How to prioritize ‘For All Leadership’ | with Pat Wadors

Hi, I'm Johnny Campbell, co founder and CEO of Social Talent and host of the Shortlist. You're very welcome to this week's episode of the Shortlist. We're back today with something very special for our listeners, in case you missed it. Last week we hosted our quarterly host hiring and talent management webinar, Social Talent Live. And this edition was all about chief people officers and their workplace priorities for the year ahead. As part of this event, I had the honor of speaking with Pat Waters, CPO of UKG and former Senior VP of Talent at LinkedIn. Pat's incredibly thoughtful and passionate about leadership, which is what our discussion was all about. I'm so glad to share this with our podcast listeners today. I really hope you enjoy listening in. We'll be back for another live episode of the shortlist next week, February 8th, where I'll be speaking with Karen Hurt and David Dye about the common mistakes of first time managers. I'm delighted to introduce Pat Waters, our guest for the Fireside Chat today. Pat's the Chief people officer of UKG and is a former senior VP of talent at LinkedIn and many other fantastic companies where she's had great experience and time building fantastic cultures and doing some wonderful things in this world. Pat, really happy to speak with you today. I wonder if you might do us a favor and introduce yourself, perhaps better than I can maybe explain the career moves, our life, choices you made to get you here. Why are you passionate about this subject? Why people? Why equity and inclusion and belonging as well in particular. Before we get started.

Wow, do you have like two days? No, I'm really grateful to be here. I, I'm so excited. So I'm just really, really passionate about creating healthy companies. And I think the pivot to do that is through leadership. We'll talk about that shortly. And I fell in love with this space when I was in college. So Johnny, I, I got diagnosed as dyslexic my freshman year in college. The year my mom passed and I was trying to figure out my way and school, you know, the normal education path was super hard and I didn't know why until I got diagnosed. And I was thrilled. And it, it was an opening for me to say, hey, it has nothing to do with your iq. You have the world is, is your oyster, as they say. And so you have this unlimited opportunity. Where are your passions? And when I took the test, like, what do you want to be when you grow up? It is people, social care, teaching HR. And so I knew since I was 19, I was interested in HR. And I interviewed my dad and uncle. Both of them were in HR, their twins, and. And my uncle said 80% of a company's operational expense is the cost of talent. And I'm like, that's wild. And that still holds true today. So I've been trying to capture the cost of talent, development of talent, turnover, cost of hire, services, software, facilities, everything that we do in service of our talent to create the products, the services, and care for our customers. And it hovers around there, right? LinkedIn was about, you know, 80, 81%. You know, I've had service now at 79%. And so I've been watching it and how you invest in talent, and if you turn those knobs a certain way, you have outsized rewards. Like, if it creates a really cool, healthy company and people want to hang out, they want to stick around, they want to do their best work, they're better off by being in that culture. And so for me, that's my passion. And coupled with that, knowing that I have neuroprocessing differences and I have a daughter with special needs, figuring out how I belong, right? How. How do I. How do I find my best self and feel like I can do my best work? I know when I'm authentically me as a new mom or, you know, with my learning disability. I'm an introvert, whatever that thing is. Johnny, if I am welcome being uniquely me, I don't have to worry about trying to fit in and mask who I am. I have more joy, I smile more, I am more creative, I'm more. I take more risks, I make more friends. And there's a lot of study behind that that I would love to share someday. But that sense, that feeling, that emotion of knowing that people care about you when times are tough, that you are welcomed in your unique way, that you get to rumble with your own perspective, that makes us all better. And so I'm on that path, as you just said, about diverse inclusion and belonging. Like, I think if you get a really healthy company with a sense of belonging that's real with their stories, you're more inclusive and you therefore become more diverse by nature because it seems like that's what you seek. So I'll stop there. In my career, I've bounced around two different industries because I love people challenges and talent challenges. I don't want to be pigeonholed into an industry. I'm always endlessly curious. I copy shamelessly, and I am wildly transparent and give away everything I've ever done. Just so I think we should learn from one another. Not compete on how well we treat our employees, but compete on our products and services. That's me in a nutshell.

I love that. Well, I don't think we could ever capture you in a nutshell, but thank you. That is, that is a great beginning, let's say of, of the PAT story. But when we, we spoke about the event, trying to understand what chief people, Officer Chros are prioritizing for 2023, I asked you the question. Expecting a list? Maybe? Here's my top four. My top three. You gave me one word. Tell me what that word was and why.

