Ep. 78:The Art of Effective Feedback and Leadership with Guest Deb Coviello

Have you ever had to learn leadership skills the hard way? Join us for an enlightening conversation with our guest, Deb Coviello, as she shares her journey from STEM professional to vice president of Quality for a major company. We discuss practical advice on how to give good feedback that can have a huge impact and other strategies to help leaders transform their leadership.

Through her experiences, Deb founded her company, Illumination Partners, and created The Drop-In CEO brand, where she partners with CEOs, founders, and presidents facing a crisis to assess the landscape and work together to develop a solution. Deb also shares insights from her book, "The CEO's Compass: Your Guide to Get Back on Track," and emphasizes the importance of focusing on the people and their capabilities before relying on technical solutions.

Leveraging resources like mentors, advisors, and coaches can make a significant impact on your leadership style and help you make a real difference in the lives of those around you. Deb shares her expertise on building strong relationships with employers and colleagues, as well as the long-term benefits that come from having support in your leadership development. Don't miss this fantastic episode as we explore the journey of becoming an extraordinary leader with Deb Coviello!

Deb Coviello is an advisor, author, podcast host, and Founder of
Illumination Partners, a consulting firm for CEO’s navigating change.

A trusted partner to C-Suite Leaders, Deb brings 30+ years of
experience and strategy in Quality and Operational Excellence roles
combined with her 20 years in the Flavors and Fragrance industry to
support her clients as they work together to identify, assess, and
solve the issues that are preventing their business growth.

Certified as Lean and Six Sigma Blackbelt in Process Improvement,
she has developed powerful programs devoted to helping CEO’s
identify emerging leaders, understanding “People’’ are your greatest
tool in your toolbox.

Deb is a board member of Women in Flavor & Fragrance Commerce,
(WFFC), an avid Curler with the Cincinnati Curling Club, a mother of
three and resides in Cincinnati Ohio with her Husband Dan of 32
years.

Transcript

Deb Coviello: 0:00

I have written two types of articles. One was called Like Red Light Days, When Nothing's Going Right, and it was interesting; today's article that came out on LinkedIn, it'll be in my newsletter, was the converse of it. When leaders are having challenges with new initiatives moving things forward and they're starting to get frustrated, they should actually be looking for those green lights to indicate keep going, because you are doing the right things.

Kyla Cofer: 0:29

Welcome to the Leadership School podcast. I'm your host, leadership and self-care coach, Kyla Cofer. Here at the Leadership School, you'll hear leaders from around the world sharing their stories and expertise on how to lead with balance and integrity. Our goal teach you how to be an extraordinary leader. Welcome back, leaders.

Kyla Cofer: 0:56

I'm here today with Deb Coviello, so Deb is an advisor, author, podcast host. She hosts the podcast, the Drop-In CEO, and she's the founder of Illumination Partners. So what she does is she now consults C-suite leaders. So, as a C-suite leader herself, she was the vice president for many, many years. She now takes everything that she learned and coaches CEOs on how to lead better. And really she has a cool company, the Drop-In CEO. She talks about how she really comes in and helps CEOs at every level.

Kyla Cofer: 1:29

What I really loved most about this episode was some practical advice that she gave us on feedback. So she talked about several different avenues of how you can really transform your leadership, especially when you need to learn a new way of thinking, but one of those pieces was feedback. So within here, she's going to tell us how some really cool and helpful tips on how to give good feedback that really make a huge impact. So this is really valuable to me. I thought it was a fantastic conversation. I'm really pleased to introduce you to Deb Coviello. Thanks so much, Deb, for joining me. Well, seriously, Deb, thanks for joining me. I'm excited for our conversation. I'm looking forward to hearing your story. So tell us your story. What brought you here? and tell us your journey and really how you got to Leadership School.

