Seasons Leadership Podcast
Join Debbie Collard and Susan Ireland, co-hosts and co-founders of Seasons Leadership, in making positive leadership the norm rather than the exception. On the Seasons Leadership Podcast, we will bring you practical, actionable advice you can apply now to improve your leadership - and life. Join us on Wednesdays throughout the seasons.
Selected by Feedspot as one of the Top 15 Positive Leadership Podcasts on the web.
Seasons Leadership Podcast
Listener questions
Join us as we respond to listener questions and recount our unique journeys— how Susan's passion for Program Management and Business Operations catapulted her into executive roles, while Debbie’s early leadership duties in the military set a foundation she hadn't anticipated. This episode we dive deep and share more of our stories delivering on our promise to the Seasons Leadership community we made at the beginning of the year. Lots of our answers are connected to why we started Seasons Leadership to help you proactively steer your career to make a meaningful impact.
Questions
(0:55) How did you decide to be a leader and an executive and what advice would you give yourself earlier in your career?
(6:30) If you had a time machine what is the inflection point in your career that you would reapproach?
(10:50) What brings you joy in retirement that wasn't in your baseline plan?
(13:30) What do you wish you knew about business management or leadership earlier in your career?
(16:35) Who are your leadership role models?
(20:25) What was the defining moment for you in your career and why?
Resources:
Seasons Leadership: www.seasonsleadership.com
Seasons Leadership Patreon Community: www.patreon.com/seasonsleadership
Join Debbie Collard and Susan Ireland, certified coaches and co-founders of Seasons Leadership, in making positive leadership the norm rather than the exception on Wednesdays on the Seasons Leadership Podcast. (Selected by Feedspot as one of the Top 15 Positive Leadership Podcasts on the web!)
And now you can join our community of values-based leaders on Seasons Leadership Patreon at Patreon.com/seasonsleadership. At our gold-level, unlock our exclusive Lessons in Leadership Column from our Resident Seasoned Leader David Spong, a lifetime member of the Board of the Malcom Baldrige Foundation and our Leadership Elements Series.
Welcome everybody to the Seasons Leadership Podcast, where we are committed to leaders everywhere, at all levels, who want to make progress on their leadership journey. We will bring you actionable advice to improve your leadership and life today.
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining us At Seasons Leadership. We share a vision to make excellent leadership the worldwide standard. Learn more at seasonsleaderseadershipcom.
Speaker 1:Hello, welcome everybody to the Seasons Leadership podcast. Today you've got Susan and I here together, and we are the co-founders of Seasons Leadership and we're talking about some questions that we had some listeners send in to us and we're very curious about, and we said, hey, these are great questions, we want to spend some time talking about them and answering them. So we're just going to get started, and I suggest we do it this way Susan, I'll ask you a question and then you answer it, and then I'll answer it, and then we'll go to the next one, vice versa.
Speaker 2:Perfect. All right, let's start.
Speaker 1:Okay, how did you decide you wanted to transition into leadership and then eventually being an executive?
Speaker 2:Well, I will tell you that I never in my wildest dreams, when I was first starting out in my career, ever thought like, oh, I want to be an executive. I mean, that was not part of even my world, even anything. I mean it sounded crazy. So if I could tell my younger self something, it is like dream bigger. But the way I kind of moved into this is that I really liked the work that I was doing. I was doing program management, business operations type work, and I love the connecting the dots and seeing how the overall business worked. And that just evolved my desires to want to have a bigger impact and do more. And in order to do that I needed to expand my scope of responsibilities. So then the positions became apparent. So that's what came first. The work came first and then the positions came later. It was kind of a way to do what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1:And then what about the executive part of it?
Speaker 2:Well, the executive part of it, I don't know, that's it. It's kind of a crazy question because I didn't ever think of it that way. I just kept thinking of it as I wanted to be able to make a bigger impact and I felt that I had a lot of good ideas and that I could make a bigger impact and make a big difference in the business. And the way to do it was into the executive ranks, and so that's what drew me in there. So how about you?
