Sustainable Leadership with Kathy Andrews

george grombacher 0:01
Cathy Catherine Andrews is a people and culture strategist. She is an executive coach, a master facilitator, keynote speaker and the founder of Singa leadership. Welcome to the show. Kathy,

Kathy Andrews 0:12
thank you so much, George. It’s great to be here. Yeah,

george grombacher 0:15
I’m excited to have you on. Tell us a little about your personal lives, more about your work and why you do what you do

Speaker 1 0:21
Absolutely. I’m the founder of single leadership George and my works really centers on helping organizations build cultures that aren’t just high performing, but thriving and deeply human centered. And that passion really stems from a belief that when people are in growth oriented environments, and that’s modeled for them, they can thrive in all aspects of their life, because work doesn’t end at work. It ripples over and affects your conversation around the dinner table and your children and your communities and your health and well being. And so I’ve seen first hand how that deliberate focus on culture and leadership can really transform organizations and the people that choose to work in them. On the personal side, I’ve grown up in South Africa, deeply bizarre and racist country, and that shaped me in all sorts of ways that I’ve had to understand and try to understand and unlearn as an adult. And that’s informed much of the work that we do in inclusive leadership and diversity, equity, inclusion work. And I’m a cancer survivor, I’ve unfortunately, a member of that club, and that has also shaped me in many ways and the way that I support leaders in prioritizing energy management and health and well being. I live in Vancouver, Canada, and I have a lovely, amazing partner and little boy who’s soccer crazy, and all of that keeps me pretty busy and and happy.

george grombacher 1:46
Awesome. Alright, so so much stuff to dig into, building culture growth, thriving, having to unlearn things we’re all members of certain clubs, and all those experiences shape how we’re showing up at work and at home, and you’re trying to make it better?

Speaker 1 2:06
Absolutely, yeah, I think when it comes to how those experiences have shaped work, I think I’m committed to meeting humans at work, where they’re at and really trying to understand the real challenges that that people face today. I think the role of a leader is incredibly important, but it’s increasingly complex with what people have to contend with, the pure sort of overload of information that’s coming at them, grappling with the hybrid work model, trying to create inclusive workplaces dealing with chronic stress and burnout. It’s a lot. That’s a lot,

george grombacher 2:49
that is a lot it when, when you put it like that, Kathy, it sounds like it’s almost impossible, but I’m sure that everybody gets lots of great resources and support and training.

Speaker 1 3:00
Yeah, it’s funny. I was, I was put into my first leadership role at 23 years old, and I had had some intuitive sort of leadership skills through my sports as a kid, I played in high school, and I had a, you know, dad who was an academic, and, you know, wonderful, wonderful relatives that had kind of path, you know, paved the way in terms of what good looks like for for leaders. But when you put into your first role and you don’t have the the tools, the frameworks, the scripts, it can be quite overwhelming. So I went off and I bought the One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and try to sort of get that all downloaded into my brain and apply it the next day. And that didn’t go so well. I actually shifted out of that role quite deliberately and found a company that was bigger and focused on development and culture and paid attention to the leaders that were getting it right, the ones that I respected, and really what became a study of of that practice, and went on to do a masters and and to deep specialization into what it may what what it takes to be a good leader and support a team that is engaged and is getting results.

george grombacher 4:21
So what is the role of a leader, and how does one or how does one do what you just said, get results, support people.

Speaker 1 4:29
I love that question, and I think leadership really shifts dramatically. Whether you’re an individual contributor or a CEO. There’s definitely things that that are common at all those levels. But when you’re an individual contributor, a lot of times, your time horizon for planning and focus is about one to three months. You know, you’re looking you’re just looking at the next quarter. You’re planning your activities as you transition to a manager that changes and. The nature of the work changes from quality to more best practice. You’re looking out maybe three to six months, maybe a year. As you become director, you’re looking out one to two, maybe two to three years in terms of your planning time horizon. And you really have to create plans and strategies that account for that time horizon. It’s more complex, more ambiguous. And then as a very senior leader, five to 10 years. And you know, in some businesses, you’re really thinking 10 to 20 years out at the top of the house when you’re CEO. And what we see with, you know, today’s Social Media stock ticker mentality as a real drive to focus on the short term, get after it now. What’s your 90 day plan? And a lot of senior leaders, you know, really do shift into that day to day mode, way too much. And it’s like the captain of the ship in the engine room dipping down 122, levels to focus on that time rise, instead of looking after those longer range plans and and attending to those. So the nature of of of leadership does really shift fundamentally depending on where you are in in an organization, as do the skills and mindsets. Um, what all leaders do well to master early is emotional intelligence and relational intelligence, because you are not a leader unless you have followers. Followers are human beings. And you know, with all of their their beauty and complexity do don’t just follow blankly. You know, you’ve got to learn to inspire, connect, guide, course correct, and building that conversation toolbox really needs to start early. We say at Sanga that, you know, communication isn’t a skill. Communication is the relationship. I

george grombacher 6:52
think that that’s great and really, really hard. It’s hard for me as an individual contributor to do everything I need to be doing, and then I’m tasked with becoming a manager and trying to figure all this out. And you talked about buying the book and being really proactive. And then there’s other people that are depending on you, and you’re part of this big organization. Is there ever a wrong time to be doing this kind of development? There’s, doesn’t strikes me that there’s always your right time. But when, when is an organization ready?

