Speaking and Communicating Podcast

It has been the leaders who have been willing to be vulnerable, to do that work, to see the ugly, right, and go through that messy middle of growth.

Those are the individuals that I've seen to be the most effective.

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating Podcast.

I am your host, Roberta Ndlela.

If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into.

Communication and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development.

And speaking of leadership, this exciting month of April, we have a special leadership series where every single guest will be a leadership coach, a leader in their own organization, and they will be helping us become better leaders ourselves.

And to top it off, we have three episodes per week instead of the usual two.

We will be publishing three episodes per week, Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, instead of the usual two episodes a week in this special leadership series in April.

So stay tuned, become a better leader, and log on to Apple and Spotify to give us a rating and a review.

And let's get communicating.

And now let's get communicating with Sabine Gedeon, who is, let's see how great a fit she is for the show, an author, speaker, career, and leadership strategist.

Hi, Sabine, welcome to the show.

Hi, Roberta.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm excited to be here and excited for this conversation.

My absolute pleasure.

Thank you so much for being here.

Welcome.

I'm excited as well.

Where in the US are you based?

I am in San Diego, California.

Very nice.

So tell us a little bit about yourself.

Well, I won't bore you with all of the details, but my career started out very, very linear.

I decided I was going to major an undergrad in human resources at the recommendation of one of my teachers in high school.

Went to school for human resources, started my career in human resources, which most people don't even do anymore.

They don't go to school for the same thing that they start their career with.

I started in recruiting.

I had no idea what recruiting was, but I was excited about being out there, talking to people and engaging.

I did that for about 10 years of my career.

And if you know recruiting, you are on all the time pretty much.

You are communicating with people and not just communicating with the things that you are talking about, but you are asking questions and you are getting to the answer beneath the answer.

So actually my time in recruiting was the training that I needed that set me up to become an effective coach.

I did recruiting for about 10 or 12 years and then found myself wanting to expand my HR career.

I went back to school, got my master's in management organizational leadership, wanted to step into this HR business partner role, got the role, and within six months, I was just like, I can't, I can't do this.

This is not what I signed up for.

And at the time, the eager beaver me, I didn't have a plan B.

That was my plan A.

I was driving towards it and I got it, and it wasn't what I expected.

Part of that was because I had outgrown the 23-year-old version of me that wanted to be the HR business partner.

And then secondly, I was in a different environment.

I was in a different organization, and their HR model was a lot different from what I had been used to or what I had idolized as the essential career.

I found myself needing to take a step back and asking myself two questions.

And they are questions that I've been asking my clients since then.

The questions were, when have you felt the most alive and when have you felt the most fulfilled in your career?

Two answers came back to me.

It was when I was sitting across from internal candidates, employees, helping them map out their career and then reverse engineering all of the things that they needed.

What were the projects?

What were the skills?

What were the stretch assignments that they could raise their hands for?

And then the other time was when I was sitting behind closed doors with leaders, and I got them to be vulnerable.

I got them to be human, believe it or not.

I didn't always get the nice, friendly leaders under my belt, if you will, as a business partner.

And so to see these individuals who had these reputations, on the people side, for not being that great, but they got really great results.

And then to be behind closed doors, and the cape was off, and the bravado was off, and they were just simply themselves.

And you could see a peek into the person who was carrying the weight of stress and everything else, and how that was translating or being projected in the workplace, and being able to support them in that capacity.

That gave me that jolt that I needed.

When I was ready to step outside of corporate to say, okay, I wanted to continue to support leaders, because while we may bash on leaders quite a bit, and there's a lot of that, especially now, I do still believe that they are the most underserved in terms of their own development in organizations.

They get thrown into roles, and even when they're at the highest levels, some of them really are faking it until they make it.

They rely on their teams, but they're still human beings.

And so I wanted to be able to support them because I know the impact that they have when they're not okay, the impact that that has on the organization and everyone else who reports into them.

And then of course, I'm a big proponent of growing, having a growth mindset, wanting to be a continuous learner.

So for individuals who are at phases in their career where they want to do the next thing and they may not know what that next thing is or how to get there, I love being able to help them strategize and figure what that looks like.

And so I've been doing that for the last five years, within my own business.

And in between that, wrote a couple books, started a podcast, and tried a whole bunch of different things in this entrepreneurial journey.

Excellent.

What an illustrious career.

