Speaking and Communicating Podcast

The trick here, the way you can tell, not in how confident you're showing up at work, because you have competence there, how able are you to step forward when you have an idea that is outside of your comfort zone, and you do it anyway?

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 in to.

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

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Now, let's get communicating.

Now, let's get communicating with our guest today.

Her name is Cynthia Rivard.

Cynthia is joining us from North Carolina.

She is a leadership and intuition expert.

She's an author, spiritual teacher, and she's an environmental advocate.

She's had a long illustrious career as an executive, and she's here to teach us about compassionate communication and ego-less leadership.

And before I go any further, please help me welcome her to the show.

Hi, Cynthia.

Hello.

Thank you so much for inviting me on, Roberta.

I'm really looking forward to our conversation.

I'm excited that you're here, too.

Thank you for accepting the invitation.

Welcome.

Please introduce yourself to our listeners and viewers.

Okay.

Well, you just did a beautiful job.

Of introducing me.

I will just add, I guess, that in addition to be an environmental advocate, I'm an advocate for our future.

I'm a mother of four.

You know, when we talk about leadership and micro leadership, it all ties back into making a difference around us and for our world, making it better, so that our next generation has what we would envision as that better future.

That can start now with our micro leadership.

How's that for a lead in?

Yes, absolutely.

And I'm not a parent.

I've always wondered if you have children, like you say, a fourth.

And you see what's going on in the world.

And they say a parent's main responsibility is to prepare your children for the world.

How anxious do you get?

Or do you think I need to focus on teaching them and empowering them as much as I can, then I wouldn't be so anxious and I know they're going to be okay.

It's interesting because once you get to the teen stage and the young adult stage, they're not going to allow or mine wouldn't allow you to guide them so much.

But this is where we get into leading by example.

I very intentionally, at this point, set the example of proactive leadership and compassion, caring and trying to make a difference in the world.

It starts with us.

I mean, the oldest generation that can still contribute, which is older than you, of course, Roberta, but my generation and older, we need everyone involved and sharing our wisdom and mentorship and leading and guiding by example, so that that younger generation sees possibilities, and rather than hopelessness in the mess we've created, I don't want to get too down because there's a lot of beautiful things in the world.

If you look around your communities rather than just watching what's on the news, but there's a lot of despair and there's a lot of humanitarian crises and there's a lot of reasons for those kids to get despondent and think, well, you know, how can I make a difference?

And it really starts with each one of us and recognize the influence that we have through every phase of our life.

I imagine most of your audience would consider themselves to be a leader, but you don't have to have a title to lead.

But does everyone in your sphere of influence know that?

Can you help them see the impact and influence that they have?

And when they see us leading without ego and with compassion and communicating clearly, I know you talk about communication a lot.

But when they see us setting the positive examples, we show them what's possible.

I'll share a very personal example.

You know, I came into this through my intuition, really.

I started out a few decades ago in the workplace.

As I went into the workplace, the only examples that I saw of leaders was a very authoritarian style of leadership, which most of us understand now doesn't really work.

So I thought I had to emulate that.

And I did, but I did not enjoy it.

It worked because that was the environment, but it really did not resonate.

It did not feel good at all.

Most women feel that's the path to success, to leadership, because that's the example that they also stepped into.

We've had so many guests who are leadership coaches, and even when their clients say, I want to do things better with my team, I want to have a better relationship with them, because they still stepped into that environment, and that's all they are used to.

Especially when the company is doing well, they never have that pressure to change.

Right.

And when the person at the top, because they've been around the longest, and that's what they know, it's hard to be that trailblazer, when it feels like that culture expects leadership in a certain style.

I found, was my intuition, as I relaxed a little bit in leadership, and that happened with just having a position for a little bit, and getting to know the environment, I became more comfortable with what we consider feminine leadership, the more feminine qualities.

And to be clear, you have to have both.

You have to have the male and the female perfect blend to be a good leader.

But I got more comfortable with allowing my compassion to compel my relationships, and my listening, and my intuition to guide me a little more in my decision making.

And that was what really made me the best leader, but not just on a balance sheet.

I developed a very loyal team, and very low turnover, because they knew I cared, and I listened, and I valued their input.

If you have a leader who is listening, and is thinking, yes, I want those results as well, but do I have time to develop the whole relationship and compassion that Cynthia is talking about?

What would you say to them?

I would say that it's more of a paradigm shift than something that takes time, because you practice as you go.

If you are in the practice of self-reflection, you learn in the process.

So it doesn't have to take time.

