Professional Authenticity: Navigating Leadership Challenges When Values Don't Align - with Jess Kitt

Leanna McGrath  0:08  

Welcome to the executive coach for moms podcast where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy, while simultaneously leading people at work and at home. I'm your host Leanna Lasky, McGrath, former tech exec turned full time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic, and certified executive coach. 

Leanna McGrath  0:30  

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Thanks so much for joining me today. It feels like forever since I talked to you even though it's only been two weeks. But as a reminder, in November and December, we are airing every two weeks so that you all have time to do all of your holiday things. And I have time to do mine as well. I am just getting over a some kind of bout of bronchitis or something. And so if I still sound a little bit hoarse, just bear with me, please. And also I keep forgetting that we're doing every other week. So I keep saying at the end of every episode, see you next week. And then I listened to it. And I'm like, stop lying to the people. So I apologize if that's confusing. But we are every other week this month. And next month. Today's episode, I am sharing a conversation that I had with a former colleague and dear friend Jess Kitt. And I'm excited to be sharing this conversation. I'm so grateful to Jess for showing up so vulnerably and being willing to talk with me. So what happened is just has been in an executive role for the last year or so. And she was unexpectedly let go from her role. So this conversation is actually just about a week after that happens. So she's in the very early stages of kind of processing, through this and through the experience and kind of wading through all of that. And I think that it's helpful always for us to hear about kind of like the before and after stories, our society loves that right to hear, like, here's where I was before. And then I did this intervention. And now look at me, and kind of like seeing us on the other side. And it's a lot more comfortable, frankly, for us to see that and just kind of like skip over all the messy stuff in between. But I think that what's really true and more real is that messy stuff in between of getting from point A to point B. So when something really tough happens in our lives, sharing that journey. And so I'm just so grateful for just being so brave and willing to bring this to us and share it because you'll hear in her story just kind of what she's processing through. 

Leanna McGrath  3:12  

And so we'll talk a bit about job loss. And so if you have lost a job at any point in your career, or recently, I know, with layoffs that's happening for a lot of people right now. And a lot of people are experiencing that kind of shock, and then reflecting on everything and replaying you know, where did I go wrong? And what could I have done differently, that kind of thing. But also, I think one of the things that we touch on here as well is recognizing when you're in an environment that does not align with your values, and your vision for your life and your authentic leadership style. And then figuring out how to navigate that, you know, do you assimilate and try to be more like the other leaders around you? Or do you really stand up for your true version of who you want to be as a leader? And what kind of friction does that cause within the organization when there's a misalignment? And so I think that's a really interesting thing to explore and something that Jess and I talk about a bit. Probably my biggest takeaway from this conversation is something that I have also seen a lot in coaching. My clients that I have also seen a lot in my coaching clients in my coaching conversations, and that is the assumption that we are the problem kind of the if something's going wrong, or if someone's looking at us and not holding us in their favor. or then there must be something wrong with us. And we have to figure out what that is. And we have to figure out how to fix it. And maybe if we were just more, whatever or less whatever, then this wouldn't be a problem. I think it's really interesting to hear just talk about that. And I think also the idea of like, Who determines our worth and our value? Is it us? Do we determine that? Or do we leave that up to the people around us, and I think that as women, often we are conditioned to leave that up to everyone around us. And, you know, let everyone else decide how much value we bring into a space or an organization, rather than kind of feeling confident in ourselves and what we bring to the table, regardless of what others around us think. And so I just love this conversation with Jess and I know you will, too. And I just want to thank Jess so much for sharing this with us. We also are going to do a part two in two weeks. And we'll follow up more on just kind of what's next for Jess, we had planned to get to that in this conversation. But as you'll see, there was a lot around kind of what's happening right now. And then next time, we will shift to what's next for Jess. So enjoy.

Leanna McGrath  6:28  

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Thanks so much for joining me today, I have a special guest with me. And I'm really excited about the conversation we're going to have today. Her name is Jess Kitt, and she has a lot to share that I think is going to be helpful for so many people. So Jess, can you introduce yourself to everybody?

Jess Kitt  6:49  

Absolutely. I'm so excited to be here. So my name is Jess Kitt. I am been in customer success for almost 10 years right now. And I'm based in Buffalo, New York, my husband and our two cats. So I live a really fulfilling great life. And customer success has always been something that I feel really can do, because it helps people help themselves, which is a lot of what fills my bucket, so to speak. And I just left my company about a week and a couple of days ago. So and then my next chapter of what's next for Jess, in her professional life. 

