The Role of Imperfection in Heart-Centered Leadership [Deb Crowe]

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Hi, I'm Susan Drum. And welcome to this episode of the Enlightened Executive where your personal evolution sparks your leadership evolution. Each episode we feature groundbreaking techniques and strategies to help you get the edge in personal and leadership effectiveness. This episode is brought to you by Meritage Leadership. At Meritage, we strengthen leaders and empower teams to achieve high performance. Go to meritageleadership.com to learn more. Today we're talking about heart centered leadership and I'm delighted to introduce Deborah Crow. Deb is an executive and business Coach with over 32 years experience working with Fortune 500 companies worldwide. She coaches C suite leaders, executive professionals, teams and diverse businesses. And she believes that every single imperfection adds to your leadership, that everyone is imperfect. And her mission is to show that you don't have to be perfect to be a caring, effective, heart centered leader. So welcome Deb. Thanks for joining.

Thanks, Susan. It's nice to be here with you.

Okay, let's talk a bit about this concept of heart centered leadership. What do you mean when you say.

That heart centered leadership? My definition is honoring your connection with people. So it doesn't have to be a philosophy. To me it's a definition. And the definition drives the behavior.

Got it. And so what is the behavior of a heart centered leader then?

So when you honor your connection with people, you're exuding heart centered leadership qualities. You're listening not for the sake of responding. As a heart centered leader, you are not looking for reciprocity if it's a colleague, a friend, a family member, because leadership shows up in different ways over the course of our day. So listening to listen and sometimes there's not going to be a response needed, that's a honed skill that heart centered leaders do and they do very well. And being able to hone into your executive team, other C suites, your organization at large, but really being there for that person and not for the sake of reciprocity. Because people are always quick to process and think, well, what should I say? How do I need to respond? We just need to capture and be present in that moment.

Yeah, I totally agree. And I was just having this conversation with gathering360 feedback for these reviews and I noticed a lot of the feedback was around. Sometimes the leader could just come without an agenda and say, how are you doing? What's keeping you up at night? Where are you struggling? What's been really exciting for you these days as opposed to, I think we just get very tactical and transactional. So I'm getting the sense that in your definition of Heart centered leadership, it's anything but that.

And what about having a meeting for the beautiful example you just gave? Just to say, hey, Susan, I just wanted to get together to check in. How are you doing? And is there anything I can help you with? Is there anything, you know, at home that might be a barrier for you today? Like, how are you doing? Not you, not your team, not your numbers. Nothing business driven and pulling out the business acumen and just honoring the connection, person to person that's missing. But it's, it's, it's become more, more to the forefront in leadership, especially since March of 2020.

Yes. And lately I've been hearing this, you need to walk the halls. Now that people are back in, we're almost used to some people are back in the office, let's say in greater numbers. For those that are back in the office, it seems like we reverted to our zoom habits of pandemic times and so we're just stuck to the computer again. And I think it's a reminder to these leaders that you got to get up and walk around and connect with people ad hoc, not again with an agenda. I also think you learn a ton when you do that.

Well, open ended questions and how many times as a coach or a consultant have you heard about the water cooler talks or the coffee room talks? It's just because they're coming in to get a coffee or a glass of water and they've connected on a break with no agenda. And what happens, they just speak from their heart of what's on their mind and it's usually nothing to do with work.

Yeah, it's so important because I think about the, you know, the agenda that you need to have in a meeting. Normally I really push, like have a clear target. What are you trying to get out of that? But this is an instance where that doesn't work in every circumstance. And so we also need the agenda list meeting too.

Absolutely. And I, I think this has had some remnants on the great resignation. I think people, you know, we were all stuck at home for however many months and it gave us time to think about things outside of work and outside of business and really prioritize. And I think people just got sick of being scheduled all day long and, and it's funny because now everyone's migrating to these shorter meetings and these purposeful meetings. And I'm with you. Let's have a meeting not to have a meeting about work. How about check ins? You know, I don't want to call them mental health check ins because that's not appropriate for everybody. But just how are you doing? What's going on? You know, just like we would with our friends or family. Why can we not do that within a work environment or a remote environment?

Yeah, what about the leader that says, yeah, I'd like to do that, but I don't really get much back because I don't think they want to be honest with me about how they're really doing. What can they do to prime the pump or to make it easier to have an authentic conversation.

That's a great example. So that particular leader in that scenario, they're already doing a self audit and viewing themselves that they're not heart centered because they're looking to get something reciprocal. It's not about them. It's about sitting with that employee and really developing or maybe re establishing is a better word, the trust and rapport that could have been lost and has been lost. Whether it's Covid things that have gone on within the organization, that's up to the leader to recognize there's been a change and it's not about them. And if you lose trust and rapport in a relationship, whether it's work or personal, it's something that's really hard to get back and sometimes it's not fixable.

