You Don't Wake Up as a Leader. So How Do You Get There? with special guest Carol Lempert

Welcome to TFR, This Feels Right podcast. Every episode, we are sharing with you impactful leadership and communication skills you need, and sometimes the ones you didn't even know you needed until now. I'm Joel Silverstone, your host, and I'm glad you're here. I'm also the founder of TFR, This Feels Right, where for over 25 years, we've helped leaders and teams strengthen how they lead, communicate, and influence. And if you'd like to learn more, please visit thisfeelsright.ca. Before we jump in, please take a moment to rate and review, subscribe, or follow the show so you never miss an episode. And now, to the TFR podcast episode.

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All right, we are at the hour. And welcome everyone to our LinkedIn Live. You don't wake up as a leader. So, how do you get there? This is being brought to you by the TFR This Feels Right podcast. It's funny because I think, Carol, actually, you were one of my first guests when we used to do this live. So, you're used to this formula.

Yes, yes. It's great to talk to you again, Joel.

And thank you all for joining us. And I'm sure you have a lot of questions and comments and observations and thoughts, and we'd love to hear them. So, do feel free to put them into the comments on LinkedIn. We've got our producer today who'll be observing them, and every so often, Carol and I will And we'll check in and see what questions that Carol or I can address or give thought to. And let's talk about our guest and why you're here, which is what can you do or how can you do this to get to the next level? And Carol, I love that you put that post this morning and said, poof, it doesn't happen overnight. But there are things that one can do. And this is what Carol is going to share with us and uncover for you. And also, how can you maybe support others? If you are in that sort of upper management, how can you support others and give them the guidance and the path?

Yeah.

to be able to help them and guide them with that. Like I said, Carol Lempert, Supercharge Your Presence. One of the things is her teaching fellowship at the University of Florida. Let me name drop a couple of companies here that Carol is a little bit more— Bristol-Myers Squibb, Abbott Labs, TD Bank, Royal Bank, and many more. And I know this because I've known Carol for 25 years and have seen her in action. And I think we've got absolutely an amazing guest who's going to bring us a lot of insight and expertise and more importantly, practical advice that you can actually apply. So Carol, first off, tell us a little bit about maybe about what brings us to this journey. And also, if you are a multitasker, you want to check out, you could check out carolempert.com or connect with her on LinkedIn as this is happening. So Carol, over to you. And then we'll jump in with some questions to get this started. But maybe just share with people who haven't worked with you yet a little bit about your expertise and experience.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. I'd be happy to. Well, Joel, as you know, I like you. Started my career as a working professional actor. And what I do now is I help people increase their executive, sometimes it's called leadership presence, so that they can have a better impact at work. And I do that by sharing skills from the world of the theater, the skills that actors use to have great stage presence. And here we are right now on LinkedIn Live on a screen. So many people are working on screens these days remotely, so also to have great screen presence, and that helps in 2 different ways. It helps the individual and it helps the organization. It helps the individual because there's some really interesting research that was conducted by the Center for Talent Innovation. And they found that if 2 people, uh, since we're talking about getting ahead in our careers today, if 2 people are up for the exact same role and they have the exact same skills or very, very similar skills, the thing that's going to tip the balance by about 25% is the one that is seen to have better executive presence. will be rewarded with the opportunity. That's how it helps the individual get ahead. But it's also really helpful for the organization itself because the organization is always keeping its eye out for high potential people that they can put into their leadership pipeline. And they want to be able to put people in the leadership pipeline that they think will have an impact, can be an influencer, how they show up and has great presence. That's the work that I have been drawn to do over the last— Yeah.

You know, thanks for giving us the overview. And now let's, let's, let's go a little bit deeper into this. And, and here's, here's the sort of the big matzo ball question here, which is that you say leadership doesn't just happen, as you said, poof, overnight. What's the biggest misconception then, then people have about becoming a leader?

Yeah. Well, I think one of the biggest misconceptions is, I think, you know, poof, this idea of poof, that people think it is bestowed upon you, that one day You wake up and your boss goes, you're ready, I'm gonna promote you. And that's just not how it works. It's not a promotion event. Leadership really is a capability. And because it's a capability, it's something that needs to be built intentionally over time. And I think a lot of people think if I just go to work every day and I execute, I'll get noticed. And then that naturally eventually is gonna be turned into leadership. And what I've discovered with clients over the years is that execution alone isn't what gets you there. People need to see that you can influence other people to do the thing that you are doing because you will no longer be doing that thing if you get promoted.

So based on what you just said, and because sometimes, sometimes people are, are systematic and they're like, okay, what, you know, how do I systemize this? So how do you define leadership?

Yeah. Uh, so it's good for the people who love systems and frameworks. I have a framework and a definition for you. So here is the definition. It's Based on some of the work by a really bright woman named Susan Calantino. So leadership is the ability to use the greatness in you to bring out the greatness in others in order to achieve ambitious goals for your company or perhaps your department. So I'll break that down now. There's 3 parts. This is how it's a framework. So first we say the greatness in you. So that is someone's skills and experience. Their expertise, their innate strengths, what we might call your personal brand, what we're known for. And Joel, I've known you a long, long time, so I might, I'm going to publicly compliment you. I would say 2 things that I know about you in terms of your own personal strengths, the greatness in you. You have this amazing ability to take a complicated concept and either with an anecdote or a story or a metaphor, simplify it in a way that your audiences and, um, the people in your workshops understand what it is that you're talking about. You just have that innate gift. I don't know if you learned it anywhere specific, but you've always been good at it.

