The Savvy Communicator
Authenticity and Vulnerability: Unconventional Insights into Leadership--with Jo Zulaica
Imagine learning leadership from the rather unusual perspective of a tour guide. That's the fascinating journey of our guest today, Jo Zulaica. A seasoned leadership coach, Jo started her career as a tour guide on luxury, active travel trips. Through navigating people in vulnerable and uncomfortable situations, Jo discovered that authenticity and honesty were the key to effective leadership. Today, she imparts these valuable insights to her clients, helping them find their own authentic leadership voices.
In our conversation, we explore Jo's unique career path, and how she managed challenging dynamics as a tour guide – from handling disappointed customers to de-escalating conflicts. Jo's story is a powerful testament to the role of authenticity and vulnerability in leadership. So, prepare to be inspired as we unravel the less-talked-about aspects of leadership and delve into how you too, can lead from a place of truth and vulnerability. Don't miss out on this riveting discussion with the wonderful Jo Zulaica.
This is a show where ideas come together. The guest statements expressed on The Savvy Communicator Podcast are their own and not necessarily the views of The Savvy Communicator.
Thanks for joining us! Become part of the conversation at www.savvycommunicator.com, and follow me on social media: my handle is @savvycommunicator.
Imagine learning leadership from the rather unusual perspective of a tour guide. That's the fascinating journey of our guest today, Jo Zulaica. A seasoned leadership coach, Jo started her career as a tour guide on luxury, active travel trips. Through navigating people in vulnerable and uncomfortable situations, Jo discovered that authenticity and honesty were the key to effective leadership. Today, she imparts these valuable insights to her clients, helping them find their own authentic leadership voices.
In our conversation, we explore Jo's unique career path, and how she managed challenging dynamics as a tour guide – from handling disappointed customers to de-escalating conflicts. Jo's story is a powerful testament to the role of authenticity and vulnerability in leadership. So, prepare to be inspired as we unravel the less-talked-about aspects of leadership and delve into how you too, can lead from a place of truth and vulnerability. Don't miss out on this riveting discussion with the wonderful Jo Zulaica.
This is a show where ideas come together. The guest statements expressed on The Savvy Communicator Podcast are their own and not necessarily the views of The Savvy Communicator.
Thanks for joining us! Become part of the conversation at www.savvycommunicator.com, and follow me on social media: my handle is @savvycommunicator.
Hi and welcome to the Savvy Communicator podcast. I'm your host, amy Flanagan. Today we're talking about leadership. Are you brave enough to become authentic? Today we have a very exciting guest. Her name is Jo Zuleika and she is a leadership coach and consultant. Has trained over 5,000 people in leadership techniques over the course of her career and it all started from her humble beginnings as a tour guide. Jo, welcome to the show, really glad to have you here. So that's true, you started as a tour guide.
Speaker 2:Yes, indeed. So straight out of college, when everybody else was going to grad school, I decided that I was going to be a tour guide. I wanted to travel, and this was back in the late 80s, dating myself, and I didn't know how to do it. I didn't know any way to do it other than being a flight attendant, which just didn't sound intriguing to me until I found an emerging industry of active travel.
Speaker 2:So I got a job as a tour guide, as a tour leader for hiking, biking and active trips all around the world, and I ended up taking that further than I ever thought I would go. I thought maybe it'd be one of those gap year type things.
Speaker 2:you know, a lark to do when you're still figuring out your life, but it actually became my life. I worked as a tour guide for over 17 years, full time. I ended up meeting and marrying my husband. That way, I became an executive for the company and I developed all of these leadership techniques focused on what I learned from leading people on trips on luxury, active travel trips.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's fantastic. You think of tour guides. You don't think of it as being a long term career, right, sort of like you're on vacation. And it sort of feels like they're on vacation to. You know that they must be seeing everything for the first time, even if they know about it. Oh, that's really cool. What places did you go to?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so. So I ended up starting at this company right when it was about to explode, and so as the company was growing, I got to go to all the new destinations that the company was going to. So it started off as this active travel company in the West in the US West, and so I was in, you know, grand Canyon National Park and Oregon Coast and Yellowstone and some of our beautiful natural wild areas in the domestic US, and then I got to go to Hawaii and then I got to go to New Zealand and then I went to.