Well, I think sometimes it's, it's not always easy, let's say, for a more junior employee to be really honest with their boss on how's it going?

Right.

So they may feel intimidated, they may feel like it's not appropriate, they may feel like they may be judged for it. How does a leader just make it as safe as possible to have that type of conversation? Because I could imagine, you know, and I've heard leaders say, yeah, I do.

What you're talking about.

And they're like, yeah, everything's great. No, I'm doing well, all good, two thumbs up. And he was like, I don't know if that's really true.

Well, I'm going to list two leaders that I think do this really well. Gary Vaynerchuk does it because he walks the walk, talks the talk and he can recognize through non verbal communication when somebody says, oh, I'm good, not 99% of the time, they're not good. That's an invitation for a leader to be heart centered and say, let's have a chat, let's go have a coffee. And Mike Sievert at T Mobile, he does this seamlessly. Like it's, it's so organic and natural for him. And you see him all over Social media from a junior person, whether it's a repair center, their customer center, right up to working with his senior team. He just does it brilliantly because he's open and he listens and he's watching for what they're not saying. So going back to the first question, when you're listening and you're really listening, a heart centered leader can hear what's not being said because they're so tuned in to the emotion of what is being said.

Right. And then it's a question of how do you then deal with that? Right. So say I can tell that they're not authentic. And one of the things that I've seen is you could certainly just get a little more specific with your questions. Besides just say, how's it going? Because our look, our default answer to that is fine, I'm fine. Or, or that's a detail. Or the other one is busy. So busy. We're all just so busy.

Right? Think about it.

Was the last time you asked someone, how are you doing? Busy.

Yeah. And you know what? I am the busy police. There's three words that are not allowed in languaging when you're working with me. Busy. Sorry. And just because they're unintentional, I would rather somebody say when someone says, how are you doing? I've got a fairly productive day, but I do have a break. Like, fine, find your word. But it's we're not, we're all busy. But are we busy or are we unproductive?

Yes. I mean, we have our time filled with stuff. Doesn't mean we're productive. Well, what I found helpful is to perhaps get a little bit more specific with the questions. Like I said earlier, what's been the most exciting thing that's been going on to leave it open and then like, and what's keeping you up at night? That's like a little bit more. I'm really opening the door to hearing where things are bad because people may not realize, like, does she really want to know how bad? Or is she just kind of being polite and stopping by and saying hi. And when you ask more specific questions where you both show, give them showcase to show what's going well, but ask some more pointed questions about places that they're struggling. I think it shows what you're truly after, which is the authentic response, not the fine or busy response.

And I think you're seeking out empathy. And another strategy that I've used with leaders is maybe start off with something yourself that you're looking to get from Your question. So you, you know, you had, you had alluded to what's keeping you up at night instead of asking a question to say, hey Susan, I'm so glad we met today. Can I share something with you that's going on in my life? And they're probably going to think, oh my gosh. And of course they're going to say sure. And then they can let down their leadership speak and just connect and be that person to person that just sets a foundation for such a beautiful open conversation. Because right away they're thinking, oh my gosh, my leader is sharing this with me. This is really a safe space.

So modeling, modeling the vulnerability that you want to see in others is going to go a long way for that.

People look at leaders and think they don't have any problems, problems and their life is so wonderful. And you and I know different than that. I think the ones that model this are just, they're just amazing heart centered leaders and vulnerability. You know, you can look at everything out there and Brene Brown talks about this. It's a strength in your toolkit. It's not a weakness. And what a world it would be if every leader gave a little bit of vulnerability and all of us would be out of business because every culture and every organization would be healthy and vital.

Now how do you use these, these concepts with your clients?

I had a leader from a global tech company and he was the CEO, but he was also the owner. So his leadership style would be, Susan, I pay you a lot of money. You're on my executive team. With some explicits in there. Just go do your job, there shouldn't be a problem. Susan. Right. So where is the openness for you to come and talk to the CEO when you're on the executive team? And he was a very systematic thinker of very shame and blame. So we did a lot of team building and I have my heart centered leadership poster and it's just, it's the foundation to talk about qualities. It's not the be all and end all, but it's the top 20 that I think. And we always start with the leader. What are your top three today and what's the one that you're really trying to work on? Listening is always in the top three. It kind of deflates the elephant in the room and it allows the silence where you could hear a pin drop.

Yeah.