Thank you.

You're welcome. The other thing that you have is an amazing sense of humor. So whenever anybody is in your workshop, whenever I personally have ever spent time with you, I always leave feeling better about myself because it was fun. And so that is something that is one of the greatness in you, I would say. For you personally that I know that you have. So now the second is the ability, this is the leadership part now, the ability to bring out the greatness in other people. That is the ability to be a strong mentor and a coach to other people, to influence your colleagues. So that's a whole host of skills that are related to communication. So can you read the room? Do you share information that is relevant to your audience or only what you think is important to be talking about today? Can you shift your perspective and empathize with the other person? Uh, you might not necessarily agree, but that you can see where they're coming from and signal that you understand. Are you skilled at being able to give feedback? As a leader, you're gonna need to help shape behavior on your team so that they can be successful. Can you receive feedback and not get defensive? That's all wrapped up in how we show up with our executive presence. So that's the second piece. And finally, to achieve ambitious goals for your company or your department. This really is the ability to prioritize and to showcase the work that you and your team do that is moving the company forward based on what top leadership, C-suite executives have set are the goals, you know, in this case for 2026.

Very helpful. And thank you. I should also share to the audience, you know, speaking of mentorship, you're looking at my mentor right there. And this brings me to a really good question because you have offered, and you do this with the people in your workshops and the people you coach, is that you're very insightful and you're able to pick at something maybe they didn't quite realize that was good about them or something they can even develop even more.

Yeah.

So where can someone seek that kind of feedback about their lines, about whether it's their greatness or something they need to improve?

Yeah. So now you're kind of getting to this notion of, um, personal branding, which I spent a lot of, a tremendous amount of time thinking about because I created a whole curriculum about it, which is called Own Your Brand Before It Owns You. And there's a bunch of parts to it. So the first is finding out what is my current brand right now? And let's define what brand is. What is personal brand? So your personal brand are the words that people use to describe you. When you're not in the room. So basically it's a collection of adjectives. And many of those adjectives might be very positive. So I've just said, you are someone with a great sense of humor. You are someone that is able to make something very concise. So those would be descriptors about you that would be part of your personal brand. But we also need to find out what our derailers are in terms of our brand, what might be holding us back from seeing that we might be ready for the next level of leadership. If I'm an individual contributor and I've never led before, how is someone going to see that I've got that actual ability. And what happens with many, many companies, either at the mid-year review or at the end of year review, your boss and all the other bosses get together in a room and they do calibration. And so they look, you know, did Carol Lempert achieve all of her deliverables this year? Well, yes, in fact, Carol Lempert achieved all of her deliverables this year. Now they're going to talk about Carol Lempert's readiness. And they're going to use descriptors to talk about Carol Lempert's readiness. So they might say something like, you know, she's a really hard worker. Um, she always delivers on time, but, and then there's going to be something that comes after the word but. So we want to try to find out what comes after the word but so that you can work on that and improve that for yourself. And the way that I have advised many of my clients to do that is to put together an anonymous brand audit, which might sound a little bit like a 360 feedback kind of process thing, but it's very specific in terms of the feedback. feedback that you want from people. And clients of mine that have gone through this process, they've put together a long list of 25, 30, 40 people. The more people that you ask, the better your data is, the better you'll get average of, you know, what the insights are. And you'll put together questions like, what adjectives would you use to describe me when I am not in the room? And people, and you'll ask everybody to do 5 or 6 adjectives. So if you send that out to 40 people and you ask them to give you 5 or 6 adjectives, You're going to get 260 words back. You can put all of that in a word cloud and then the biggest words that show up many, many, many, many times, you're going to start to see what that is. And this is a process that I did for myself when I was launching my business about 10 years ago, because my business is called Carol Lempert Speaking. So it needed to be in alignment with Carol Lempert, what my personal brand was. And the first step that I ask people to do is write through, and anyone watching right now, you might want to do this right now, in fact. Or listening later, what are 5 or 6 adjectives that you think currently describe you? Write down what you think. So I wrote down words like rigorous, self-starter, high achiever. None of those words came back to me in my brand audit. Those things are true, but that's not what I'm known for. The things that I discovered that I was known for, which a big surprise to me, is people like, she's really funny. So then I had to make a decision once I found out what my brand was.

Mm-hmm.

Do I want to lean into that and go, okay, people think I'm funny. Maybe that's going to help me win business. I'm starting a business. But if we imagine that I want to be a managing director at a bank, maybe the fact that the first thing people think about me is that I'm funny, that might not be the best descriptor for somebody that wants to be a managing director. So then the next step is, what is your goal? Once you're clear on what your goal is, then you want to start to look around you. Who in my current organization has the job that I want?

Mm-hmm.

Who in my current organization that has the job that I want has a brand that I really respect? What are the words that I would use to describe that person? Then you want to lean into the behaviors that are going to showcase those kinds of things. So I'll pause there. That's a long answer to the question.

No, that, I think that's really helpful. And we're going to check in with Max in just a minute or two and just see if there's any questions or comments on what you just said. And I'm taking notes here because I think this is really good. And I think what you said was a big revelation, I think, is that how we see ourselves and how others see us, that's where there could be this different thing. And until we understand how others see us, we can't really develop our personal brand because then our personal brand becomes, like you said, yeah, you're a self-starter, you're rigorous, but But that's the behind the scenes stuff. That's not necessarily what people see.

Yeah.

