Speaker 1: 0:02

So, as a manager, it's just very tactical, very hands-on either yourself or you're telling people what to do. A leader shares the vision with their team and says this is where we need to get to, and leaving it to the individuals to decide how to get there. Because why is somebody on your team? Why hire them if you don't trust them to be good thinkers, good doers, good actors?

Speaker 2: 0:34

Do you wanna de-commoditize your products and services? Do you wanna become a destination brand, increase your revenue and have more control over your pricing? Well, you're in the right place. Each week, we'll talk about how to create great customer experiences and how to orient your company to enable them. I'm your host, Devin Smith, and this is the Experience Leader Podcast. Welcome back, everybody.

Speaker 2: 1:06

I am so excited to bring this new episode to you. We are talking to an old friend of mine, old colleague of mine, Jennifer Borshart. She and I have worked together in the banking industry and her career has just taken a skyrocket ever since she moved on from the place that we both worked and it's been really exciting to see her get to do big things. And she was kind enough to come on the show because we're talking about leadership. It's one of the things that I've discovered, is one of the things we don't have enough of, and maybe we'll never have enough of it, but we need more leaders instead of having a lot of managers. So, without further ado, here's Jennifer Borchardt. Jennifer, thanks so much for being on the show.

Speaker 1: 1:54

How are you doing this morning Good. Thank you so much for having me. I've really been looking forward to this conversation.

Speaker 2: 2:00

Absolutely. I. You know so people, so that everybody knows Jennifer and I we go way back to really my start in the product world. We worked together at a big bank I don't know if we're allowed to say the name of the bank.

Speaker 1: 2:20

A giant bank. We'll just leave it at that. A giant bank.

Speaker 2: 2:23

We worked together at a giant bank.

Speaker 1: 2:27

Yes, leave a little something to the imagination.

Speaker 2: 2:29

Yes, yes, but that's where we got the opportunity to meet and I was so, so impressed with how smart and intelligent a designer that you are, and obviously your career has has shot off like a rocket since then. So it's been. That's been very cool to watch. Tell everybody a little bit about what you're doing right now.

Speaker 1: 2:55

Well, right now I am working for a I don't know if we're allowed to mention company name, so I'll just say I work for a large global digital transformation consultancy and I lead the experience practice for financial services in North America which covers well, I guess it'd be Central America too. So Canada, united States, which is the biggest, and then expanding into Central America, central and South America.

Speaker 2: 3:26

Wow, wow.

Speaker 1: 3:27

I've been in this role for just under a year In January it'll be a year and it's been an exciting ride this last year. I manage a large team of very, very talented, experienced practitioners across a number of practices. A lot of them are experience design, but then also UI, visual design, research, cx strategy and insights um design operations the whole thing and in my in my career I've been fortunate to have had experience working across all of those crafts, and so now I now I oversee a team that does amazing work in all of those crafts.

Speaker 2: 4:14

Very exciting. That is. That is amazing. You know, back back back in the day you know I was, I was still more junior than you and still I still consider myself more junior than you. In my career you have soared to such great heights, but it was interesting to me to see how the path that you took into leadership you stayed in the financial space but, but you know the things that you wound up influencing, wound up expanding beyond design, which is which is you know I, I did some of the, some of the same stuff there, just because I don't know, it was kind of hard to keep my, my hands out all the, all the different spots.

Speaker 2: 5:04

I just care about so many different areas of the business and people have trusted me with a lot of things over the years, and same for you. What was it like going you know when? Because you worked at another big bank after you worked at another big bank, after you know we both worked at the giant bank uh, yes, I've worked at a lot of big banks a few of them what, what you know, tell me, tell me about uh, what you saw uh as you started to move up the ranks.

Speaker 2: 5:40

Um, what, what you saw uh as far as uh leadership goes, and, and, and how you tried to uh. You know the lessons that you learned while you were an individual contributor that you try to take into uh being a leader well, um, the way that one leads there.