And then everyone goes, okay, we're gonna get somewhere. So it's helping those leaders who don't speak openly. Emotional intelligence doesn't come out easily. In their vocabulary or their leadership style. And it's even harder when they own the company and they're running it. That's, to me, one of the hardest, I think, strategies to, to work with and a team that says we can't talk to him or we can't talk to her. So it's preparing. I use a team building exercise. I always have the leader go first and it just kind of lets everybody else on the executive team exhale and we can get out some really great information in a fun kind of environment, a fun strategy, and using a modality where there's no right or wrong. What are your top three today? Because tomorrow's a different day and yesterday's gone, so we're not even going to discuss that. So anchoring them to the present moment and everybody gets to have some laughter because you hear, oh, John, I would have never thought that about you. Or you think you're not a good listener. And all these, you know, side table conversations come up. But the thing for me to sit back when I'm doing it is watching the leaders nonverbal cues. So they're he's getting or she's getting what I'm trying to do and highlighting and talking about imperfection. And I use a lot of humor and candor that's relatable for other people. And that's when you get the head shaking when you're talking, you know, the non verbal cue. And then you get me too, and then again another person and then it comes back to the leader and everybody's looking and it just, again, it just allows that vulnerability to be open very slowly, very methodically, because we're not looking for an eruption or a huge outcome on the first time we do this, but we're just gently introducing some new tools, a different modality. And it's just a conversation, Susan. And to me, it's worked really well for the companies that I've worked with. And I've had executives say, I never thought this would work.

Let's be practical about this. What is the exercise that you'd recommend that leaders could try to bring some of that into their team, like say they want to do a team building.

Do you suggest, well, I'll share my, I'll share my poster with you to share with your listeners.

Yeah.

And it's what are your top three qualities today and why? And that that's giving you that aside to that other question of what's going on in your world today, how can we help you? Are you inundated? Are you Overwhelmed. It comes out in this. And then what is the one quality you're working on and why? And it surprises me because a lot of times within a large group there'll be two or three that pick the same one or they'll say there's so many that I'm working on like they've already done that self audit. Okay, but what's if you had to prioritize the three of them, what is the top one?

Yeah, so like listening is always at the top. Part of me that strengths is that.

Values is that attributes qualities within your personality that you bring to your heart centered leadership. So it could be trustworthy, it could be offering a safe space, it could be lifelong learner, proud to fail and then fall forward. All all the things that we've been talking about that are going to continue to highlight the continuity of vulnerability. Great.

I love it. I love it. So asking you know what what are your top three and the qualities that you think you bring to your leadership and, and what are you looking to build or work on?

And when you're working on a project which is most organizations we always ask in real time today, what are the three that are really important for you today? So it might be I need to listen because I'm working on this and I need to get back to this person. I need to be an avid reader because I have a deadline and I have to edit this or I really want to strive to mentor today because my team really needs me to show up. And then the one they could work on is I have to remember to implement some self care or white space in my schedule so that I can show up as a heart centered leader for my team and not model this burnout. You know, work till midnight, eat lunch at my desk. That's another big one. Is modeling self care.

Yes, that's very, very true. And what's the outcome? How would a leader know they had a success team meeting where they employed this?

What would you see? They want to do it again. It becomes a weekly part of their meetings. They also break off and do it within their inter departments in a larger organization. And they know that it gets to change every day because we're not the same person as we were yesterday. Every day we're a little bit better or we failed at something or something didn't go the way we thought it would. That's okay. We're going to acknowledge that it was a learning moment. We're going to fall forward and tomorrow's going to be a new day. It sounds so Simple Susan. Yet so many people, they just, they're hard on themselves and they think, you know, but I really did this. And, and a good leader will be like, it's done today. It's been a great learning moment. And these are the heart centered leaders that I love working with because we learn by our mistakes. And some of the greatest things that have been invented have come from mistakes. So it's failing forward, smiling, tomorrow's a new day. And I also have this in a deck of cards that I hand out. So people will, individually, especially executives, they'll keep doing this at their desk and it becomes a self audit. If they're having a moment and they don't have someone to talk to or who they want to talk to is not available, they can have that own self audit at their desk going, okay, where am I at today? What's my top three? What, what's the one I'm working on? And it's, you know, it's talk yourself down from that negative talk or that imposter syndrome, especially for executives. And it's fun. Like, who doesn't like to look at a fun poster or play with cards? And that was my whole intent when I created it because it's something we all have an anchor to when we were a kid.

Got it? Yes. So what do you think the biggest misconception is when leaders think about, oh, I need to be more heart centered, like, where do they get it wrong?

