209- Courage to Leap & Lead with Elizabeth Lotardo part 1

You've got courage to leap, courage to lead. Be brave and be bold.

Wow!

Let it roar. Welcome to the Courage to Leap and Lead podcast, where each of our guests share the stories of courage that helped them become powerful leaders. Before we start today's show, please remember to visit courage-consulting. Where you can find all the episodes and other excellent resources, all at courage-consulting.com. Now, here's your host, Leadership Courage Coach CB Bowman.

Hello everybody. It's CB Bowman. I'm looking a little washed out today. Yeah, Black people can look washed out. But we are moving forward. This is Courage to Leap and Lead. And today, we have a guest on who's written— this is part of our book series— uh, who's written a great book called Leading Yourself. And we're— my— I don't know how to do this. Okay, you would think after over 200 episodes. Yes, to you, Vanna White.

Here we go.

So Elizabeth and I haven't met before, but she came recommended by a great, um, colleague in MG100. So I'm really anxious to learn more about— and her book was published by Wiley. Now that is some weight there, I'm telling you. Again, Leading Yourself. So first, let's find out about Elizabeth. Elizabeth, tell us a little bit about yourself. You look awfully young to have the wisdom to write a book.

I am awfully young to have the wisdom to write a book, and the book was written of my own self-study. It's filled with my own mistakes and setbacks and moments of pain and hopes to save others from that fate. But I'll tell you to what, what led me to write Leading Yourself. Well, is that—

tell us about you so that we know, you know, what credibility you have.

They're connected. So I am a researcher by training. I have a master's in organizational psychology, which is kind of like I'm a therapist, but nobody wants to call it that. So I go into organizations who are having problems with employee engagement, who are having problems with employee retention, who are having some culture challenges, and I help solve for that. And I really enjoyed that work. But one phenomenon that kept sticking out to me is work experiences were never universal. Even inside the same company, working for the same boss with the same to-do list, 2 people could be having wildly different realities at work. So as I moved through my career in corporate consulting, I started to study that phenomenon more deeply and started to unpack what were these people who were happy at work, who were thriving, who weren't derailed by all the annoyances that inevitably pop up. What are they doing that enables them to feel that way? Because to be honest, I wasn't one of those people. I was often finding myself, my mood determined by the circumstances around me, my trajectory determined by where other people thought I should be going. I wasn't that innate self-starter, and I watched all these other people do it. So I wanted to figure out what gave some people the ability to find meaning and joy and opportunities even inside an imperfect job. And how could I articulate that in a way that enabled other people who didn't come to it so naturally, and I include myself in that bit, to do the same. So I am a researcher by training, and you see that in Leading Yourself. I always am searching to break down exactly what do you say and do to get to the result. And I think that level of practicality is often missing in the workplace. It's very vague.

So what we want to know before we dive into this is, how did you grow up? What did your parents do? You know, tell us a little bit more about you personally.

So I grew up just east of Atlanta in a suburb. I had a very typical suburban childhood.

Where's your southern accent?

It comes out a little bit later in the day sometimes.

Okay. You know, I—

when I was early in my career, I tried really hard to not have an accent because I had a little bit of one. I went to college in Boston. I kind of worked my way out of it, but now I kind of wish I had a little twang back. You know, it seems so corporate to not have any.

Well, you know, Americans just love foreign accents, and for most of us, the South is a foreign accent, right?

That's true. Maybe I'll drop a y'all or two in this episode.

There you go.

Um, but my, uh, my father worked a traditional corporate job, worked his way up from entry-level contributor all the way up to vice president, and I watched that trajectory. My mother took a less linear path, who, you know, she is also a writer. I am second generation book published by Wiley in our family, and she's a consultant as well. Her interest in people and trying to unpack them landed with me at a young age. I started my career in advertising, working with words and trying to change the way people felt about things. I moved into internal communication on that same red thread. How does what we say impact how people feel, and how does how they feel influence their actions? So through my whole childhood and now my whole career, this unpacking of human behavior has been a red thread.

You know, it's interesting. I was thinking about many things as you were speaking. One, about your being published by Wiley. And two, having— I haven't completely read your book, but, you know, just looking at the table of contents, Seems so non-Wylie-like because—

I don't know if that's a dig at me or Wylie.

No, it's, it's, it's neither. It's to say kudos to you for getting it published in a, in an organization that is more— I kind of think of it more academic-based.

