no understanding of how her behavior impacted the

Vanessa Judelman: 00:24:30

people around her. She was very harsh, overly direct, very

Vanessa Judelman: 00:24:34

controlling really quite nasty. And when I had that experience

Vanessa Judelman: 00:24:39

that really solidified my passion for leadership because I

Vanessa Judelman: 00:24:44

really didn't want anyone to go through the experience that I

Vanessa Judelman: 00:24:47

had of, of really like it was quite soul sucking having that

Vanessa Judelman: 00:24:51

kind of soul sucking leader. Yeah,

Janice Porter: 00:24:54

I that was my very first principal when I

Janice Porter: 00:24:56

taught school was that person. Wow. Yeah, and I I'm amazed I

Janice Porter: 00:25:00

went beyond it. But I got out of there very quickly to another

Janice Porter: 00:25:03

school because he was just killing it for me and eventually

Janice Porter: 00:25:08

got asked to retire early. But that's about all they did in the

Janice Porter: 00:25:11

school system. But But yes, that was an experience at 21. That I,

Janice Porter: 00:25:17

I didn't know what to do with at the time, but you never forget

Janice Porter: 00:25:21

those things, right? You just don't they, they stay with you

Janice Porter: 00:25:25

and you the negative that, you know, that had such an effect on

Janice Porter: 00:25:34

you at the time. But then again, I'm thinking what you just said

Janice Porter: 00:25:38

about the good leaders, the positive leaders, the people,

Janice Porter: 00:25:44

you say, Oh, I just loved working for them. They were just

Janice Porter: 00:25:47

amazing. You know, he was taught me a lot, or she taught me a

Janice Porter: 00:25:50

lot. That's great. So I know that you work with a lot of,

Janice Porter: 00:25:58

well, organizations like you've worked with Campbell's Soup, the

Janice Porter: 00:26:03

United Nations, some really interesting organizations. And

Janice Porter: 00:26:08

there's one now I want to ask you about because I know it's a

Janice Porter: 00:26:10

client of yours now. And because it's a huge thing right now. And

Janice Porter: 00:26:17

that's HelloFresh. Right. And I don't use HelloFresh. But I do

Janice Porter: 00:26:21

use one of those food companies on occasion. And, and what makes

Janice Porter: 00:26:27

what I know they're a good one. And it's obviously one because

Janice Porter: 00:26:30

of the food. And so to it must be the leadership. So tell me

Janice Porter: 00:26:35

about what makes them a good company, how you've helped them.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:26:39

So I work with HelloFresh, Canada, it's a

Vanessa Judelman: 00:26:44

global organization. First of all, their president is

Vanessa Judelman: 00:26:48

incredible. His name is Ian Brooks. He is one of those

Vanessa Judelman: 00:26:54

leaders who is incredibly personable, incredibly

Vanessa Judelman: 00:26:58

strategic, very smart, very people oriented, he has that

Vanessa Judelman: 00:27:04

balance between task orientation and relationship orientation. So

Vanessa Judelman: 00:27:09

I always find it organizations like that the leaders set the

Vanessa Judelman: 00:27:12

tone. So here you have this leader at the top, who sets the

Vanessa Judelman: 00:27:15

tone?

Janice Porter: 00:27:16

Is he the top of Canada or the top? Got it?

Vanessa Judelman: 00:27:19

Okay, yes, he's the top candidate, and he

Vanessa Judelman: 00:27:23

values his people. So that's why he hired me, because he said, I

Vanessa Judelman: 00:27:28

know that leadership is a learned skill, I really value my

Vanessa Judelman: 00:27:31

people. And I want everybody across the organization, and

Vanessa Judelman: 00:27:34

I've been working them for three or four years, he said, I want

Vanessa Judelman: 00:27:38

everyone across the organization to know why I value them, to

Vanessa Judelman: 00:27:41

know I care about them, and to know that I'm investing in them.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:27:45

And they just hire really great people and invest in their

Vanessa Judelman: 00:27:49

people. And now I run, you know, maybe two cohorts of a year

Vanessa Judelman: 00:27:54

about 20 leaders. And so there's hundreds of people in the

Vanessa Judelman: 00:27:57

organization now who are knowledgeable, who know how to

Vanessa Judelman: 00:28:00

lead who understand their strengths and weaknesses, who

Vanessa Judelman: 00:28:03

know what it takes to build high trust, who know how to develop

Vanessa Judelman: 00:28:07

their people. And so it's really created this ripple effect of a

Vanessa Judelman: 00:28:11

culture of learning and growth and a very, and that's one thing

Vanessa Judelman: 00:28:15

that Ian has is a very growth mindset. He really understands

Vanessa Judelman: 00:28:18

that nothing is set in stone that, you know, people really

Vanessa Judelman: 00:28:22

need to be given the opportunity to learn and grow and develop

Janice Porter: 00:28:26

that special. That's really scary. Special.