There's so much to unpack there.

We're going to talk about the leadership part later in supporting them.

But first, let's talk about when you said you went to study the master's and realized this is not what you signed up for.

A lot of people face that challenge, thinking, I need to study this.

Is it college's fault to not give you the full picture of if you study this, this is what your job is going to look like?

Or it's up to you to do the due diligence and say, do I really want to carry on on this path, which means then I have to get this type of education?

Yeah, I think it's a combination of both.

So what I didn't share is that I'm actually an immigrant from Haiti, and so I am first generation everything.

My out, if you will, from like my earlier beginnings, was school, was through education.

And so my parents, they drilled in me, immigrant parents, like, you can't get an A-minus, you failed, basically.

And so there was already programming within me that said, the way to get ahead is to go to school, right?

Or school was the outlet, if you will, to get ahead.

So I knew that after undergrad, that nothing I learned in undergrad translated.

But there was a mindset of more certifications, more education, that's how you get ahead.

I think the other piece too is organizations are really the reflections of the people who are there.

And so while you may have one experience, same department, same function in one organization, right?

There's a certain culture, there's a certain way of being.

You go into another organization, and that's not the case.

And so the two differences, and even though I had obviously probably worked at like five organizations throughout my career before I stepped out on my own, what I recognized of the organization that I started with, so alluring about the HR business partner, they had a very structured, mature model of the HR function.

While they were always looking to grow and develop, the structure itself was very advanced.

That final company that I got to, they were in the process of doing a transformation, and they were starting with the technology and not the people.

And so it was very much an organization where the resources were put towards the business and not the HR function.

So the experience in trying to do an HR transformation and be in an organization that had X amount of dreams but weren't willing to put the resources behind the function, it's a combination of those things that caused me to see that, okay, this isn't where that dream is going to work out for me.

But I also think that everything is divine, right?

I think if I had gone into an organization and it had been like gravy, I might have never taken the time to stop and ask myself those questions and really assess, am I still living out the 23-year-old version of me, or am I being true to who I am right now and what I'm being called to do at this phase of my life and career?

Is that when you launched Gedeon Enterprises?

Yeah, so well, Gedeon Enterprises is a variation of multiple.

So I had actually launched my business career coaching.

So I was doing resume writing, interview coaching back in 2011.

So this is when I was at another company.

I read a book about starting my own business and got excited about that.

But you know, when you're not committed to it and you have a steady paycheck coming in, I was not paying attention to it.

I was just like, okay, if someone asked me.

And then, of course, when you're dealing with friends and family, they don't want to pay you.

So I couldn't see.

We don't want to have that discussion.

So I couldn't see a correlation between actually making a living as an entrepreneur or a coach based on what I was experiencing.

So I started the business and it was something that was just in the back of my head.

It's like you plant a seed and those seeds were planted so that I think when I was ready or when I was coming to the place of being okay with being ready, those seeds had germinated for about five, six years until I made the leap.

And then now let's talk about the leadership aspect.

We talk about leaders on this podcast so much.

First, you mentioned the vulnerability part.

And to try and look at both sides of the argument, we always say sometimes they don't have time for the mooshi stuff because they have work to do.

24 hours a day is not enough.

So when they take the time to be vulnerable with you, why do you think they feel safe enough in your presence to be vulnerable?

Well, I've always had this and I don't know that I recognized it even as a kid, but I've always had this curiosity where I'm not afraid to ask anybody a question or to spark up a conversation with anybody.

The second piece, too, is I've always looked at it as we're both human.

You put on your pants one leg at a time like I do.

So this whole, you know, you get into corporate and you're like, oh, my gosh, there's a CEO.

This expectation of like you have to treat them differently.

I just never had that.

Not to confuse it with not respecting their position.

We do respect their position, but if you are listening, yes.

Yeah, that fear or that intimidation that you often see, especially in very hierarchical environments.

I never had that.

That may have hurt me or it may have helped me.

I think it helped me in the end.

So for me, when it came to having conversations with leaders, I wasn't afraid to say something seems off.

What's going on?

Or are you OK?

You seemed a little angry back there.

So I wasn't afraid to have those conversations.

Let me ask you a question, because a lot of people might think that, but they're wondering, is this going to trigger my boss and then jeopardize my job, my potential promotion if I ask that question?

You know what I mean?