Yeah, for sure.

And enjoyable reading. You know, I'm gonna sit down and just, you know, breeze through this book. And your table of contents is just so much fun, but yet serious. And so to me, that's not Wiley-like, you know? When I read, don't look for energy, create it, know when to phone it in, and, you know, those kinds of— wonderful titles, Quiet Fear, to me, it's not Wiley-esque. And so kudos to both of you for recognizing the value that you would bring using a different tone and manner in your writing and research.

I definitely think Wiley, who I love as a publisher, has a long history of very corporate speak publishing. And that's true beyond just Wiley. I think business books generally err on the side of corporate speak and colloquialisms and all all this weird language. And I write very plain. I write how I talk. I write how I would like to read, the way I would sit down with a friend in a restaurant and be like, oh, my boss is so annoying. What do you think I can do about this? That's, that's how I write. Um, and I think that's why Leading Yourself has really landed with a lot of people, because my intent is to be like your big sister with a few more years experience who learned a few lessons the hard way and can maybe give you some guidance on what to say in these frustrating moments. And how to deal with it when your organization is messing up and you don't know what to say. And these, these work experiences that transcend role but are all really frustrating, and there's not a lot of guidance on how to deal with them.

So there's 2 important questions I want to ask you. One is the notion of being happy at work. What the hell is that?

Yeah.

2, do you feel that your research and your theories and how you present apply to people of color? And, and I'm asking this because I don't know if you know, my background is corporate America.

Yes.

And I had a horrific experience being a Black woman. Now, on the other side of that, I learned a lot. I mean, that's what enables me to write a book called Courage to Leap and Lead. To be able to lead the organization, Association of Corporate Executive Coaches, to have my own company on courage consulting. So I'm thankful for that. I'm not thankful for the horrible experiences I had as a Black woman in corporate America.

Let's tackle the second part of that first. Does this advice apply to people of color? The subtitle of the book is Find Meaning, Joy, and Opportunities at Work. That is something everyone, no matter your race, no matter your religion, no matter your creed, wants at work.

Yeah. And I think there's a shadow to it. The question is, do they get it?

Do they get it right? And I'll tell you, one of the beefs I had with writing Leading Yourself, and I talk about it pretty openly, is I am a product of privilege. Every white person has privilege to some degree, and the suggestion of reframing annoyances and working in imperfect situations and creating your own happiness inside an organization that may not be is not synonymous with tolerating injustice. It is not meant to lean on the side of toxic positivity or looking the other way at very real problems. And that is a nuance I tried to, as best I could, address in Leading Yourself, but I think it's an important point you raise. Are the opportunities for meaning, joy, and opportunity a level playing field? And at present, no. And we all have a duty to leave our organizations more equitable than we found them. So it's a messy answer on a messy topic.

Yeah. I totally agree. But let's just dive into one example, reframing annoyances. Here's what I'm talking about. I feel that people who are not of color seem to be able to identify those annoyances as truisms and then begin to reframe it. Whereas people of color, we don't know if it's annoyance or if it's racism. So reframing it becomes a much more difficult situation.

Well, it's a moral question of should you reframe it or should you confront it?

Or is it what it is, you know? Yeah. Real or is it Memorex?

You know, and, and that's such an important part of leading yourself is being able to differentiate. And I have a chart in the book made from an imperfect bias point of view of what is annoying at work, what is actual garbage at work, and what is abuse at work.

Mm-hmm.

And I think a mistake I made early in my career, and I think a mistake a lot of white people, myself included, continue to make Is not being able to differentiate accurately between what is a frustration and annoyance and, you know, general ailments of work and what is intolerable. And that inability to differentiate has caused the workplace to really suffer because a lot of these biases, a lot of these discriminatory practices, a lot of stupid jokes and offhand remarks get chalked up as An annoyance when in actuality they are a grave injustice, just not to you.

Right, right. So give us an example. What page is it on?