If you just said, I'm going to be intentional in listening and attempting to understand their perspective, not necessarily agreeing with them, but listening and understanding them, then you reflect after your conversation to see where you could have done better.

You don't get there from reading books.

You get there in the field from experience, and the only way to get the experience is to take action and try it.

Just thinking about it doesn't cut it.

You heard it, now try it.

Definitely try it.

If you talk about ego-less leadership, let's talk about the ego-driven leadership.

What are some of the behaviors of a leader who displays that, so that we notice what that is, and then we say, okay, let's do something different about it.

Absolutely.

Well, generally someone who does not listen well, if you are in conversation with them more than once will become obvious.

Someone who does not seek other opinions or hear them, if they're given.

Someone who is seeking either personal gain, and that it's all about the bottom line, so that they look better.

They lead for the title and the positioning and looking better.

People who appear to be ego driven are really lacking in self-love.

And it may sound funny to talk about love when we're talking about leadership, but self-love, a lack of it is pervasive in all of our cultures, and people don't recognize it if they're confident leaders.

But if you're lacking in self-love, that will show up as a need to prove yourself through titles and position, and authority.

They need those external validations in order to feel that, ah, now I'm okay.

It's not intrinsic.

It doesn't come from the inside.

Right.

They're seeking the outside.

It also is fueled by our competitive culture.

You know, get the title, so you're doing better than the next guy.

The competitiveness of our culture leads to all-about-me ego-driven actions versus about the team, about how you're impacting, well, your customers, which will contribute to the bottom line, but also the environment and the ripple out from how your company operates.

If you're not looking at it from an ego-centric perspective, you'll keep an eye on the big picture and not just the balance sheet and position.

There's nothing wrong with titles and position, but there are other factors involved that should be contributing to our decision-making and how we interact with our teams.

But if they're being comparative, can we blame them?

Because I'm thinking, even at home, aren't we competitive when we are kids and you have a certain toy and the next door kid is a better one?

And you say, mom, please buy me that bicycle, mine sucks.

Don't we grow up in just generally a competitive society?

We play sports, which is competitive, and school grades make us competitive.

You always have these environments where I need to prove I'm better than the next guy.

It's absolutely true.

It's not necessarily ideal.

You know, if you go back 100 years, it wasn't such a competitive environment.

And if we can get to the point where we're more collaborative, I think the world would be a better place.

But the way we're structured now, there's always going to be some competitiveness.

I hear what you're saying, and it is absolutely how we were raised.

I don't believe that's a good thing, because there is more power in collaboration, especially in the workplace.

There's a lot of ways we can implement and benefit from collaboration rather than competition, or even competition with other businesses.

If you're standing out and you're unique, you don't have to compete.

Even collaborating in businesses.

I remember when I used to work in engineering, and if we have a project team, if we bid for a job alone, and it's multi-million dollars worth, versus building as a joint consortium of three engineering companies bringing different expertise, clients would actually like that, but they can say, oh, these three can handle it.

But that's the one.

If you come as a joint consortium and you're going to collaborate and work together, even the client has confidence in the fact that you have the capacity to handle this big job.

Absolutely.

That is the beauty of the mastermind.

Differing perspectives, coming together, shedding light, and one idea building on another, that's the juiciness that we get when we embrace collaborating and working together instead of in competition.

I love that you brought that up, because that's such a great example of why we want to foster that.

Thank you.

Do you have any experiences from your career where you saw that play out?

And would you like to share them with us?

Where there was collaboration or even team members?

Because I think as we were talking about being promoted to leadership positions, team members compete so that they look better than the next guy in order for them to be the one to be promoted.

Because the higher you go, the less are the positions of power, right?

So you want to look better than Cynthia, and so there's competition.

But if you're the leader, you would like them to collaborate so that they produce the best product for the client.

Right.

So how do you merge those two worlds, so to speak?

Every circumstance is different.

But I think it's easier to describe it if you are the leader of the team.

If you can get everyone working synergistically together, you're going to get better results.

If they're open to listening to other people's perspectives and brainstorming together, coming up with something better together than one of them could come up with alone, even if it's an individual project, you can encourage them to brainstorm and collaborate to just make sure they're not missing anything or use the mastermind to build on each other's ideas.

If you're two people going after the same job, I really don't have a good answer for that.

Other than, you know, things work out for a reason, and quite often if you have a lot of talent in one place and there's not enough avenues that upper management has worked out to allow for everyone's contributions and to feel challenged, they go elsewhere.