Leanna McGrath  7:26  

Awesome! So today, I really want to talk about kind of that experience for you and how that went. And some of the challenges kind of now that I know it's pretty fresh that you have to pardon the company, but just kind of hearing about what it was like for you. And as you're processing through kind of share it with us. I think that it's so helpful for us to share from the middle of the journey sometimes because I think our society tends to love the story of I made it. And here's how I got here looking back, right. Like that's useful sometimes. But also, I think it's really useful to hear from people whenever they're like in it a little bit more. So you have like a week of perspective. But you know, obviously, like you're kind of at the beginning of this new journey. And so you're you're right there. So I'm so excited to hear from you talk a little bit about this past experience. Absolutely.

Jess Kitt  8:23  

So I had been at that company for about three and a half years. And when I joined, we were pretty small at the time, there was about 45 people, and the company had is software as a service. And it just taken on its first official round of funding. So came in with a lot of energy. A lot of people doing a lot of different things. And really in a mentality of everyone is in a player coach role everyone is contributing. And so I really found my place in feeling like I was learning a lot in a new work environment. And then about a year and a half later, I had the privilege of being promoted into more of a department lead role. And then about a year ago, actually, there was an opportunity to take over as the vice president of their client experience came. And so at the time, it was something that was a really sound professional goal of mine, I really had a lot of mentors in my life who had said, Hey, we think that this is something that you want, this is something that you could do we see this as a path for you. And I thought that what a great opportunity. It was to do that as a company about a year ago, I was put into that role and reported to our CEO, and who's very kind and thoughtful person and really wanted everyone to have opportunities to grow in the startup and felt like this was an opportunity for him to see me in a new role. And I had three months trial period that went really well. And they moved me into the role permanently. And about three months into the role. I was moved underneath a different supervisor, the Chief Operating Officer and that per When I had worked alongside with at the company, but had never worked directly for or under more, so we had had cross departmental partnerships and worked for those people that he led. And probably about a few months in, we hadn't been having regular one on ones. And so I was kind of learning a new model of how do I work for someone who's the Chief Operating Officer, how do I effectively do this for someone who has a different background than I do has a different understanding of what customer success is, and what the customer experiences. And so through, I think a lot of twists and turns was quickly learning that we communicated differently, which isn't a bad thing. But what he needed from me was very different than what I was giving the CEO. And when I had given previous supervisors and people that had managed me before, I think throughout that experience, I felt like I was almost sometimes speaking a different language. And oftentimes, that left me feeling really disappointed in myself that I wasn't presenting the information that he needed, or that I wasn't almost sort of proactively thinking about how to have time what he needed, he often use the phrase, which I think about a lot, he wanted his team to move faster than he was moving right to always be a step ahead. And I often left meetings feeling like only I come prepared with different data, or if I had thought about myself in his shoes more that maybe this conversation could have been more constructive. And my then unfortunately, the ramification of that was, there were delays or my team leaders, people who I managed to report it to who were depending on me to get approvals on things to move strategic initiatives forward. And so that oftentimes left them feeling a little bit frustrated, because at the time, I was very protective of my relationship with him, which was very new. And so I wouldn't say that I necessarily would not tell the truth, but I wanted to be sure I was being professional and showing that to them that I could manage my relationship with this person and move things forward and create change in the organization as a new leader. And looking back on that I you know, you think of all the things that you could have done differently. But oftentimes, I felt like I was failing both him than I was feeling my team. So it was experiencing a lot of feelings of failure, and not really calibrating, if that was because I was so new in this type of role. You know, I often had times of imposter syndrome, that maybe I wasn't meant for this role, maybe that this was just not something that was doing the organization, any positive movement, because I wasn't creating a lot of momentum and change. And I was feeling a lot of, you know, I think that probably gaslighting myself that Wait, I thought I presented this information to him. But it sounds like I didn't present it in the way that our C suite needed to be able to make or firm decisions that we needed as a company. So I experienced a lot of doubt. And I think I had professional again, goals for myself that this would work out, I would just keep working harder. I would keep networking with more VPS I would keep asking all the questions if my peers, I would remember in gosh, probably about six months ago, I thought okay, everyone else seems to be having a really successful relationship. So maybe I'll meet with my peers and figure out what what do they do? How do they prepare? What are their strategies that I just don't have as tools in my tool belt and got some advice from them, which was still helpful, and really kind people who want everyone to be successful. And I'm still really proud that there was very little politicking, everyone was really open about how to create change and what they had learned and strategies. And then every time I felt like I was trying a new strategy, sometimes I would feel like I was taking one step back. And then I also felt like I was losing a little bit of who I wanted to be as a leader, which was really important to me, especially as a woman that in a male dominated the executive team, that I really wanted to make sure that my leadership values around showing compassion and kindness, creating space for everyone to share, no matter their level within the company or their time. And I felt some of that starting to erode a little bit in the summer that because I was trying all these new techniques and almost these new clothes that I was trying to wear. It wasn't allowing me to still maintain my identity on who I wanted to be as leader and who I had worked really hard in my career to kind of hone through a lot of mistakes and trials. So ultimately, I'll say I felt very lost. I was very proud of the team I had created and the environment I had created. But I also felt like I wasn't improving as a leader in some of my center of gravity that I felt like I had was Feeling a little bit off axis because I was trying to figure out how to create a more healthy partnership with my boss at the time. So that was really kind of the most recent feelings around the departure. And it was a pretty big, you know, say a pretty big shock when it happens. And looking back, you always think of, oh, gosh, I'd wished I had done 10 things differently. I think ultimately, it probably would have been the same sort of exit that I wasn't necessarily what the company needed. And I've learned a lot from that. But that was probably my most recent experience. Yeah, yeah.

