In this conversational interview, the speakers explore why many capable individuals hesitate to step into leadership roles. Speaker B links the reluctance to the body’s nervous‑system fight‑or‑flight response, emphasizing that people need concrete, low‑risk examples that show taking initiative won’t lead to severe negative consequences. Without such proof, past experiences of punishment (e.g., being fired or put on a performance plan) reinforce fear. The dialogue then shifts to organizational solutions: B Corporations are highlighted as companies that embed psychological safety through rigorous, triple‑bottom‑line metrics covering people, profit, and planet. Speaker B shares a nine‑year consulting stint with Beautycounter, a B Corp, describing how the company’s detailed, values‑driven practices (from product choices to conference supplies) consistently demonstrated care for employees and the environment, turning abstract values into lived experience. The conversation concludes with a call to translate B‑Corp‑style metrics into actionable goals and leader accountability mechanisms, suggesting that even non‑certified firms can adopt elements of this framework to foster psychological safety and encourage bold behavior.
Chapters
Like, where do people get hung up around being that one to do something different, to stand out, to take the initiative, be a leader?
Yeah. What is so—
what do you find to be so scary for them?
Well, I think if we take it back to like the actual structure of our body, our nervous system, I don't think it's like, oh, you're not brave enough, or you don't have courage. I think there's a lot of really bold people that stay quiet because when I think about safety, I think about safety in my body, safety in my nervous system. Do I have a, a previous example showing me that this is okay, that the lion's not gonna come eat me, right? That I can step out and not have a huge consequence on myself and my life. And a lot of times we've actually seen the opposite where you've maybe tested it out, or you've seen somebody try it out and they got fired, or they got in trouble, or they got put on plan, or whatever that is. So you probably have had more examples in your life of it actually not being safe, that the stakes are really high, and you have less examples of, wow, I saw that person cry in the meeting and nobody shamed her or him. In fact, they got curious about it. Or I saw that person asked for that raise and they were met with curiosity, or whatever those examples are, right? We, we need proof that it's going to be okay, and that can come from other people's experiences and that can come from our own. But it comes back to like, does my nervous system go into like fight or flight?
Like, yeah, no, I love that. I love that. Now On all those elements that you said, if they were put into place, do you find any organizations that create those type of environments even based on goals that they establish for their leaders that they actually define, they put metrics to, they, uh, you know, assess it, they report on it, they really kind of hold them accountable to them. To ensure this shift, whether it be at a team level or the culture itself. Have you ever found that?
I think B corporations are great examples of that. Now, it's not like I've been involved in a lot of B corporations to be like, oh, every one of 'em does this, but they have very strict metrics to meet that show that you care about the people, profit, and the planet. And so, and it's very, challenging to get a B Corp certification. And in fact, you're held to these pretty high metrics over and over and over again to prove that you put your money where your mouth is, for lack of a better saying. And so I think that type of organization is designed to be set up that way. So I worked with Beautycounter for about 9 years as a consultant for them, and that was my first experience for a B Corporation. And I loved it. I loved it. I loved the true compassion for the people working for the company. I love the compassion for the environment. I love how thoughtful their decisions were from like, you know, every detail to like the brand of tampons they put in the bathroom for our conferences were like, oh, this is helping women in third world countries and this is why we chose them. It was like every single detail showed that they cared And so it wasn't just, oh, we have these values on our website, or these, you know, these values that we were told to make as part of our brand kit. It was like a real embodiment of what they stood for.
Yeah.
And for those watching or listening that may not understand what B corporations are, mm-hmm, I'm not an expert on that, but essentially it is a business with a triple bottom line. There's a, a rigid certification process that a corporation has to go through in order to be part of that. So like Patagonia, Ben Jerry's. Oh my gosh. Well, Beautycounter was one of, there's so many, but if you'd go to like B, I think it's bcorporations.com, you can see a list of them.
And I wanna put that in our, uh, uh, show notes for everyone because I think that's impor— that would be a great read and great education, uh, for any, any, you know, leader within a business. And, you know, take out what you might not be going for the certification, but you can take out some elements of it that you can then feel safe about possibly implementing in your, in your own culture. So let's talk about the, the safety, the psychological safety of, you know, employees in setting up that type of culture. What does that take? And/or what, what is the biggest impact that you find when there isn't that psychological safety?