What they see is a first impression. I mean, and funny is, it probably is more that I think you're using humor again, which is not, not that you were entertaining, but I, I think it's, I think it's, I think when we go into a training or to a coaching, we're always surprised when someone can bring some humor, uh, into the situation. And I think so when people say funny, it's almost like a relief. It makes you human. I would say what that does is that makes you a human being.

Yes. I think for the kind of work that you and I do, that's really a positive strength. Maybe in some other organizations, it might not be seen as a positive strength because you also want to be in alignment with the culture in which you're working. But there is a very savvy keynote speaker who started her career as a comedian, and then she became a keynote speaker. Her name is Judy Carter, and she says there's money in the funny. So, for the kind of work we do, you know, that's a good descriptor. For maybe somebody else, not so much.

Well, interesting, because I was working with some top scientists this week and talking about what, you know, what should be in leadership. And one of the things they actually said was humor.

Interesting. Okay.

Not to be funny, not to make jokes, but basically that you don't take things so personally.

Mm-hmm.

Um, that you're able to be objective about it. And because I think people are surprised when they maybe see some of the words or adjectives that come up, uh, to describe them.

Yes. Oh, that's good for me to learn. Thank you for sharing that.

Uh, let's go, uh, let's go over to weather now with Max. Uh, Max, what's, what's the comments and questions looking like? Uh, do we have any questions or comments that Carol can address here?

We do have one question. It's, um, how do I build my strategic acumen?

Aha.

Okay. So, um, when I was talking about this, this 3rd dynamic, so there's the, the bring the ability to use the greatness in me to bring out the greatness in others in order to make sure that we're achieving ambitious goals for the organizations. And that is often the missing 33% for people that are leading teams that might be 10 or 15 people. And they have ambitions to get to the next level, which might be the SVP level or the EVP, Executive Vice President level at their organization, depending on the nomenclature that different companies use. And so thinking really deeply about strategy becomes very, very important. So the first thing that I would recommend, if people are not already doing this, is to start to listen to the quarterly earnings calls. That your CFO and your CEO have with Wall Street. Often what happens in large organizations is that there'll be a big change initiative that's announced. And the people who are the frontline people, or maybe the mid-level managers are like, why are we suddenly focusing on this? Nobody was talking about this 2 quarters ago. Here we are in the middle of the year. Now we have to do this new thing. Quite often this new thing was whispered in the ear of the CFO and the CEO by a Wall Street analyst. On the earnings call, and I'll give you a concrete example without naming names and maintaining confidentiality. Uh, one of my clients is a very large pharmaceutical company, and at their last earnings call, an analyst from Wells Fargo asked the CEO, this particular part of your business has been declining over the last 2 years, and this other part of your business has had double-digit growth over the last 12 quarters. So we don't understand why you don't just ditch, divest yourself of the part of the business that isn't doing very well. So now the CFO and the CEO very publicly have to justify what their strategy is for their company. And depending on how they answer that question, that's going to have huge impact for your job if you are somebody that's working in the department that hasn't been doing so well over the last 2 years or, you know, whatever it is that they had to say. So if you are starting to listen to the kinds of answers that the CEO and the CFO, and sometimes the head of investors are giving to Wall Street, you're going to have much better idea into the strategy that your company is thinking about, about how to stay a very healthy company. So that's the first thing I'd recommend. Listen to those earnings calls. The second thing that I would recommend is reading the annual report that comes out every year. And the specific section to read in the annual report is the risk section. What are the risks that my company is facing? And the risk section will indicate to you, maybe there's pressure from competitors. Maybe there's pressure or there's a hostile takeover that might be happening. Like we've got too much cash and somebody suddenly thinks that we're a target and now we're going to be merged and acquired by some other bigger company. So if you start to really think about what is it that the top level of the people in your organization are thinking about for the health of the organization, and then rewind that for yourself. Okay, I happen to work as the head of a accounting, and so what does that mean for my day-to-day work? How does that weave into the bigger message? And when I am asked to give a status update report to my boss, for example, that I'm using language that leans into the strategy that the C-suite executives have already promised out to Wall Street. So that's, uh, 2 very specific things that people could do right away.

I think as people are listening to this, This is probably a big aha to be, because we always think it's, and fair enough, a lot of it is our soft skills, our ability to, as you said, to empathize and to give feedback and to understand your greatness, but then also to find a common language where you are showing your insight into this and you're absolutely, you're showing that What people care about. They don't just care about, very important, how you're gonna handle stress and how you're gonna, you know, all the soft skills is an important part of that, but also how you are gonna communicate on a strategic level.

Very much so. And then there's another like very easy, easy practical things that you can do strategically for your own career. So for those of you who are currently listening, if you have not updated, I know many companies use Workday. There's some other HR platforms that come, that every company has some HR platform. So whatever that platform is, if you have not updated that platform in the last year, you want to go in and update that platform. Likely you've taken some kind of skill. Likely you have achieved some kind of accomplishment. Maybe you got a really good performance evaluation this year and you want to highlight something. You might want to compliment somebody else that you worked with, but you want to make sure that that's up to date. And very specifically in terms of strategically, In many of those platforms, there's a question that says, are you willing to relocate? Because for a lot of people that want to move up in their organization, the organization wants to know that they have had, especially if it's a global company, that they have had exposure to other regions and other departments. And that often might mean if you are eligible for a promotion, you might need to move somewhere else to take advantage of that promotion. And on the surface, somebody might go, you know, I'm married. I got 3 kids. I love where I, my house. I love where I, no, I'm not. I don't want to relocate. However, you still want to mark on your LinkedIn, not your LinkedIn, your Workday or your HR platform that you are willing to relocate because you want to be considered for the job. You don't want to be excluded from the job. And maybe if the money's right, and maybe if the opportunity's right, and maybe if the country's right, you might be willing to consider it. What happens with a lot of these companies is that when there is an open requisition, what they often call an open req. Given to HR or talent acquisition, the first place that they will go is this HR platform. And they're going to search by criteria. And one of the criteria is going to be, are you willing to move? And if you have said no, you're not even going to be considered. So take the power back and leave that in your own hands. So that's something very simple that you could do strategically that I'd recommend as well.