Deb Coviello: 2:16

Well. Again, thank you for the opportunity to be able to speak to your audience. It is a long and curvy journey, but I will just start by saying I started my education as a pretty much a STEM professional. I love math and science And I took that through my high school years And ultimately, when I had to make a decision about going to college, I landed in engineering because I was a problem solver.

Deb Coviello: 2:41

I was curious, I was also very outspoken, I was talkative, and part of my story as I went through the educational system was being a smart student can be a double-edged sword. You have a lot of questions, you want to know everything about the world, and then society says you're being disruptive, be quiet. And so what I found with that is that I was naturally outspoken, extroverted and curious about the world, but society would kind of push that down a little bit And I was very frustrated. Over many years I would go quiet, but then over time, as I went into college, I would start speaking up again. I would ask a lot of questions, even into my corporate journey, where I started out as a quality engineer operational excellence. I want to just make things better, faster, cheaper in a manufacturing environment. I would start speaking up again, ask questions. I would be the first one to want to ask a question about why are we having this problem? What are all the causes? I was a problem solver And society would answer my questions, but also they didn't appreciate it. So it was interesting as I went through life Smart person, very curious, wanted to speak and have questions answered, but society, like I said, didn't always appreciate. And that was always a challenge for me because I felt like I was a leader but not in the right place.

Deb Coviello: 4:00

And as I went through my career, I went into various industries, from electronics to telecommunications And I wound up in the flavor and fragrance industry. I started moving up into leadership positions, but I will tell you, it came from a place of. I was a go-getter, I was a subject matter expert, I got things done and I would be promoted And I was a good talker, I was a good speaker. But then every time I would get into these higher levels of responsibility, I would hit roadblocks. I couldn't get things done.

Deb Coviello: 4:34

And I know as really smart professionals, you get frustrated because you just want to get things done. But along the way we're not necessarily taught those skills to navigate leadership. We think we're leaders because we know our stuff, but then we're never really coached on. Well, how do you articulate a message versus just putting up PowerPoints? How do you align with stakeholders? Because if you have a new initiative that you're excited about, they don't teach you about stakeholder management. And then those professionals, those young professionals just like I, are so frustrated. Well, I learned the hard way And I know we're going to talk about this.

Deb Coviello: 5:10

Along the way, I learned some of those skills to ultimately, when I got to my last corporate role, I was the head, the vice president of quality for a major company. And I realized my leadership style and we'll talk more about this was one of not necessarily meeting the smartest person in the room. But how could I help the people around me elevate their impact and take on a different role, which again is leadership, sometimes being more quiet and other things. Again, I didn't have a lot of support along the way. I had to learn the hard way.

Deb Coviello: 5:43

So, as I went into my own business about four years ago, I do serve businesses that are having challenges and quality and operations, but one of the things I find is a miss in corporate is that we don't necessarily elevate the leaders of tomorrow, to be able to sustain some of the great work that I and senior leaders can do, and so fast forward. That's why I'm here right now. I love helping businesses get move along in their journeys, but the greater purpose of what I really do is to help those aspiring leaders of tomorrow be able to navigate their challenges with confidence and struggle less, so they can spend more time doing the things they love to do. So that's my story. I'm sticking to it, but there's a lot in there, because leadership has to be nurtured. We have to model the right behavior, and I didn't have a lot of that. I had to figure it out the hard way. But I am so glad that I'm here today to share a little bit more insight with your community.

Kyla Cofer: 6:39

Awesome. Well, i'm really glad you're here and it's so fun hearing people's leadership journeys. I love talking to people who've had this full career because it's not like because you know, you don't know everything, but you also have this story of you've been through a lot and you've gone through and have all these experiences. So tell me more about, like, let's get into this VP role that you're doing. And, as you kind of were growing into these roles, what stuck out to you that made you start like asking some bigger questions about how can I lead better?