Speaker 2:China and Bali and Costa Rica and Norway and places all over the world that I just never thought I would have the opportunity to go. So it was quite a ride.
Speaker 1:So when you decided to be a tour guide, did you know that it was going to be an incredible opportunity for communications training, or was that something that you realized along the way?
Speaker 2:Oh, it was definitely something I realized along the way. So when I started with the company, it was new. We didn't have a training program.
Speaker 2:And so I became kind of a senior tour leader that then mentored others and organically developed a training program in-house for this company that's now like a $250 million annual business. So it was all sort of you know homegrown just me grassroots figuring it out, telling, teaching and telling based on my wits and my experience. So I had no idea that it would be a vehicle for me to develop or teach leadership. It just happened.
Speaker 1:Wow, $250 million, and some of that's due to you probably.
Speaker 2:Well, I'd love to think so. I've since retired from working in corporate and now I work solely for myself as a consultant and a coach to help other people find their authentic leadership, because I think what I learned from that period is that leadership is not something that you impose upon you. It's not like a robe that you wear. It's almost like I mean to be sort of facetious. It's like disrobing yourself. It's like becoming you and being seen as you authentically. And so that's what I'm all about is helping people find their authentic leadership voice by being more who they are rather than trying to become some you know ideal of what they think leadership should be, which is not the way to go about leading yourself or anyone else.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's just fascinating, because that was my initial instinct. I was thinking okay, leadership, I have to be somebody different, I have to be somebody better than who I am, because I'm standing up there and I used to work at a medical school and I managed a team of about 10 people, but I felt that all the time I was like, well, I'm asking them to do these things, I must be doing them better, I must be the one who's, you know, always sort of ahead of the game. And so to think about authentic leadership, that's a really cool term.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, we don't resonate with people who are impervious, with people who are perfectly perfect. They make us feel inadequate, and by trying to be that way, we're also inadequate. We end up feeling like we're constantly chasing the devil on our shoulder. That says not good enough, stand up straighter, be different, be better, be more, and it's just this mayhem that goes on of everyone trying to be some version of themselves. It's not really true. So in in my, you know, line of work, we were taking people into vulnerable experiences like riding a bike in China.
Speaker 2:And you know people would have all of these ideas about fitness, about body image, about prowess, like am I strong enough, am I good enough? And then we would be in these uncomfortable situations where we didn't speak the language or we didn't know where we were going, and so there's vulnerability everywhere, and the only way to lead people through that is just to be honest and say look like I've only been here once before, I can't even go into this territory without a guide. So I would even have to be honest about my inadequacy as like the supreme leader and just kind of pull back the curtain and say, but I'm here with you and I know what to do, and I got granola bars, we're gonna figure it out, and that's. That would engender a lot more of a spirit of participation than if I was really challenging people to do some death defying thing that I could do perfectly, but they needed to figure out.
Speaker 2:You know, that's just not. It's not a way to encourage loyalty or eager participation or fun. Really it's. It was supposed to be fun, right? We're on vacation, so yeah, that was that was a big part of it.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you what to Amy. I'd started to interrupt myself or you on this one, but when we talk about that. A big part of who we, how we lead, is not actually being the the person who is always having all the answers. That actually asking other people to participate makes the whole so much better. It makes people bring who they are to the table and that just levels up the entire experience or conversation for everyone. So even if you don't know what to do, you're not the only one.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, I get that. That resonates with me. It really does, even though I've never done anything for authentic leadership. But I see that, starting from a place of vulnerability, even though you're not it's not verbal communication that probably does, yeah, do a lot to communicate simply the fact that you're there, you're like them, but you're going to guide everybody through it, yeah, so I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2:the people who burn out at that job, at that type of job, are the people who pretend harder, people who are really trying hard to appear like they know everything, because that certainly is a thing in tour leaderdom is that you want to know all the answers.