Bonus if they could say under, are you willing to relocate? And, uh, and then you can also say, as long as there's no winter there.

Yes, I only want to work in the Bahamas.

Yeah, yeah. I only work in tropical weathers. But what you're saying, going into the platform and adding those things. Now, how does one do, and I'd love your thoughts on this, Carol, how does one do when, like, I don't want to brag about what I'm doing. And so, we kind of expect leaders, other leaders or managers, whatever, to read our minds. Don't they know what I did? Didn't they see it, but we, you know, we know they didn't and they can't read your mind, like willing to relocate. They can't read your mind that you are willing. So what are some ways without, because people don't wanna feel like, oh, I'm bragging.

Yes.

How can people speak highly about themselves or about the work that they're doing?

Yes. There is a researcher whose name is Robert Cialdini, and he's written a book called Persuasion and Influence. And in that book, he introduces 6 different influencing principles. One of the influencing principles is called social proof. We are all familiar with social proof. If you go to buy something on Amazon, you read the reviews. So that's social proof. We're looking for testimonials from somebody else. And so in order to demonstrate how you are adding value to your organization, start to track any time you have ever been given a compliment or received acknowledgement for a piece of work that you've done. Because then when you're talking about what your own accomplishments are, you can put it in the mouth of someone else. I was so flattered when I was working on that recent merger and acquisition project, and I had to onboard 8 new employees that came from the new company that just joined us, that the head of that department said XYZ about me. That really made me feel very proud about my ability to be a strong team member, team player. Excuse me. So putting in the mouth of someone else when you're talking about it, that's one way to do it. The other way to do it is to think about it. I talked earlier about being more strategic. So let us imagine that you are working for a company and they have articulated to Wall Street that the strategy and the goal is 7% organic growth in 2026. Let's hypothesize that that might be the thing. Then whatever it is that you have accomplished. You can be of service when you're talking about it so that you can say, you know, I know that my, the company that I work for, the goal is 7% organic growth this year. And I've had that in mind for a lot of the projects that I've been working on. And so I did X, I did Y, I did Z, and here's how it's contributed to the 7% organic growth. So now you're not bragging about me, me, me, me, me. You're actually talking about how you are contributing to the overall goal for the health of the entire company.

Yeah.

You sound like you are being of service, which also then helps shape your personal brand.

I love that. It kind of goes back to the strategic acumen. It's, again, it's taking the focus off of yourself and going, this is what I'm doing, and this is what I'm observing to move, you know, helping move our organization forward, which is, you know, why everyone's there. They want the organization to be more productive, more efficient, whatever it is that you're offering or helping contribute towards that. And if you're able to speak about that.

Yeah. Here's how I helped. That's the mindset that you want.

Here's how I helped.

Yeah.

Perfect. H-H-I-H, right? Okay. H-H-I-H. Here's how I helped. We came up with an acronym for that.

Perfect.

Let's check in with Max on where we're at. Max, any Because we're sort of on a time delay with that, so we're not able to sort of see in real time any comments or questions that have come your way for Carol.

We do have what seems to be the second part of a 2-parter question, which is, instead of strategic, how do I build my financial acumen? All right. So I touched a little bit on that earlier about go and read the annual report. That will be helpful. But there's a very, especially if you are someone who is not in, uh, you're not an accountant, you're not working in under the CFO in that vertical in your company. Uh, there's a lot of courses online and there's a very specific one that I recommend. It's from Coursera and it's literally called Financial Acumen for Non-Financial Managers. And so that's the first stop that I would say for people that I don't understand the P&L. I don't really understand how we're measuring the EBITDA. All of this kind of language from your financial colleagues. And then the other idea that I'll offer, and this also goes toward the concept of if I want to get promoted, partly the reason that I'm getting promoted is my skill, my ability to bring out the greatness in others, which has to do with my network. So I'm going to bring a lot of expertise with me because I happen to know a lot of people in my own network. So building your own network is a really important thing to do as you're thinking about managing your own career. And so if you want to get better at financial acumen, you might want to reach out to the financial professionals in your own organization and ask them, I'm working on the XYZ project. How is that really feeding into our financial report? Or what is one red flag that you would be worried about, about this XYZ? project that I'm working on right now. And so you can build your network. You can get savvy with some input from someone in the financial department, and they might be able to give you the skinny on the kinds of things that aren't coming up. If you are, you know, like a scientist who's a bench scientist, for example, you might not have privy or a line of sight into what's going on with the numbers. They can help with that too.

Building on how, how, how, how I, how I can help now, I think it's Ask, ask for some help.

Yeah. How can I help and how can I, and who can I ask for help?

I think are, are really ways to be, to be thinking if, you know, if we had to simplify it, uh, into those 2 things. And then the specifics that you just gave of, of which direction that we could, uh, we could go. Um, so we touched about this earlier about greatness. Um, and tell me, can you tell me a little bit more about that, about bringing out the greatness in others?