Speaker 1:I would say mine was a little bit different in that regard. I was a leader at a very young age. I was in the military and I got selected for leadership positions almost immediately in basic training. I was selected for a squad leader position and the drill sergeant called me and said, hey, you're going to be the squad leader, like what? And the drill sergeant called me and said, hey, you're going to be the squad leader, like what? I wasn't, I was just trying to survive at that point and then that just kept happening to me. People kept doing this with me in the military and I was leading quite a few people at a really young age, but I don't know what they saw in me, but I didn't see that in myself. So it was the same as you in that regard. I didn't think about ever being an executive, or it wasn't something. Oh, I aspire to being a leader than an executive. No, I just wanted to do a good job at whatever I was doing and something. They saw something in me and put me in leadership positions.
Speaker 1:Then, when I came to Boeing and at that time it was a subsidiary or a different company that ended up merging with Boeing, but when I came there, I was like, okay, I'm done with leadership, I just want to nose down, do a good job, do my work, go home every day, because leadership is a responsibility, as we both know. Right, and I was ready to be a little bit, you know, carefree and not have those responsibilities. Well, that didn't last very long. The first job I was in, the director of that position said hey, we need something. We're reorganizing and we're going to put people over this small group that we're forming and we want you to take the role. So I was was right back into it again, I was right back into leading and then I finally said, okay, I'm good at this, I can do it, let's just keep going.
Speaker 1:So I wouldn't say that I had a plan, a career plan or five-year plan. Oh, I'm going to to be a leader. Then I'm going to march up the ranks and be an executive like you crazy. I would never thought I would be an executive ever, especially in a company like Boeing. But, um, I just kept that philosophy do the best job I can in every role I'm in and it just came to pass. So, um, yeah, I guess neither one of us really decided it decided for us, right that we were called to the role.
Speaker 2:Well, but it kind of goes back to both of us. I mean, I would say, if I could give advice to my younger self or people in the workforce today, looking to what's next is that's not the way to do it.
Speaker 1:No, you should take charge of your own career. Absolutely, absolutely. But we can't say that we did that. It was more like work doing a good job. And then it happened.
Speaker 2:It was. But I do wonder if we would have taken more agency in our own careers earlier. You know, what would that have been like? You know, I I don't know, but I would. I'd like to think that maybe I could have made even greater of an impact.
Speaker 1:I agree with you, I absolutely agree with you on that, which is the whole reason we started Seasons Leadership.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly, okay. So I get the second question. All right, if you had a DeLorean or time machine, what is the inflection point in your career that you would re-approach if you had the opportunity? Wow, that's a cool question, it is a fun one.
Speaker 1:I actually want to ride in the delorean time machine. That would be really super cool. Um, I think what I would do is what we were just talking about. I would go back to when I kept getting put into these leadership roles and I would be more purposeful about it. I would be more purposeful not about just the roles that I got, but being a leader and learning how to be a leader at a younger age and maybe save myself from some big mistakes that I made in doing that. But I and it would have been pretty early in the career, because then I would have mapped out that career path and said here's what I want to do. I I would have known what about leadership really appealed to me, and I would have cultivated that much earlier on. So I would say it was in my early twenties that I would go back to in that time machine and I'd have less wrinkles too.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, so it's interesting. I think I know this is about your career, but I think I would even go back into college, OK because, what would you do there?
Speaker 2:What would you do Well? So here's the thing. I think I might have been a bit young to go to college, because I, you know I it was valued by my family and I valued education. I was good at it, but I had no idea really what I wanted to do with my life. And so and I omitted here I picked my degree. Based on what degree at that point it doesn't happen anymore. That does not require any math.
Speaker 1:I'm guessing you didn't like math.