Deb Coviello: 7:10

Yeah, I really appreciate that And unfortunately, you know, we don't often like to air our dirty laundry. But I was at a place where my responsibility increased and the burdens and the risks increased. And I got into situations where I wasn't actually sure how to solve it. Sometimes we think if we just work longer hours, we'll figure this out. And you know that's the way leaders get overwhelmed and broken. And so I had to give a major presentation, a presentation to a global set of quality leaders on what was I going to do the next year to improve the quality in my region, and my region was all of North America. Again a heavy burden to bear, but we were not doing well. We were in the last place out of four regions And that so that's a daunting task to be able to say well, believe me, we're going to fix it. And I realized I couldn't run my region by just working harder and pushing people etc. to get a different result. So I went to Europe and I took some time over the weekend, when I was getting used to the jet lag and all, and really thinking like, who am I as a leader? What kind of leader do I want to be? Do I want to be the one that's in the fire with the people? Or do I want to be somebody different? Because what was my purpose? Why was I trying to do all this stuff? And I got to this soulful place of you know, I just don't want to work so hard. I have kids, just like you. I want to spend more time, maybe walking, maybe reading, maybe writing and not struggling as much. And, by the way, I want to do that for the people around me. I don't want them working 12 and 14 hour days. So how then do I, as a leader, change the landscape so we're working smarter And my role is no longer the firefighter, but what could I do to elevate their potential? Are there gaps in their leadership style? Do they know how to message and influence people versus getting frustrated when they just deliver a PowerPoint and people deflect or don't pay attention? So I said going into this, this is my purpose, this is the kind of leader I'm going to be, this is how we're going to do things differently. And at the end of the presentation, I left a little bit of time for Q&A.

Deb Coviello: 9:22

The problem was at the end of that journey and delivering that presentation. I felt so good about the senior leaders in the room said that was very nice, but you didn't leave enough time to discuss the details of what you were going to do next year. And I'll tell you. I felt extremely deflated because I felt I had been on a journey of being a better leader for the people around me and being able to get a different result. And so, with that feeling, I went to lunch with colleagues and I was very quiet and I just felt very shamed and deflated at that moment. But as the conversation went, they said to me I said, deb, we really loved your presentation.

Deb Coviello: 9:59

I said we need different leaders that think differently, because that way we're going to get a different result and we really love your thoughts and what you're going to do. And with that I realized I was onto something that the way others were leading where it wasn't going to serve me. I had to find my own path. And with that I was successful in leading differently, leading from the heart, removing barriers from the people around me, helping them with their leadership capability. And we moved from the number four region to the number two region in about 18 months. And so it was a victory. But it was also a personal victory, realizing sometimes we need to learn new skills as a leader in order to get a different result. And again why I am here with you to try to help people find their leadership style, hone those skills so they can do that work that they're meant to do.

Kyla Cofer: 10:50

Wow.

Kyla Cofer: 10:51

So I really love hearing these like stories of how I went from number four to number two in 18 months and just hearing that timeframe and hearing that you actually were intentional about when you went into that meeting about how you were going to present that, how you're going to come across what changes you were going to make differently, and then you went about leading the way on those changes. So you want to know some more details about what did you do differently. So you said you had to go do something differently. What was that difference that made such a difference? and like how maybe you can tell us a couple of the steps or a couple of the things you focused on that really made a big impact in making those shifts for you and your team and ultimately, like your company. You said your region was all of North America.

Deb Coviello: 11:36

Eight plants of responsibility. That's a huge region.

Kyla Cofer: 11:39

You were manufacturing right. So tell us about like what that looked like.

Deb Coviello: 11:43

So let me just tell you first of all, it was my choice to have that level of responsibility. It had been a dream for about 10 years. I said I want to be able to have greater impact because, rather than just being an individual contributor or working at a single plant, I knew I could have greater breadth. So I jumped in to what I wished for and, of course, met with these challenges. But there's a couple areas where I learned some things that unleashed potential in others or in myself, and two particular things. One is feedback. Feedback is a gift.