Speaker 2:There are people that want to learn all the flora and fauna, be able to have all the answers about the knowledge of the area they want to be. They never want to be caught off guard. That's the way that they. They feel safe in that role and with that title. But they burn out because they're exhausted at the end of a tour because they've been hustling so hard to appear perfectly perfect or smarter than smart.
Speaker 1:That's so interesting and I can see that too, just from a point of I worked as a professional actor for about 15 years, really, and yes so, and so much of the training, especially when you start, is designed to teach you to break down those barriers. So that you can show that same amount of vulnerability. That's really what puts people in. But the reason why there are so many theater games and techniques and rehearsals and technical rehearsals is to try to get that authenticity across.
Speaker 1:So it seems like you must have had a lot of those same instincts as you know a professional actor would have. Yeah, simply because you know it's the same thing. You're up on a stage. Yeah, you're up on a stage, everybody's watching, and you have to lead them where to go.
Speaker 2:You know what's cool about that, amy? It's like so there's two things. I don't want to sell out that. There's another term that I would use all the time when I was training new tour guides, which is follow me leadership. Like you do have to post up as somebody that other people will feel comfortable following, so you do actually have to master some sense of like I've got this, I know what to do, you can trust me, you can follow me, even if I don't know all the names of all the plants or I know exactly if it's a left or a right at that intersection, like. So there's that duality, right Of being absolutely commanding and authoritative in your own skin, but also willing to say I'm not quite sure about this particular thing. So, like an actor on the stage, I think there are moments where that individual holds your attention, even when they themselves might not exactly know where they're going to go next.
Speaker 2:They have the confidence to be in that spot of discovery Right, and that's what makes it so interesting for an actor or for a career tour guide. Is that that sweet spot, not the like trying to look like you know I'm super duper and I want to get like the most sterling reviews and no one will ever say anything negative about anything about me. Like that's not a way to be relatable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, that's so true. So for people in the audience like me who have never heard the term authentic leadership before and maybe want to take steps towards that, what's the first thing that you would recommend?
Speaker 2:other than to sign up and take courses with you.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no. It's to know at least a little bit about who you are Like. Here's what I know from having traveled the world and like sat with some of the most interesting people that we've never heard of. Like think about some weaver in a Vietnamese village that takes silk yarn and makes these amazing tapestries, and what makes her so fascinating. I don't share language with her. I have like zero in common with her other than probably we both have beating hearts, but I don't understand her life story. I don't eat her food, I don't live in her village, and like for her to imagine what I did to come and visit her would blow her mind right.
Speaker 2:What makes people fascinating, what makes people so compelling and their authenticity is knowing what they're good at, knowing what they care about, and so through an interpreter you could learn about, like why this woman does what she does, or why she's good at, or what she thinks about when she does it, and that's what's authentic, right, like she's not trying to be anything other than exactly what she is or what she cares about, or what she does so well, like her craft so well. I would be coaching people all the time when they were becoming tour leaders or just leaders in any industry is to just use who you are Like. If you're a brilliant linguist, if you're really good with terms of phrase and metaphor, then you should be speaking, you should be writing, you should be communicating with words. But if that's not your jam, don't try to be that. Don't try to look like you're like some orator.
Speaker 2:If that makes you extremely nervous. Go do what you're good at. Teach what you know, be in your zone of genius. So I think the very first thing is knowing what your brilliant skill set is, what you're really good at, what you love to do. That's your authenticity, that's your like. Putting your finger in the light socket, that's it right there. That's helpful. I don't know if that would be helpful?