Let me pull the book behind me. I'll tell you what, what led me to make this graphic. It's on page 46, Annoying Garbage and Abuse. There's a couple of examples. Is a lot of early career professionals, I include myself in this, enter the workplace with really wide-eyed expectations, really high expectations that it's gonna be magical. And back to your earlier question, which we should get to on happiness, should we? We're gonna be happy, we're gonna be fulfilled every moment. Our boss is gonna support us, we're gonna have all these opportunities, and then we're kind of let down. And we think that we chose the wrong company when a lot of the times every company has annoying ailments about it. Every company is going to make you frustrated sometimes. Every company is gonna let you down in some way. And being able to differentiate between that can be the difference between finding happiness in an annoying situation or thinking that you are in some garbage nonsense the whole time and don't deserve to be there. But to tie it back to, is this a level playing field? No, it's not. And are we great at identifying the difference between something that is annoying and something that is unjust? As a white person, I would say no, I am not great at that. It's something I need to work on. And the, the self-admission element is something a lot of people are lacking in that category, I think.

So let's just Take, for example, the first one. And I think this one applies— the way that I'm going to use it applies to any color that you are. Your boss changes their mind a lot and doesn't give clear direction. Annoying.

Yes.

Garbage. Your boss continually underdoes your work or doesn't use your work without explaining why.

Garbage.

Your boss calls you an idiot for not reading their mind all the time. Abuse. All of these here remind me of a book that you probably don't know. It was probably before your time called Fired: Fight Back.

I haven't heard of it.

Yeah, it's— you're too young, which is a good thing. All of these are setups, can be setups to terminating somebody. So how do you know whether it's annoying garbage abuse or the road to termination?

It's imperfect. And one of the reasons I wanted to provide a lot of examples in here is because no one will fully understand the nuance of a situation besides the, the people in it. To me, the difference between annoying garbage and abuse often comes down to intent. Let's take a boss who always changes their mind. Do they wake up every morning saying, you know what, I'm gonna make CB's life difficult today. I can't wait to just make her spin her wheels for no reason. Probably not. A well-intended boss is changing their mind because they had a new idea and they want things to be successful and they're enthusiastic and there's always something new, new and different to tackle. So that's annoying, right? The intent is there. The behavior is annoying. Abuse— your boss calls you an idiot for not reading their mind all the time. They probably don't have good intentions if that is the way they're verbalizing their feedback to you, and that's their expectation of you. So an imperfect shortcut to determining whether something is annoying, garbage, and abuse is what is the intent behind it. I think we get trapped in evaluating the behavior and not looking deeper to say, is this person actually trying to make my life hell, or are they just, you know, kind of being frustrating?

I love the idea of the intent. So now we go to the next hard question is, with determining intent, how do you determine it without predetermined bias?

Can you give me an example? I want to make sure I understand the question.

Yeah, yeah. So it sort of follows the road that we're talking about. I mean, it's almost asking for another column, which is Road to Fire. So how do you know that if they keep changing their mind or calling you an idiot, how do you know that they're not setting you up? The real intent is setting you up versus your boss just has a behavioral issue. That's a big scoop. It's a big difference.

So it is a big difference. And the researcher in me is going to come out and say, you need to look at other data points beyond your interaction and your boss's interaction. Are they having the same interactions, the same frustrating dynamics with other people? And that's going to give you some cues as to whether this is unique to you for whatever reason, or whether it's a pattern of behavior that they're personally, you know, leaving a wake of frustration with. Lots of parties. So I would say that step one is you need to determine, is this an isolated incident or is this a pattern that extends beyond the interaction that I'm in right now?

I love that answer. Uh, it's a good answer and it was the one I was hoping for. I kind of set you up for that answer.

You did.

Okay, so let's go back to this. concept of happiness. You know, my experience is not good at all in corporate America. That's probably a good thing. It led me to being an entrepreneur. The whole concept of being happy at work, it's kind of like that only happens during the honeymoon, the first 90 days, right? And I'm—

A lot of people fight during their honeymoon, if you want to take that analogy all the way through.

Oh, you got me on that one. You're right.

You're right. So, yeah.

What, what is this concept you have of being happy? How is that measured?