Deb Coviello: 12:17

People don't have a great framework to deliver or receive feedback. When you get to your performance review, you say, hey, you did a good job, above target, and you get very little bit about well, what could I do differently? Often, if you get a bad review, you get surprised Like why didn't you tell me all year long? And I learned the art of one from my own personal development When I wanted feedback rather than just saying how am I doing, people are either going to say good, keep doing what you're doing. Well, let me get back to you. When you ask open-ended questions, you're not going to get the desired result. Similarly, when I wanted to give feedback to my people, it had to have a framework. So the framework for feedback, both for your personal development as well as developing others under you, is what should they continue doing? number one what should they start doing? number two and number three what should they change? Now, these words de-emphasize the negativity you might have about feedback. But if you talk about what you should continue, that talks to the person's superpower and gives them affirmation to keep going with this. So that's great. You want to start from a place of okay, I can, actually, I'll keep doing what I'm good at. When you give them feedback about what to start doing, it's about what can you do on top of what you're already doing? Well, they'll enhance and enhance your superpower and your impact. And then, what should you change? If you don't stop doing this thing or change it, it might detract from your superpower. And when you have that framework, you can talk about very specific things and people can go away and action on it.

Deb Coviello: 13:52

Quick story I had one person who was a super at his technical content And I said after a particular presentation is it okay if I give you some feedback? And he said, absolutely, I want to get better. So what I did was I said you are the technical expert in this quality area. Keep doing that. You are the go-to person. You're smarter than me. Just continue honing your craft and being very clear about what do we need to do to improve quality.

Deb Coviello: 14:19

I said what you might want to start doing because what you did differently at this meeting was when you were presenting, you were standing up And the energy that you use while you're standing up, you commanded the audience And I saw people leaning into you. They were very engaged because when you stood up, your breath, your tone was strong. I want you to start, even if you're in your own office giving a presentation, start standing, because it emphasizes your impact. And they said the last thing you might want to change is your hands are not stable. You're moving your hands all the way around. You're putting your hands in your pocket. You're looking for a place to stabilize your hands. It detracts from a great presentation.

Deb Coviello: 15:00

I said you might want to put a pen in your hand or a pointer to ground yourself. And so, your great technical expert, make sure you always stand to enhance that superpower and ground yourself such that people can really absorb that. Well, let me tell you after I gave that feedback, not only was he the go-to person where people would pull him into meetings, he was the person they pulled in for problem solving. He then became a sought out leader in other regions, leveraging my resource, and so that's an example of how we, as leaders, need to learn how to either ask for feedback if we're not getting it, or be able to give feedback to, maybe people that work for us or around us. That way, we can elevate leaders or elevate yourself. So that's just one thing I learned. The art of feedback was the best tool I had each time I had a one-on-one with people around me.

Kyla Cofer: 15:51

Yeah, I just want to say that it's so helpful and I really love the new questions because I've talked about feedback on the podcast before. But when you simplify it with only three questions, it's continual feedback. You can give ongoing feedback instead of let's just get into your form performance review and check off all the marks and tell you what you're doing wrong and what you're not doing well, and it really makes that tricky. But when you can focus something simple of here's three basic questions that I'm going to ask and approach you with these, it makes the whole exchange extremely positive and makes everybody on the same team. It makes you all want to work together. I want to work with you right now because I'm like, oh, come on, give me some feedback right now on being a podcast host, because I'm like, oh, I can get better from this. It's not where I'm going to go back to my office and feel shamed about all the things I did wrong and have to repeat all of it and filter through and process all the information. No, i don't even need to do that, because right now I'm ready to go and be the best presenter out there, because you've just given me like a ground to stand on.