That's the downfall of having a competitive structure and only one person to get to that next level because you can have a lot of talent and you could creatively look at ways of using that talent or even restructuring your title.

So everyone feels engaged and involved and recognized.

Recognized.

Everybody's looking for significance.

Recognition is very key.

Did you ever promote anyone and did you evaluate and try to see what kind of leadership qualities they had?

Or did you just look at what they produce when it comes to their expectees?

Well, again, I think every circumstance or job may be different in what it needs to look for.

I was in tourism and customer service and would promote from within frequently and an ability to work with each other and an ability to be proactive and innovative were some of the qualities I would look for.

I would prefer always to promote from within, but then you have that balance as they're stepping into the new role, you know, and you have to really coach them through that because it's a new role and a new relationship with anyone else that's there that may have seen them in their last role.

It's an awkward stage, but I think that everyone can appreciate it if it's someone that handles it well and doesn't become ego-led and ego-driven, you know.

Because we've always wondered that very awkward conversation you just highlighted, if we were peers this whole time and suddenly, Cynthia promotes me and Kelly next door was my peer, she must then report to me.

How do we then break that new ice?

Because I would like to continue the relationship, but obviously something has shifted.

How do I reach out to Kelly and say, we're still good, but I still need that report on time.

Right.

Well, again, it depends on the dynamics and the reporting structure, because if that person is going to be doing their reviews and such, it might look a little different.

But I think it's always best to address any potential awkwardness upfront right away, the sooner the better, so things don't fester.

Even though it's uncomfortable for both of you, think about it in any relationship, a date you went on that if there's something awkward or potentially contentious, the sooner you address it truthfully upfront and with compassion, the better.

You might start out by just saying, hey, can we have a chat?

I've really valued all of this time working with you.

I think it's great.

I really understand a lot of your skills and your strengths, and I'm so glad that we will continue working together.

And I'm really going to value your input as we move forward.

I hope you will be comfortable.

It may take us a little while to get used to this.

Please speak up when you have ideas, or if there's something you're uncomfortable with right now, because I want to hear it and get through this phase quickly, so we can do the great work I know we're going to do together.

Recognition that they can still give input that is valuable.

I think that's very important.

Absolutely.

I mean, if you've been working side by side, you know their strengths.

I mean, yes, the main reason I think titles are desired is because it usually comes with more money.

Yes.

Unless you need that outward validation, there is that.

But a lot of times, truly, we could be happy doing without the titles, as long as we know we're contributing and it's acknowledged and appreciated.

That's really, really critical.

Everyone wants to be heard and have their value acknowledged and appreciated.

Absolutely.

Yes.

Now, earlier, when we were talking about intuition, you mentioned that you have both the masculine and the feminine.

So if a male leader is listening and they think, okay, I'm masculine, so I'll just bring my authoritarian male energy to the workplace.

It sounds like I'm good.

Based on what Cynthia said, what would you say to them?

Oh, no, no, no.

That's not what I said.

Don't go away with that.

To back up and just describe a little bit about what I mean.

And you're right, when you say the authoritarian, we think of that as more male attributes, the assertiveness and the dominance.

It doesn't have to be the good.

What we consider male qualities are decisiveness, analytical skills, and lots of women have those too.

You have to have those.

But we think of that as more male dominant traits, which is silly, but I'm just stereotyping because that's how we think of it.

And then the feminine is more compassionate and the people skills and the good listening, and the intuition, and the innovation.

We've got all the great stuff attributed to the female side, but the men have it too.

As long as they're comfortable in embracing it, and don't see it as a weakness, because it's really the compassion we need to set the tone.

And the male leaders, we need to see that so that the other male leaders know it's okay.

It's a little bit more common, because being female, it's accepted a little more.

And with men, it may be seen as a weakness, depending on the group and the culture.

We need those men to really lead by example, and show how they can balance those traits, and yes, be decisive and analytical, and make decisions good for the company, but also not lose sight of our humanness and our compassion, and see the person, not just the profit.

And I'm not saying most men are like that, but there are cultures that expect that.

But we want that balance in everybody, to have the best, most collaborative, and productive, profitable work environments.

We need everyone able to bring that balance to the table.

We certainly do need the balance.

And when you think about the new generation, what has it been like when it comes to leadership traits?

Are they more because of all this exposure to knowledge and the internet?

Are they more aware of leadership traits that they should develop within themselves?

So, my children are young adults.

They're in their 20s.

And if you were raised prior to the 1990s, you were more than likely raised by an authoritarian parenting style.