Janice Porter: 00:28:30

Yeah, I love that. So, as we wind down, I want to ask you a

Janice Porter: 00:28:35

couple of questions just for fun because I like to dig in a

Janice Porter: 00:28:39

little bit with my with my guests. The first one is Are you

Janice Porter: 00:28:42

do you go to a book book? Do you read? Do you do audible? Do you

Janice Porter: 00:28:48

do video? Do you do TV? Like movies? Like what? What's your

Janice Porter: 00:28:53

first thing that you love to do?

Vanessa Judelman: 00:28:55

I do it all. I'm obsessed with podcasts. I

Vanessa Judelman: 00:28:58

love to read. I mean, I was an English major in university. So

Vanessa Judelman: 00:29:01

if you saw a stack of books beside my bedside table, I love

Vanessa Judelman: 00:29:04

to read. I used

Janice Porter: 00:29:07

to but I don't read them as surprising. Yes,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:29:11

it's fun to buy books. Maybe through osmosis

Vanessa Judelman: 00:29:14

if you look at them, right? They'll go into your brain. I

Vanessa Judelman: 00:29:18

like to balance business books with with fiction. And so right

Vanessa Judelman: 00:29:23

now I'm reading the book soundtracks by Jon Acuff and

Vanessa Judelman: 00:29:28

it's an amazing book because it's about mindset. And so he

Vanessa Judelman: 00:29:32

talks, even though the name soundtracks is so good, because

Vanessa Judelman: 00:29:36

basically what he says in the book is that we all have

Vanessa Judelman: 00:29:38

soundtracks in our mind, just like you know, on your on your

Vanessa Judelman: 00:29:41

on your iPod. on your iPad, you've got a soundtrack.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:29:46

Spotify, you got your soundtracks in your brain you

Vanessa Judelman: 00:29:48

have a soundtrack to and so when he teaches people is to notice

Vanessa Judelman: 00:29:51

what your soundtrack is, most of the time it's negative. And so

Vanessa Judelman: 00:29:54

how do you change your soundtrack? Oh, it's an I really

Vanessa Judelman: 00:29:58

recommend

Janice Porter: 00:29:58

the book. It's an excellent soundtrack. Next.

Janice Porter: 00:30:00

Okay, that sounds really cool. So yes, I bought a novel not

Janice Porter: 00:30:05

long ago because I thought this I'd seen someone in 60 minutes

Janice Porter: 00:30:09

or CBS Sunday Morning and that the author and I thought it

Janice Porter: 00:30:12

looked really interesting. And I think it's called chemistry

Janice Porter: 00:30:17

lessons or something like that anyway, but now I'm doomed

Janice Porter: 00:30:20

because I've read like three pages, and it's now on Apple TV,

Janice Porter: 00:30:28

it's an eight part series or something like that on Apple TV.

Janice Porter: 00:30:31

So now I'm doing because I'm gonna have to watch that. And

Janice Porter: 00:30:34

I'll never read the book, because I'll never get the book

Janice Porter: 00:30:36

read fast enough, before it's gone. So I know crazy. It's an

Janice Porter: 00:30:40

interesting story about a woman in the 50s. And she was a

Janice Porter: 00:30:42

chemistry teacher. And I think it moves into, you know, maybe

Janice Porter: 00:30:48

she does a TV show or something? I don't know. It's I haven't

Janice Porter: 00:30:51

read it, obviously. But it looked interesting. And Brie

Janice Porter: 00:30:55

Larson is playing the character. And it's, you know, it'll be a

Janice Porter: 00:30:58

period piece in the 50s. And I kind of like that. So, yes, but

Janice Porter: 00:31:02

I mostly read more business books and things like that as

Janice Porter: 00:31:06

well. But okay, so you said you do the you do at all? Do you do

Janice Porter: 00:31:11

TV? And like, Are you a Netflix kind of person? Or do you watch

Janice Porter: 00:31:18

fiction on? On there? You're watching like fiction?

Vanessa Judelman: 00:31:23

Yeah, I like fiction. I like to have a break

Vanessa Judelman: 00:31:26

from, like, my brain needs a break. You know, I've got

Vanessa Judelman: 00:31:29

teenage boys and basket basketball practice and meals

Vanessa Judelman: 00:31:34

that they consume that need to be prepared. I don't know why

Vanessa Judelman: 00:31:36

children constantly need to eat. But that's another story. Three

Vanessa Judelman: 00:31:39

Meals a Day seems like a lot. So yeah, I like to have my chill

Vanessa Judelman: 00:31:44

time and watch Netflix.