Kyla Cofer: 16:57

So I started this podcast because I wanted to learn and grow in my leadership journey and I have been so incredibly inspired by the guests and the conversations. So once the interview ends, I actually keep the conversation going because I have found that sometimes the richest part of the conversation is when we feel like the interview is over and we can just kind of have a relaxed, more casual conversation. So if you've noticed, if you've been following this podcast for some time, I used to ask every guest two questions What does integrity mean to them and what does balance look like to them? Well, I haven't stopped asking those questions. We're just putting those over on our Patreon page. So go check it out at patreoncom slash leadership school And for $6.50 a month you can support this podcast.

Kyla Cofer: 17:43

It takes a lot to produce every single episode And, honestly, i can use a little bit of support. So anything that you're able to contribute would really mean a lot to me and would be able to help me to continue to bring these high caliber guests in to have conversations on what does it look like to be an extraordinary leader and how do we practically do that. So those conversations are continuing over at patreoncom slash leadership school, where I'm asking guests some extra questions, some bonus questions. You'll get some bonus content over there, so be sure to go check it out And thanks so much for your support and thanks so much for subscribing, listening and sharing this podcast. It really does mean a lot And I'm so honored to show up here in your podcast feed.

Deb Coviello: 18:28

So feedback and a few other things were things I started doing, being more intentional about the development of the people, more so than starting my one on ones with hey, tell me how that initiative is going, or am I going to get that report next week? It's very tactical And what I have found in leadership is that it's not about how can I help you get the work done. Yes, they have to identify their barriers, but I actually start my one ones with making sure there's always an element of personal development, because people are really smart, they've gotten their certifications, their extra degrees, they're moving up in their career, they are ambitious. But when we always start our one on one conversations with peers or our bosses only about the tactical work, we need to focus more on closing those essential skills, those leadership gaps. How can I? I got a new initiative I'm really excited about, but I went to that manager and he didn't have time for me. Well, did you communicate with them the right way? Did you Send an email in a way that caught their attention? and when you had time with them, we use the sink. Get to the point What was the highlight, what was your proposal, and then enrich it with additional details.

Deb Coviello: 19:40

I focused on developing the essential skills of the people because when you can close those gaps, everything falls into place. When you say, hey, work more hours, let's throw more resources, you might get a particular result for a short amount of time. You build people's confidence, give them capability that they didn't have before. Those are lifetime skills. They will be able to perform over and over again And get sustainable results for the organization. Leaders have it wrong. They just focus on what we need to get done. Let's focus on the people development, which is the work you do and I love to do. You're gonna get a much better result.

Kyla Cofer: 20:17

Yeah, awesome. So what was the other thing? yes, so did you just say it?

Deb Coviello: 20:20

messaging. I want to talk to you about messaging. So how often have you gone into a conference room and say The sky is falling, we need to buy a new piece of equipment because if we don't do it we're gonna get a lot of customer returns? And people will be quiet or they'll say can we take that offline or it's not in the budget. And people that are so excited they know that if they fix this particular problem with the program Purchase of a piece of equipment, they are going to solve the problem.

Deb Coviello: 20:49

The problem is, as we train our people you're in supply chain, you're in HR We tell you how to do a pretty PowerPoint, dot the I's, cross the T's and disseminate information. What we don't teach our up and coming professionals. It's not about the information. It's about building trust, building a relationship and messaging. And messaging is very different than just disseminating information, or didn't you see it in my pie chart?

Deb Coviello: 21:15

This pie chart showed it's the biggest issue. We have to spend money instead. You could frame it up something like that And I'll tell you the framework here. But it's really about grounding people in a bigger purpose. We're all here to gain market share for our clients and the problem right now is that we're experiencing a huge number of returns because our internal equipment is not capable of detecting failures And it's causing customer complaints. We potentially have sales erosion and if we don't do that, we're going to see the market share dwindle, and that's what we've been all trying to do is increase it. As you can see, if we spend this amount of money, it will get in us an ROI in about two months and I propose we move forward so we can minimize the risk. That's so different than just saying look at my pie chart, can't you see we need to buy this piece of equipment.

