Intentional Leaders Podcast with Cyndi Wentland

Empathetic Leadership: From Grief to Growth with Maureen Desmond

• Cyndi • Episode 144

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Grief in the workplace is often a difficult subject to address, but imagine the profound transformation that empathetic leadership can bring. Maureen Desmond, a coach and consultant, joins us to share her remarkable journey from a successful media career to a calling that helps leaders manage change, loss, and grief with compassion. Her personal story, marked by the tragic loss of her sister early in her life, has been a guiding light in shaping her empathetic approach to leadership. We uncover how Maureen’s life experiences have uniquely positioned her to support C-suite leaders and HR professionals, making emotional intelligence a pivotal skill in their arsenal.

Leaders often shy away from addressing grief due to discomfort, leaving those who grieve feeling even more isolated. Maureen and I discuss why it’s critical to embrace the discomfort, normalize emotional expressions, and foster open, empathetic conversations in the workplace. Through Maureen's insights, we examine the transformative power of empathy and the importance of building a culture that values emotional well-being. We highlight practical steps leaders can take to educate themselves and their teams, promoting a supportive environment that not only acknowledges grief but also facilitates healing and connection.

The challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic have shown us the importance of resilience and intentionality in leadership. In this episode, we explore stories of strength and growth. Maureen exemplifies intentional leadership by putting empathy and active listening at the forefront, teaching us the value of presence in leadership roles. Finally, we encourage leaders to plan for emotional contingencies as meticulously as they would for operational ones, fostering a compassionate culture that supports both personal and professional growth. Don't miss our conversation about how intention and empathy can transform organizational dynamics.

Find Maureeen here: https://www.navigatingchangeandloss.com/about-us/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/maureendesmond/

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Cyndi:

Today I am pleased to welcome Maureen Desmond to the Intentional Leaders podcast and Maureen and I met through a mutual friend consultant and she told me about Maureen and her coaching and consulting business, which is all about navigating change and loss, and I thought, oh, I want to meet her because a lot of the work that Maureen does in working with leaders and organizations is to support the very important and unexpected changes and trauma and grief that happens in organization, whether that is through loss of life or company changes, and she is an amazing support. She's got a great story and I can't wait for you to hear more about her support. She's got a great story and I can't wait for you to hear more about her. Maureen, welcome to the Intentional Leaders podcast. I am so excited to have you here today. Thank you.

Maureen:

Cyndi, so am I. I'm very excited about this conversation.

Cyndi:

The reason I am is because when you and I have talked about leadership, there's kind of a couple elements that I really want to explore with you to help educate and inform the leaders who are listening to this podcast. And one is about your own career and how you shifted your career trajectory in some very different ways, and then some is about what you are doing right now in your career that can help leaders. Let's start at the beginning. You started your career in big media and you have since transitioned to a successful coach and consultant with C-suite leaders and with HR professionals, and you're really focused on loss and grief. So that's a pretty interesting transition from media to grief. What is it that prompted that significant career change for you?

Maureen:

Great question and a lot of people start there like wait a minute, how did you go from this to that? So it really is about my entire life story in a sense, how I got there. My whole life has had a thread of family loss and grief, unfortunately beginning as early as when I lost my 18-year-old sister in a car accident my junior year of college. So I'm 19, 20 at that point. When something like that happens, especially when you're young, it feels like the floor has been taken out from under you and you're never quite the same after something like that and you really lose a part of yourself, a part of the sense of the world and even trust overall. So that moment in time was so significant and really took me a while to kind of like shake off and get kind of back into the journey of life. So it's woven my whole life.

Maureen:

That piece of it is how I started out. The good parts of it are that I became a very compassionate person, a very empathetic person and a very deeply caring person for anyone else I've met along the way in my life that has had a loss. I almost feel like I became a grief support person without any certifications, and all that for anybody that I met along the way. So that's why I tell that story of where I started, because it really has woven that thread. And then I've had additional losses along the way. It wasn't such a significant change going from media into the grief and loss space as a certified coach and a facilitator. Now that you know that that's been my journey.