Speaker 1 7:26
I think in organizations, really does need to be thinking about culture leadership from from the get go, we say we don’t. You don’t get the culture you wish for. You get the culture you deserve. And if you’re not actively attending to it every single day, it’s probably one you don’t like. And instead of supporting your strategies and upholding the kind of behaviors that will help people align and get behind and rally and do their best thinking at work, it’ll undermine and so if you’re founding a company, if you’re a team of one two, or you’re leading 3000 how you lead depends on whether you survive or thrive, and so we say, get started early, even if it is picking up some good literature, art leadership. Where to Start can be difficult, and that’s where we come in, because we cut through the clutter and we pull off, you know, our bookshelf and our toolkit, tools that have been around, tried and true for for many, many years, and they just work and stick. And we guide people back towards those. It’s not rocket science. We say it’s not, you know, it’s really not rocket science. It’s it’s common sense. The problem is that it’s not common practice. And so people need reminding, and we go back to the things that work.

george grombacher 8:45
I love. I love the reality that so much of of what we need to know is a lot of common sense, that being said, it’s really hard to bring everything together, which is why organization like senga is there to cut through the noise. When you’re implementing this, it just seems a little bit overwhelming. And I would imagine, if I’m trying to make a decision on who are we going to do you think that a lot? Do you think the most organizations need help in this? Do they need an outside set of eyes? Because otherwise I’m inside the jar. I’ve asked seven questions all wrapped into one, and neither of them are clear or none of them.

Speaker 1 9:30
I think what you’re what you’re experiencing is that it did you know that where do you start with this stuff? Right? It’s so nebulous, and it can be so overwhelming. And I think every leader is at a different stage of the journey, so it really depends. I think people moving into first line, frontline leadership roles do well to find out if they’ve got a human resource department or people and culture department, what the company is doing in terms of development offerings for that level. And certainly if, if, if your company is not, not large enough to have even an HR person, then it’s, it’s, it’s helpful to bring in a third party to support if you’re in that front line position, we’d be having a chat with your management team. If you are in a larger organization, as I said, many, many organizations do have level of leadership programming, and you’re plugging into those early is a really good idea. And you know, if you want to take this on yourself, if you’re not, you know, if you don’t have the luxury of a company that’s sort of backing your career development plan or supporting your transitions, then we work with leaders one on one as well, um, just to support, you know, a quick upload of the necessary toolkit for the stage of leadership that that people are at. It’s different from frontline, as I said, to to moving into director level roles, and then to sort of enterprise, the competencies, the focus areas do Shift and and then, of course, in into executive roles again. But they also have people in common, and so those people skills need to be the focus your entire career, and refining them. It’s not like you’re you arrive at a destination and you’ve mastered what you need to in terms of people, an ongoing focus on, I’m working on your relational skills. I think is, is definitely something we recommend,

george grombacher 11:25
which makes so much sense. I imagine there’s sort of a like anything, a continuum of my capacity, my my know how, my skills as a leader, when I’m starting, I have none. I’m maybe I’m innate, like, like you, you had a sports background, so you knew about goal setting and working together as a team and helping people and picking them up or give them a high five or a kick in the butt, whatever it might be. But you probably want to think about getting to the point where people are not leaving your organization because of you, and then you get to the point where you’re a master or whatever the case may be,

Speaker 1 12:03
that’s right. I mean, it does, it does evolve. It does shift. And I did have, as you said, a sports background, so it gave me a sense of people and the importance of motivation engagement. What it didn’t give me was what to do when things went wrong and when I had, you know, folks that were showing up and not pulling their weight and how to have those conversations. And I think our phone rings primarily because people want to learn how to have courageous conversations. They want to manage conflict at work, handle the tough stuff that gets us. Can can get us in trouble if we don’t handle, handle well, and they’ll call me in to support in a mediation capacity and and to navigate the more tricky relationships, and also to equip their leaders to do the same. Because it can. You can be in very tricky situations, as as I’m sure you know,

george grombacher 13:03
easy to be a great leader when stuff’s going awesome. That’s right, that’s right. I can keep this big ball rolling. But in the world of organizations and on planet Earth, a lot of it comes down to the interactions we have with the other human beings. And those do not always go really smoothly. In fact, they can be messy. So okay, I think that that makes a ton of sense. How do we handle those kinds of situations? And that really depends too. We need so many different tools in our tool belt.