Leanna McGrath  15:31  

So much was coming up, as you were talking through that, I think one of the things that stuck out for me is just the feeling of like, disappointment in yourself, and the doubt that it was creating for you. And like, just kind of the constant wondering like, How can I do this better? And you obviously, like, tried so many different ways, and crowdsourced strategies on? How can I collaborate better, you know, different ways to show up and then kind of finding that actually, some of those ways, maybe were in alignment with how you want to show up and maybe out of alignment with your values. So I think it's interesting. And also, there's so much energy, it seems like that was going toward just like, trying to work with your boss, and trying to figure out how to do that. And I was just like, man, what if all that energy could have been re purposed into making the company better, rather than like, we'll call it figuring out how to deal with this person or work with this person or communicate with this person?

Jess Kitt  16:36  

Yeah, someone gave me some advice a couple of months ago, a few months ago now, who had worked in a startup environment before who had reported to founders before. And it really resonated with me. And it was a source of, I'll say, contention within myself, because I feel like I never quite figured it out how to execute. He said, Look, when you when you work for founders, they have the privilege that they have earned over their course of time building the company, that they can fly as high or as low as they'd like to. So what my experience became, was figuring out how low or high I needed to go. So that I was, I guess, I would say, proactively anticipating where the person who I reported to was going. And I think that's natural to make sure that you want to make sure that you are prepared for your boss and managing up. And I think there's so many healthy things that go along with that and are needed for good scale business. I think, however, what that translated to for me was that I spent so much time hyper anticipating, and maybe even creating or anticipating what the roadblocks would be that he might say, and I was spending so much time on all of these what if scenarios, that I probably wasn't spending as much time staying as high as I needed to be because I wanted to make sure that I was prepared for all of these scenarios, because I didn't want to disappoint myself, and disappoint what I perceived he was seeing. Yeah, which he didn't say this was all again, probably in my own head, that I wanted to make sure that I was prepared as possible for any scenario. So that really resonates with me what you said that was certainly a lot of energy that went into that for me.

Leanna McGrath  18:15  

Yeah, I was just thinking, like, I know, this is such a hard question to answer. Anytime I'm writing a job description. And I'm trying to figure out like, what percent of someone's job is each of these things. But I guess I'm just curious, like, what percent of your time do you think you've spent focusing on this, versus, you know, leading your team and setting your team strategy and all the other things that you need to do as a vice president,

Jess Kitt  18:40  

I think that as things became more challenging for me as I felt more and more unsure about my impact, and honestly, this person's perception of me, as I thought more about that, and probably got in my head more and more about this, it probably ended up spending some sometimes 20 to 30% of my time, in creating different presentations or datasets, or proactively meeting with other people that the CLO may have reached out to, because that was something that I was seeing happen, which he you know, any CEO, of course, should operationally look at many different aspects of the organization, the whole go to market team. And I also wanted to make sure that if I wasn't in a meeting, because and I'll talk about this in a second, if I wasn't in a meeting that he that person might be asking for data for, I wanted to make sure that the people who were present in the meeting, were always speaking from a similar data set so that we were all sharing the same same sound understanding our data, and that also brought up elements of me that I struggle with, which is sometimes I tend to micromanage or I tend to have some elements of control that I struggle with because what I was really I trying to do is because I couldn't control this relationship with him, I was trying to control all of the environment around me and making sure that if I couldn't fix this relationship, that I might be able to circumvent it through creating really positive relationships with other people and showing other people that I could be a really good leader and a really constructive leader. What's the then I spent a lot of time creating a lot of time with other people, which I should always should be doing. But making sure that I anticipated what he might ask them so that we again, could have more constructive conversations and better relationship?