Cyndi:

Yeah, so it was really a focus of yours all along, and I think about that for myself a lot. Our family didn't have a lot of loss and grief. I vividly remember my grandfather and grandmother passing away, but throughout our lives I feel like we've been very, very lucky that we haven't had those surprising losses. You know, people in my family are living to a ripe old age and I can only fathom or imagine what that would be like. To your sense of security and certainty and, as you said, your connectedness to other people and the trust that they're always going to be there seems like a pretty profound change for you at a young age.

Maureen:

Yes, absolutely. You know, when I went into a career in media and then being in a sales management leadership career for the significant parts of that, I mean, I was at one company for 25 years, which is sort of unheard of. Yes, right, what ended up happening is, while I was there and I had a lot of employees that reported into me, they all had their own grief situations. They were all different. So I helped navigate them through that and I definitely relied on HR and their support and knowing the rules and the boundaries and such that we could do. And I was lucky to have such an amazing supportive company and leadership who were open to providing more than just three days of bereavement leave. So it's kind of like during that time at the company, I was already creating the business that I have now. In a weird way, I didn't know what that was. I feel like I helped people through grief, even though we were in media sales and okay, you got to hit your number, so I would play these roles my whole life, kind of.

Cyndi:

Yeah, I think what is wonderful about that is that you were a good role model for something that a lot of people are uncomfortable with. When we are seeing someone else grieve, they have to go through their own journey for what that looks like, and I think sometimes a lot of people especially people in a leadership role, because they are focused on the work and the task and, as you said, achieving our goals and getting those results and then to immediately pivot to that sense of compassion and supporting someone in grief Because I think managers are wired to problem solve and you can't problem solve around grief. You have to process it and go through it, and I just imagine you were a good role model and an excellent guide for other managers to see that, like, here's how you do it, here's how you can do it and be compassionate along the way. So I think that's a pretty neat part of your story, thank you.

Cyndi:

So, when was the moment then? Then you change Cause it sounds like again you know this was aligned with your personal story and so to make this kind of career shift wasn't for you a significant one. You were just putting all those practices into place from a business perspective. But what made you shift, then, from one career to the other, even though there was connection?

Maureen:

I got to the point where I felt this pull to really focus on what I always thought that I would do later in life, and that was to really dig into the grief space, get certified in the grief space and be able to support others through it, as well as help companies, support their team, their colleagues, their staff through it. I was in corporate all my life. I thought it would be easy to start a business and be an entrepreneur. Nope, it wasn't. It's not easy. I started in 2020. So we know what was happening in 2020. It was nearly impossible, and so I think that I'm still in the space and I've had such growth because we've had to redo so many different things and kind of start over in a lot of ways, and companies themselves have had so much change. When I'm trying and you're trying Hi, I'm an entrepreneur, I want to start a new business, I want to talk to you and everyone's in this chaos, right, so not good timing. But who knew?

Maureen:

No one knew what the timing was going to be then, and so I think through the process of weirdly the pandemic, which is basically a time when we were all collectively grieving something, so I just thought, wow, this is weird timing, as I'm starting to go in and talk to companies about this.

Maureen:

They're actually going through a grieving process and a lot of people wouldn't put that together. I know what it is because you know I've been in the grief space for a long time, and so I started hearing or reading articles about collective grief and things like that and I thought, yeah, this is what we're all going through and collective grief is just everyone's experiencing something similar, but we're all going to handle it differently. And then people did have a lot of loss and people did change in their lives. I'm thinking of families, who everyone was living in the same house, school was happening on computers, everybody was going in a different room so they could do their work within their own businesses and companies. Things changed overnight and we lost a sense of safety, we lost the sense of normalcy. All of those things all happened and so I was like, wow, maybe this really was good timing for me and for what I do. I'm here, still standing four and a half years later. I've definitely shifted some of the focus areas that I was doing.

Cyndi:

It's so ironic, Maureen, because you started off to help businesses and leaders with a certain need, not knowing that the pandemic itself was creating that need even more dramatically, you know, so you're going in to say, hey, I want to help you with change and loss and grief.