Speaker 1 13:38
Yeah, in terms of the tools and the tool, but with the difficult situations, that’s where we do really bring, bring the old tools back. And that starts with deep listening. I was listening to an episode needed a few weeks ago talking about the importance of listening. It’s so it’s so interesting, how many times that comes up, and how much we need to reinforce the importance of deep listening and presence. And I think the reason it does is because it’s it in today’s world, it just is so hard. We have so much coming at us, and we’re, you know, duped into thinking multitasking as possible, and it’s just not so in leadership, particularly when things get tough, that’s when we bring people back to the importance of being fully present, actively listening, and then engaging in the kinds of conversations people need to to get where they’re going. And we’ve got, you know, a number of different frameworks to point people towards, to help give a little mental map for those conversations and keep people in integrity throughout,

george grombacher 14:53
certainly just being it’s such a, not necessarily a term that I love just because. We’ve sort of beaten it up, but being present and and holding space for the person that you’re trying to lead, or that you are leading, and listening to what they’re going through, the problem that they’re having, and having the capacity to keep your mouth shut and ask good question, then actually listen. But if we’re not comfortable having those uncomfortable conversations, how do we get there? It’s having a framework, it’s having the language. And is it having the right questions, it’s all these things.

Speaker 1 15:36
Well, I love that you said, Well, if I’m not comfortable, how do I get there? And I don’t know that you do. I don’t know that you get comfortable having tricky conversations because they have emotional content, and that means that our brains our emotions are involved differently. So as you said, the frameworks can be really helpful to ground the thinking and to help you prepare in terms of the the scaffolding that you you need to engage and get the best outcomes. So we encourage people to think about what their ideal outcomes are ahead of time, and then what the, of course, the common ground might be with the other party, and to keep that in mind, and then to have a plan if things go sideways. So what are you going to do if, if you get a negative reaction here, and what, what will your What will your plan be? And that plan can be as simple as I’m going to stop talking, I’m going to go into deep listening and lots of questions, and I’m going to have my self permission to put this conversation on pause and and regroup at a different time, but always with that end goal. In mind of communicating a message, agreeing to an action plan of changed behavior, refocusing around a particular work goal, or a way of achieving that work goal that is clear to both parties. And you walk away with with that plan. And yeah, it’s that prep up front to know that look, you know, emotions are going to get involved, nervous systems are going to be involved here, and we’ve got to stay grounded.

george grombacher 17:17
I can remember some of the first times that I had to have tough conversations with people that I was leading, and you know, my palms would start sweating, my heart rate would absolutely just be pounding out of my chest. And I don’t know that I had a framework or got a lot of coaching on how to do that, but today I’m much more comfortable doing it and so, but just understanding what you just laid out. This is the this is the outcome or the goal that that I’m trying to get, or I’m I that’s where I want the conversation to go. And here are some of the steps and and and where we need to what we need to do. And that then prepares you to to have a good conversation and to try to leave with clarity on both parties in a plan for moving forward. Do you encourage that people practice those kinds of conversations like role play?