A lot of team members think that some things where I feel like in this environment, at least, I don't think I can just ask him, unless it's a formal performance interview setting.

Yeah, so let me just clarify.

I wasn't walking into the head of the CEO's office and saying, hey, you seem a little off.

In my capacity as an HR leader, I had business units, certain business units that I was responsible for supporting.

And oftentimes, I was working with whoever the head of that department was in the business.

And so naturally, just like with anything, you have to build trust very, very quickly.

Coming into HR or being in HR, being able to support the business, you have to know what is their business, what are their pain points, how are they making money, what are their challenges.

And so I'm coming into these conversations knowing that it's not the first day that we're having these conversations.

Let me just clarify that.

I have built trust.

I have built that relationship.

I have built it where they can see that I am someone who was truly an HR business partner, regardless of whether I was in recruiting or any other function.

And as we had conversations behind closed doors, I wanted to get to know the person.

I think that that's a key point.

When you engage with anyone, right?

And you engage with them only on business, like, oh, hey, how's the weather?

Or how was your weekend?

If you keep the relationship surface level, it's always going to be surface level.

So true.

I had a guest recently.

He's the CEO of his own company.

He said one of the determining factors, no matter how beautiful your resume looks, if for the first two minutes while waiting to set everything up, you don't even know how to make small talk, he won't even consider you.

I make small talk all the time before we record and after we record.

So he told me that after recording, he said, you see, because you had small talk with me for like 10, 15 minutes, I knew that I was going to have a great conversation.

Some people will come and say, oh, it's my interview.

Let me be quiet, look formal and be nervous.

I know everybody gets nervous, but he says, unfortunately, that's one of the reasons some will not get the job.

Yeah.

And you have to think about it, even in the context of communication, right?

Like verbal and nonverbal communication.

At the end of the day, everybody wants to be seen, they want to be heard, and they want to be valued.

And so if you go into any interaction with that mindset of curiosity and that you want this person that you're going to engage with to be seen, to be heard, and to feel valued, that will be reciprocated.

You don't need to get deep into their business for them to share with you.

They will feel that.

We, as human beings, we feel that, and we know when it's authentic, and we know when it's fake.

And then the parts they are vulnerable about, what are some of the heavy loads that they say they feel that they carry being leaders?

Yeah, well, back then, it used to be stuff that had nothing to do with the job often, right?

You'd find out a leader is going through a divorce, or their kid's going off to college, and so they're stressed, or in some cases, especially with some of the women that I worked with, they had learned to become this person because it was their only way to survive.

And they didn't realize that they were still behaving in ways that may have emasculated certain groups of their team.

But now, as I'm coaching individuals, first of all, everybody's stressed out.

I think it's an extension of the pandemic.

While people say we had time to pause, some of us did have time to pause, and some of us paused.

Some of us were so busy trying to get back to what we used to that we never gave ourselves the space to pause.

And then we're in the state right now where between all of the world events that are taking place, between the threats of economic downfall, the threat of AI, what that means, how do you stay competitive, there's just a lot that is competing for leaders' attention, for their time, for their energy.

And when I say leaders too, I just want to clarify, I'm talking about everybody.

My leadership philosophy is that we are all leaders, but for those who have the burden on their shoulders, that's a huge burden.

And so they're trying to navigate, how do I manage all this stuff and show up as compassionate and show up as empathetic and show up as being all these things within the organization, because that's what's required right now for leaders.

Organizations are certainly becoming more people driven.

I'm always fascinated when a coach works specifically with women, because here's the thing, women have this challenge of, we're not going to have this muscular and feminine debate, but you know what I mean, like a lot of places you find they were male dominated, and now I'm the first woman in the boardroom, and I have to put on this persona or become one of the men in order to compete.

Is that the requirement to succeed?

Should they just be sweet, gentle women if that's who they are?

How do you coach women in their careers when they start entering male dominated industries?

Yeah, that's a really great question.

And the example that I gave earlier, it was one of the senior leaders where she was an engineer back in the 80s.

And so being an engineer in the 80s as a woman was not easy.

She didn't have the rules to protect.

And so she learned how to build that guard up, how to be that person.

And here we were in the 2000 something, and she was still operating from that.

So I think a couple of things, right?

We are seeing this shift where there are more women in leadership now than there have been before.

The challenge is not necessarily how we're showing up, but how those who are in positions of leadership, how they are modeling what leadership should look like.