Leadership. Leadership has such an amazing impact on a company. It galvanizes, it accelerates culture. The seen and unseen. They're proof points. They have impact on our mental health more than our primary doctors. They drive the vision and accountability across an organization to make sure it's going on the right path. It's leadership and creating enterprise leaders that understand beyond their function, how the ecosystem works. Leadership, Leadership, leadership.

So leadership. I agree, it's so important. Everyone would agree with the importance of leadership. But why now? Why 2023? Not necessarily just for your organization, but why do you think this is a topic for so many Chief people, officers, CEOs, other senior individuals? Because it isn't just you, it isn't just your organization. This is coming up all the time. And I'd argue more in 23 than I've heard it in other years that I've been asking similar questions. So why do you think it's bubbling to the top today?

I think the prior years educated us the power and the risk of not having outstanding leaders. People deserve great leaders. And I think that, you know, during the pandemic, mental health, social crisis, just creating a leadership strength in your organization for care, for visioning, for accountability, for nurturing me and my career and our team. So we are inclusive and doing our best work. Those that harness that outperformed and created healthy, healthier companies and support their customers. I think what we're realizing now, why 23, as you put it, is because you see the struggle playing out real time, where CEOs are saying, you have to come back to this office. Like, yeah, that was great for a while, with the pandemic to be remote, but I don't believe we're as productive as we once were. I believe that we've lost some of our magic. Call it what you will, productivity, engagement, customer engagement, whatever those things are. And so there's this real pull, both in the macroeconomic condition, the. The uncertainty in the future. Coupled that with pulling people back into an office, for what reason? Lack of trust? Or is it really to build better innovation and you need leaders to drive through that change. What is it that we're trying to do? How will we measure success? And what I say is, you know, chase the right rabbit. I don't, I can measure a lot of things. Depending on what you measure, you can go off in the wrong direction. And so leadership on this, that's trusted for the enterprise, that's transparent, that will iterate and innovate and co create and co creation is another thing that you'll see with leadership is like listening to your employees and really leaning in and co creating something together creates higher ownership across the org. So leadership is the differentiator. And with this transition still going on in the marketplace, I think everyone's realizing we have to have better, greater leadership.

There's a traditional view of leadership or management that's around being own, you know, owners owning budgets, being responsible for making decisions, for hiring people, for controlling things, processes, tasks, etc. And that that's what made a good manager. And perhaps that was the status quo until 2020. I don't think that's what you believe a great leader or manager is. So what are kind of the core attributes, if you can summarize that, you think make up the modern leader that we need for today and tomorrow?

Well, I have the privilege of working with Michael Bush, a great place to work. So, so I'm a student of his and what he's working on and what we're trying to capture even at ukg, is this what we call the. For all leadership, right. There's several layers of leadership that he's exploring and level one is the unintentional leader. Right. They, they're more disruptive, they're, they're more of an ic independent worker and happen to do leadership when, when required, but they don't really want to do it. And then you have the level two, which they call the hit and miss leader, right? They, they try to do the tasks at hand. They're not thinking about the talent, nurturing the talent, motivating talents. They have a high turnover, so that becomes a little wonky. Absenteeism may be higher for those, you have the, the other one would be the good leader, someone that, you know, I, I likes me, I like them, but they're low agility, they're not thinking of the enterprise and the structure strategy. They're not rumbling on the innovation, they're not as inclusive and they end up getting regrettable turnover. They're not really nurturing the top talent. The Level 4 would be inclusive leader. Now this is what most companies go after. This is where you would say I stayed because of my leader, right. When turnover happens, they like, I left because of my manager. 80% of us, we leave, it's our manager. This is this level four inclusive leader role. But the, the pinnacle that I think we should all be striving for is this for all leader that, that great place to work looks at. And the for all leader is this enterprise leader. They see the vision, they can porpoise down into the organization and their team and calibrate are we working on the right stuff with the right priorities. They're fearless in getting rid of a project if it, if it needs to change. They don't hold on to things when it doesn't make sense. They think about the team and they creating the right opportunity for talent to co create, to learn, to grow. And they create a loyalty not from their team, but from the company. So you see their shadow because, wow, that sales leader, that person's amazing. I, I believe in this company because that person's in the rooms at the right time advocating for all of us in the right way. So it's not even my direct leader. A for all leader represents the company and thinks about the company. They're, that's pretty. And you, that's, that's a tough order and I think that's what we should go.