Kyla Cofer: 22:05

Well, you told a story with it you shared the whole story with it and people got to understand what was going to actually happen here. They got to feel involved in the decision and they understood it To your point.

Deb Coviello: 22:15

Yes, you're right. By telling a story, you connect with humanity. You find some point of connection where they can emotionally say, yeah, I've been working my tail off, we've been trying to get more sales here, and then when you say, but did you realize we're actually shooting ourselves in the foot. If we don't take care of this, all that work you've been doing is not going to get us we want.

Deb Coviello: 22:35

A small investment now will mitigate any erosion to what we're doing. So it's storytelling, it's messaging, it's getting at their heartstrings. And the data? yes, it has to be accurate, but we have to de-emphasize the data and make sure we connect with the people and message it in the right way. That was a leadership thing that I had to change, not only for myself to say I need more equipment I, need more people. Like the sky is burning, I'm not going to be able to contain this issue. I need people because of this, and things will happen faster than just here's my PowerPoint, and so those are things that I was doing differently and I would. I still now teach people had a message versus disseminating information. It'll get a completely different result in your leadership journey.

Kyla Cofer: 23:22

Wow and and so really focusing in on giving better feedback And getting more tangible feedback and changing the way that you approach the story and the message of what you're trying to get across. Took you from in your whole industry, from number four, in your region, the entire continent of North America, number two, which is kind of a big deal. I think.

Deb Coviello: 23:49

Let me just clarify it was just the US, but there was still eight. I didn't have Canada or Mexico, but that was still a lot of people, a lot of sales, a lot of risk and responsibility.

Kyla Cofer: 24:02

So still pretty big yeah, so you're working as a drop in CEO. I don't know if you mentioned that earlier, but that's what you're kind of doing, right you're? you're jumping in as a CEO and helping people transform their organizations.

Deb Coviello: 24:15

Let me clarify that. So in my journey, while I have formed a company called Illumination Partners, I realized that if I wanted to message and get my word out to people I could help. I had to create a brand. That was something a little bit different. It is called The Drop In CEO because that was how I dropped into crises over and over again in my corporate career and then I was drawn to CEO's, founders and presidents that were going through some kind of crisis and I remember in my past when somebody had done that I was in a private equity company the CEO would drop into the company And help us with the business issue, but at the same time they built our confidence and left a lasting impact. And then they left, and then they brought in another CEO, and that is my way of operating.

Deb Coviello: 25:05

I basically become the CEO whisperer. I will drop into somebody who is having a challenge or they need to go through a change, a new customer, new requirements. Maybe they lost a leader. I need to become one with the CEO and do what they need to do assess the landscape, decide what treatment is needed, and I'll do the technical work. I'm not just a consultant say you need to do this. I will do this partner with the CEO and do the work with the people. But while I'm in there part of my brand what I do is I will also look at the capability of the people and their confidence. And in the new state that we bring the company through, we get a certification, we're increasing volume. Do they have the capability And leadership skills to be able to support that change?

Kyla Cofer: 25:52

Just to summarize you were saying that now you're going in and you're helping and you're doing all the parts is with like a CEO. So you're going to go in and do the actual work as the CEO, but you're also working in the people aspect of it. Will tell me what that is. What does that mean? what's the people aspect of it?

Deb Coviello: 26:07

Okay. So I'm so glad you asked me about this, but here's the interesting thing I had a particular client that I'm working with right now and we were starting to lose clients, and so I did do some crisis management. We met with their clients, understood what the issues were, brought that feedback into our process and fixed those things and gave them at least peace of mind that we were going to fix things. And then follow-up meetings so we could stop the erosion of potential loss of clients. And along the way, i said to the CEO. I said, okay, after we fix this crisis here, i said there's people in there that are not cross-trained. The reason why we're having these issues is they miss details. Their onboarding was not as complete as it could be So immediately we went into then.