Leanna McGrath  20:38  

If you really think about it, especially like when you were there in going through it. What do you think it means about you? Or what did you make it mean about you that it sounds like you felt like it was your job to make this relationship successful? And that it meant something? What did it mean about you that you couldn't make this relationship successful?

Jess Kitt  21:02  

That's a great question is still my mindset that it was my job to fix our relationship to make sure it was positive and constructive and productive. Because I felt like, if I could be better at my role, if I could have more experience, in my role, we wouldn't be having these challenges, or I wouldn't be having these challenges, that I would be the leader that I should be that the company needed, not necessarily even about who I reported to, but I didn't want to feel the company. So what got wrapped into my relationship with the person I reported to was then the perception of how the whole company felt about me. So because that person was my leader, I was got very, very concerned. And again, I think, in some ways, put barriers in front of myself, because I thought, Oh, if I can fix this relationship, that means I'm not meant for this role, which also then means I'm failing the company and failing my team. So I had a lot of tendencies to spiral and go to the deepest, darkest place possible around that. There were so many elements of people that I was failing and processes and our clients that we were serving. So I think that comes from where I feel like I'm a perfectionist. So I have some perfectionist tendencies, which I know resonate with many of the folks who probably listen to this podcast. And I also think, as a woman, I always want to feel like I have a positive, kind constructive relationship with someone who I deeply care about. It's something that I really look for in my leaders. And I think the people I have grown the most that are and felt the most self worth under, were people that I had personal relationships with that became mentors of mine who gave me constructive feedback. And so I really wanted to have that, because that meant I was doing a good job. And there's a lot of fault there. And there's a lot of things that I could improve there. But that was my mindset. And I think still is the mindset that I'm working through at the time, feeling, you know, embarrassment, and shame around, I will never change this person's mind, I will never show that person that I can be better and I can be what is needed for this role. And I'm still figuring out how to unpack that. And that's not the mentality I'd like to have. But unfortunately, that's a mentality that I'm still working through. 

Leanna McGrath  23:20  

Yeah, well, and it sounds like this relationship, like there was a lot riding on making this relationship successful. Because unsuccessful relationship with this person meant that you were failing, you're failing the company are failing your team, you're failing the customer. So like, it makes sense that you then took so much of your energy and put it into trying to make this relationship successful, right? Because, like you're talking about your value and worthiness as a leader, and as a contributor to the company being dependent on that, which is so interesting, because you only have maximum 50% control over that, right, because it's a relationship with another person. And obviously, a lot of that is out of our control. But I think like you said, as women, we are kind of expected to be kind and compassionate and show up in that way. And also, we are supposed to be good at relationships, right? Like that's supposed to be our, our forte, and so probably having that not going well compounded, you know, kind of like I should be able to do this and, you know, and kind of feeling that failure that you're describing?

Jess Kitt  24:40  

Absolutely. I think that I think I learned through this experience that I place more self worth than I would have admitted out loud on measuring some of my success by the fact that people liked me that they liked working with me that I was easy to worked with that, I was kind and I gave compliments to people and encouragement and said, thank you. And so a lot of grace, and I don't regret any of that, I think most of that, if not all, is really important to the leader that I want to be. And I feel like I am. Unfortunately, the downside to that is that people are all never going to like you, or they may like you and not like your work. And or they might mean that their opinions don't all matter. And I think that's something I'm still trying to learn and accept is that because the company and you know, whoever have their experience and their truth, that does not mean that it is the end all be all experience. And I'm so used to being deferential to who manages me in some ways, and their perception of me and my success. I've always been in roles where I've been, you know, I feel really honored to have this opportunity. I've always been a high achiever and been promoted and shown leadership and people leadership. So having someone say that this was not something they saw in me. And that was not something that was helping a whole company felt like that means every single person at that company, this was the message that I internalized, that means 256, people don't like me, and that I did not do a good job. And all of those people saw me fail. I know, in my mind that that's not true, I have this element of myself where I can say and write a name out loud, that is not true. And even if it is, you know what you did, it doesn't matter. But I still have this voice in my head saying that person got to dictate how I perceive myself, which is so frustrating, and something I would really love to get better at.

