The Business Leadership Podcast

Jeannie Diefender
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Jeannie: [00:00:00] if you walk into any organization and regardless of level or title, you pick a random human being and you say, how would you describe your company's values?

And in that simple answer, you could generally tell, whether or not the company is living their values in everyday life, right? Because leaders often talk about values in a practiced way because it's a script, but the real values of the organization is the very fabric of the way people behave.​

Salli: you are listening to the Business Leadership Podcast with Edwin Fondozo.

Edwin: Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening whenever, wherever you are checking this out. Thank you for joining me on another episode of the Business Leadership Podcast. On this episode, I had the opportunity [00:01:00] to sit down with Jeanie Diefenderfer. She is the Chief Executive Officer at Higher Ambition Leadership Alliance, which is a nonprofit community formed by and for CEOs committed to building high performing organizations that deliver superior economic and social value. Jeannie's experience spans corporate executive leadership, academic board service, and stewardship of purpose-driven nonprofits.

In our conversation, you'll learn how courageous leadership has evolved over time and how authenticity, and how being authentic is key to being a success of a leader. We also talk about how being a human-centered CEO can help an organization, be more successful, especially during difficult times. We also talk about how asking other questions can teach you a lot about yourself, including your alignment with your own values. [00:02:00] This episode is brought to you by Slingshot Communication, the Business Leader's Preferred Cloud Form System.

Without further ado, here we go.

[00:02:09] Start of interview
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Edwin: Welcome to the Business Leadership Podcast Jeannie.

Jeannie: Great to be here, Edwin. Thank you for having.

Edwin: I really enjoy, the mission or the purpose of Ambition Leadership Alliance. why, finding this purpose or this higher purpose that will, bring out the better of the people or the leadership teams that they work with. But how have you seen that really change being in the role that you're in now?

Jeannie: So I would say most of my life being in a big company I felt a lot of leaders have great intentions about. Their desire to lead with intentions, purpose, values, the right culture, wonderful desires, but to actually act upon them [00:03:00] and show through behavior how they practice the art of purpose and higher ambition, leadership in their organizations is actually not as common to.

and my aim through this organization and the work with my CEOs is to, one, elevate the platform of these people who practice it every day, but also give an opportunity for others to learn about the how the acting upon. Values can produce not only greater employee engagement, but loyalty, trust, confidence, and in the end, all those combined together produce better performance.

Edwin: Where does the courage come from these leaders to, to change?

Jeannie: I would say the courage actually comes from their background. A lot of them talk about what [00:04:00] they learned as a child. They talk about their parents, their grandparents, their coaches, their teachers. So that's not that unusual, right? We are the product of our. And many of them talk about that when I asked them where does this come from?

This courageous sort of way of leading. But I do think that traditionally large corporations have adopted command and control methods, and it's just a history of the corporation in many ways, right? Just like we move from caring only for shareholders to, now we're talking about stakeholders whoever thought.

the sense of belonging is a phrase that we would use in corporations today. When I was growing up, anything other than hard facts was considered sort of soft stuff, right? . And yeah, it was a nice to have, not necessarily a must have. So I think the world has changed and in many [00:05:00] ways it has allowed leaders who have this authentic way of leading.

an opportunity to show themselves to the world and their employee base, so they feel more comfortable being more authentic, more vulnerable and relatable. And not afraid to talk about themselves when they speak with their employees or their colleagues. . So I think it's been an evolution and my hope is that as people start to develop that muscle, it gets easier and more scaled for all of us.

Edwin: Have you seen maybe some type of patterns or the type of person That will bring in this change into their organization.

Jeannie: So I would say that there is this sense of leaders who find it easier. To show up more authentic comes from generally the [00:06:00] way they let the led their lives in their personal life and who they had to look up to in their both personal life and professional life to learn from. We are animals of condition.

over the years, and I found that courageous leaders tend to become more so because they have the fortune and sometimes it's by chance, right? Because when you're young, you don't necessarily go around looking for courageous leaders, right? You're just heads down and doing the job. But many of us by chance or by luck, happen to be surrounded by one or two or.

Others who teach us how to behave more courageous. And then it's you get conditioned by them and then you get Positive reinforcement. I certainly did when I behaved that way and I got some positive feeling, oh, this is good. I'm gonna do more of this. And it feels safer, it [00:07:00] feels better as a leader to stretch my arms a little bit.

And then that's how you become, and then you tend to flock with other people with the same kind of wings, right? And You create that scaled version of creating the cohort. So to speak.