Speaker 1: 6:04

There, there are a lot of things that remain fundamentally consistent, for example, being a leader rather than just a manager, and there are definitely situations where you need to manage versus where you need to lead. It varies based on the company culture, on the maturity of the organization. It varies based on the company culture, on the maturity of the organization, and even large companies can be not mature in some very important ways. It also matters very much. The way that you practice leadership matters very much on who you're working with, who's on your team, and the opportunities and strengths of your team, particularly those who are reporting directly to you. As I've gone up the ranks, as you say, the way that I lead and the way that I have to lead is very different. So what I'm doing now in a very senior leadership role is much, much different than when I was leading individual contributors at that large bank, and so, yeah, it's continuously an adjustment and, on one hand, I've been able to take the lessons from when I was an individual contributor, when I was actively designing, but also having to adjust my approach to use listening and speaking in different proportions. I actually find that I'm speaking a lot less listening, a lot more in my senior role than I did when I was an individual contributor, and changing expectations is certainly it has certainly been very important, and something that I realized back when I was at my last large bank job a few years ago is the importance of knowing at what altitude you need to be working at. There are times where it's very necessary to be in the weeds, although if you have a strong team that you've empowered, that you trust, you don't need to be in the weeds quite so much. But there are definitely times where you have to be at the you know the, the 50 000 foot altitude and be able to look broadly, think, think strategically and provide guidance rather than management. I liken it to navigating a kayak. If you're like a beginning manager or maybe a project lead, you have to always be doing a lot of adjustments, a lot of very, very active movement Versus. At my level, it's more like steering a cargo ship or steering a cruise ship, because they're just broader, you know broader impact you have to have and also being able to code, switch, speak differently, craft not only the actual communication but the communication style based on who you're working with.

Speaker 1: 9:30

Working in, consulting, you're always working with different personalities, different personalities within your team, different personalities within the other capabilities that are outside of experience, and certainly different different personalities, approaches, cultures, um, ways of working in, um, in different conversations with clients, and that has, yeah, yeah, it's, um, it's, it's. It's a little overwhelming when I when I sit and think about it, because there are there are days where I just I feel like I'm kind of just, you know, putting on my scuba gear and diving into the waves, just just going, just going, just going right into battle. And at my lat, in my last role, which was, which was also a consulting firm, a large firm but but not nearly as large as where I'm working now I learned a very apt way of thinking about the challenges that we face every day. I worked with a lot of people who had been in the military, and the example that this person gave was that, when you're going into a very difficult situation, to not think about it, as this is going to be difficult, this is not something, this is going to be hard, excruciating, what have you, but rather you are about to get the full benefit of the challenge and seeing situations ahead of you would sometimes feel impossibly hard. Reframing it as you're about to learn something, you're about to get the full benefit of all of the challenges ahead of you, is a lot more productive and it's a lot more constructive. It makes you open and humble to all of the challenges that lie ahead and what it feels like to come against the edges of your own limitations, which I think is always very important to do. We are capable of so much way more than we might think, and we're going to succeed a lot more than we think. And we're also going to fail a lot more than we might expect. And I believe that if you're not coming up to the edge of your capabilities, even if those limitations are self-inflicted, we're not growing. And this goes for life in general, not just at work.

Speaker 1: 12:19

And yeah, I'm thinking a lot of the things I do in my leisure time definitely bleed into my approach as as a leader at work. So I'm I'm a rock climber. I've been doing rock climbing for over 20 years now. I'm an instructor, um for for, for people who are older like me and um, you know, making, making a, making a, a shift into a physically and and uh, physically and intellectually sometimes challenging um hobby like rock climbing um. You always, if you're gonna learn, if you're gonna keep getting better, you always have to be falling. You always have to be going beyond your um, going going beyond your, your, your capabilities, and definitely have used that a lot, especially in this new role, which has been challenging every single day, and I am grateful for the challenge. I go into the full benefit each and every day.

Speaker 2: 13:18

Full benefit. That's interesting language there and definitely targeted towards reframing the mind, obviously, into thinking, okay, there's something to get out of this which is good. It's one of the things that I'm curious about. You've talked about some of the stuff that you've taken into it, and one of the things you and I've talked about offline is how rare you know you mentioned something earlier how rare it is to find leaders rather than managers, and that's not to talk about it in an arrogant way, because you know you've been on both sides of it. Right, we've both been on both sides of it. Why do you think it is that it's so rare to find somebody who can lead rather than just manage?

Speaker 1: 14:26

Well, leadership is very hard and leadership also exists where people may not expect it to be. You can be a leader wherever you are, whoever you are, regardless of your title, regardless of where you are in the organization, there's always opportunities to lead. Managing, I think, is a lot more tactical. You are taking control, or empowering somebody to take control of very discrete tasks or opportunities, and there's a lot of satisfaction in management the satisfaction, the joy of a job well done. As a leader, you don't have the same reward system and it can be very hard to do that. Management is, I think, very much an ego-filled endeavor. You are taking charge and doing something. You are telling people what to do.