Cyndi:

And then the pandemic was starting and people were experiencing it, which in and of itself, created that need even more urgently and more vastly than we've ever experienced it, probably in any of our lives, and all the people who passed away and died during that period so there are very few people that don't know someone who was affected, with a family or friend who didn't survive the pandemic either. There's some irony in that right when you're starting a business in that space. So, maureen, as you think about leaders, because you are working with C-suite and executives and you're trying to help them to manage these emotions and experiences more effectively why do you think that is so important? And now that we're four and a half years from the start of the pandemic, why do you think this is essential for leaders to understand, maureen?

Maureen:

Oh my gosh, great questions today. First of all, the most common human experience is loss. It's an essential part of being human as a society. Outside of the pandemic, we've gotten further and further away from supporting people through it because it's an uncomfortable topic, but especially leaders. It does feel like that fine line between should I ask questions, should I stay back? How do I do this? I'm not a therapist, so I want to hurt them by asking a question that maybe I shouldn't ask. It's very complicated, right, and the communication has not been great around it, but the balance of it is that communicating with grievers is so important because it's supportive.

Maureen:

I guess I would say this is kind of an example of you know, you're someone who's coming back from losing your father, let's say, and you took your time. And you're coming back and you walk into the office and everyone's a little awkward and uncomfortable as to how to approach you and you already feel sad. You're still very much in grief and no one talks to you, no one asks you how you're doing, because they're afraid that oh, I'm going to make her cry. And so we start doing those things and guess what it does? It isolates that griever even more than they already feel the real meat of it is. We have to get more comfortable acknowledging and validating and being okay with talking to grievers If it's a leader, or if it's somebody on the team, or if it's just somebody you get in the elevator with that, know you?

Maureen:

It's okay if you ask a question or say, well, I haven't seen you for a while, where have you been? Oh well, my father died Knowing that. That's okay because it's acknowledging them and that's how grievers want to feel. They want to feel acknowledged, not isolated. So there are a lot of tools and resources and tips. That is one of the areas that I focus on within the companies to help them have the language, help them know how to speak to the grievers, know how to prepare their teams. Nowadays I even say, when that person comes back, you should have a nice breakfast group meeting and have everybody come and give their loving kindness. You know some people are awkward with that at work.

Cyndi:

We're supposed to be compassionate, emotional.

Maureen:

Yeah, so give that compassion and wow, can you imagine how that would feel when somebody comes back and like, wow, look what they did. And these people are telling some of their own stories. You know, that is like the nicest thing that a company can do, because they are feeling heard, acknowledged and saying, wow, I wasn't expecting that, but that really felt good. And then the other employees are going wow, when this happens to me, one day my company, my leaders are going to be there for me and that's huge.

Cyndi:

It is, and it's a beautiful thing. What's kind of ironic is what you're saying is be comfortable with the discomfort. People don't like to be comfortable with discomfort to avoid it, and I have worked with a lot of leaders over the years that they're afraid of empathy because they fear that if they start talking about it then they won't know what to do. So I'll acknowledge you, maureen, like this happened to you, and I'll try to be empathetic. But then where do I go with it? And so, rather than going with the discomfort of even initiating the conversation to be empathetic, I will just not do anything and I won't acknowledge it because they somehow deem it safer not to do anything. And then what is the problem with that from your point of view?

Maureen:

Well, it kind of speaks again to not acknowledging just really isolates and separates that human connection even more. It's important to find a way to be open, as if it was happening to you. The best people to approach grievers are people who have been through something, who have maybe wasn't even the loss of a human, but they've had some tough stuff, they've been through adversity and they kind of know wow, I know how I felt, so I'm going to just approach them. And what's the worst thing that can happen? If you approach somebody and it makes somebody cry, it's almost like the emotion is there right under the surface.

Maureen:

Anyway, it's okay for people to be emotional and cry. Don't feel awkward with that. Many people say I am so sorry I made you cry. I probably shouldn't have brought this up. And I will tell you nine times out of 10, the griever will probably say no, I'm glad that you brought this up. I needed somebody to ask me because nobody has A lot of times. The griever is the one that says the last word because they know how awkward it is for you and they are kind of helping you.