Leanna McGrath  26:47  

Yeah, well, I think a lot of that is a lot of the social conditioning of, there's an expectation that everyone is supposed to like us, but we're not supposed to care that everyone likes us, because otherwise we were vain. And, and so because of that, because of that expectation, I think we worked so hard to figure out like how to control everyone around us into and kind of make sure that they like us Brene Brown, She researches you know, shame, and she talks about that the opposite of belonging is fitting in, because belonging is when you show up as your true self, authentically, and you are loved for that person that you are. And whereas fitting in is assessing a situation and trying to figure out who you need to be, and what characteristics you need to show in order to be liked in that situation. And so, where the two outcomes look similar, like your quote, accepted by these people, or you're in with these people, the process behind it is drastically different. And the outcome, you know, the feelings that you have, right? Because the feelings of belonging are very, very different than the feelings we have when we're just trying to fit in. Other thing I was thinking about when you were saying that the all or nothing idea of like, if one person believes this, then it must mean everyone believes us about me, and kind of trying to make sure that everybody likes us and is in our favor, I always think about the presidency, the President of the United States, no matter what side you're on, or who you support, in recent history, only about half the country is in support of whatever current president, whatever president we have, at any time, only about half the country votes for that person, and the other half doesn't. And so I mean, there's millions and millions of people who are like, not in support of that person, and then they have to go and show up as a leader, knowing that there are all these people not supporting. And so I guess a lot of times whenever I think about it, I think if the President of the United States can only get like a 51% approval rating. Why are we striving for 100?

Jess Kitt  29:07  

I don't know. That's such a good point. I and I don't know if you experienced this but I have I feel like in sometimes maybe this is because I'm a Gemini, I feel like I can name something that I know to be fair and true. Right? I understand as a woman that I have a tendency to smile first, to share a positive perspective versus to think a lot about an almost an unhealthy point of disagreement that I might have had with a colleague that was a constructive conversation, but was just a natural disagreement. And I still don't know if anyone else is still experiences and I still experienced this shame and guilt around that I could have done better in that conversation and I, you know, could have been kinder or more constructive or and I feel this constant push and pull that between understanding and being able to name something that I'm experiencing as a woman, and at the same time, and you and I've talked about this still having this feeling that I want to resist on, you know, the other person in that conversation is not beating themselves up like you are, they are not they've you came to a conclusion they move forward. And yet you're still experiencing guilt that there was friction at all, which is natural in a work environment. So I'll have to think about that presidency comment in moments where I'm often thinking about that person feel the same way in a meeting? I don't know. 

Leanna McGrath  30:33  

Yeah, well, I think first, you're talking about the cognitive dissonance that exists for women. Because yeah, it's like, logically, we know that one thing exists, but feeling wise, like what's in our body, what's internalized for us? Is all of the social conditioning that we've had for decades. And so of course, there's going to be dissonance, you know, within ourselves, because it's like, I know this thing to be true. And this other thing is true at the same time. So like, how do I reconcile that? I think part of that comes down to the fact that there's like, no objective truth, right? Like, we're never gonna get like a certified letter from like God or the Universe saying, like, you were right in this situation. And they were wrong. Absolutely. No, I think when we recognize that, which, again, it's like, we say that we recognize it. But also, we're always searching for like, what is the right answer? What is the right decision, like as if there's one and only universal like, right thing, right. But I think that the compass that we can use is what is most aligned with our values, right, and our goals and who we want to show up as and who we want to be? And so I think it's referring back to that, and doing that exercise quite often. And reminding ourselves and asking ourselves the questions in the moments of like, Did I show up in this meeting as who I wanted to be? Like, did I did I do my best in this meeting? And the answer is going to be no, sometimes, of course, because we're not perfect. But like, how do we move closer and closer to being aligned with our, our values, and I think that that's the compass that we end up having to use, so that we don't feel like our value is like up and down with the stock market, depending on who is valuing us that day, right? Because like, you probably it sounds like, even in this role, it didn't really matter what you were doing, like you did the same thing in the first three months, as you probably did in the second few months. And it went great with a different leader, right? When someone else was valuing your contribution, they were valued at very high. And then when a new person was valuing it, they valued it differently. And so whenever we kind of leave that externally, and we place our value there, and we've kind of like, let that then it's kind of like fluctuating, right? We, whenever we let someone else define it, and that's not a reason to shame ourselves, that we do that, because we all do that. And we're taught to do that. It's a reprogramming and conscious effort to redirect to our values, you know, because the reality is, is just like, the president can do one thing, and some people are gonna be like, this is the best thing in the world. And some people were like, This is the worst thing in the world. Right. And that's the same as that for us as leaders. And as we ascend into leadership, we are in you know, bigger companies with bigger spans of control, there's just more people that are going to like us, and they're just more people that are not going to like us. And there are more people that are going to agree with our decisions, and there are more people that are going to disagree with our decisions. And that is really hard for us to accept, but it is a reality, if we want to be in these kind of, you know, positions in leadership.