Speaker 1: 15:32

Leadership is an act of humility, and humility is something that I think a lot of people, myself included, have to continuously develop over time. And leadership is something you have to do consistently. You can't just do it for an hour, for the duration of a project, for the duration of a role, but it's something you need to do every moment of your life and think am I doing the next right thing? And, by the way, the whole thing about always doing the next right thing? And, by the way, the whole thing about always doing the next right thing is something which I can credit to my manager or my leader, my people leader at my previous role. That's something I always think about. Leadership is setting a good example. Leadership is doing the right thing when maybe it feels like it doesn't matter, when you know you're not going to be recognized. Um, and it's. It's a lot more. It's. It's. It's a lot, it's a lot broader, it's a lot harder to put, to kind of put your hands or your mind around yeah and yeah, and, and so one one.

Speaker 1: 16:48

I guess one, one concrete example of management versus leadership is that if you're, if you're, managing a team, if you, if you have, if you have a team under you, a manager is going to just tell everybody I want you to do this, I want you to do this, and sometimes even even going and doing the task yourself. And doing hands-on work is something everybody needs to be able to do. So, as a manager, it's just very tactical, very hands-on either yourself or you're telling people what to do. A leader shares the vision with their team and says this is where we we need to get to, and leaving it to the individuals to decide how to get there.

Speaker 1: 17:32

Because why, why is somebody on your team? Why hire them if you don't, if you don't trust them to be good thinkers, good doers, good actors? Um, it's. It's also, it's also kind of the difference between mentoring and well, maybe, managing and mentorship. Mentorship is all about coaching, management is about here's what to do. Very, very different, and managing is going to help somebody in the moment, but mentorship and leadership is going to help somebody become a better version of themselves and have a lot of follow-on effects.

Speaker 2: 18:12

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:13

But yeah, when things feel hard and you're feeling stressed, it's so easy to just slip back into management and saying step aside, I'm going to take control here. And that's actually something I wrestle with all the time. I've gotten a lot better at it, but my micromanagement instincts admittedly still come out, but it's gotten a lot better, and I think that, especially now that I have direct reports who are very senior, very accomplished themselves, directors and senior and senior directors, I don't need to, I I shouldn't have to tell them what to do, and I don't have to tell them what to do. They're very, they're amazing, amazing people, but Even so, it's still hard not to micromanage sometimes, and that is because of me, not because of them.

Speaker 1: 19:12

And so one way that I've dealt with that is to be very transparent, very humble about sharing this journey with them. Sharing, sharing this, this journey with them. Hey, so-and-so, I, I just want you to know that I, you know I'm I'm trying really, really hard to be, be, be more hands-off and and and allow you to own this and empower you to own this. So if I'm ever too hands-on, you just, you just tell me this is, this is an ego-free zone, and being being transparent about that and being part and making them part of your own journey and your own learning process. I think I think has been has been very beneficial and it's embarrassing how late, how late in my career, I learned that.

Speaker 2: 20:00

Oh, I think that's that is. It's humble of you to say that. I mean, I would say it's funny. You mentioned that because I've been thinking to myself lately. I'm still learning that, right, like I'm still learning how to say Devin, don't step in, don't step in.

Speaker 1: 20:21

And take over.

Speaker 2: 20:22

Lead, help them grow. We can get focused on it. There's a requirement there that you're also thinking about. You're also thinking about the people. You said something that absolutely needs to go on a shirt I got to turn it into a shirt and I'll give you a cut of the proceeds but you said leadership is an act of humility. Wow, that is amazing. That is absolutely amazing because that's exactly right. Leadership is an act of humility. Good leadership, anyway is an act of humility.

Speaker 2: 21:01

And when you're doing that, you're saying this isn't just about me, it's about the thing and it's about the people accomplishing the thing. And and everybody has something, everybody, you know, you, you, you. You use the term the full benefit right. Use the term full benefit. Everybody needs to get the the they need to get the full benefit. Everybody needs to get the full benefit. Everybody needs to get the full benefit. And when you're thinking I'm going to step in, I'm going to take over this, then that means that you're not getting the full benefit and neither is the person that you're taking away the responsibility from. Neither of you are.

Speaker 1: 21:41

Yes, you are robbing them of the opportunity to learn, to fail safely and to grow, and a good leader does not do that.

Speaker 2: 21:50

Right.