Cyndi:

Again, that's the weird twist, isn't it? They're trying to make you feel better because they don't feel good, because they think they made you feel worse. You know, it is so true. I think, too, what you're also saying is let's make it okay and let's make it normal to express emotions directly. You know, whether that's crying or whether that's whatever it is, especially in the environment today and you mentioned this earlier whether we're trying to be politically correct or we're trying to be sensitive and then I evoke emotion, and then someone else emotes, and then I think I did something wrong rather than, as you said, you did something right by allowing that person to express their emotion directly, and I think that's the thing that we sometimes miss.

Maureen:

That's it, and I think that there's an education around grief. You know, not everyone just knows how to be a leader that can help people through tough times. Some people have a lot of empathy in the emotional intelligence and other people don't, and so there's a lot of that that all mixes in to it. That's a little bit more complicated. One of the things that I'm doing now and that I've sort of seen as I've worked within companies over the last few years, is that they all want to know what to say, how to say it, even wanting me to write scripts for them.

Maureen:

So if there's an employee that passed away and they have to tell everyone this might be the first time they're ever sharing something like that and they're like I don't know what to say and how do I say do I do it on a Zoom call? Do I do it in person? Do I send it in a note? Right, great questions. And that is why I do what I do, because so many people are asking those questions, especially in the workforce, like how do I say this, how do I do this? I always say, like, how do I say this, how do I do this? I always say it is really simple once you ask those questions, because there are ways to say it and scripts that can be written, and they are so thankful, yeah, change it up to your words. And they're like, oh no, this is perfect the way you've written it. You know that is really important and that is just another way of them caring enough to say I don't know how to say it, what's a better way to say it? And then I do those things and, to be honest too, there is a significant return on investment If we do have some type of support plan or just some kind of support. It's a big, big business grief. I'm saying it that way because the latest numbers are that annually in US businesses alone, companies are spending $225 billion collectively on grief.

Maureen:

And what grief is doing within the workplace, where all that money comes from, is loss of productivity, loss of business, time out of the office, and it's not all just that first year. Sometimes the second year, people are not showing up as much either the second year, which can be the harder year for many people in grief. And so I say that here because it's very real, and by adding those kinds of support systems and knowing what to say and that kind of thing is really, really important, and I'm not trying to tout myself here, but I do want to say that I've always approached this in companies, like everyone knows how to do a fire drill. Yep, we've been taught what to do and who to follow and where to stand when you go down the steps, and all that our whole lives. But yet how many times have you actually had a fire or something that had to get you out of the building? You know, maybe we can count it on one hand or one finger.

Maureen:

And then you look at well, do you have a plan for when grief happens? Many people don't have a plan for when grief happens. And guess how many times it happens? A lot, yeah, it's a lot. And so I'm piloting a program around this to say let's template out a grief response plan that's full of compassion and has all the bells and whistles, so that, as a leader, you have that phone call, you know okay, sue, you do what you need to do, we've got you, don't worry, and you pull out that response plan and you know how to get through those first few weeks and how you're going to handle that. It's really important and it's quite simple.

Cyndi:

Yeah, oh, Maureen, I love the connection in comparing to a fire drill, and the reason why that's so important to compare and contrast is because a fire drill is very tactical, like get out of the building as quickly as you can. So let's practice that, because we don't want anyone getting hurt. The other part of it is that the compassionate response to grief, which you said is the most common universal human experience, is now. It's an emotional thing that we don't have a game plan for. So how do we act quickly? Well, now it's emotional, and again, now we're uncertain of how to handle it, and so the chances are we're not going to handle it or not going to handle it well. So what do we need? To be better at the fire drill, and I'm not saying don't be good at a fire drill, do it, but don't we want to be prepared for the emotional, compassionate, human side of what our employees are going through? Those numbers that you mentioned of the effect of grief are huge. It's surprising in some way, and then it's not in others. Yes, yes.