Edwin: Are you seeing it getting adopted, especially when they're having the dialogue with their entire.

Jeannie: Yeah, I would say that it's more most expeditious when that kind of behavior comes from the top, right? Because when you have the top of the house, who believes in that kind of values, who practices that way, it's easier for the people underneath to look up and adapt those behavior. , can it be done?

If it's not at the top, I do believe it can be done. I just think it's harder, and I do think it takes longer to create that critical mass below the c e o to actually make that adaptable. I would say. And when the ceo, this is [00:08:00] why our organization really focuses on being CEO sponsors. because when we have the core of CEOs, we find that the adaptability of the leadership team underneath is exponentially faster.

Edwin: I'd love it if you could touch base on some of the distinctive ways that these human centered CEOs really fuel the performance.

Jeannie: Yeah. And it's how we started Edwin, right? They're definitely characteristics of those people who embody human-centered CEO attributes. And I would say one distinct one is the sense of being okay with being vulnerable and being okay to say I had a very difficult. . And we luckily the silver lining of the pandemic of course was that when CEOs had to have meetings where there were the same size Hollywood box like everybody [00:09:00] else, and you saw them sometimes in the background of their own homes, Granted, their homes may be much nicer than others.

But I heard from CEOs who said I had issues. I had three kids trying to learn online using up the same internet bandwidth, . I had elderly parents living with me who had to be cared for. So all the stress levels, right? What's so fascinating about the pandemic. It really became a forcing function of an equalizer and it created an environment where everybody, bar none had a similar experience and it human-centered CEOs because just who they are, they took that to say, I need to focus my energy on generally two things.

One, keeping my [00:10:00] employees safe and two, business continuity. Keeping the business alive and it became very clear for them. Two, be humans to say, these are the kind of things I'm gonna do. I'm having issues myself with lots of these things. We are gonna do it together. . And sometimes I'm gonna be successful.

Other times I'm gonna trip up, you're gonna see it all, and we are gonna work together to, come out on the other side. And it, it became a rallying cry for employees to watch that authentic way of leading and being a human being to say, you know what, one, I trust that person because that person I can relate.

I, I could tell that they're not telling me stories. That's not true, and they may not have all the answers, but I trust that they're really, they have the [00:11:00] right goals in mind. They have my best interest in mind, and therefore I'm gonna do everything I can to support them.

Edwin: ~Yeah. What's really important and I could really relate this cuz as I did podcast interviews I didn't do as many during, when Covid happened, 2020 I actually gave myself permission not to,~

Jeannie: ~Oh, good for you.~

Edwin: ~take in what was happening as well. But it, but what's really interesting is how you mentioned that everyone really became like, equal.~

~everyone had the same challenges, and I think maybe this was evident before Covid, but Covid really showed, Hey, we're in this all together.~

~Let's let's get through this together. We don't know what's happening and this is bigger than our business. Of course, like you said, as the leader, you still have to figure out the business continuity, but, and ~

Jeannie: ~And it also gave ~

Edwin: ~it was a huge, it was.~

Jeannie: ~y Yeah. It also gave CEOs an opportunity to realize that I have employees who don't have the option to work from home. They are the ones who have to serve. And that, that difference, that chasm really revealed itself during the. , which in a way is really too bad, right?~

~Because it was there the whole time. We just didn't maybe give it credence the way it should have. But again, it was one of those things that when the smoke clears the real truth of these unfortunate realities came about, and human-centered CEOs leaned right in to make sure that their employees were.~

~Working in the front lines~

Edwin: ~Yeah. And you may agree to this as well, and this is just outside looking in and the conversations I. Over, over the couple of over, over the pandemic is that if the leader or the CEO was not human-centric, they they became human-centric.~

Jeannie: ~a hundred percent. a hundred percent. Because it was really no other way to lead. If you didn't recognize that. And if there were CEOs or leaders who had a hard time with that, I would suspect they also had a hard time leading their organizations through the pandemic in a productive.~

Edwin: ~Yeah you really could tell and Jeanie, you probably saw this a lot, you could really tell about the CEOs and the leaders who had a good Sense of self during the pandemic because cuz they were able to balance their own personal, anxieties, what was happening. Because we were, we all had the same anxieties.~

~We all wondered what is gonna happen? Why are we all trapped? We at home and and people who had a practice a personal practice of, being. A higher purpose or a higher leader they were able to adapt quicker. And they were able to understand and maybe do those quick pivots right away.~

~And not to say those who weren't, they, hopefully they had a circle of a peer network, where they said, oh, how did you do that? Because I remember at that time, I did a we did a mini-series and it was called a shift, and it was with a non-for-profit. For leaders, and those who were pivoting quickly were sharing what they were doing and other people were learning, oh, okay, that's, this is how we should do it.~

~But but it, but it's really important and I think it also spends in terms of the, the CEOs who really live not only their own values, but what the corporate values are for their business. So I just, I'm curious ~Jeanie, when it comes to values now and how you think. Why the company not only should include the values or really live by it for their culture to succeed.