Speaker 1: 21:53

And that's not to say good leaders do not occasionally slip up and act the wrong way or do things that maybe they shouldn't be doing, but to keep that in mind and practice it as much as possible, because you're not going to be in a role forever.

Speaker 1: 22:09

You're not going to be the leader forever, and I think the best thing that you can do as a leader is to help nurture the next generation of leaders and to always have people who you can lean back to and delegate to, because if you don't, not only are they not getting the opportunity to grow into the kind of leader that they want to be, but it also prevents you from ever being able to take a break, because you're always the bottleneck, you're always the limiting factor, and that is not a healthy system.

Speaker 1: 22:52

When that kind of thing is in place about right now are things that I learned the hard way by failing myself. A few things I've learned from seeing what other people have done in not the most optimal ways, but this, I think, is a journey that a lot of leaders have been on, and it's necessary to always approach these, to approach leadership life, your career, looking at it in terms of abundance and opportunity and optimism. I'm not an optimistic person. I think of myself more as a pragmatic person. Maybe those aren't mutually exclusive person, maybe those aren't mutually exclusive, but yeah, I'm I. I can't tell you how much I've been raked over the coals this year, but I've also learned more in these last 11 months than I have any any other time in my in my career.

Speaker 2: 23:59

So that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 24:01

Yeah, definitely, definitely, full, full benefit each, each and every day. And and helping others get the full benefit too, but making it easier on them, if I can.

Speaker 2: 24:12

That that is. That is one of the things that I think makes makes for a good leader is being willing to admit hey, I didn't do this so well. It makes you a great leader if you can admit to your team you didn't do something well. We've talked about the need for vision. You mentioned that earlier. The need for vision you got you know. To be a leader, you have to be able to share vision. You know I wrote a piece on this that will come out soon.

Speaker 2: 24:54

Just on the topic of leadership, I've written actually a couple of pieces, but one of the things I talk about is the term leadership. It's kind of embedded in the term. Leading is embedded in the term and it requires you to have somewhere that you're trying to go. It requires you to have that. There is something inherent to being a leader that requires you to have a place you're trying to go and to actually engage in the act of helping other people get there as well, to try to accomplish something of worth. And so many times I myself and I've watched other folks fail to paint the picture of where we're going and why it's worth putting in the effort to get there. That's such a hard thing, I think, for some folks to get that this isn't just a business, it's not just a business function, we're not just chasing numbers. You have to be able to motivate people to go towards something that's worth getting out of bed for in the morning, and if you can't do that, in my opinion, you cannot be an effective leader.

Speaker 1: 26:15

If you can't do that find your own meaning and being able to communicate why the work is meaningful and helping others identify how can they find meaning and connection from the work that you're doing. Being able to do that, I think, is also a really important part of leadership, because putting your hours and your days and your labor into something that's not meaningful is it's unfortunate. I know that there's a lot of people who have to just go out and get work done, but for those of us who are privileged to have careers and vocations where we can find meaning and we're able to do it, primarily because we feel personally connected to it, that it's something which really speaks to our souls. You need to be able to do that in order to be a good leader, because otherwise you're modeling the wrong motivations, the wrong behaviors, but also helping other people finding their own meaning and the whole concept of meaningful work is why I've spent my entire career in financial services.

Speaker 1: 27:34

Financial services and, more specifically, well using my talents as an experienced practitioner, as a thinking and caring person, to enable people to have a healthy and informed relationship with their money is why I do this, because what I learned in financial services changed my life.

Speaker 1: 28:01

It didn't just accelerate my career. It changed my life and that is why I've done it for almost 30 years. That's why I didn't go to Google or Meta or Amazon All really, really great, great places to work. Do not get me wrong. But the meaning for me was in financial services, and one of my favorite things that I've had the chance to do in my current role is not just the awesome projects that we're doing, all the great clients that we work with, but connecting with our early careers people and being able to show them and have them feel themselves. Why. Why financial services is such an important thing, why this is. This is where they might want to consider not only not only putting their talent towards financial services, but being educated and being aware of themselves and taking power over their own financial lives and I I've been.

Speaker 1: 29:06

That was. That was definitely one of the biggest accomplishments. I think the thing, the thing that I that I'm most proud of this year um, I was. I was in boston last week and we had our holiday party there and I got to. You know, I got to.