Speaker 1:Yes, it's very helpful. No, the next question that I wanted to ask was what was that process like for you?
Speaker 2:Oh, good question, I think. Well, I'm a junkie for personal development, so I probably have done all the assessments you know to know who I am and what makes me tick and all that type of thing. I think in the course of that I just knew like I'm an extrovert, I'm a connector, I like being inspired and in inspiration, and when you know those things, it doesn't matter exactly what you choose to do. You can be a mom, you could be artist lover, you can be an adventurer. You just express those things in whatever arena you end up choosing. And so that's probably how I did.
Speaker 2:It is through self awareness, right, Like all those assessments, I just came to know what my operating system is, how I run my how I like to be, how I can only be, and letting that be how I am in any circumstance. You know, my parents always thought I was going to give up this true guide thing and be a, you know, a stand up human and go back to grad school and get a quote unquote real job, capital R, capital J, right.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:But it didn't matter if I did that, that I could do that in my way or I could stay where I was and become the version of me that would be there, which was starting to create hiring and training and mentoring and managing models for that population and then expanding and exploding from what I'm good at in that realm. So the circumstance didn't matter. It was how I got to be and I just knew what turned me on.
Speaker 1:I think you're right. I know it was certainly my parents are listening, sorry, but they had the same desire. They want you to be secure, they want you to be okay, they want you to have health insurance. And so a lot of times we had to have that discussion Like, is it worth it to take this low paying job? That's what you want to do In terms of? Couldn't you find something that you almost like to do that has health insurance? Yeah, right. And I think you go through a lot of questioning and you ask yourself is that okay? Is what I'm doing okay? Because I love it so much.
Speaker 1:We're gonna take a quick break. We're with Joe Zuleika, who is a incredible once tour guide, now leadership coach and consultant, having trained over 5,000 people in our lifetime, and we're talking about communication and authentic leadership and how you can bring that to you. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the show Again. We're here with Joe Zuleika and Joe, I am just dying to know some of the nitty gritty details of when you were a tour guide. It must have been a crash course, a crash masterclass, I'll say, in communication and learning how to deal with groups of people who might not be feeling so happy at the moment.
Speaker 2:So tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that you're right. I mean, travel can bring so many unexpected circumstances and many of them can be undesired, certainly, and when we're disappointed, we're not at our best, and so I've seen a lot of disappointed people in my lifetime, people that I've depended on for my livelihood as a tour guide. It's definitely like a gratuity-based culture, so you really do wanna please people, you want them to be happy, give you a good review and hopefully give you a nice gratuity. So I've danced that dance between when people are disappointed and how you handle them. How do you master that? How do you help resolve conflict, especially when you can't control the weather, or that dinner's gonna be an hour and a half late or that there's not enough elephants to ride in Thailand, when you're on your elephant riding excursion, right, oh my God, shhh.
Speaker 1:I could say, that being a big disappointment. It was like I'm here. Why isn't the elephant?
Speaker 2:here Shhh.
Speaker 1:Hahaha.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, what you end up doing is you sacrifice, because my husband, I ended up marrying my co-tour guide which is a whole other podcast and I ended up hiking behind 14 elephants that day, and that was not very pretty, but because we had to give up our elephant, because we had to discount it. So, you know, sometimes you just get generous to help solve the problem. But I do actually have some tips that I've learned that maybe are humorous but actually might serve. People are better, they're easier to talk to when they're well fed and when they're well slept and when they're caffeinated.
Speaker 2:So, I kind of developed this rule that I often avoided making people talk to me when I knew they weren't at their best. So this looks like me surfing around the breakfast room 35 minutes after they've been seated and got their cup of coffee and have some food on their plate, not before that, when they're agitated and irritable.
Speaker 2:Because, there are times you don't want to insert yourself in a process where you can't control the outcome. So I can't control how fast the coffee's gonna come, but I can control when I come and say good morning.