Jeannie: Yeah. And I think, every company has published values, right? I would say nobody has no values on posters and walls, , right? The question is, how are you demonstrating those? In the way you operate your business. And I always believe that if you walk into any organization and regardless of level or title, you pick a random human being and you say, how would you describe your company's values?[00:12:00]

And in that simple answer, you could generally. , tell whether or not the company is living their values in everyday life, right? Because leaders often talk about values in a practiced way because it's a script, but the real values of the organization is the very fabric of the way people behave and how that gets institutionalized into their.

Edwin: I wanted to actually, find out how your organization higher ambition leadership, what were the type of support mechanisms that. That the organization had during Covid to help some of the members

Jeannie: no like everybody else, nothing was business as usual. And we actually. Huddled with our member companies and immediately convened a set of leaders. Sometimes HR leaders will come together to talk about their [00:13:00] specific challenges. Other times, operational leaders will come together and talk about their specific challenges, and then we have CEOs come together to also share ideas around how they're handling.

their situation, whether or not they were in same industry or different industry. So it was a bit of a comforting process for them to be with cohorts of others who share their values and the way they lead. And I think they learned a lot just to be together and hear each other's ideas, challenges, and things that are working and not.

Edwin: Jeanie, for someone who has, a long, successful career, and obviously being within this organization, you're always looking at how business leaders could and learn and be better. I'm curious, what are you working on now for yourself, as a leader, and maybe some of. Gaps that you identified as yourself [00:14:00] as well, and what you're sharing as well as you grow.

Jeannie: Oh my God, it's a wonderful question, Edwin. And I can honestly say that having worked 28 years at a very large company before retiring or refreshing or whatever we call it to do something different. And that was 10 years ago. I would say I did not necessarily practice higher ambition leadership when I was working in a consistent manner, but I knew that fundamentally I had the right set of values that I always relied on, particularly during difficult times.

But I, I always say to people that I am the biggest experiment there is. because the work of self-reflection, it is a evergreen process. I am fascinated by how my mind works. And therefore what I would say is I work on couple of things. [00:15:00] One is every interaction I have, I try to enter it with curiosity and not judgment.

because I know that when I judge others, it comes from the place of judging myself. And this is very hard, right? . It's very hard for people to do. And the other thing is practice deep listening that give the other party gift of your attention. because the other party is worthy of your attention when you choose to give it

Edwin: That, that's huge. Jeanie, I got the I got the shivers as you shared. And I really appreciate what you said where it's I'm the greatest experiment and if you lean into curiosity and not judgments you are also. Being that [00:16:00] role model as well for your team and other CEOs who are doing that.

Before we end, if you could share maybe some final thoughts, observations. Ideally, I'm looking for act actionable recommendations for the ceo.

The executive that is listening out there, who is looking maybe for a way for an edge to grow as a business.

Jeannie: Yeah, I think, the most important thing we can do is ask those around us whether or not what we say is aligned with how we. , it's the best way to learn if you're aligned with your values and then keep asking and learning. And there's so much we can learn by simply asking the questions rather than feeling like you have to have the answers all the time.

Edwin: Jeanie, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for joining us on the Business Leadership Podcast.

Jeannie: Thank you so much for having.[00:17:00]

Edwin: that's it. Biz leader. Thank you for joining me. On another episode of the business leadership podcast, this was episode 182. With Jeannie Diefenderfer. If you want to learn more about Jeanie her organization. Or anything else that we shared? Please. Go to https://thebusinessleadership.com/182. Or simply slide into the show notes and the podcast app that you're listening to right now.

If you haven't done so yet. Please subscribe. Comment and leave a review. It helps the show reach other business leaders, just like you. And I personally love reading the comments.

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Until next time. Do your best and have a 100 X day.

Salli: Thank you for listening to the Business Leadership Podcast with Edwin Frondozo.