When I think about when I first came into corporate America, it was mostly boomers who were in those senior leadership seats.

I mean, it still is.

But they were also women who had come from very hierarchy-type organizations and cultures, and they very much had this command and control style.

But again, it goes back to once I knew their stories, like I learned one had her dad was in the military.

And so it was very much a you got to be tough type situation.

And so for me, I think as I've been coaching individuals, I always go back to what is your story?

Because I think that many of us without even recognizing it, we are recreating patterns from our childhood, or we're creating traumatic events that we've experienced.

And it's not until someone puts up that mirror, or something causes us to have to take a step back and look at that, that we're like, oh, wait, I don't need to be that person anymore.

So I'll give you an example of someone that I recently coached, who is a COO of a very successful company.

And she's on the spectrum, right?

Intelligent, brilliant.

And so I think what I have come to learn was that there has been a lot of need to prove for her and her growing up and recognizing that, you know, she has to be exceptional in different ways than other people.

And so when it came to accountability, when it came to giving feedback, it was always met with defensiveness.

And at first, I couldn't understand this is to support you.

But then again, you understand someone's story and you recognize, okay, these are the things that they've had to work through.

And as a result of working through these things, they were being rewarded for certain types of behavior.

So when I as the coach come along or when you come along, you're kind of like, well, about that, it goes against everything that they believe.

So my approach is usually, you know, I'm not going in and saying you're doing this wrong or you should behave this way, or this is how it should be.

I want to understand what are your stories?

What are some of the messages that you got?

How are you still being rewarded?

Are they being reinforced?

Is that behavior being reinforced?

And if it's no longer serving you, how do you want to show up?

Yes, especially because, and we always say coaches are not here to tell you what to do.

We ask questions.

We just keep peeling the layers, going deeper until you come up with the answers yourself.

And when you do that, you are most likely going to follow through with whatever has been decided.

But the self-awareness aspect then, once you've worked with them and they start to realize, oh, this is why I was triggered because I was rewarded for this behavior, how do you literally just put them through an exercise of self-awareness so that even when you're gone, they will notice that, hey, I'm doing it again.

Yeah, I would love to believe that they do the work.

We as human beings, we regress, or we'll go back to whatever is familiar when triggered or when stressed.

But one of the exercises that I love to do, especially when it comes to self-awareness, has nothing to do with what's happening in the moment.

I'm a firm believer that when we are clear on who we are, then we can look from a different lens.

So a lot of us are being the way that we're being based on who we believe we are, based on how we see the world, right?

And so one of the questions that I always ask my clients, especially early in the beginning, is who are you?

Oftentimes, as you can imagine, I'm met with, you know, oh, well, I'm a mom and I'm a sister, and I'm vice president of senior executive.

We love our titles.

Yes, all the titles, all the roles, all the identities.

And then I will continue to ask that question, who are you?

And you get to a place where it's either met with frustration because they're like, if you ask me that question one more time.

Now I'm losing my patience with you, Sabine.

Are we going somewhere with this?

I'm paying for this coaching session, remember?

Yes, yes.

Or you get to that moment where they're just like, huh, I guess I don't know the answer to that question.

And that's where I know I've made that breakthrough.

And that's where I know this is where we're going to build on.

And the reason why that's so important is just because of what we've been talking about.

We carry all these titles.

We take all these experiences.

And our subconscious mind is recording all of it.

We get to the place where we believe this is our truth or this is the truth.

And it's not until you can unravel, because I can't tell you that the sky isn't blue, because you're going to look up at it.

You're like, it's blue.

I can show you science that proves that it's blue.

There are things external to us that I cannot argue with you, or I can't get you to change your mind.

But when it comes to who you are, when you can get to that place where you get down to the core of this is who I am or I don't know who I am, then you can start to build.

And from there, we build on, okay, well, what are the things that are important to you?

And then that's where the values conversation comes in to play, right?

You're no longer selecting values because authenticity sounds great or integrity sounds great.

All the buzzwords that I'm running around the internet.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's what we do.

We, oh, okay, yeah, integrity.

That sounds great.

I want to be integrist, and so that's my value.

But it's not.

So once we get to who are you, we get to what are your values?

What's important to you?

Because I think that that's important because when we set our values or when we establish our values or recognize them, I feel like those are the north stars, if you will, for us and how we operate, how we treat ourselves, how we treat others, how we engage with vendors, how we engage within our organization.