Deb Coviello: 26:49

Well, what are their job descriptions? What is their training look like? And we soon found a lot of gaps in that area. So we are now, even now, going through getting clear standards. What do we expect of them, and not even just technically are they trained. But I added the additional element of what are those essential skills, and I use a Lominger model which has about 50 or so different types of essential skills that we identify for each position, whether it's communication, time management, navigating difficult situations. We incorporate that into their job description and we are trying to close those gaps. Every single time I'm brought into a situation, the leader will say can you help me with my leadership development? And so I do that gladly, because that's what's going to sustain the work we're doing.

Kyla Cofer: 27:35

Wow. So I'm just thinking through what you said And I think that it's so valuable that you're focusing on both things. It's the actual doing the work, but also how can we grow and develop ourselves in that? And I love that idea of making sure that we're all cross-trained, that we all understand the work that we're doing and how my work affects somebody else and how we can work together in that.

Deb Coviello: 27:59

And I find that's a big miss And that is also the reason why I wrote the CEO's Compass Your Guide. To Get Back on Track, because leaders, as you're moving up, might find a recipe for success. I go into a situation I get people organized, we do change management and they're successful. But as they're moving up in their career to higher levels of leadership responsibility, sometimes they're faced with a situation and the old playbook doesn't work And what I have found is it's not like oh, I got to get more technical people, I need the latest platform to make me more efficient. People focus on the wrong things.

Deb Coviello: 28:33

As a leader, it is all about the people development first, because it's humans that run the world. Don't put a new system on top of a bad culture or people that can't perform or are working in silos. I look for how can I improve the confidence, the capability, the capacity of the people to do the work and then give them the additional tools, et cetera, on top. So I often will coach individuals. I will look at team dynamics on how they're interacting with each other, because that could be another issue. And if people don't know how to interact, communicate, collaborate with people, the worst thing that happens is your customers are going to feel that dysfunction. So again, what I do will fix the people issues, solve the technical issues, But again, a people focused first is really my leadership style, in addition to helping that CEO.

Kyla Cofer: 29:22

Well, we've already proven over and over through our podcast, leadership school, that people first is a very effective way to go about leading an organization is focusing it on the people. But what I thought was really interesting about what you said just now was that you said that you can't run a new play from an old playbook. And, thinking through that, how many times do we show up trying to do things the way we've always done it? And it could be really difficult teaching an old dog new tricks, right? So, coming in and you've worked your way up this ladder, you're a leader in whatever role you're in because of how well you did in the past. But this new situation is different And it can be really tricky to start. You're like, oh, all of a sudden, the rules have changed, right, so you have to learn new rules and reframe your perspective to do something a little bit different, and that takes a lot of self-awareness to be able to do.

Deb Coviello: 30:13

It's called don't react, pause and reflect. I'm about to blow my top. I under people acting the way I want to. Let me have a moment. And that's also self-discipline as a leader not to react.

Deb Coviello: 30:27

But if you are not getting the desired results, you are upset about the outcome. You need to pause and reflect, and I had to remind myself all day today all about that. But it's one of those things like what if you did well in a great culture? then you get a new job at another company, you apply the playbook and people aren't behaving the way we want them to. And so then we say, oh, this is a terrible culture, when we need to take personal accountability Again. That's another leadership skill.

Deb Coviello: 30:52

What is different about this culture? What is different about the people's behavior? It is on us, as leaders, to be curious and say help me to understand your past, tell me about what you've done for this organization, help me to understand why Is it a little bit more challenging to get initiatives through? Is there something I've missed along the way? And so, rather than being upset about behavior because they're not needing your old standard that's a victim mentality One needs to say okay, wait a second, i need to figure this out and take the time to get to know the new people before you even start driving your ideas. And then you've got data and you've got context. I'm going to have to do a little bit more change management with a lot more stakeholders if I want to be able to move something forward. So with that again, playbooks change. You need to be very agile to figure out what from your playbook can you pull out. Maybe you need to do a little more of or a little less of in order to be successful.