Maureen:

Yes, there's a lot there, I know. I think that these conversations that's why it's so important and I'm so grateful for this conversation is because we're not really looking or focusing on grief until it happens, and that's why I always say the fire drill, because it's like, okay, the alarm just went off. Yes, but there's a lot more pieces to it and it comes from a more emotional, personal space than, like you said, tactical. Do these four things and get out of the building, why the plan and this all kind of stemmed from. Many companies are sort of looking at their bereavement plans today and saying, wow, when did we last update this? You know 1960s. But you know three days of bereavement is really not enough at all, not even close. But yet companies mandated or states, or you know there's no real mandate. So how do we get better at that where we're offering more options for that employee, being flexible. If you do something for one person, you have to be able to do it for others. So you have to be careful around those things. And why I always say it's important that HR and all of the people that are doing that work in that space. It's important to always have them there to help you through it.

Maureen:

Look at the pandemic that really did change the way that we communicate in the fact that we kind of opened up our homes without even really knowing or wanting to. All on Zoom, looking at each other's living rooms, dining rooms, sometimes bedrooms yes, we're meeting everybody's pets. We're seeing baby in diapers running through the office. That alone, I really do think, has opened up the more personal and professional merging. Yes, because of that urging, we're able to more openly speak about things that no one would ever be talking about, like their dog that much, or cat, or how old their children are before this. I don't know, not as much as it is today, and I love knowing about people that way, yeah. So I think that taps into a little bit of the grief conversation and the emotional parts of it, where we're opening ourselves more and in some ways we're closing ourselves more too because we're not in the offices together. So there's a balance.

Cyndi:

Agreed. I say that to people a fair amount that you know again, when people are struggling even with facilitating or training something, should we do it face-to-face or Zoom? And there's kind of an irony to Zoom or to a virtual platform that sometimes I think, as you just said, it creates more intimacy, because now I'm seeing you, potentially in your home, in a place with your space, and potentially your pets and your children, and I have seen all of that. So it creates kind of this intimacy where sometimes I think people are safer to talk about things because they don't have, you know, fred and Sue, on one side or the other of them, like physically to affect what they're saying and it's almost easier, in a way, to be vulnerable in that space. So I think, as you said, it's just shifting the dynamics of the workplace in so many ways that we would have never known or considered prior to the pandemic. Yeah, good insights.

Maureen:

Yeah, I do agree too, and I think this way too. About change management yeah, I do agree too, and I think this way too. About change management, adoption management, organizational change all of those areas have become very prominent within organizations. So where do you fit this conversation of grief, loss and support of that? The word grief is a trigger word.

Maureen:

The word grief, people go oh my gosh, it's dark, it feels yucky. You know, I'm just trying to say that it's about the support around the grief and loss. You don't have to jump into somebody's story, but you can be the support person for them in a very gentle way, because we are human. You don't need to have the skills, you don't need to be a therapist. You're not going to get in trouble if you just say I'm sorry for your loss, and then the conversation might ensue into something deeper. But through the channels of change management, leadership, learning and development, adoption management, there's a place where we can have a bucket that serves grief and loss support within a company, and it probably starts with the leadership teams and then trickles down.

Cyndi:

Yeah, for sure, and I think something that you said earlier that's so essential is that in order for leaders to do this well, they have to be asking the questions that you just said. They asked earlier, like how do I say this, what do I do, which implies that they think it's important enough to do something and say something, right? So there are probably leaders still out there that are thinking whatever Sounds interesting, but I'm not going to go there, or our company isn't ready for whatever it is. So when you think about you know leaders right now being able to approach those challenges of balancing that personal and professional, what would just be a couple tips you would have or tools that you use for leaders right now to help it be more comfortable?

Maureen:

The first thing that always comes to me is that communication piece and open communication, being able to communicate. Some leaders, some people within a team don't have that empathy piece and feel very uncomfortable around it, so you can't force that. But there's always someone else on the team Maybe it's a leader that's up here to you, or maybe a little higher up or a little lower down or whatever and that person is very empathetic. And so I think that you can even say, oh my gosh, we know that Mary is such an empathetic person. Let's have her talk to them about this. That's a really great way to do things. You can pull from your team, you can pull from others, you can pull from a VP that you know has really been a supportive person and played many roles within a certain part of your organization or division and say, look, this is happening, would you help me through this division? And say, look, this is happening, would you help me through this? It's really just being open to it and communicating through it.