Your ability to be able to pay attention. If you are already a leader of a small team, 2, 3, 4, 5, maybe even 10 people, you are likely asking them for status updates. You are likely having weekly, biweekly, maybe once a month meetings to track what's going on with the projects themselves. Did the X report get done? How did the meeting go? Did you have a meeting with the client? And you're checking off all of the tasks. From a leadership perspective, what you want to make sure is really clear in your relationship with the person that you're leading, because you want to start to lead greater and greater people. If you have not ever had a conversation with the people on your team that sounds like this, Joel, how do you like to be managed? What makes you feel like you're adding value and being really productive?

Yeah.

Do you want to Text me every morning and just give me an update on what's going on? Do you want to meet just once a week and I can give you 15 minutes off the top of every meeting so you can ask me a lot of questions? Do you want to be able to Teams chat me, you know, at the drop of a hat if something comes up? What is going to make you feel most supported by me as your manager? And if you are managing 10 different people, you have to be prepared for 10 different answers and being able to show up for each of those people in 10 different ways. To bring out the best in each one of those people. And then the other question that you can ask the people on your team is, I'm your manager, I'm your leader. There will be moments where I'm going to have to give you feedback. And you have this conversation before you have feedback to give.

Right.

There's going to be moments where I'm going to have to give you feedback. How do you best like to receive feedback? What is going to help you hear the feedback in a generous way? Because I'm giving it because I believe in you and I want you to achieve your goals. And on the moment that I might need to give it, which who knows when that might be, it could be 3 months from now. I don't have anything right now that I have to tell you, but I want to make sure when that moment comes that it's going to feel like I'm giving it to you in a way that you can hear it and it's going to help you improve. And I think a lot of managers don't take the time to have the pre-conversation before they have to have the actual conversation. And then they avoid having the conversation because the conversation itself is going to be so uncomfortable. So, I think that those are 2 really important things for leaders of smaller teams that wanna start leading bigger teams to start to consider.

Carol? Gold. Gold.

Thank you.

And I know that because you and I were working on a project together. You were sort of seeing, and I, I was sort of delivering it, and I was struggling. It was, and it was about giving feedback. And you gave, you know, and this is good because that's it. You gave me, you know, one tip, and that one tip was exactly that, which is, Are those managers asking their teams how they want to receive feedback? The course was about giving feedback. And of course, feedback, and we have such an anxiety around it. But that was a turning point question. And everybody that I suggested that to loved that idea and changed the dynamics that they had.

Wow.

One, as the manager who wants to be a leader, Just to feel much more, because if they're not giving feedback, nothing's moving forward.

Yes. Yeah.

Those managers now were really demonstrating taking that leadership to the next level because they were much more consistent and confident to deliver feedback, all because of that one question, which is, how best do you want to receive feedback? We're going to be, I'm going to be giving feedback. How do you want to receive it?

Yes. And the other thing that occurs, so that's very meta, like we're talking about feedback and you were running a course. feedback, and I gave you feedback on how to help them give feedback. It's a very meta experience. There is some neuroscience that might be helpful for people to understand why it's so important to give feedback as soon as possible after you have observed something, and to also remember that you want to give positive feedback as well. So if someone on your team did a rockstar presentation, you don't wanna wait till the mid-year review to tell them, you know, last January you did a really good presentation. Do it at the end of the presentation because that's gonna build up trust. That's gonna build up confidence in the person. But, um, there is something in neuroscience and I'm actually looking at some, uh, I just called up some research that I saw recently.

Okay.

Reward prediction error. The dopamine system learns that by spotting gaps between what we expected and what actually happened, high-level feedback delivers clear update signals and helps rewire learning circuits in real time. And anyone who has had toddlers and you're trying to teach them to say please and thank you. You understand this. You don't wait till bedtime to tell your toddler, you should have said please when you asked for your breakfast this morning. You tell them right in the moment. So the same is true for all of the people on our teams. We want to hear that feedback as soon as possible after the event.

Unless you're scared of your toddler.

Ah, well, then there's that.

But that's also the point of why we don't give feedback in real time is we're afraid about how it's going to be received.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so I love this about it's important. About the rewiring part of that that happens in real time. And I think that's a really important one is that we always think that feedback is about helping the person. And it is when you are giving positive feedback with no ulterior motives, just to say, when you did this presentation, it was great because— and since we're giving some stats, I think 92% of people will repeat that action if they got specific praise and recognition for it.

Wow. Yes, that's a really important thing to name as well. And a lot of people, we talked about bringing out the greatness in others. A lot of people don't know that something that they innately do well, so it comes easy to them, doesn't come easy to other people. And so if their manager can reinforce, you know, that thing you do, which is unique and special to you, you do so well, and here's how it's helping us, helps the person identify what their own strengths are. But I did want to circle back to what you were just saying about, you know, the reason people don't give feedback is they're afraid, they are afraid that the other person is going to get defensive. And so this might be part of what we call the missing 33%. You know, why am I not getting ahead? I'm the person that doesn't give the feedback. Well, if you want to get promoted to a higher level of leadership, there's tons more people that you're going to be responsible for. And if you are afraid to give feedback, that is a leadership competency that you are deficient in, you're not going to be considered at that next level. And in addition to that, I personally strongly believe that people will only rise to the level of success related to their ability to regulate their own nervous system. So if I cannot regulate my own nervous system, I'm afraid of giving feedback to you and you're the one that needs to improve, but I'm the one that's feeling the fear.