And then as we moved forward, that changed a little bit.

I think there are a lot more young people secure in who they are and having enough self-love to believe in their self-worth and their self-esteem and not need all of those external ego-led gratification.

You know, if you are older and not used to that confidence, that may not be seen as positive.

But I think it's a great thing that they're coming into the workforce with that self-love.

That gives them confidence even when they haven't done something before.

And perhaps that may come across as cockiness.

But we know that you have to do something before you gain competence in it.

And you have to be confident to try it.

So it's a really good thing.

Yes.

Actually, I think at any age, that's how you learn.

Everything is worth a try.

Yes.

It's delightful that there are more young people that are able to embrace that than some of the older generations could.

It seems as though ego-driven is obviously the opposite of self-love.

So do you have any tools or do you have anything on your website that our viewers and listeners can tap into in order to develop that self-love or in order to work on it?

I did.

I'm not sure if self-love training is up there right now, but I do have some free resources on my website.

And if anyone wants to reach out to me, I do have some training I can connect you with.

It is a free resource with my latest book.

I know I included it there, but I don't think it's on the website anymore.

It really is worthwhile if you just recognize that it's an area you need to work on.

That is a great first step.

A lot of people don't recognize it.

The trick here, the way you can tell, not in how confident you're showing up at work because you have competence there.

How able are you to step forward when you have an idea that is outside of your comfort zone and you do it anyway?

Because people who have enough self-love and trust if it appears to be a good idea, you know, it's not really rash, they will do it.

They will trust that they'll figure it out or they'll recover if they quote unquote fail.

And they will do it because they have self-trust and self-worth and they know the only way to learn is to try and fail forward, get that feedback loop going.

Right.

So people with self-love are more confident in new situations, you know, competent until you do it.

So that's a tip for figuring out or really reflecting on whether you fall into that category or not.

You mentioned your book, A New Breed of Leadership.

Yes.

Because we talked about the authoritarian type of leadership, that this new intuitive, egoless leadership, what is the one thing any leader listening can start working on right now?

So we've mentioned self-love.

Is there anything else?

Yes.

Yes.

I really believe the path to healing and peace, whether it's in the world or in our office group or our families, starts with compassion.

You can begin to develop that by thinking about someone who really rubs you the wrong way, and you don't have to like them.

You could think completely differently on things, and so you're like oil and water.

Think about someone like that, and then try and shift your perspective, and think about why they think that way, or why they behave that way, what could be going on for them.

I talk a lot in the book about subconscious and stinctual programs that are at play, and we can see this all over the place, with people fighting so hard to hold on to their beliefs, and not wanting to listen to other people's perspectives, and to villainize anyone that's not like them.

We see this all over the place, and that is subconscious programming coming out.

And it's the same thing with our fear or freeze response.

You can become aware of why they're doing what they're doing, and begin to have compassion.

That's the only way to open up conversations, to actually listen to each other, is through the gate of compassion.

And it's hard when you're completely opposite.

So we start by trying to find common ground, commonalities, but also what is it in their childhood that created their way of behaving or thinking.

Until we become aware, it informs how we're showing up, and how we behave, and what we believe, and how we fight for those beliefs.

And there's a reason people act the way they do.

And when you just step back and try to think about, well, why are they behaving this way?

They didn't wake up this morning and just decide they were going to be a jerk.

Hopefully not.

What's behind their beliefs and their behaviors?

And you can just open that door up in yourself for creating compassion.

Other people, they'll sense that in you.

And if you're speaking to that other person, they'll sense that and relax a little bit.

And other people will see it in you as well.

That's what I mean when I talk about leading by example.

You will set the example in compassionate leadership.

That is so true.

Cynthia Rivard, the Leadership and Intuition Expert, who's had an illustrious career as an executive, teaching us how to have compassionate, ego-less leadership.

Thank you so much for this conversation.

I'm glad that you were on our show today.

Thank you.

It has been a delight speaking to you.

It's a great conversation.

I appreciate you having me, Roberta.

Have a great afternoon.

Pleasure as well.

You too, Cynthia.

Before you go, would you like our listeners to reach out to you?

Please give us your website details.

Oh, absolutely.

Thank you.

cynthiarivard.com.

If you can remember that, it's R-I-V as in Victor, rd.com.

And you can find my free resources and information on both my books there and a link to my YouTube channel with lots of free trainings.

I will put that on the show notes, cynthiarivard.com.

And her upcoming book is A New Breed of Leader.

I will put all those details on the show notes.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Roberta.

My pleasure.

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

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