But just to challenge that a bit, right. You know, if I can give an analogy, it's like saying, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a great cyclist. I know you like cycling, right? So I love cycling. And you're saying, well, there's, you know, there's the kind of cyclist who, you know, borrows a bike in the city and pays by the hour and just gets around. Then there's the cyclist who, you know, competes at local races and does really well and goes out on the weekends and they're their skinny, tight shorts and stuff. And then there's the Tour de France winners and you can categorize them and describe them and I'll know exactly what you mean. But if I ask you, Pat, how do I become a Tour de France winner? How do I become a for all leader? That's a harder question. So, you know, I can understand that I need to be this, I need to be somebody who, you know, trains all day long, wins races, et cetera, but I just don't know how to get from where I am today to where I'd like to be. So how does one get to, from wherever they are in that, that that level. Six levels, they're somewhere near the bottom. They want to get to be a for all leader, somebody who's more enterprise wide. What are the core skills? I'm going to have to look at the things I'm going to have to focus on. And what would you even prioritize to start with?

Well, seeing oneself is the starting point. How do you show up today? What's your leadership shadow? What are your strengths? How do you leverage? Like, do you seek feedback? I, I think amazing leaders seek feedback all the time. All the time. They're always sensing and not everyone will become a for all leader. Like I definitely want everyone to be at least an inclusive leader. The, the Tour de France, you know, cyclists that we're talking about, these are ones that are really striving to, to show the vision, the care, set the standard, teach others, mentor others, bring them along the way. And as you know, Chros, as chief people officers, my role is like, what is our leadership framework? What are those competencies? What's our Maslow's hierarchy means we believe in the following from a culture and care standpoint. And then we're going to make sure that you don't treat managing others as a side hustle. Right. This is, you know, it's a privilege to lead, Johnny. And so many times you find our employees thinking that management tracks is the only way to progress in their career. And so they're reluctant managers. I've seen it in every company at Yahoo, at LinkedIn. Like every company has the struggle. So when you create an IC track, take some pressure off of that, then you show leaders what it really means to lead and what is great. And then how do you reinforce that? Through coaches, right. Programs, reinforcing the behaviors, just, just really, really leaning into those attributes. Then you see magic unfold and, and they're multipliers. I call them tastemakers because not everyone can be one, but when you see it, you know what that is. And, and they're tastemakers, they're talent magnets. They, they have huge influence on the care of the company and the, the culture and the customers and the product. It's, it's pretty amazing when you find a for all eater.

But to take your point around, you know, when you see one and not everyone can become one, do you think that you're either born a great leader or not born a great leader? And if not, how does you know is it something you have to work on? And does it require the same deliberate practice as it would to get to the highest level of sports, you know? And what does that look like? Because I'm sure those great leaders, they don't just do it. They're not born that way. They have become that way. I'm sure they'll tell stories of how poor they were when they were in their chances of leadership. What does that journey look like?

Oh, my goodness. We're all kludgy. When we first become a manager, we. We're all terrible. We learn all the time. It's those that lean into the learning, Johnny, and seek the feedback that separate themselves. That when I find a great leader, it's those that made mistakes, learn from their mistakes, seek the feedback, iterate and learn and grow all the time. They're. They have a humility about them that keeps them on their toes and growing and sharing consistently. So it is a craft and they lean into the craft. They don't let go of the craft. I'm always pursuing, trying to be a great leader. And I know I have blind spots and I know that I have bad habits during certain times. Like, nope, nope. This is why I need to do. This is what I need to recover. I need the feedback. Great leaders always strive for that. And. And it is an art and a science, and it is, I think, an intentionality of desire, too. Right. You must want to be a Tour de France rider. You must want to be great at this craft to pursue it all the time, all the energy. Because it's hard to get feedback. I don't know about you. It's hard. It's hard when people go, you didn't quite nail that one. You hurt my feelings or could have said this better. It's hard.