I think they get it confused with servant leadership because servant leadership is a philosophy and it's still kind of opening the bandwidth to look at the organization at large, where if you look at traditional leadership, they want to focus their leadership to have themselves thriving from, you know, right down to every department, right up to everyone reporting into them as the C Suite, where heart centered is just looking at people and everybody in the company is a leader. They don't have to be anchored or have a certain tenure or stature or title.

Right?

And when a company treats everyone, it's the old cliche, you know, the CEO talks to the CEO the same way as he talks to the janitor. That should just be an easy conversation because at the end of the day, we're just people. And that's how we connect, is when we don't anchor our worth and worthiness to an identity and then the leader that we report into doesn't either. That to me is such an equal quotient on each side of the equation. That's how you have people follow you. That's how you're a Heart centered leader, because the people always come first.

People come first and, and you're also anchored to a meaningful mission, something outside of yourself that's obvious to everyone else around the why you're doing what you're doing, why, what is the mean. And I think sharing that for leaders is super important because then they get behind it much more with employees about how your doing what you're doing and why you're doing what you're doing and what difference is it going to make in the world whether people plan it, whatever it may be, you know, why should I keep coming back and doing this and suffer through the hard times when and if they come right? What's one piece of advice that you would give to a leader who resonates with this concept and knows it's something that they need to work on, but not sure what's the one step I can take tomorrow to start doing more?

I think it's a question and I think we all have to think about it, not just leaders. You know, what do you, what do we want our legacy to be? What do we want? How do we want to be remembered when we're gone? And you know, it's, it's embracing that whole people over profit kind of analogy that people talk about, but not just saying that, but behaving your brand. If you're a heart centered leader, behave like a heart centered leader. It's not a title unless the behavior goes with it. So for me, you know, when I go, I want people to say, she created all these heart centered leaders all over the globe. And because I was told 30 years ago that, you know, this type of languaging wasn't in business acumen and I was too happy and too smiley and too chatty and I never stopped. I just kept going. And here we are 32 years later and everybody's got in there in their lingo. And to me, you know, it makes me think of my uncle. My uncle passed away in the summer and he was a high school teacher all his life. He was born in Ireland and then came to Toronto, Canada. And he never married or had kids. And what he did was he helped Mother Teresa in Calcutta build four orphanages for children that were born from prostitutes and, and not a normal birth, let's just put it that way. And when she died, he was given a VIP invitation to her funeral. And I, I never felt so proud. And I remember saying to him, you know, what do you want your legacy to be? And he said that I helped people. And I always thought with my My head and my heart aligned. And he said, I didn't have kids, but I got all the kids when I worked with Mother Teresa. And they talked about that at his funeral. And it just like I. It really brought tears to my eyes. And I thought he was such a great role model for me. And he would tell me in my 20s, just keep going, don't listen. Just be yourself. Stay in your own lane. Just keep. Because no one's ever going to argue with love. And now I look at where the world is, and he was right.

Yeah. So why is this message more important than ever?

We are such a disconnected world. I mean, we have technology and it's wonderful and we're borderless that way, but there's just so much hate in the world. And one of my top values in my life and in my business is peace. And it sounds so simplistic, but we need to listen to each other more. And when I created my Heart Centered Leadership poster, something happened that I never even thought about. And I had leaders in other countries that I was working with. Say, can you please translate this into our language? And I thought to myself, heart Centered leadership plus diversity, equality and inclusion equals a universal language. And love is a universal language. And I think if we can all get on that level and that playing field globally, I think peace will come. And it's something for me that I put out there every day. And it just feels good at the end of the day, Susan, to lay your head down on your pillow and know that you gave the best of yourself every day. And you're helping people see that Heart Centered Leadership has its place in the world.

Absolutely. And that's where you and I are connected. I love your message, Deb. I mean, believe it so much. The current level of divisiveness and fear and anxiety and disconnectedness really have us pause and look at how are we going about business, how are we going about our lives? And how can we shake things up.

To shift the course?

So thank you for being on the show today. Where can people learn more about you and your work?

So my website is Deb Crow and Crow has an E on the end. It just means I'm irish.com. everything's there. And I just, I'm so grateful to you and glad that our. Our paths have crossed and I know that I love sharing this space with you. So thanks for having me.

Absolutely. Thank you for joining. This was a great conversation and love your mission as well. And if you like this episode, you're not going to want to miss my interview with Brian Andres Helmick, who believes the core reason behind your goals are at least as important as the goals themselves. And then, if we just listen, the way forward will reveal itself. Let's lead the way. Hope you enjoyed today's episode, and I'd like to point you to the next important step. Hit the subscribe button and the bell to get notified when we release new content. I'll see you on the next episode of the Enlightened Executive.

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