Speaker 1: 29:21

I got to interact with many of our senior officers and a lot of very powerful and influential people, but my favorite conversations were with the early careers people who said, when you took us out to lunch and told us about investing and why we need to do this and why we need to learn about money, I am inspired to buy a house. I was inspired to open up my very first brokerage account. I started a robo-investing account and that just makes me so happy. Not because money makes the world go round, although some people would say it does, but because money isn't money, it's not riches, it's choice, it's opportunity and it's and it's and it's it's power the power to live your life as you want, the power to make decisions and the power to have um agency over over where you live, what you do, who, who you engage with. It's very, very important. A brokerage account and continuously invest allowed me, 20 plus years later to take control of my life and just flip the table, put everything behind me and start anew on the opposite coast, so moving from San Francisco to Charlotte.

Speaker 1: 31:03

Sorry about that was there was a cat that just, uh, batted it down. Sorry about that. I hope I didn't ruin your podcast oh no, not at all.

Speaker 2: 31:14

Just make sure you frame yourself. Frame yourself in the middle, if you can okay, that'll that'll. That'll get taken out in editing oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it'll be all good.

Speaker 1: 31:25

These animals had better behave, that's all I have to say. Um, so, so, being being being able to get out of a of a bad situation and, um, being able to to restart my life the way that I wanted to, is a direct result of taking control of money and understanding what it means, what it can do, what it can't do. Until I was pretty well into my first job after college, I had very, very limited means. My family immigrated to the United States, raised by a single parent, really had very, very little, but I did have a lot of support and a lot of opportunities that I recognized that influential people around me recognized that I needed to go after, and so even even getting to the point where I was able to identify this is something I need to do. I need, I need to understand money and how to and how to, how to make it work. For me was also a position of privilege, because not everybody is able to even get to that point, let alone to all of the other points that came afterwards.

Speaker 2: 32:55

Yeah, no, I definitely have enjoyed hearing your story and to see where you came from and I do think that that influences. I do think that influences, uh, how you, how you lead, in some ways, just kind of knowing you know the, the, the path that you've taken, um, uh, to get where you are. And I, I, I think that some of that you know in, you know, like that kind of stuff develops grit. Right, it develops grit, it develops the ability to push through stuff. And I'm interested in hearing from you just how you think about the necessity. Is it necessary actually to go through adversity to be a good leader? Do you think it's necessary?

Speaker 1: 33:49

No, I don't think it's necessary. In fact, I'm not one to advocate suffering. I don't think. Well, I went through a hard time. Everyone else needs to have a hard time. If they have an easy time, then their leadership and their lessons mean less. No, I do not think it's necessary. A lot of people do go through that and there's a lot of people who go through difficult times, who go through difficult struggles that aren't able to extract the lessons and benefits of it. I think that it's entirely possible to be a good leader and I think that there's examples of this to be a good leader by having a caring family where you always had more than more than, and you had a lot of opportunities and things seem to come easy Easier. Yeah, I think anybody, in any situation has the potential to be a good leader, but there is definitely, I mean, I think.

Speaker 1: 34:45

I think anybody in any situation has the potential to be a good leader, but there is definitely. I mean, I think in some ways there's definitely the benefit of the struggle. You're kind of forced to learn certain lessons that happen to be very valuable. But there's also a lot to be said into having an easier path in life, because then you can focus a lot more directly and inconsistently on your goals and the vision that you have for your own life.

Speaker 2: 35:13

Yeah, I think that it's interesting. So I've spent a lot of time thinking about this and going through hard things in my own life and there were years where it just felt like I was at war. You know, I was at war every day and I noticed when I got out of those struggles, um, I noticed that, like you know, because I remember while while I was in those struggles, um, it's very hard. It's very hard while you're in that struggle to think far ahead. You're thinking about making it, making it to the next day or the next week or the next month.

Speaker 1: 35:51

Yes, Um or the next hour.

Speaker 2: 35:53

Right, yeah, you're, you're not thinking about. Uh, you know where you're going to be in five years. You're not necessarily thinking about. You may dream about some of that stuff. It's not like it's impossible, but it's really hard. It's really hard to think too far into the future. It's hard to spend a lot of time reflecting when you're in war mode. Out of that, I realize the difference between wartime and peacetime, if you will. Peacetime is when you can grow, it's when you can build, it's when you can achieve new heights, and it's a different purpose and they both have their purpose.