Janice Porter: 00:31:46

I'm glad to hear that. All right. And last

Janice Porter: 00:31:49

question is second to last on line last second glass. My

Janice Porter: 00:31:55

favorite word is curiosity. And my question for you is two part

Janice Porter: 00:31:59

one. Do you believe that curiosity is innate, or learned?

Janice Porter: 00:32:05

And second part, what are you most curious about these days?

Vanessa Judelman: 00:32:09

So curiosity is an important part of

Vanessa Judelman: 00:32:12

coaching. And curiosity is something that I teach clients

Vanessa Judelman: 00:32:16

all the time to find that when I do I often do the DISC profile

Vanessa Judelman: 00:32:22

with people, which is a tool that assesses their work style,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:32:26

some work styles, some people are naturally more curious. And

Vanessa Judelman: 00:32:32

there's tools like Edward de Bono, I'm not sure if you're

Vanessa Judelman: 00:32:35

familiar with Edward de Bono, he does thinking hats and lateral

Vanessa Judelman: 00:32:38

thinking tools. And he teaches people how to be more curious by

Vanessa Judelman: 00:32:42

leveraging tools. So I do think some people are innately more

Vanessa Judelman: 00:32:45

curious. And I believe it's a skill you can develop. What am I

Vanessa Judelman: 00:32:50

curious about these days? I mean, from the from the

Vanessa Judelman: 00:32:53

perspective of leadership, I'm curious how really around the

Vanessa Judelman: 00:33:00

impact of the pandemic and the people not being in the office

Vanessa Judelman: 00:33:05

together. I'm super curious about what the impact of that is

Vanessa Judelman: 00:33:08

going to be in a year or two from now, when we've had so many

Vanessa Judelman: 00:33:12

people, you know, who were 2021 2223, who started the work,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:33:18

their own work experience from home. And so I'm just super

Vanessa Judelman: 00:33:22

curious to see how that's going to translate into the change of

Vanessa Judelman: 00:33:26

corporate culture and how we need to develop people and, like

Vanessa Judelman: 00:33:30

curious about. Yeah, I

Janice Porter: 00:33:32

think that's really, it will be really

Janice Porter: 00:33:34

interesting. And hopefully, it'll be positive, but we won't

Janice Porter: 00:33:37

know for a couple of years yet. Right. So last question. As a

Janice Porter: 00:33:43

leadership coach, and someone who has been in the trenches,

Janice Porter: 00:33:49

and has been teaching us been coaching in this leadership

Janice Porter: 00:33:52

field for a long time, what would your best piece of wisdom

Janice Porter: 00:33:56

be for my audience who really mostly are small business

Janice Porter: 00:34:01

owners, entrepreneurs, not so much corporate, but leadership

Janice Porter: 00:34:04

is so important still in? You know, Oh, yeah.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:34:09

Oh, yeah, I would say, be prepared. A lot of

Vanessa Judelman: 00:34:14

leaders wing things. And I would say, wing it less, and be

Vanessa Judelman: 00:34:20

prepared more. A couple of examples would be come to your

Vanessa Judelman: 00:34:25

meetings with agendas. When you need to give feedback, write it

Vanessa Judelman: 00:34:30

down. Think about it in advance. When you're onboarding someone

Vanessa Judelman: 00:34:35

have a plan to onboard them. When you wake up in the morning,

Vanessa Judelman: 00:34:39

do your to do list. I mean, these are just really simple

Vanessa Judelman: 00:34:43

things that if you do them if you you know, when you think

Vanessa Judelman: 00:34:49

about time management, time management is not actually time

Vanessa Judelman: 00:34:52

management, because nobody can stop the clock. It's self

Vanessa Judelman: 00:34:55

management. It's how I manage myself in relation to the time

Vanessa Judelman: 00:34:58

that I have And so that's why I think being prepared is so

Vanessa Judelman: 00:35:03

critical for leadership. Whether you're leading a huge team or a

Vanessa Judelman: 00:35:06

small team. I

Janice Porter: 00:35:08

think that's great advice. Thank you so much.

Janice Porter: 00:35:10

Thank you for being here. And I think I have all your info where

Janice Porter: 00:35:15

people can find you mosaic pd.com. Yes. Your mosaic

Vanessa Judelman: 00:35:23

of development. So you can go into

Vanessa Judelman: 00:35:25

Google and type in mosaic people development or mosaic pd.com.

Vanessa Judelman: 00:35:30

That works to

Janice Porter: 00:35:31

perfect. So thank you so much for being here.

Janice Porter: 00:35:33

Thank you to my audience again for listening. If you like what

Janice Porter: 00:35:36

you heard, please go and seek out of Vanessa's work in on her

Janice Porter: 00:35:40

website and on LinkedIn Of course, and remember to stay

Janice Porter: 00:35:44

connected and be remembered