Kyla Cofer: 31:49

My new favorite phrase is level up. that I need to level up, And I've also noticed that when things feel kind of chaotic or they feel really tricky or things aren't going the way that I anticipate they were, it's really just kind of my small world telling me that it's time for me to level up that in doing this hard work and going through like paying attention, doing the hiring the coach or bringing somebody in, doing a big picture perspective and breaking things down, whatever it is that you need to do but do those things even though they're hard, and the more you push through them, the more you level up.

Deb Coviello: 32:23

And I'm going to share one little piece of advice. It's one that I have had to share with myself. Before you and I jumped on here, I said I was having a red light kind of day. Nothing was working And, rather than getting upset and yeah, I had my pity party with my husband and talked about it a little bit the thing I know is, every single time I am frustrated, sleep on it. One day will make a difference. The next day you'll be able to talk to your boss. You'll be able to talk to that person that you perceived as difficult. You'll get new information that provides context for why were you hitting a wall. Be patient and disciplined and find ways to diffuse that negative energy, because I promise you, the next day will reveal why you felt that way and the solutions will come forward. Again, a hard leadership trick you gotta learn.

Kyla Cofer: 33:14

Absolutely. I mean, how many problems have been solved just by taking a step back and allowing our brains and our minds and our bodies to reset?

Kyla Cofer: 33:23

Or just taking just having a moment to play. Go have fun, do something fun and life giving for yourself. That we get so caught up in our work, right, that we forget that we can go play. Still, we can go have fun, we can go do fun things for ourselves. What do we really like? enjoy doing that gives us life. Then we come back to the work stuff and it all makes much more sense after that.

Deb Coviello: 33:45

I mean it really does. I was frustrated. I had a colleague and I let my hair down and said I'm just having a tough day, and then we started going back and forth I mean not unprofessionally and then I started laughing and then it was like everything's fine, everything's fine.

Kyla Cofer: 33:58

Yeah, oh, that's wonderful. Deb, this has been such a good conversation And I mean I have a dozen more questions, but I think we'll go ahead and wrap up, because I just feel like you've given us some really, really good tools today and I just really appreciate your time. I'm curious. I do have a couple of last final questions for you. The one is what would be one of the best pieces of advice that you've ever received?

Deb Coviello: 34:20

Oh, there's so many here, but I got this from my mother, who got it from some old person, but it was like make you the world a bit more better and beautiful before, cause you were in it. It's a bit about leaving your legacy. Don't just do the work, but make an impact and influence people.

Kyla Cofer: 34:36

Thank you. Is there anything else you want to make sure our audience hears from you today. Anything, any last minute thoughts that you wanna add?

Deb Coviello: 34:42

Well, first of all, i just want to say thank you for giving me the opportunity to have this great conversation with you and talk to your audience. But I will just say just a message. I mean, if you are looking for inspirational resources again, Kyla is, you know, through her leadership school. You stay there. She's got great content. But I too.

Deb Coviello: 34:59

If you want an additional resource, my website is the drop in CEO and there I have blog posts I have. I wrote about the red light day, the green light day. All of these are leadership tips and resources for you. I also have a podcast as well. But just know, don't do this alone. Leverage Kyla's resources, my resources. Get a coach, get a mentor. Leverage these resources because all you wanna do is make an impact. You wanna do purposeful work and develop your leadership style, because then the impact that you're gonna make not only on the employers that you work with, but the people around you. They're gonna remember you for how you made them feel and how you led them through the different challenges. Don't do it alone. Get some support, and I'm sticking by that.

Kyla Cofer: 35:44

Brilliant advice from the great Deb Coviello. Thank you so much, Deb.

Deb Coviello: 35:48

Thank you as well, And be well, thank you.

Kyla Cofer: 35:51

Hey, thank you so much for listening. If you've liked what you heard and you want some more tools and resources to help you on your way, go check out kylacofer. com/freestuff.