Speaker 2: 36:34

When I was in wartime, I thought you know, man, people who have it easy. You know, like you know, I kind of had that attitude man, you got it easy. Like you're soft, like you don't have, you know they. You know, like you know I kind of had that attitude man, you got, you got it easy Like you're soft, like you. You don't have, you know, you don't have the ability to make it through something like this. And I started to. I started to look at it as as an end unto itself and I realized it's like there's value in learning how to go through adversity, and I do that. That's a part of life an important thing, because everybody's going to face some kind of adversity in their life. But peacetime is when you can really grow and build and use the lessons you learned through the struggle. And if you, if you uh idolize, if you idolize that, that sort of that wartime mentality, you can never, you can never really make the gains.

Speaker 1: 37:28

That's right. I mean the the rest is, as is, as important as as the labor. When you're, when you're weightlifting, your muscles are not going to grow unless, unless you have that, that rest time between sets, or not going to the gym every day because you can't you can't lift weights every day your muscles are not going to develop in a in a not a non-physical sense. Um, the whole reason for a day of rest is so you can be refreshed, be reinvigorated to go out and do good work, because you can't just work, work, work. You need to be committed to the rest, and I'm speaking as someone who has overworked myself pretty much my entire life and only very recently, like this year, that I realize rest exists for a reason. It's a necessary part of existence, just as going to work and working on the house or doing anything. You need to have that time to rest and to reflect and to just get re-energized, and that goes for physical rest as well as mental rest.

Speaker 2: 38:48

Yeah, I agree, I fully agree, and I think that the other thing about that is that I've thought about, in thinking, is struggle necessary to be a good leader? You know, is struggle necessary to be a good leader? I've, I've thought about the, the fact that a lot of the, a lot of the, the gains that I had, um, from adversity, uh, or, and, and, gains in, in, in, you know, wisdom and and, and, uh, any ability that that I may have to lead, I'll leave that to others to judge. But um, uh, any ability that that I may have to lead, I'll leave that to others to judge. But um, uh, it came from. It came from people pouring into me. It came from people pouring into me. I didn't.

Speaker 2: 39:39

There were things that that, um, you know, I think I learned from adversity, but a lot of, a lot of gains came from know. You talked about a great boss, great leader that you had. It was the same for me. You know it's. You know, I look back on my, on my life and a lot of the things that I learned about leadership I learned from watching somebody be a great leader yeah you know, and and I still, to this day, can rattle off things that, that, uh, you know, best boss I ever had, um, you know, like he would say things.

Speaker 2: 40:15

You said something earlier about trusting people, right? I remember one of the things that he used to say, uh, was manage yourself. He's like, if I, uh, I'm, you know, I'm not, um, I'm not here to stand over your shoulder. Uh, I don't care where you work. Uh. Or, you know, as long as you get your stuff done, I don't care where you work, I don't care when you take time off. He's like I expect you to be a responsible adult. Um, and he, you know, he's like I don't care if you work from home a% of the time. If I can't trust you to work from home, I can't trust you to work here. Why did I hire you? You know if I need to worry about that.

Speaker 2: 40:54

And he would always. I remember he had a rule he's don't come. Don't come to me asking for permission. Don't come to me asking for permission.

Speaker 1: 41:10

Make defensible decisions and if I came to him. That's a good point. Yeah, that is a really good point because if you're making all of the decisions, then you're taking away agency from other people, and it's so important, for I mean no matter if you're the let me start over. So requiring everybody to ask for permission is very damaging, and when somebody comes to me with an issue, I want them to come with at least the beginnings of a solution or what have they tried. And when I go to my leadership, I make sure that I always have at least the outline of a potential solution. That solution could be entirely incorrect, but it shows initiative and it shows that you are taking ownership of how to make things better. And anybody who insists that their team comes to them with permission and that they themselves need to be the arbiter of solutions is not a leader. They are a manager. Even if their title is ceo, they are a mere manager and they're not a leader. And back back to something else.

Speaker 1: 42:35

You said that the the importance of having people who've poured into you ongoing, ongoing, meaningful success, is a team sport.

Speaker 1: 42:48

It's not something you can do on your own. It's not something you should do on your own. The whole reason you have a team, the whole reason you live in a community, is because everyone has something to learn and everyone has something to teach and contribute. And a leader identifies what are the strengths and what are the the contributions that other people could make, and what are the things that that yourself are most capable of, what are the things that that you yourself need to learn, and where and where and from whom can you learn that? Um, and, and I I think, I think when you take that approach and you recognize that everybody has something to teach you, you often discover that they have strengths and things to teach that you didn't even realize. And when they feel empowered, when they feel trusted, when they feel safe, then they're going to show you more of themselves, and the more you know about people, the better you can connect with them and the better you can lead.