Maureen:

And you know, I think that today too, there's a lot of change. You know the Gen Zs and the. As more and more people come into the workforce, they're asking for more personal things. Some are asking for more ways to get together. If they work from home all the time, they want opportunities to get together. So you know, how do we do group gatherings? How could we do a monthly meeting or quarterly group activities to bring everybody together so that we are organically getting to know each other better and going a little deeper? And so it always kind of starts from that place. I don't think there's anything that's like a hard and fast. This is what's going to have to happen. It's about acknowledging and knowing and hearing what we've all been through and really thinking through that and asking the right questions, asking the questions that we may not want to ask, and it's not going to get us into trouble, you know that's here sometimes yeah absolutely so.

Cyndi:

A couple of things that I heard you say in terms of tips or ideas. One is you don't have to be the messenger. If you're not comfortable being the messenger, find someone who has that strength, and I think that's a really insightful thing. As leaders, we tend to pressure ourselves to do things that we're not good at, rather than saying, hey, I'm going to get this person involved in doing this because they're actually really good at it, and then not only can other people benefit from that, but as a leader, I can benefit from that.

Cyndi:

And I was coaching someone just recently and she said she's working on empathy. And it was ironic because she had to coach her employee on empathy and she's like I'm not very good at this, but this other person that's a peer of hers, she's like she's really good at it. So I'm going to pull one of her emails and use her as the role model for us both to learn. And I was like it was so masterful because she acknowledged like I'm not good at this either, but someone else is and I'll get them involved. It was brilliant and it was really what you're saying is do that, feel comfortable doing that.

Cyndi:

And then the second thing that you said that again is kind of common sense, but not common practice is allow those relationships to grow organically, because if we know each other and know something about each other's lives and we build that kind of trust and rapport, we can better support each other when we're going through a crisis or a period of grief or whatever it might be. I think sometimes, again, those gatherings tend to be a little superficial. Instead of of as a leader, I'm going to do this on purpose, in a way that people can get to know each other, and I mean like a happy hour, lunch or whatever, but there's some kind of thing that we're also doing that allows us, on purpose, to get to know each other, and I think that's an important piece to. It lays the foundation, as you said, for anything than unexpected to come in the future. Yes, you said that beautifully.

Cyndi:

I just I love the work that you're doing because, in this space of people being and feeling awkward or uncomfortable, you're teaching people to show up more compassionately, whether they're wired that way or not, because I think everyone knows, at the end of the day, we need that in the world today and we need more of it in the world today. So, rather than feeling the discomfort and avoidance of it, what you're saying is lean into that discomfort and learn what to do about it and be planful and proactive.

Maureen:

Lean in, be intentional.

Maureen:

Lean in, be intentional. I do feel like I've seen a shift in that space of being a little bit more comfortable, and the more we experience it and do it, the better. And there's one other piece, too, that I think is really neat, because, as I've worked with companies too, where when they do some gatherings, they'll have a topic and they're starting to bring in the topic of grief and asking like one question or a question like what was the most difficult thing that you've been through and how did it change you or how did it make you who you are today? And so those questions are really beautiful questions to ask and allow people to share that, because once you kind of go below, just a little bit below the surface, you go deeper into somebody's story and it changes the way you look at them. It really does, because it's like I knew that, oh my gosh, we all have had loss and I've been working with you or for you for five years and we never even talked about that. That in itself creates an amazing connection, if nothing else, absolutely.

Cyndi:

What's really cool about what you said, too, in a way, is it's allowing me to get deeper and allowing you to understand something about me, but I think it's also helping people process the fact that when something bad happens, there's an effect on it in our life and we can look back on it and look at ourselves becoming stronger because of it. And you said that with your sister. You were a young age, but what it created for you was the strength of being more empathetic for other people who went through it, and I think that's such a healthy thing. Everyone can look back on COVID and we can tell a horrible story about it. Absolutely you and I can. We both started businesses in 2020 like that.