Speaker 1:And so I come and say good morning after they have their cup of coffee.
Speaker 2:I also don't talk to people between three and five PM. This is not a rule in my real life now, but when they were getting off a bicycle or off a hike, that's not the golden hour.
Speaker 2:That's not the time that you wanna relate with people. They're hot, they're tired, they're sweaty, they haven't checked into their hotel room. You just kind of let them be. So there's some simple tactics of just recognizing sort of the ebb and flow of when humans are at their best and meeting them in those moments. But there's also ways that how can you help people get up to that baseline. So I mean, some of the simple things are. An easy trick for a tour guide is always to have something cold and sweet in your backpack. You're always popular when you have frozen strawberries at the summit of a mountain. You're always popular when you've got ice water. You're always popular when you're throwing out frozen otter pops from the roof of a 15 passenger van and 100 degree weather, right, wow.
Speaker 2:So make people happy with. Sometimes it's just we're animals, we need things right. But here's the other thing those are sort of facetious, but true. There are other things that I believe with my whole heart, that I teach until I can't stop talking about. It is how you actually can help deescalate some conflict that someone's feeling through a really, really simple tactic, and it is by using acknowledgement. It's by verbally acknowledging the frustration or feeling that another person is expressing to you.
Speaker 2:And this is the thing that I feel is so often glossed over in many conflict resolution models or trainings, where we think that we're understanding that, but if you're not actually verbally saying to someone I acknowledge that this is not up to standard. I acknowledge that this is disappointing. I understand that this isn't what you expected. I get it that you're frustrated when we say that we de-escalate the rising ire in anyone because they know that we've received what they're trying to express to us, and when you don't do that, they just feel like they have to continue to object or express or rise up and fight for their frustration. So it's kind of a long-winded way of me saying that that I learned how to acknowledge people.
Speaker 1:Was it frightening at first.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think at first I'm like a born people pleaser, socialized as a woman in modern society, so I always want everybody to smile and so when people are not happy, they make me nervous. I'm nervous around intimidating people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are times where I would you know that avoidance that I talked about first, of like not wanting to talk to people when they're not in a good mood that could definitely play out when there's conflict that needs to be addressed. But what I found was, if you're brave enough to name it, that individual will often feel like they don't. They could just let their shoulders drop a little bit and feel like, okay, and that. So it's something I kind of even as a reformed people pleaser, I sometimes have to really bolster my courage to do, to step into something and name something that is is on everybody's mind but is unsaid and it's intimidating. But I know that it's effective and I know that it brings great results. It brings honor upon yourself if you're willing to be brave and name something like that and not just be like oh well, you know, I'm sure it'll all be okay and let's just smile and be happy.
Speaker 2:That doesn't win followers. That doesn't make people feel like they can really trust you. It's not authentic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really like what you said be brave enough to name it, and I think a lot of times and there's certainly been a lot of times in my life where I'm just like I'm not going to name it and perhaps if I ignore it it will go away and then I won't have had to do it I certainly can avoid things like a champ, and I think a lot of people can, but I can see being on a mountain with no bathrooms makes you really have to name it. Yeah, I would imagine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what happens is it'll come back to haunt you If you don't. I sometimes say that problem solving or resolving conflict or deescalating the annoyance that might be present is sort of like being in one of those shooting ranges with clay pigeons. It's like things get boom and what you want to do is you want to hit that thing and blow it up. If a clay pigeon of a problem is lofted into the air, you need to smash it, not pretend like it didn't happen because, then it is still whole.