Jess Kitt  33:52  

Absolutely. I think that I hadn't really thought about that. So that's really powerful for me that, because my scope of work, and then, you know, just the sheer number of people that were in the department, I don't think I had thought about even from a analytical statistical perspective, which I find a lot of comfort and data that the likelihood that more people are going to disagree with you is true that because there are more, there are more people, there's more, you know, an ability for that to happen. And I think that if I had thought about that more, it probably could have taken a lot of pressure off of myself, not because I didn't care that those people were having a good experience, but also I think, by nature of giving myself permission that you are not going to change the minds of every single person of 80 people in a department doubt not 80 People are not probably going to agree with every decision that you make. So we just need to accept that and spend our time in a more constructive place. And I think if I had done that baby things, you know, you always go back and think gosh, baby Hey, all these things could have gone differently. But I think hopefully that will make me a more effective leader and person, and whatever my next role is, and I think that all of these things help who I am outside of my professional experience, because they're similar struggles I have with, you know, friends and family. Because don't just, you know, turn on and off switch one, you know, walk away from my desk, right? 

Leanna McGrath  35:20  

So yeah, I actually I think about it, I think there's a parallel to customer success. Because as we scale our companies, if we keep our retention rate or our churn rate the same, we are going to lose more customers. Right? Like, I remember when we went through an acquisition, and we had had, like, 450 customers before the acquisition, and after that, it was over 1000. And so if our turn rate is 3%, naturally, like 3% of 1000 is more than double that, and 450. Right, and so for, so it felt like, Oh, we're failing, we're losing so many clients. But really, it's just that the the percentage stayed the same. So it's like, if you have 100 people that you're working with, and even if you have a 99% approval rating, you have one person that does not approve of everything that you're doing, you know, and then you this company scales to 1000. And you even if you stayed at the same approval rating, now you have 10x, the people, right, you have 10 people who don't approve of what you're doing. Yeah, the numbers like it's just naturally going to happen. And I think also, as we show up more as ourselves, and more authentically, and as we start to step more into that, which I know was a journey for me as a leader was, you know, being able to show up as my authentic self, then naturally, like, we're gonna piss some people off, but some people aren't going to like that. Some people aren't going to like that we aren't using their style, some people aren't going to like that, we're showing up more as ourselves, and they wish that they could, that's just, I feel like naturally going to happen. And we're going to feel uncomfortable about the disapproval of it. And we have to, like, actively work to build up a tolerance to that. And kind of it's like, we have to make a decision and ask ourselves, do I want to show up as the leader that I want to be? Or do I wanna please this person, because sometimes, like, it's a choice, sometimes we have to ask ourselves, like what's most important here, and then decide and live with that decision, knowing that there are consequences either way, right? If we acquiesce to whatever this other person wants, then we're going to be maybe, you know, not showing up as not being true to ourselves, and also not honoring the people that do approve of that, right? If we stick with our style, and you know, what's going on for us, and how we want to show up, then we're going to upset this person, maybe lose their support. So it's like there's a trade off either way.

Jess Kitt  37:58  

Absolutely. I think that this kind of over the course of the past three or four months, I had a conversation with my customer success leadership coach, who said to me, and you, and I've spoken about this before, you don't get to be able to change this person. So if their experiences that you want, that you can't get at this company, and these are important to your professional goals, you have the agency to change that. And you can and you should, and you shouldn't feel. I mean, she's very supportive of supporting however I feel, but she said, there's nothing wrong with making different choices for yourself, whether that's creating different projects that you're working on, whether that's deciding to leave and look for other opportunities, whether that's the evolving your leadership style. And I think that was a big unlock moment for me that, that I have a lot of control over how I perceive conversations and how I make different choices in my career. And to your point, which is a choice that I made a few different times, which is I want to be able to feel good about myself and positive about the model that I feel most akin to, and I feel like is being seen by other people that report to me or report to people who report to me. And that's at some point that became more important than pleasing, who I reported to or getting a lot of compliments or thinking there was going to be another promotion or something like that, because I found that that was most important to me. I think the downside to that is that that meant that I wasn't showing the type of leadership or urgency or progress that someone else felt that I needed to but I do feel like as I look back on this chapter that is close. I feel like I was authentic to what I wanted to show people and what I felt like was what I wanted and a leader which is always fine thinking about who do I want in a leader How do I want them to show up not that they have to communicate just like I do. But I want people to be able to feel comfortable. And I want people to be able to feel seen and heard, and have disagreements. So I think that I am proud looking back on that, that I feel like I didn't change those things about myself. But I will say I spent a lot of energy up until that point, trying on different things or reaching for different tools that I still am glad that I did. Because I think it helped me make a more sound decision on showing myself almost demonstrating to myself that I can be brave enough to still say, I'm not going to change every aspect of who I am for this one role in this in this one model of a company. And if that doesn't work for this place, then that's also okay. So I think that that's something that I still feel like I can have peace with which I find love confident.