I never enjoy negative feedback and I challenge anyone who says they they do. I enjoy the outcome of hearing feedback and then fixing it. I really love that development. But I find personally, the first, maybe the first day I hear negative feedback is tough and I reflect, then I can go back and go, right, let's really talk about this. But I struggle to stop being defensive when I hear negative feedback. It's. It's human instinct, but I've heard you use a phrase and I really like it. I think you can apply to this around feedback and learning. And you've advocated for arguing like you're right, but listening like you're wrong. Talk to me about that.

So I was at ServiceNow with John Donahoe when we're building a new leadership team. And what we attempted to do is to create a social contract, how we want to operate together. And we had some leaders there that had been there for years and some were new and mix in between and new roles. And they were all, we were all, including myself, trying to prove our capability, subject matter, expertise, how do we fit in this dynamic to do our best work? And what I realized, because we all bring some incredible talent to the table, our listening skills weren't as optimal as we should have been. And so we agreed. And so we looked at the tenets of this team and said, what do we want to be? You know, how do we want to show up for and hold each other accountable? Not have my boss tell me, but hold each other accountable. And this is one of the tenants that came up. I'm like, we've got to listen like we're wrong. We got to assume we've missed something. And it evolved to that statement. Argue like you're right, get your act together, get your data right, do your research, don't get lazy. Listen and try to understand the stakeholders and then once you make your case, be quiet. Your best, you know, tool in your arsenal at that point is a question, seek to understand, listen like you're wrong, and then reflect, echo back. So it became one of our, you know, strongest tenets.

So Pat, often when I speak to leaders, particularly first time leaders, only starting out maybe early in their career, they have this sense that they have to know everything, they have to have all the answers because that's what they think leadership is about, having all the answers and they, then they panic, they've got imposter syndrome. All these things like what are you, what have you found in your career? Are those challenges and how do you overcome them? Or what's the right approach to take as an, as an early and career leader or just anywhere in your leadership career.

I think the lesson of learning how to pick yourself up from a mistake was probably one of the biggest catalysts to my career. Like, I made some amazing mistakes and I had a mentor while that applied saying, look, your team knows you fell on your face and it's a problem, but how do you pick yourself up? And then I, I, I picked myself up and I told the team and so on, so forth. And so what I learned from that is I had a team following that that I was leading. All they talked about were their successes and staff meetings. They weren't sharing the bumps and bruises that I saw one on ones and I'm like, y', all, we have to start sharing Those things because what you, your mistake that you're facing on this issue, Johnny, is what Maggie's going to face right now. And so let's, let's share your learnings. And so I, my round tables ended up being what, what has been your biggest challenge mistake this week? Like, oh, none this week. I'm like, I, I've had at least five. Like, pick one. I don't. So, so I became part of the agenda for all until they got really comfortable, comfortable and they laughed and they shared like, oh, thank goodness I'm not going to make that mistake. I was just on that same path. And it, the vulnerability created trust, which was not where I was going, Johnny. Right. I, I was just going learning it created a higher, tighter team, higher performing, trusting teams. I'm like, wow, that's pretty cool. And then I saw through LinkedIn and Microsoft acquisition, the power of the growth mindset. If you think about Carol dewick's work and saw what Satya had done there in the culture and the care of the leadership team, that growth mindset, I just haven't faced this yet. There's so many yets. I have not done that to, to even pretend I know the answer what's going to happen in 2023 would be irresponsible. I haven't faced 2023 fully yet, but I know I'll give it my best shot. And that frees me up to ask questions, to model the right behavior, the curiosity and it, and it gives permission for others on my team and outside my team to bubble up their, their worries. We make less, bigger mistakes because we share more in the moment. And I think that's a huge gift and, and mental health wise, oh my goodness, I don't have to be perfect anymore. I, I am so much happier.

And that vulnerability, that peace around being comfortable, sharing the fact that you don't have all the answers, that it isn't perfect, that you're struggling. That was a big theme coming out of 2020, early days of the pandemic when employees just needed real leaders and led to a lot of talk around and different phrases pop up. There's a lot of stuff that's played in the media about the type of leader should be, but one of the things that came out of that was we need to be more authentic leaders. And I absolutely signed up for that. But recently I read a, I listened to a podcast with Yuval Noah Harari, the author of Sapiens, and he's talking to Steve Levitt from Freakonomics. And you know, Steve brought this topic up about authentic leadership and he said, I don't want authentic leaders. I want responsible leaders. What are your thoughts about that? Is it that simple? Is it like you choose one of the over the other? What do you think, Patrick?