Well, it, it's dependent on how the individual defines happiness. And notice I said more joy, not total all-encompassing happiness. But I think what your language is doing is drawing attention to the fact that we often enter the workplace with these insane expectations. That we are going to be so overwhelmingly happy. We will be completely emotionally fulfilled. We will have a family outside of our own family, and it's really setting ourselves up for disappointment. I think that belief is perpetuated by some lofty job descriptions. I think it's perpetuated by a lot of LinkedIn hype posts about people claiming to be really happy when they're not really happy. You know, there's a million factors that are contributing to this pervasive belief that work. should be our source, our source of joy and fulfillment. What I suggest in leading yourself is that first remove the belief that work will be this huge source of joy and fulfillment. If it was, you would pay them and it would be called Disneyland, right? They pay you. So it's, it's not going to be that way all the time. Having said that, it is within your control to find small moments of joy. And to find meaning inside of a long to-do list, to find elements of fulfillment inside of the relationships you're building. Is it going to be a clouds parting in the sky moment every day? Of course not. It's corporate America, right? There's a reason the show The Office exists for so many seasons and resonates with everyone so deeply. Um, but that doesn't mean work can't be good some of the time.

Okay, let me ask you, do you need to be happy at work to be promoted?

No, I don't think so. I think you can't be like soul-suckingly miserable because that's gonna radiate, but happy is a tall order. Do you think you have to be?

You know, I didn't think about it before this interview. Um, I think that you have to have some measures of happiness to do your job well enough to be promoted, or a really, really good actor or actress.

Yeah.

You know?

That's exhausting to be that good of an actress for so long.

Well, it depends upon the length of the time. Because I remember in so many cases people leaving right after they got promoted. Now, was that because they were acting through it, or because the promotion brought unexpected demands?

Not for me to answer. I didn't leave right after I got promoted. What I think is interesting in the question is a phenomenon, and I talk about this a little bit in Leading Yourself, of goal setting and how we tether ourselves to a particular goalpost. And when we meet it, we often felt let down, like it's, it's not as sweet as we thought it would be.

Yes. Yeah.

And we move the goalpost and it, it's never as fulfilling as The picture we paint to fuel our efforts, right? You wake up with a new day, or you wake up on a new day with a new job, and it all feels kind of the same, right? You get in your same car, you log on to your same laptop, and now you have a new title in your email signature, but all your qualms with your organization remain, and sometimes they're even larger because now they're your job to fix.

You know, that's such a great point because it brought me back to my days as an interior designer. And I thought, oh, I— you know what? I would just love to get into corporate America. This is just fool's play, what I'm doing. You know, I want to play in the big league with the big guys. I want to have an expense account. I want to be able to travel. I want blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it happened. And I said, is that all there is? Yeah.

I think that has happened to a lot of people who are in a career change, who are going for a promotion, who are trying to achieve this quarter's sales Like you do it and you feel really good for a really short amount of time.

Yes.

And tethering yourself to these milestones, as good as it feels to have everyone like, congratulations on LinkedIn, is really setting yourself up for long-term dissatisfaction because the dopamine is never as lasting as we hope it will be.

So how does that relate to, and I'm not sure if it does, this whole concept of quiet quitting? You know, um, is it the people that have achieved their goals that say, is that all there is? Or is it people that can't achieve their goals? Or is it people that don't really want to achieve their goals, they just want the paycheck?

I think it's all 3. And to me, what is underneath the Great Resignation, what is underneath quiet quitting, what is underneath the rise we're seeing in entrepreneurship is a fundamental shift in the way we are looking at work. And what is propelling some of that is we're acutely aware now more than ever before of the injustices that are tolerated in a lot of workplaces. As generation shift— I'll speak for my generation, the millennials, which no one cares about us anymore, all Gen Z and up.

Absolutely.

But the millennial generation, we watched our parents get fired in the recession after spending 20 years and giving everything to an employer. So are we signing up for that? I don't think so.

Yeah.

We are watching people make more money than they would in corporate America doing other things and working less. So I think the way we're evaluating work and whether we wanna be a part of that and put all our emotional energy into it and work really hard in hopes that maybe one day we make partner or something, that's Changing. So quiet quitting is one way that's showing up. People saying like, you know what, I'm just gonna do the bare minimum. I gotta have health insurance, so we're gonna check some boxes here. That's the way it's showing up. It's showing up in the great resignation of people saying, this isn't important to me, I'm gonna leave it entirely. It's showing up in how many people have a side hustle and saying, I'm gonna keep my day job over here, but I'm really gonna put forth my mental horsepower on this other thing. I think it, it's showing up in tons of ways, but through all of it is we are redefining what we want out of work and what we're willing to put into work. And to me, that's one of the reasons leading yourself has become a popular phenomenon, is it is putting the power back in the hands of the person and looking to the individual to say, what do you want work to be and how are you going to make it so? Because we're only in control of our own behavior.

So