And so that should be the foundation because how we do one thing is how we do everything, whether or not we recognize it.

So we get to who are you, what are your values, and then what do you want?

Like what is your vision for yourself?

What is your vision for your department, your company, whatever it is, what is that vision?

What we've seen are a lot of people, especially call it first-time managers or your first time in corporate America, no one's sitting you down and having this conversation.

They're just like, this is the organization, this is the culture, this is how we do it.

And then we just start on life.

We start on the hamster wheel, just like everybody else, until something happens or until we get to a place where we're just like, this is not working, and then we do that deep work.

It has been the leaders who have done, have been willing to be vulnerable, to do that work, to see the ugly, right, and go through that messy middle of growth.

Those are the individuals that I've seen to be the most effective, because then it's not about doing something to check it off the box or trying to relate to their people.

They're just naturally being who they are, and they are drawing to them their businesses, their organizations, their departments, people who can see that authentically.

And then just a quick mention of your book, The Journey to Becoming.

You talk about your childhood trauma, and I'm wondering, is some of the work you do influenced by that somehow?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I have a theory that every person who steps into any type of healing work, whether it's coaching, psychiatry, or anything like that, our experiences were the springboards or the preparation, if you will, for us to then turn around and help other people.

So going back to that earlier thing, the reason why I always get back to what's your story is because I understand.

I have a story, and I know that because of my story and my experiences, I've shown up as different ways and not so great ways towards people, because I was operating from a place of hurt, a place of abandonment, you name it.

You fill the blank in.

And so when I see someone who is operating from that space, it goes back to having compassion and having empathy and seeing and acknowledging that person.

What's your story?

What really happened?

Now, I recognize it.

As a coach, I'm not here to be your therapist, but it's almost like you can't move forward if you don't first acknowledge what pricked you, if you will.

Right.

And then you are the host of a podcast.

Please give us a brief summary of what it is and what kind of content do you focus on?

Yeah, thank you for that.

So it's called She Leads Now, and the focus, when I first started it, I just wanted to tell stories of powerful women.

And by powerful women, I meant all women.

Coming out of the pandemic, you know, with the great resignation, the conversation was around women were leaving the workplace, and this was happening with women, this was happening with women.

And I wanted to re-center it, that women were leaving the workplace, not because they just got tired of working, but this is the load, this is what they were doing, this is the amazingness of these women.

And I wanted also to highlight women who were pioneering, who were paving the way, who were being the advocates for other women, for employees all over the country.

Though it is shifting because I've recently gone through another transforming experience in this last year.

And I want to get to the heart of, I recognize that I can help people strategize their career all day long.

I can do that in my sleep at this stage.

What I really want to do is to help people become effective, impactful, and influential.

And I truly have come to learn that we can't do that if we're still wearing masks, and we're still hiding behind titles, and we're still hiding behind identities and roles that no longer serve us.

So 2024, the podcast is still going to be very focused for ambitious, driven women who want to make an impact.

But I'm going to get to the heart of some of the things that we don't speak about, that we all know that we're experiencing.

She Leads Now podcast host Sabine Gedeon, who is also the author of The Journey to Becoming, which you can find on Amazon.

This has been so wonderful.

I love listening to you.

Thank you so much for being here today.

I appreciate it.

Thank you so much for having me.

And before you go, where can we find you online or the socials?

Yep, I actually have some free gifts, so you can go to sabinegedeon.com/gifts.

So G-I-F-T-S.

And if you are on LinkedIn, let's connect on LinkedIn.

That's where I live.

That's where I play.

Let me know that you heard me on Roberta's show, and I will be happy to connect with you.

Yeah, we love free gifts.

Thank you, Sabine.

I'm going to put all those details on the show notes.

Thank you very much.

We appreciate that.

My absolute pleasure.

This has been such a fun conversation.

That was Sabine Gedeon, the author, speaker, career, and leadership strategist, host of She Leads Now podcast, and author of The Journey to Becoming.

Thank you for joining us on the Speaking and Communicating Podcast once again.

Please log on to Apple and Spotify, leave us a rating and a review and what you'd like for us to discuss on the show that will be of benefit to you.

We encourage you to continue to get communicating and let us know how communication skills continue to improve your life professionally and personally.

And stay tuned for more episodes to come.