Yeah.

I'm never gonna, um, advance beyond that level because my own fear is holding me back. So having some self-awareness and some recognition about what are the things that might be holding me back because I'm afraid to speak up, I'm afraid to give the feedback, I'm afraid of judgment, I'm afraid of the repercussions of raising my hand and saying, hey boss, I have a new idea. That might be the very thing that's holding you back.

Uh, you know, 'cause you talked about derailers earlier on and that, and that, that That is such a good example about if there's something that is, you're not regulating your nervous system and you're holding yourself back from that. So, I think that's so important. I want to just say also, you did a great job for years that every Saturday you had Self-Care Saturday on LinkedIn.

Yes.

So, I highly recommend if people are looking for that side of it about how to Have that balance in work and life. I think that's also a really important part because I think part of leadership also is you have to be the full person coming to that. And I think those Self-Care Saturday tips were really good. I appreciate it. I want to get to, and I'm sure people want to know what are the takeaways and what are the things that we could actually do, but I think I got a signal from Max that there's some more questions in the comments. Carol, can you, can we stay on and just answer some of those questions before we get to our, what are the things that we could do moving forward? So, all a long way to say, Max, over to you. We do have questions rolling in in the chat.

How, as the person being led, do you try to have this important conversation with your leader? So I think what I'm hearing from that is the person being led who has a boss would like to have a conversation with their own manager about how they like to be led, but the manager themselves is not initiating. So that, that's how I'm, that, that is how I'm understanding that question. Okay. Thanks for clarifying, Max. Um, so this is one of those moments to step beyond your own fear and either at the next meeting that you have with your manager, or if you're, if your manager is someone that likes you to send an agenda ahead of time about What are the agenda items that we need to cover at our next one-on-one? To say to them, I would like to set aside, not right now, but I would like to set aside time for us at some point in the near future to talk about what your management philosophy is and also my, uh, how I thrive, how I really will succeed so that the two of us can get the best work out of each other. I really very, we, we have never yet had that conversation. And maybe this is a manager you've had for 2 or 3 years. So you can even acknowledge, you know, we've been working together for 3 years and there's an important conversation that we never had. And there's a lot of changes going on in the organization right now. And because of all of those changes, this might be a really important time for us to have that conversation so that, and then you have to say what's in it for the person to do it so that you can get the best work out of me. How do you feel about that, Mr. or Ms. Boss? That, that's one way that I would say you could either do that in an email, in a Teams chat. You could do it at your next one-on-one. And if you want to use the fact that you showed up at this podcast and you heard an expert talking about it, that might be a way in as well. You know, I just went to a LinkedIn Live. I heard somebody who does a lot of career coaching advise that this would be an important conversation for managers and, uh, people on their team to have. And it never occurred to me before. And so I'd love to have this conversation with you. So blame it on Joel and I.

Angie was funny.

Ah, there we go. Angie.

But that is also, I think, using the podcast as an excuse. Sometimes if you just need a little trigger like that to frame it so it's like you're clear, I was listening to this podcast or I read an article or I was thinking about my own challenges. So, it's like sometimes you just need that little prod to just Yeah. Ease into the conversation. I think that's such a good tip. And again, it's, and I think what you're talking about also is that it's a collaborative discussion. Yes. You know, hearing that it's not just, this isn't just about me, you know, this is also how can we work better together and how can we become more collaborative? How can we communicate better, basically?

Yeah, very much so. Moving forward.

Now, you know, I made a promise there that we would talk about Make, you know, and this is the whole point of this, you know, you don't wake up as a leader, so how do you get there? So, I'm sure there'll be some more questions, but, you know, the question that's on the tip, on back of my mind here is how do we make that leap? You know, if you're trying to move ahead in a purposeful way, what are some things that people can start doing like right now? Like you gave us a lot of tips, but what are some things that we can put into action?

Yeah, I'll start with Get really, really clear what it is that you want to do next. Some people have this kind of idea that they want to get ahead in their career, but they haven't really clearly articulated what that exactly looks like. So for some people, that could be, I want the job that my boss has, but my boss isn't going anywhere. So that might mean that I need to look in other parts of the organization at that level.

Mm-hmm.