Speaker 2:Our job is to fully address something, to name it, to explain that we understand things didn't go the way that they wanted, that we wanted to pledge to do better or to give a reframe for how best to think about something. If somebody's under the mistaken assumption that it should be perfect and it can't be, we have to address it completely, to like really blow it up. Otherwise it's just still sitting there, it's not processed or metabolized. We just avoid. And so, yeah, I know you get it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the theme that keeps coming back to me is bravery, in that it takes bravery to start to be your authentic self, which starts with vulnerability and then being brave enough brave enough to name it and brave enough to deal with it head on. And I think I know you're right because you have 5,000 people that say so, and but you're resonating with me as well, because there have been times I've worked in sales and I've done a lot of stuff. And, yeah, when a person comes in angry because their phone has melted, even if they melted it, you have to sort of stand up and acknowledge it and be ready to go in head on.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's fascinating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was gonna say people wanna feel seen and when you do acknowledge what they bring to you, it helps them feel really seen and understood, which is absolutely key. If you're a medical professional or a customer service person, you want that person to feel like you get them and that you want them to win and that you're on their side, so I do. I think that's a really important quality.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, well that I mean. We're social creatures. We want to belong and feel part of a collective. We're not. There are very few of us that can survive truly isolated from society. And so you're just naming those qualities that, when they're present, the health of the individual blooms because their needs are being met in a way that's just human.
Speaker 1:So, just to finish up today, do you have a fun travel anecdote that you'd like to share with us?
Speaker 2:Ooh, that's a good one. I mean, there's so many, sure, I don't know. I think there was a time where I was traveling so much this may be a personal story that there this crazy thing would would happen to me and to my husband, both like we could be anywhere in the world just traveling on our own in between trips or what have you, and people would ask us questions like where's the bathroom, or do you know where the trailhead is, or what time does that restaurant open? And we would look at each other like we don't. What do we have this tour guide or like ask me, printed on my forehead.
Speaker 2:And what it was so funny is, I think, that we had gotten into such a vibe of just always moving with a sense of we can figure it out, that other people would almost smell it on us like odor, like it was just emanating from our pores. We know what to do and we never knew what we were doing. We were just fumbling through, you know, malaysia with a backpack. But I think this is different than fake it till you make it. It's it's trust that you have what you need to figure it out, and that trust is magnetic. It wasn't something I was trying to do, but I had it right and people around me that were strangers would feel it. So that might be just a fun kind of global anecdote that sometimes, even now, I look at my husband, I'm like, oh, I have to follow me on my forehead again. Somebody just asked me a question I have no idea the answer to. I must have the follow me sign lit up.
Speaker 1:So no, I believe it. If we have any tour guides listening, I think they're going yes right now, because that's probably happened to them to. That's fantastic. So so, just to recap what you said for our audience so be brave enough to name it. I really like that. And then you just had trust that you have what you need to figure it out, which I think is really important, because a lot of times we don't and you can get caught up in panic when you don't because you think, oh, I don't know this.
Speaker 1:And and also work towards your authentic self.
Speaker 2:I love that yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's. That's really nice. So, before we go, tell us a little bit about what you do and where people can get in touch with you if they'd like.
Speaker 2:Thanks, amy. So yeah, so now I am in business for myself as a leadership coach and consultant. I am found on all the interwebs via my handle Joe leader, so on YouTube I'm at Joe leader one women who lead with heart is my Facebook group, which is also goes by Joe leader on Facebook, and my website is wwwjoe leader calm, and my website is probably the best place to go to see all the ways that you can work with me. I have dozens of free trainings and downloads that I like to offer and there's some very low cost options to get some spot coaching from me. And then I have programs as well that help especially women in leadership find their brave, authentic voice, stop self doubt and spinning out in second guessing and finding their complete confidence. My programs called the completely confident leader and you can find all about it at wwwjoe leader calm.
Speaker 1:Wonderful, that's wonderful. Thank you so much, joe, for being here today, really appreciate you giving us your time. Yep, love it. Thank you again for joining us on the savvy communicator today. If you've got questions, we want to hear them. Go to wwwsavvy communicator. Calm and join our forum and let us know what you're thinking. Join us on Facebook and Instagram for the very latest that we've got to offer. Thanks so much for being here. Until next time.