Speaker 2:Well, I wasn't very good at it, but it was kind of just how my brain worked right. I'm fine with it when I can apply it to something, but when it's just theory, I didn't do well, but anyway, I mean, that just shows you where my brain was when I did this, you know, and I had a great time, I was, everything was great, but I just didn't have that long term vision, even, you know, even a vision. It doesn't have to be a plan, but I didn't even have a vision of where I wanted to go. And so if I could go back, I would go back to college because I think for me it was important. I think college is important, but I might delay it a little bit and then, knowing what I know now, which I didn't know, then I would apply the personal plan review that Alan Mulally has taught us how to do in his Working Together Principles and Practices, which I do apply to my life today.
Speaker 2:But I would put something in place that I could strive for. It doesn't mean I'm locked in by any means, but boy oh boy, when I have that in place, I accomplish a lot more, I get further down the path a lot faster and it gives me more clarity. So I don't know that. I mean, maybe this is a terrible answer because your brain is what it is when you're in your late teens, early 20s, and you just don't know what it sounds like we'd both be more purposeful right, yes, yeah we'd both be more purposeful in different ways, but we'd both been more purposeful about it than we were, and you know it.
Speaker 1:The whole, the whole object of this question is that it's not something that's possible to do. But if you could, what would you do? Yeah, yeah all right, my turn to ask the question what brings you joy in retirement or graduation, as we like to call it that you found unexpectedly and that wasn't part of your baseline or what you thought you'd be doing?
Speaker 2:Oh, I think the thing that I love the most about it is that I get to decide where I spend my time, my energy. You know what my priorities are, and nobody else gets to do that for me. So that level of freedom I love it. Also, you know, there's a little flip side to that, so if my life isn't going the way I like it, I can only blame myself Exactly, but I do love that freedom.
Speaker 1:I would answer exactly the same way, and the only thing I would add to it is that it also allows me to do more of the things that bring me joy. Yes, so what brings me joy is the ability to choose those things, to spend my time on those things that bring me joy. And it's changing all the time. Yeah, what brings me joy changes all the time, and it's awesome because it's flexible. I can decide oh, now I want to put my focus here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this is not on the list, debbie, and I'm going to hopefully not throw you a curveball.
Speaker 1:But what is bringing you joy right now today? Right now today, what's bringing me joy is we have just entered summertime in the Northern Hemisphere and my pool has warmed up to the point where it's very pleasant to be able to go take a dip in the pool in the afternoons when I'm in the horrible Texas heat. We haven't hit triple digits yet, but we're close.
Speaker 1:So, that's bringing me joy, being able to just go splash in the pool. I mean, I remember thinking both in school and work times when there was a really nice day and you're just going oh, I really just want to be at the beach, or I really just want to be at the lake, or I really just want to be at the pool. Yeah, I can go do that. I can go do any of those things. Beach takes me a little longer to get to, but lake in the pool I got nailed.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic. Okay, it's my turn, right. Yes, ma'am, what do you wish you had known about business management or leadership earlier in your life?
Speaker 1:so many things. I mean seriously so many things, which is why you and I decided to create Seasons Leadership. We asked ourselves the fundamental question if we had known then earlier, much earlier in our career, that what we know now, what would we have chosen to focus on? What kind of things would we learn? How would we have taken charge of our careers? And one of those key things was all these things that they make you wait. They, being whatever organization you work for, make you wait to until you're a certain level or get certain permissions or in some development program. And and I really would have glommed on to that because turns out, I I may not always love the structure of school, but I love learning. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Those two are separate for me.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I love learning these new things and new concepts, and I would have glommed on to the great things about leadership and how to positively influence other people. Early on, I was of the thinking that we see so many people fall into, which was using management and leadership as interchangeable terms. They're not the same thing, and so earlier I would have focused more on the leadership aspects and less on the management aspects. So that's what I wish I had known earlier was that those two weren't the same thing, and how to go about finding out how to be a better leader, right oh yeah, I everything about you.