Well, I've had this conversation before in the sense that I think it's an. And if you think about what gets you into the door, it is responsibility, it is about integrity, it is about your subject matter expertise that gets you into the door. And so you must show up like that. These are the values that you must emulate. And, but as you emulate it, do it in as authentic way as possible. And if you can do both of them well, you become that great leader that, that tastemaker because you're learning and you're growing. I don't want an authentic jerk, right? I don't want an authentic person that always tries to figure out the way to break the rule to create the exception. That is not what authenticity is about. It's that, that icing on the cake that says if you show up, well, if you, if you have that skill set, if you have, you know, the responsibility and the care of the company, but you do it in a way that is truly you, then I'm going to follow you better, I'm going to trust you more. You know, and, you know, when I share my vulnerability and my mistakes, you know, the stuff that's happening at home with my children or whatever the case may be, there's this community that's built over time, but I lead with my responsibility first. Like it's, I have a role I have to perform and, and I'm going to do it in the best way I can. So I hope it's an.

And I love that because you mentioned, you know, your leadership shadow earlier on. I think it does start with that understanding the impact you have as a leader versus an ic, which you know primarily. You have to be responsible, therefore, for what you do and say because it's different than somebody doing it if they're an ic, you have that responsibility first. But you're right. Being authentic is just so important. Pat, as you look to 2023 and you're building your plans around leadership development in UKG, tell me, what advice can you share with our audience today about the priority areas that you're prioritizing, you're looking into to develop the right type of for all leader in UKG that others perhaps could emulate or borrow?

Well, let's just. I want to be pragmatic, right? I want to create A momentum in an organization. And I believe in the theory of a tipping point. And tipping point is when you have 20, 30% of a team of a leadership group that gets there, that believes in it, that will model it and it creates this flywheel for others to learn and grow from. So I'm looking at our leadership team as a tipping point opportunity. So can I get, you know, if I have 200 leaders, can I get 40, 50, 60 of them to want to be a for all leader? Will they lean in? Will they start modeling this? And there's going to be some key informal influencers as well as formal influencers with a bigger shadow in that tipping point. And that's going to create the curiosity of others going, wow, that stuff really matters and it really is paying off. They have higher retention, higher engagement, better products. I think I might follow that. So from an audience perspective, don't go for 100% of your leaders, like offer it for 100% but really measure do you have that tipping point, that groundswell? And if not, how do you get it? How do you look at those stakeholders and say who are the key influencers? Where the outsized influencers. I can take a negative person to a positive transition, go, this stuff really does matter and changes the game. Then you're on to something, right? So be clear on what your expectations are of leaders, the difference between a functional leader and an enterprise leader and how do they show up, what, you know, the case for change and, and the, for all leader changes the financial outcomes of companies. Like there's real return on a company's balance sheet to do this well and do it fast, right? Don't let go. Hold the mirror up. Don't let go.

Absolutely love that. I, I'm, I'm a father of four boys and three of my boys play rugby. It's a big sport here in Ireland Path and I coach two of them. And we had a guest on a couple of years ago who was on the Leinster rugby team, which is probably arguably the best team in Europe in rugby, made up of a lot of Irish players. And he talked about the culture in a sports team and he mentioned that at the time when he joined, the culture wasn't great, they weren't winning medals. And he said there was about three or four of them, the core group that became the tipping point and they had a different focus and they were brought in and there was a clear leader who had an outsized role and influence. And once they had that group of four, the rest just followed. And I love that because for us, right, for all of us looking to try and fix these things, like how can I fix everybody? And I love that to say you don't have to fix everyone as your immediate goal. Get the magic tipping point number and then let magic happen and it will take care of itself. And I love that. That's a really inspiring way to break down the size and complexity of some of these issues and make it a little bit easier to get your head around. Pat, I thank you so much for joining us today. Absolute pleasure. We could go for hours more, but you got to get on with a busy list of stuff to fix and get done and improve in 2023 UKG. And it's always a pleasure to hear you to share in your insights. It's always been inspiring. And thanks so much for joining us here today. We'll hopefully have you back again soon.