It also might mean I've been at this current company for 10 years. I want the job my boss has. My boss isn't going anywhere. I might need to start job searching in my industry at somewhere else at that level. So just get really, really clear what it is that you would like to do next. And promotion isn't always the answer. Sometimes we want to do 1 or 2 steps before we get promotion. So, uh, in, in answer to the earlier question about financial acumen, I have several clients that realized Everybody at the level that I want to get to, all those people have their MBAs and I don't have my MBA. So the very next thing I need to do is get my MBA. And so potentially what your goal is, is to go to HR and ask, if I sign up to get my MBA, is there any scholarship available from a company that would be willing to invest in me? Because all of the knowledge I'm going to be able to pour back into the company. And some companies do, not all companies, but. Some companies do have programs like that. So get really clear. What's the next step? And then once you get clear for yourself what the next step is, you want to make sure that your manager is aware that you have this long-term goal. And you also want to make sure that your HR business partner is aware that you have this long-term goal. And this conversation doesn't have to wait for performance evaluation time. And in fact, I would uncouple it from performance evaluation time. Because performance evaluation is evaluation of things that have already happened. So that means that your manager is going to be thinking in the past of what happened during the year of 2026. But the conversation you want to have is about your future, where you want to be going. So I think it's always a good idea to uncouple that from your mid-year or your end-of-year performance evaluation and find another opportunity. And a good opportunity can be on the heels of when you have just accomplished something and you've gotten the compliment from somebody else about it. So you can go back to your manager and say, oh, you know, George in financial services just gave me this lovely acknowledgement about this great work that I and the team were doing. This seems like a really good moment for us to stop, to pause, to celebrate, and to think about the future. So that might be a way to, you know, ease your way into that conversation. In addition to updating your HR platform within your own company, here we are on LinkedIn Live. I think it's always a good idea to update your LinkedIn as well, and that your resume is updated as well. And in this world of artificial intelligence that every day there's something new coming down the pike, some kind of certificate or learning or training that you are leaning into learning these new skills and these new tools that will differentiate you from everybody else that might also want to get promoted. The faster you are to acquire a new skill, the more valuable you're going to be to your own organization. And then once you've done that, post it all over the place, you know, that you've learned to do that as well. The other thing that I'll recommend, and also because we're on LinkedIn, thinking about using LinkedIn, if it has not yet occurred to you to link with the senior leaders in your own organization, even if you do not know them by name, it's a very good idea because then what is going to start to happen is you'll see what they are posting come up in your newsfeed on LinkedIn. So strategically, you're going to start to see what's really, really important to them. And if you give that post a thumbs up, that means that the CEO of your company is going to see your name when they're not at work, when they're, you know, driving to the airport and they're scrolling on their LinkedIn and they're going to go, oh, Carol Loughbert. See, she works in the trend department. That's interesting. So your name now got into the brain of the CEO outside of a work circumstance. And what you're signaling is that you're paying attention. So now the CEO knows in terms of your own personal brand, you are somebody who is paying attention to the kinds of things that he thinks is important and that he's announcing to the rest of the world. So that's another strategic thing that you can do. And then the final idea that I'll share, which is an idea I share with all of my clients, is to start a practice that I call Reflection Friday. So at the end of every, and if you're listening right now and you're sort of, you know, this new idea, here's what to do. Open up an Excel spreadsheet right now. Label the Excel spreadsheet, My Achievements, with an exclamation point so that you'll feel proud of what you're going to put in there. Then open up your calendar and schedule a 15 or 20 minute appointment with yourself every single Friday. You can do it at the beginning of the day before you get to work at 8 AM. You can do it at the end of the day. So it's the last thing you think about at the end of the week. But consistently, once a week, make an appointment with yourself that you honor, where you start to track what are all of the things that you are adding value throughout the course of the week. And you can give yourself, I'll give you some questions that you can answer and start to track in this spreadsheet. What problems did I spot this week?

Hmm.

Problems did I solve this week? What tasks did I achieve or accomplish this week? What compliments or pieces of acknowledgement did I collect this week? And if every week you sit down and you answer those questions time and time and time again, let's hypothetically say you started this on January 1st. In fact, you're going to start it on April 16th. If you started it on January 1st, you will now have at minimum 52 pieces of data at the end of the year when you go to your end of year performance review to be able to talk about How you are adding value. Because what often happens is people are doing amazing things in February, but they don't get to talk about them with their boss until December. And then they forget that that was the amazing thing that they did. So not only does it keep you accountable to yourself, it helps you build your confidence week by week. You know that you're doing good things and adding value. And it also prepares you for that spontaneous moment where you might be in the elevator or in the parking lot and the EVP is like, oh, wait. Hey, Carol, what are you working on? You know, and your brain goes blank. It won't go so blank because you've been thinking every Friday how you're helping the organization. So that's another strategic practice that people can put into play.

I'm processing.

Okay.

I'm done. This is my processing phase. That was really good. And I'll say that, you know, A, this post will be available because it'll save as a post. So you can go back and review it. We'll have it up on the TFR This Feels Right podcast so you can re-listen to it and pause it and take notes and look at the transcript. You can also reach out to Carol, of course, on LinkedIn or carollumpert.com to get this. But I, you know what it boils down to? I love this Excel spreadsheet and the questions we ask ourselves because I think that's exactly where people get stuck. is it comes back again to how do we talk about ourselves and talk about the work that we're doing and talk about how we're helping the organization?

Yeah.

And if you're not being deliberate, and I think this is what I'm hearing, deliberate in being on LinkedIn and changing your LinkedIn profile. And if you need to take an MBA, get your MBA. And if you need to ask questions, then ask questions. But you need to be deliberate and clear As to what it is you, the role you think you want to go for, to have some guidance with that. Um, and again, it really boils down to the, the, to really giving thought also, I think, uh, about what is, do you, do you really wanna be a leader and, and how do you see yourself in that, in that role?

Yeah. Yeah, very much so. Yeah, very much so.

I, I know someone who just recently, you know, was, was promoted to a very senior level, but they were still acting as an individual contributor. They were still doing all the work.

Yeah.

Because they're, and you see this often, I'm sure, Carol, because they're not quite ready to be delegating.

Yes. And I think the other thing that happens for people, and this is back to the definition at the very beginning, the definition of leadership, I'm going to use the greatness in me to bring out the greatness in you. They've missed that. Like for them, that's the 33%. They haven't realized that once they got promoted, their job is no longer to do the task.

Mm-hmm.