Cyndi:

But we can also look back and tell stories of strength and what we gained from it and what we learned from that and because of that loss, that experience, that grief, in whatever category, that we are now stronger because of it. And I think that's a beautiful part of sharing those stories with each other, because sometimes we cannot see the story but other people can. Yeah, you know, and I think that is such a beautiful way to create a connection with someone is they help us, regardless of when it was to come out stronger.

Maureen:

I know exactly, and everyone loves those stories of resilience. Right, that's what these stories really are is the stories of the resilience. And you watch the Olympics. You get to find out so much more about these wonderful people that have dedicated their lives to running the fastest track and all the hardships that they went through. I mean, isn't that life all?

Cyndi:

the hardships that they went through. I mean, isn't that life? Yes, absolutely, and it also highlights the courage and strength and stamina it takes to move on and to go forward. Anyway, which is what I think we're all trying to learn and I think it's also what you're helping leaders and organizations to learn is how do you keep going forward? You know, how do you not get stuck and how do you create a strong, compassionate culture, and that's just flipping awesome. So you've said the word intentional before it caught my ear, as it always does. Maureen, when you think of yourself as a leader, which you are, you're not just leading in your own business, but you are leading leaders towards a beautiful vision of creating this culture of compassion and humanity. How do you see yourself being intentional in your own leadership? What does that look like for you?

Maureen:

I would go to the listening piece in a big way because I have definitely been a good listener and it's probably because of you know my story, my whole course, and so I'm really good at asking questions and listening and not having to jump into the space, and so that, to me, is very intentional, as a leader is ask the questions, be open to asking the questions, listening and just hearing instead of you know, a lot of times we want to talk over, we want to hurry up.

Maureen:

So I'm a good listener and I think that's an intentional part of being a leader. I do have the empathy, I am very compassionate, so that is an intentional piece of how I lead. I'm a people person. I think that being in sales and you have so many opportunities to talk to a lot of people and clients and understand all these different parts of them and the tough ones and the ones that are like, yeah, we'll do anything All those things have made me more intentional too, because it's people. It's people first. They're going through things in the background too, so you learn so much from that. I love working with leaders because we're all very compassionate and passionate about what we do and we want to serve others, help others and be productive and all those things, but it comes from that place.

Cyndi:

It's a wonderful message In my experiences with you and we're getting to know each other, looking for opportunities to connect and work together. I would certainly validate all that. You're very present, you're very fun to work with because you pay attention to the things and we have another friend who's joined us in some of those conversations and you show up listening and being mindful, being present and caring about each and every person's experience and I really admire and appreciate that about you because that is a choice and a lot of people don't choose those things because they're so busy and distracted. And I really admire and appreciate that about you because that is a choice and a lot of people don't choose those things because they're so busy and distracted and all the things.

Maureen:

So I honor that in you very much. Thank you, Cyndi. Oh, my gosh, this is such a pleasure to talk to you and the questions that you ask, and just, you're a great listener too.

Cyndi:

Oh well, thank you, and thank you for creating the space for this interview today. My sincere, genuine hope is that people that are listening to this take action. If you are a leader that has the power to create this kind of plan, I want you all to connect with Maureen. Her LinkedIn profile and website is all going to be in the show notes, but start this conversation with leaders too. You know, get other people on board with the importance of this. If you're doing fire drills and you have a great you know disaster contingency plan, you should have a great grief plan as well and be looking out for the emotional piece. So what I hope is that people start talking about this more and start connecting with you to get the tools and resources they need. That's my hope. It's not even a hidden agenda, Maureen. Put it right out there intentionally. That was intentional.

Maureen:

I appreciate you.

Cyndi:

Thank you for your time today. You bet, Do you know the importance of a review or rating a podcast? Well, I do and I would love your support Leave a comment or rating, or forward this podcast to someone you know who might value not only this episode but episodes in the past and the future. Thank you so much.