Leanna McGrath  38:21  

Yeah, I think when we are true to ourselves, and when we make that choice, then whatever follow it happens. Of course, we're going to have feelings about it. Of course, we're not going to you know, it's not like all rainbows and sunshine. But the alternative is that we abandoned ourselves. And other things happened, right? We abandon ourselves, and we got promoted. Well, what does that mean? Right, like? How does that make us feel? And are we, you know, is that a well lived life? I think that what's unique and interesting about your situation is that like, your audience that was on the not approval side, right? That was that was on in more of the like, disapproval camp was your boss, who obviously they can make decisions about your employment. And so I think that the reality is, is like, number one, for some people, there are realities where like self preservation, we need to make this money to support our families, etc. And so I guess I would say, like, the decision to abandon one cell to for self preservation in their role, makes sense, I guess I just want to, like, honor anyone who is in that tough situation, and who is making that sacrifice. And like you said, you have agency, and there are tons of other jobs out there. Like a lot of times, we think like, this is the only job or like we only, you know, especially with the imposter syndrome, like maybe we got here by accident. And this is the only one we get in this kind of scarcity mindset, when there are 1000s of jobs out there. And there are 1000s of companies that that want good people on their teams. And so I think that when we can be open to that, you know, maybe I need to do something temporarily, for the good of my family, you know, self preservation, etc. If we make that conscious decision, you know, then while also figuring out like, How can I honor myself, right, like, Look, maybe maybe looking outside and other companies looking at other options, etc. So I just I want to say that because I don't want to imply that anyone should be piling on shame if they are abandoning themselves for their self preservation. And I think in an ideal world, we get to a place where we can honor ourselves and stay true to ourselves. And I was so happy to hear for you that you feel like I tried on all these different things. And I realized, like, Actually, me and how I show up is how I want to continue showing up. And unfortunately, this place that I was in didn't value that. And that sucks, obviously. But that just means that there will be another place that will honor that.

Jess Kitt  43:44  

Absolutely. And I think that I've been reflecting on, you know, gosh, what do I want? In my next role? What would I do differently, and definitely unpacking some impostor syndrome around, maybe I can't be the type of leader I want to be in this type of role. Maybe I can't be a vice president of client experience, being the type of leader that I want to be. That's something that I feel, I also have the sip the same reality of I see and have mentors and friends who are the types of leaders that I strive to be and I think show up for their teams in ways that I want to and they are VPS, they are in C suite roles. And at the same time, they make mistakes, both of those realities exist at the same time. And I think looking back, I'm still unraveling some elements of what and actually I've gotten some of this from your podcast, which is so such an important part of naming our experience. And when you're in it, sometimes it's harder to unpack it at the same time, especially when you're in a startup environment, where you're just constantly moving on to the next thing, the next thing the next thing and you don't have, in my experience a ton of time to reflect on what you would do differently. For what did you learn from that experience, because there's 20, other things waiting for you in the wings, and you're trying to make do with a lot of limited resources. So I also am still thinking about, gosh, maybe there was some elements of when there were a conversation around this is just business, we need to show more urgency and more dynamic leadership. And some of that I think I internalized a little bit that, again, I needed to change and adjust to how I was showing up or the ways that I even the ways that I use my voice, and not someone who will come into a meeting. And I'm not saying this is all bad, but I don't necessarily raise my voice in meetings, probably because of how I grew up as a woman in an environment. But that's also not how I like to communicate and choose to communicate. So I think there's also elements of, oh, maybe there were signals earlier on that I missed that I didn't think about and connect the dots on, you don't you don't want to change those things about yourself. Those are really important to you. And maybe if I had maybe done some different calibrating in my leadership earlier on, maybe things would have changed, maybe they wouldn't have. But I also appreciate the element of going back and reflecting on those moments and thinking, Oh, okay, that's what that experience was, that was that conversation. I didn't hear it in that way at the time, because I was experiencing so much impostor syndrome, that everything I heard, was translating in a different language in my brain saying you need to change this is normal in your role. And not that I shouldn't have, you know, I definitely want to change and grow and improve as a leader and hope will be a better leader in my next role. But also, oh, maybe those things people were looking to change about you because you look different. You brought different ideas, you sound different than other voices now the table?