Speaker 2:That all resonates with me, and I think I would just maybe add or uh, is that really that you? That there is no limit to what you can do? Now? There is realities and there is hard work involved, but don't count yourself out too early. You've got to dig in and do the work. It's sometimes thankless and sometimes really hard, and but that perseverance and belief in yourself can get you a really long way, and that's more about life. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Equally about life as much as it is about leadership. Right yeah, equally about life as much as it is about leadership. Right, yeah, it's it's. That applies to anything you're learning to do, but it also applies very distinctly to leadership. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well. Speaking of leadership, susan. Did you have any leadership role models that you emulate?
Speaker 2:Well, if anybody's been listening to us for a while, this is not going to surprise them. But I really respect Alan Mulally's approach and he's been super successful. So I believe it works and I've used it myself personally and for our business, and I see that it works, and that is, he does it in a way that's full of humanity and love, which that's, you know, an important part to me. So I really you know I guess that was kind of a give me question how about you?
Speaker 1:well, you kind of answered part of it for me. So definitely, alamalali, for all the reasons you stated, um, and we do emulate him because we use his approaches, his working together, um, and the way that he does that with love and humility. Love everything about that approach and we definitely use it and emulate him. Another our resident seasoned leader, david Spong.
Speaker 1:I got the opportunity to work with David and for David for a number of years, and he's another one of those leaders that I've learned so much from and that I emulate all the time, and so I guess you could say my leadership style is a compilation of a bunch of different wonderful, amazing, excellent leaders that I've seen go before me, and it started when I was at a young age. Believe it or not, walt Disney was someone that I thought was. I was just like, oh, if I could ever work for him, or, in the timing, of course, didn't work out. He's no longer with us for quite a few years now, but his leadership style just really spoke to me, and so I try to emulate a lot of the things about him as well. So it's a compilation of a lot of different main ingredients from really key leaders, and then I sprinkle in a little of my own magic into that.
Speaker 2:It's that is true, isn't that true? I keep my eyes out on different leaders and watch what they do and take like, oh, they do this really well, they recognize people or they have good strategy, or they can communicate well, and, and you know, it's a continual learning process isn't it?
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. And I want to add something to this, because I don't think we only learn from leaders that we've worked with, but I think we also learn from people who we've led or have worked with us peers.
Speaker 1:And I just like to be able to take all pieces from each of that. Like you said, what, what does this person do particularly well, or what is this approach, or what is their attitude on something, and be able to bring all those together into what makes an excellent leader. And people bring all those together into what makes an excellent leader, and that's how we go forward with making excellent leadership. The worldwide standard is to gather all those separate pieces that makes people excellent leaders and then putting them together.
Speaker 2:That is. I love that it is. It doesn't matter We've said this before it doesn't matter what level you are, that we all are leaders, and the more examples we can see from diverse cultures and standpoints and and every every kind of different perspective, the better we are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:All right, let's see. See, is it my turn now?
Speaker 1:I'm losing track it is your turn and it's our last question for today okay, what was the defining moment for you in your career and why?
Speaker 1:I can only pick one. That's hard. Okay, I really want to pick two. I'm going to break the rules. Today.
Speaker 1:There's two that I think were key pivot points or defining moments for me in my career. One was when I first started my career. Because we grew up poor, my parents could not afford to send me to college. I got a partial scholarship and it wasn't enough and I couldn't see my way to taking that opportunity because I couldn't see how I was going to pay for the rest of it. So instead I joined the military and I went into the U S air force. Instead I joined the military and I went into the US Air Force. So I think a defining moment for me was that not being able to afford college and going into the military first, because it really shaped my young brain about structure and discipline and leadership at a very young age. And leadership at a very young age Fast forward quite a few years.
Speaker 1:I was in a role and I had just come back from maternity leave after having my twin daughters and apparently right hand, left hand, weren't speaking to each other and they didn't know I was coming back to the office. So like, oh no, what are we gonna do with her, because they had to give you a commensurate level job that you had when you went on your leave. And so turns out that they were using this stuff called the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria to assess the organization and see where things could be better, and they needed to send people to the training. And so they said, oh great, we're. They needed to send people to the training, and so they said, oh great, we're sending you to the training. And the training was like close to a week long, I think it was three and a half days. And so I end up in this room Now.