Speaker 1 18:19
Yeah, for sure. And I’m glad that you are more comfortable these days, and I suspect it’s because you’ve got the the hours behind you, you’ve had, you’ve been in this situation, then you’ve if, I suspect you’ve made some mistakes and you’ve got some right? And for sure, yeah. So it definitely is experience. And I think when you’re at the beginning of the career and you just haven’t been in those situations, it can be overwhelming to think about, because you just, you don’t have those ID odds behind you yet, and that’s where the frameworks are particularly helpful. It’s, you know, it’s okay if I’m in these situations, here’s here’s some, here’s a bit of a mental map that’s going to help me. One of those, actually, that I think is really powerful comes from the work of David Rock. And I’m not sure if you’ve, you’ve read his book. It’s called the brain at work. He’s got many books, but he’s, he’s, he’s a phenomenal thought leader. And he talks a little bit about social needs and what we all have in common, and he breaks those down into five kind of core social needs that need to be attended to when we’re in these conversations. And the model is called scarf, and the S stands for status. We all have a sense of status that needs to be sort of honored and protected. That can be our title. It can be as simple as a human being making eye contact with us. It could be acknowledgement of contribution in a meeting. And if our status has not been acknowledged by the other party, then it can, you know, be a slight to us, and it can kick in our fight or flight reaction, and I’ll threat response similarly. The second part of that is arts, sorry. C is, is certainty. We want a sense of certainty and predictability in our environment, and when that’s you. Not in front of us, then it can be really scary. And so entering in a conversation, a performance conversation, for example, is leaders role is to give a sense of certainty. You know, we’re here today to talk about the last three months, particularly Project X, where I saw some real wins and I saw some opportunities for learning. We’re going to talk about that, and then we’re going to talk about the next steps. You know, that gives the container for the conversation, the other person’s nervous system can calm down. Look, I know why I’m here. I know where I’m going. The DA start stands for autonomy. We do want a sense of control and and a way to navigate our work environment and the decisions that affect us with some agency. And so leaders do well to give people as much autonomy as they as they can once they’ve gaged. You know, the the competence and character of the human they’re delegating to the R is around relate relatedness. We want to have a sense of connection and relationship at work and with our leader and with our peers. And so that’s why relationships, connection, not belonging, is so very important to us. And then the last the F, which is really powerful, is about fairness. We’re hypersensitive to fairness. And when we perceive unfair treatment, like my leader is treating Bob different than Jane, we’re on high alert. And so when we’re in these courageous conversations, our brain is is scanning for threats five times a second. And if as a leader, we’re not aware of attending to them, then we could be stepping into zones that trigger other people without even realizing it. So understanding some of those dynamics has really helped me coach leaders and and our team work with leaders to understand how to keep people in a reward state so that they don’t leave the building mentally and they stay in the conversation with you and can listen and absorb what you’re saying.

george grombacher 22:00
I think that that is a really powerful and helpful framework. I was just visualizing in my head sitting across the table from somebody and making sure and thinking that I would go through those five different points and helping people to be more comfortable, regardless of whether or not, for lack of a better term, they’re in trouble or whatever it is that we’re here to talk about. We’re laying it out. This is what we’re going to be talking about, and making sure that you’re you’re honoring and making people feel comfortable and and part of the organization, and just just, just all, all the things. I think that that is extremely helpful, and that gives people a path to run on. Otherwise it’s ambiguous and I’m going to forget to say something, and the other person’s not going to have reward and experience either. That’s right,

Speaker 1 22:44
exactly. And often those interactions, the performance reviews, they are emotionally charged. So we do well to prep for them and just have those little cues on our desk or as we’re prepping so so we get the outcomes that we were looking for. Because when we don’t, we waste a tremendous amount of time and emotional energy and that, you know, that tanks our productivity and and dinner table conversations,

george grombacher 23:10
right? Yeah, it’s bad for everyone involved, yeah, leader, the person who’s being led, and the organization and families and everybody else. So to be able to effectively have these conversations and move past issues, and that can mean that you’re with the organization or you’re not, but we’ve, we have moved past it and found resolution. That’s

Speaker 1 23:32
right, yeah, I was on, I was in a really wonderful conversation yesterday with somebody I really respect, a thought leader in conflict resolution, and she said, Kathy facts don’t solve fights. And I think it touches on some of the themes of the scarf model, like we really got to understand what’s beneath the emotion and what’s driving people and what’s the sort of treasure they’re protecting, because, you know, purely fact based conversations just not going to unlock some of the stuff that is more charged for people. And that’s where some of the other skills, the deep listening, really, really become essential. And you know, a lot of leaders that we work with, they rely heavily on their HR department or their people and culture department to help navigate these difficult conversations, but you really can’t delegate the interpersonal stuff. So every leader at every level does does need to start to pay attention to these dynamics if they want to be successful long term, and if they want their teams to to be healthy and thrive. Well said, Well

george grombacher 24:39
Cathy, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? How can they engage with you? Yeah,

Speaker 1 24:45
absolutely. Well, our website has a button where you can set up a chemistry check call with us for coaching or training and development, and we have a podcast launching in the fall. So if people sign up from. Mailing list. They’ll get our newsletter, and they’ll also get notified about our podcast launching in the fall. And so we’d love to hear from you, and that the easiest way is to go to www, dot singer leadership.com, uh, we’re also very active on LinkedIn, so you can join there as well. Excellent.

george grombacher 25:16
If you enjoyed this much as I did. So Cathy, your appreciation. Share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas. Go to Singa leadership.com it’s C, I N, G, A leadership.com click on the button that says chemistry, check and have a quick call with Kathy to see if there’s an opportunity for you to improve your leadership skills and have better outcomes and all that good stuff. You can find them on LinkedIn as well, and then keep an eye out for the podcast, which is launching this coming fall. Thanks again. Kathy,

Unknown Speaker 25:51
thanks for having me, George.

george grombacher 25:52
Until next time, remember do your part by doing your best. You.

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.