Leanna McGrath  46:50  

Yeah, I think that's a really good point in my conversation with autonomy. On the podcast, we talked a lot about like, considering who's giving the feedback. And do I want to take that feedback, because the feedback is more about that person, it's that person looking at you through their lens. And it may or may not resonate with you, it may or may not be feedback that you want to incorporate, I think a lot of feedback is can be helpful. And I think we need to have a filter, again, kind of that litmus test or the that calibration against our values? Does this align with my values, does it not? And and I think that's a really good point that maybe if we're getting a lot of that feedback from the leaders around us, are the leaders, you know, the above us, maybe that's an indication that like, maybe my style is not valued here, or, you know, maybe how I'm showing up is not in alignment with the organization's values. Maybe my values don't align there. And I think that's really good data and really good opportunity for conversations. Because we are not right for every company. Not every company is right for us. Right. And so that's a really interesting insight for anyone who's maybe feeling this and also for your future roles of kind of being able to check in and say like, does that feedback resonate or stuff a way off base of how I want to show up, because maybe that's some data that if that's the way that the C suite, or the board or whoever is giving me this feedback, maybe this actually isn't the right place for me, if they're, you know, my, my, how I show up and my style is not going to be valued? 

Leanna McGrath  48:43  

Yeah. It's interesting in that book reference that you made, I was like, the first thing that came up to me was that, like, I think we are often taught about putting emotions aside, because that's kind of what is expected in male dominated business. And I understand the idea of like, let's not always look through the lens of emotions that might cloud how we look at the facts are my might alter how we look at the facts. And I think that makes sense. I do think that emotions are really important, especially if we look at them as data, I don't think that there's something that we should just ignore or put aside. Because I think that, you know, if every time we have a meeting with a person, we are having negative emotions. That's interesting data, like our body's trying to tell us something. I don't know what it is, per se. Right. And we might not know what it is right away until we take the time to kind of explore it. But I think that our emotions can often be keys to unlocking a lot more information, and a lot more potential than we tend to give them credit for.

Jess Kitt  51:23  

Yeah, absolutely.

Leanna McGrath  51:25  

I agree. Well, I feel like we could talk forever, just every time we talk!

Jess Kitt  51:29  

Yeah, absolutely. You have such great insights, they feel valued. 

Leanna McGrath  51:33  

Likewise, and I know we were thinking about maybe talking a little bit about what's next for you. And I'm, I'm actually thinking that maybe it would make sense to do a part two with that. And we can kind of shift gears because, you know, right now is a week old information, right? Like this just happened. And so I think you have a lot of really great insights, and also probably a lot more processing to do on it. And then I would love to explore with you what's next, and share that with the podcast community, because I know there are a lot of people who are in the situation where, you know, layoffs are very rampant right now and have been for the last several months, especially in the tech world. And so I think it would be helpful for folks to kind of hear about that process, because I'm sure there are a lot of people, you know, sitting there and asking themselves what's next and trying to figure out how to proceed. And so I think that could be a whole nother episode. We could dive into if you're up for it.

Jess Kitt  52:38  

I would love that. Yeah, we're all not alone. And it's a challenging time, but also a lot of opportunity.

Leanna McGrath  52:44  

Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, we will explore that, in part two of our conversation. All right. Well, thank you so much, Jess, for coming on the podcast and for being so open and authentic. I know this is tough stuff. And I'm so grateful to you for talking openly about it. Because I know that there are plenty of people out there who are feeling this way about, you know, working with someone in a difficult situation, or maybe feeling like the way they're showing up isn't being valued and wondering, Am I doing something wrong? Do I need to change? Or you know, or maybe is the organization, not the right fit for me. So thank you so much for for sharing today. 

Jess Kitt  53:27  

Absolutely. Thank you for having me. And it's so great to be able to process out loud. So thank you for your advice and insight. Yeah.

Leanna McGrath  53:33  

Thanks, Jess. All right. Well, thanks, everyone. And be sure to tune in next week for part two. Have a great week!

Leanna McGrath  53:42  

Thanks so much for tuning in to the executive coach for moms podcast. Please like, subscribe or follow the show so you'll be notified when the next episode is available. I hope you'll join me again next time. Take care

Transcribed by https://otter.ai