Their job is to get other people to excel at doing the tasks and that they need to be not working in the business, but on the business. How am I going to help my boss achieve the goals that they have set for our department in an ambitious kind of way? And so I think what often happens for people when they get promoted, they're, they, they go through the celebration stage of, oh wow, I just got promoted, which might mean, you know, more prestige and a better reputation. And for a lot of times it means more money, you know, all the great stuff, but they didn't pause to say, what am I letting go of? Yeah. And so if you don't pause to recognize what you're letting go of, you'll never let go.

You know, we, we moved across the country because we didn't ask those questions.

What's that story?

Well, I was, I was, uh, I'm from Montreal, but I met my wife in Vancouver. Yes. Uh, and she, uh, you know, and she really wanted to move to Toronto.

Okay.

Because she really wanted to pursue fashion. Uh, and, but I didn't wanna move to Toronto. I, I loved Vancouver. Uh, and we, we moved to, to Toronto, but we, and then ever since then, 30 years later, she's still whenever going back to Vancouver because exactly that she was not really ready to let go of her family and her friends and her lifestyle. Um, and she didn't really ask herself the questions, what does that job in fashion look like?

Yes.

Actually be deliberate about it.

Yeah.

Um, before, before we, we bring this to a close and, and do a quick maybe summary, I think we have one more question. I think, I think I'm seeing, could you repeat those questions for the Friday reflection? I think is what I'm seeing.

Oh, all right. I'm happy to. I'll take it slower. So the concept of Friday reflection is that, and it doesn't have to be on Friday. My experience with clients is Friday seems to be a good day because it's a nice way to close off the week and capture what happened. But if you wanted to do a Monday reflection, you certainly could do it on Monday. The idea is that you spend time, you have an important meeting with an important person, and that important person that you have the meeting with is yourself. And that you book that meeting in your calendar and you hold it sacred and you make sure that you take time once a week, every week to think about how you're doing against your own goals and collecting data so that you can provide evidence that you are adding value to the organization. And so step 1 is either you can do it with pen and paper. If you'd prefer to have a journal, you could do it like that. You also could do it on an Excel spreadsheet. If you choose to do it on an Excel spreadsheet, in each of the columns on the Excel spreadsheet, you want to put questions that you will answer every week that then will start to track your progress. And so the questions that I recommended, and you certainly could come up with other questions for yourself as well, because you know what your performance goals are and you know what your development goals are. But the questions that I would recommend at minimum are, what problems did I spot? This week? What problems did I solve this week? What did I accomplish or complete this week? And what compliment or acknowledgement might I have received this week? So with those minimum 4 questions, and you certainly could add others and customize it for yourself, you're going to start to collect week by week by week answers to all of those questions. So at your mid-year review, which for some people is in 2 months, Or if you only have an end of year review, could be at the end of year review, that you will go back to this Excel spreadsheet or you will go back to your journal and you'll be able to leaf through, ooh, I solved this. I solved this. I did this. I did this. So that when I go to my performance evaluation, I can talk about how I am helping move the company toward its strategic goals by accomplishing all these things and not to Joel's earlier point. sound like you are bragging and showing off. In fact, your performance evaluation is the exact moment that you should be talking about accomplishing things on behalf of the organization. So for the person that asked that question, I hope that that clarifies.

Yeah, I think that that's again, great. You know, if you start with one thing, start with that, like, because that's, that's a long process. So you're starting that. And as you said, if you start now, a year from now, you got 52 You got data.

Very much so.

Carol, thank you. Well, you don't wake up as a leader, so how do you get there? I think we now have some great suggestions and great tips and insights and techniques that we can actually do to get there. So now, when you wake up tomorrow, you now have some things that you can actually do to get there. Carol, before I let you go, first off, thank you so much for your time and this conversation. This has been— I got all these notes here. So much insight. This is great. Where can— if people have more questions for you, where could— what's the best way to reach out to you?

Oh, thank you for asking. So I have a website. There's a lot of blog posts on many of the things that we were talking about. There's also a collection of videos on many of the things we were just talking about. So it's www.myname, Carol That's C-A-R-O-L-L-E-M, like lemon, P like Peter, E-R-T. And you can email me as well, carol@carolempert.com. You can link with me on LinkedIn. Since we're on LinkedIn, it seems good to plug them. And you can send me a direct message after you've linked with me, and I, I respond to everything. So I'd be happy to answer any questions that come in. And if anyone is intrigued to maybe have Joel and/or I come and work with their teams, let us know. We provide coaching services, we provide keynote speeches, we run workshops, we customize workshops. So please let us be people that can add value for you and your organization too.

And it will be fun apparently.

And it will be fun.

Carol, thank you so much for being a guest on TFR, This Feels Right. And to all of our listeners, if you have any comments, do feel free to— any comments, we'd love to hear. what you thought about this session. Let us know what was helpful to you and maybe what you're even more curious about. And we'll be happy to reach out and also share some tips. So on that note, Carol, thank you so much again for being a guest. And to our people who are joining us and watching this in the future, thank you so much. And we look forward to, again, hearing your journeys. Do feel free to share what tips worked. We'd also love to hear that.

Thank you, Joel. And Max, thanks for your support as well.

Thank you, Max. Thank you for listening to this episode of TFR, This Feels Right. And if this felt right, then please leave a review, comment, or ask us a question. And of course, we ask if you could kindly follow us so you don't miss an episode of impactful communication skills. And speaking of impactful communication skills, you can learn more at our website, thisfeelsright.ca. I'm your host, Joel Silverstone, and happy to connect with you on LinkedIn. And we'll see you on the next episode of TFR, This Feels Right.