Speaker 1:Keep in mind I am not a manager at all, any level of manager. I may have been a leader, but I was not a manager by title. And I'm in the room and the lowest level person in that room that day was a director. It was directors, vice presidents predominantly and I thought what the heck am I doing here and why am I with all these people?
Speaker 1:I'm not this level and I thought you know what, what the heck they sent me. I'm going to make the most of it. And that really, as you know, susan, was a huge pivot point for me because I became an expert in the criteria, I started using it inside the company. I became an examiner external to the company at the state level, and then at the state level, and then the national level, and I eventually joined the board of the Baldrige Foundation and it's a public private partnership and it led to me being exposed to so many excellent people all over the world, not just in the United States, and so that was a huge pivot point for me as well. So those two, I would say, were mine. What about you?
Speaker 2:Well, what's coming up for me is that you just never know when these opportunities are going to come right. I mean, it could be very surprising, and so being open and just jumping in and engaging to what life is throwing at you sometimes is the best opportunities you can get.
Speaker 1:You know you couldn't have planned those things right no way, I never would have, I wouldn't have conceived of them.
Speaker 2:yeah, I think for me it's, it's. I'll take two things too, and these are like just a short little statement that people have told me that just like somehow I heard and it changed the way I thought about myself as a leader. The first one I wasn't a manager and I had this assignment and it was to program, manage a big effort. It was at Boeing, and the leadership team that I was leading, facilitating, were all vice presidents, so I was not in the management position, and so I just felt, you know, like you got to kidding me how you know these, these people and I believe they were all men at the time uh know way more about all of this than I do. Um, so I was not confident and uh, but but my role was like facilitating, keeping everything going, you know, connecting the dots, all of that stuff. And so I was doing it and one of the guys you know I don't know if he perceived that I was nervous or but he just said, susan, you're our leader in this start leading and for some reason I heard it and it kind of hit a switch where I thought, like it doesn't matter. You know, they've hired me to do this job and they think I can do it. Even if I can't, um, uh, just do it, do it because they need you to do it. They don't have time to do this. This work, um, that I was doing and it was vital. It ended up to be that's the kind of work that I did for my whole career. Yeah, it is, you know, and there's different levels of doing it. This was pretty high level and but for some reason I just said, you know, get over yourself and do your job, because they need you to do your job, and it kind of hit a switch.
Speaker 2:The other thing the other time was when a colleague so a peer said to me I was presenting something at a leadership team. I wanted to get approval of something, which I did, and so it all went well. The way that the room was set up was all you, because we were in conference rooms at that time, there was no virtual. Everybody sat around the table and then the high level leaders sat around the table and then the supporting staff sat around the edges. So when I presented, did the you know dialogue, got the approvals, and but then I sat down on the edge and so then everybody left.
Speaker 2:Everything was fine. I nobody would have mentioned anything, but a colleague, peer, said to me as she was walking out next time sit at the table. And it was just like boom. I didn't even see it and it was. You know, if I don't think of myself, as you know, a peer of this team, they aren't either. So so that was. It's just a mindset, and thankfully I had a colleague who cared enough about me to tell me that, you know, and she was also aware of the power that that had. So that's it.
Speaker 1:Hopefully you gave her a big hug and a thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Cause that's definitely a defining moment. Yeah, well, that was fun. We're gonna have to do this again. Yeah, thank you, listeners, for joining us on today's season's leadership podcast, where you got to speak with co-found or listen to co-founders Susan Arlen and Debbie Collard. We will be back with you with more podcasts soon yeah, and if you have more questions, send them in send them in. We Send them in, we'll answer them. Thank you, listeners, for joining us today. We hope that you were inspired by this conversation.
Speaker 2:And we invite you to join our community on Patreon See the link below. There you will find more resources to help you on your leadership journey.
Speaker 1:Make sure to join us next time for more conversation about leadership journey. Make sure to join us next time for more conversation about leadership excellence.