Speaker 2: 43:52

Go ahead.

Speaker 1: 43:56

I was going to say. I feel very much that I am the summation of all of the amazing people I have known in my life. One of the things that I wish I would have pursued is mentorship. I wish I would have had a mentor. I haven't had. I didn't get the mentor until very, very late in my career. But hey, better late than never. And so because of that, I intentionally mentor a lot of people maybe not a lot of people, I'd say I have five mentees right now and that mentorship is so important for success. And I encourage my mentees to have other mentors too, because what I can teach is not necessarily what someone else can teach is not necessarily what someone else can teach. Mentorship is one of the most important ingredients for success, because if someone can lay out a path that worked for them, you can start to imagine something that would work for you, and if that person is someone who you can personally relate to, then that can be even more powerful.

Speaker 2: 45:11

How does someone make themselves attractive to a mentor?

Speaker 1: 45:18

I wouldn't say attractive to a mentor. Well, you mean as a mentee, as somebody seeking out a mentor.

Speaker 1: 45:23

Right out a mentor, right, I I don't necessarily think they need to be an attractive mentee, but they need to understand that they, that they ultimately own their path and that they ultimately own that mentor mentee relationship. So so, seeking out a mentor and saying, hey, I would, I would really appreciate your leadership. And and also be specific, why are you seeking this person out as a mentor and then also having a clear and articulate story about what's something which you, as a mentee, are interested in, what are ways that you want to grow, what are some ways you would like to work with the mentor? So, putting a bit of effort in and having that grounded in openness and introspection and, of course, humility, a theme which seems to be coming up again and again and I think that seeking out a mentorship relationship is a form of leadership you are leading yourself to a better place.

Speaker 2: 46:32

That, hey, I like that, I like that. And again, I mean, when we talk about leading others, there is a necessary component of being an example. Right, there's a necessary component of being a modeling. What you're hoping others will do and that's why you can be a leader, no matter what your position is is because you can model that, regardless of where you are. And I've noticed that I started getting promotions when I was working for others the things necessary to make the organization work for everybody, to care about, the things that kept the lights on that's when I started getting offered positions of leadership was because I wasn't chasing after a position of leadership.

Speaker 2: 47:54

I was saying, hey, I want to make sure that I understand how this works, or I remember another great boss that I had.

Speaker 2: 48:15

He said you get promoted after you're already demonstrating that you can do the work. That's true, yeah, and I remember just I started to learn about business. I started to learn about what keeps the lights on, and that's what wound up getting me. I remember two big milestones in my career. It was because I started caring about the business of what we did and wanting to help with making the business work that you know. The response from those leaders was thank God, somebody else who actually cares about this come up here.

Speaker 1: 48:44

Yeah, yeah, that's. That's that's why, that's why putting your efforts in, in focusing yourself on something that has meaning to you, is so critical. You need, you need, you need to really care, you really need to be able to, to connect yourself to it. And this, this same awesome manager, leader, leader that I had, who taught me the value of humility, also said when he, when he, when he hires people, what he looks for is not necessarily their hard skill, but, as he said and I hope you can bleep this out that they have a high give-a-shit factor, which is, which is very important, the person. People need to care, because it's it's so much easier and so much more rewarding to lead a team who cares about the similar things that you do, that you both care about the mission that you are on, together, working towards this vision, that you both understand and that you both care about. You both care about. And so, even though you can and should seek to be a leader, no matter what your position is, there is something which is fundamentally different in leadership at a higher level versus at a lower level. At a higher level, your actions and your words and your, your behaviors have so much more impact and amplification, and so you need to be very, very thoughtful, intentional, mindful and careful about what you were doing and saying at all times. And you know that that that goes not only for outward things Like you can't gripe to people, you can't gripe to your team but there's also some internal things, and this is what was harder for me.

Speaker 1: 50:42

Even though I consider myself an introvert, I'm still very social and I love connections with people, and that's actually the most important thing for me. Wherever I'm working, not everybody wants to be friends with the boss. You're going to come out of a conference room and everyone else will have gone out for drinks or for dinner and they didn't invite you because Everyone else will have gone out for drinks or for dinner and they didn't invite you because the dynamic of having the boss there is just not as comfortable and you also get recognized a lot less and the rewards of a job well done are much fewer and further between than if you're an individual contributor and you've designed something great, you've written this amazing article or you have created the ultimate PowerPoint, just for example. You don't, you don't get, you don't, you don't get those those kinds of rewards as leaders.

Speaker 1: 51:38

It comes. It can be weeks or months or even years before you get the acknowledgement that that your work is appreciated, and so being able to personally connect and find meaning in the work that you're doing yourself is another reason why that's so important as a leader, because you're probably not going to get the recognition you hope for. So you have to have the meaning and satisfaction within yourself, and that, to me, was a really, really difficult adjustment. I'll just admit that.

Speaker 2: 52:14

Yeah, I totally get that and I think that is, in my opinion, some of the secret sauce of great leadership is having that intrinsic meaning and motivation. You know, one of the things I used to tell my teams is that I design because I look at design as a way to improve people's lives. The reason I'm in design is because I look at it as a way to improve people's lives. I can make somebody's life better just by making a simple interaction easier or more enjoyable. I can have an impact on their day and if I do that enough, I can have an impact on, you know, on their month, on their year, on their life. And you know when I look at that and what I was doing and telling them that I was trying to convey and to impart to them a reason to ascribe meaning to the work that they were doing.

Speaker 2: 53:15

Yeah, I get that we might not be curing cancer all the time here right, we're probably never curing cancer here but that doesn't mean that your work isn't significant and that it doesn't have meaning. And when you have meaning to your work, you are able to keep going in spite of not getting the pat on the back or getting the accolade in front of everybody else, because the reason you're doing it is not to have somebody clap. The reason you're doing it is because of the effect that the work has on somebody else's life, and that's there whether anybody claps or not.

Speaker 1: 53:59

Yeah, it's more in intrinsic motivation, and again it's humility, motivation and again is humility. You can't go into anything like that in a prideful way. You need to see it as an act of service. You need to see it as your very small contribution to something which, hopefully, will become much larger.

Speaker 2: 54:26

Absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 54:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 54:29

Jennifer, this has been fantastic. Tell, tell folks where they can find you, how can they connect with you.

Speaker 1: 54:36

I am on LinkedIn. You can find me, jennifer Borchardt, on LinkedIn, and you can also. You can also find me at my in my, my current, my current, where I'm working. Now, that consulting firm I'm going to say what it is is a wonderful organization called Publicis Sapient and I yeah, you can find me there. Look for me on LinkedIn. Do not Google me, because what comes up first is not something that I'm, that is not me. But go on LinkedIn, jennifer Borshard. Look on LinkedIn, the digital transformation leader at Publicis Apiant. That is me.

Speaker 2: 55:19

Awesome, awesome.

Speaker 1: 55:21

I'm not really on social media. I've kind of phased that out of my life. So LinkedIn is probably the best place for people to find me. I'm always posting open roles, so if you're looking for a job, you should follow me, because I post dozens of roles a day.

Speaker 2: 55:38

I can attest to that. I follow Jennifer on LinkedIn. She was always posting roles in. She was always posting roles and I know that if business ever doesn't go the way I want it to go, I know whose door I'm knocking on.

Speaker 1: 55:56

Yeah, I mean, I may be knocking on your door one day, who knows? The world is full of opportunity and also uncertainty.

Speaker 2: 56:05

Indeed indeed, jennifer. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Speaker 1: 56:10

Thank you, thank you for having me. This has been a great, great experience. I appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 56:15

Awesome, all right, what a great conversation that we had with Jennifer.

Speaker 2: 56:23

I really appreciate her being willing to come on the show and to talk about this, especially from her perspective, having worked at such large organizations and getting to see things work at scale and being able to help people to grow their careers.

Speaker 2: 56:40

I love her insights and her philosophy around hiring and I think that everybody could take a note from that to look beyond just the resume, to look beyond just the normal qualifications and look at the aptitude of the person, look at the personality there and then let them shine, let them do their thing.

Speaker 2: 57:02

But being a leader obviously requires you. It requires you to be willing to do things without having the certainty of whether or not it's going to work, and that's one of the things that's going to set you apart from being just a manager as opposed to being a leader. So if you enjoyed what you heard here, what you saw here, I would really appreciate it if you shared it with somebody that you think could get something out of it. Maybe, I don't know, maybe don't share it with your boss, that's probably going to land you in hot water, but you could send that to some of your colleagues and you know, give it a like, give it a subscribe and, until next time, keep out serving your competition on your relentless pursuit to become an experienced leader. See you next time.