Unbound is a weekly podcast, created to help you achieve more as a leader. Join Chris DuBois as he shares his growth journey and interviews others on their path to becoming unbound. Delivered weekly on Thursdays.
Bold, value driven, heart centered leadership is at the core of the conversation with today's guest are you leader trying to get more from your business and life? Me too. So join me as I document the conversations, stories and advice to help you achieve what matters in your life. Welcome to unbound with me, Chris DuBois. Regina Huber is the CEO of transform your performance driving gold value driven and heart centered leadership for her clients. She has lived on five continents and served in leadership positions at BCG, as well as in businesses she's owned in Argentina, Brazil and the US. This experience shaped her into a multicultural transformational leadership coach, international inspirational speaker, and the author of speak up, stand out and shine. Additionally, Regina is a conversational intelligence enhanced skills practitioner. And she has created three signature coaching frameworks that you can explore at transform your performance.com. Regina welcomes unmap thank you so much for this beautiful introduction. Chris. I'm excited to be here today and delighted to explore some of the topics you would like to explore. Yeah, I am very excited. And I think the best place to start is with your origin story. Yes. Can I go a little long with that? As long as there needs to. It's an eclectic story. So as short as possible. But yeah, so I grew up in a little village of 10 houses in Bavaria, Germany, I've always really been insatiably curious was curiosity, being my number one leadership trait, as I found out, unsurprisingly, I should say, in one of those tests that I did online, and I've always really loved adventure, and exploring other countries and cultures and languages. So I always had this love for languages. In a while I didn't have that much, you know, information really about what I was going to want to do in life, I always knew that I wanted to learn languages as a kid, right. So while I've certainly also studied a broad range of things from a number of languages, as I just mentioned, to holistic modalities and methodologies, I have certainly also learned a lot of what I know now, by experience, and one of those things is leadership. So my collective life on five continents, living in quite a few different countries and in different language zones. This life has allowed me to gain some very unique wisdom and knowledge. And as you know, Chris, life is a journey. And for me, that included moving a lot and you know, lots of traveling, lots of exploring, and also taking a huge amount of risks, and some of them very big ones. So after moving to Spain, at the age of 26, you know, I moved first from the little village to the to the city of Munich, didn't move directly to Spain. But at the age of 26, I got this opportunity. And I learned Spanish and, you know, I was I was offered just 10 months after moving, I was offered a leadership position at the global consulting firm that I was working at at the time. And I literally just moved to Spain and learn the language. So this came really as a big surprise. And even more so because I didn't have any relevant studies or experience or so I thought at least, but someone at that firm took a chance on me. And I ended up spending many more years in Spain than than I thought, right seven instead of one. And I also ended up spending 16 years at that firm total in several different locations in Europe and in Latin America and in the US. And later on, I added some very different type of experience of wisdom, as a business owner in Brazil, in Argentina, first in Argentina, actually, and then in Brazil, and then in the United States and as a leadership coach, trainer, and speaker, which is what I am now as CEO of transform your performance. I have more recently also had the pleasure of speaking at multiple events on the African continent teach workshops. Like for example, in Rwanda, I co hosted a couple of events in Cameroon. And I was able to speak at other events like in Ghana and South Africa and in Uganda. This has been just tremendously enriching. And I even told Got a session. That was a really fun experience at a Johannesburg at Johannesburg University to young students first year students. And I was literally invited to do that from one day to the next while I was staying in my morning in Joburg. So that was a really interesting experience. I don't always do it from one day to the next. Say that too. But, you know, when I have such a unique opportunity, I just triggered I had to take it. And it was really, really successful, apparently and fun. For sure. Well, maybe you just heard a really loud thunder that was really wow, I just started Oh, yeah, I just startling. So we have here we have a thunderstorm going on out there. So you could say, I have really a very holistic approach to coaching because of my eclectic experience, but also because of my holistic studies. And, you know, my clients typically don't just want a promotion, or improve their leadership skills, although that might be what they initially come for. They also want better quality of life, less stress, more fulfillment, they want to know that they're making a difference to the work they do. And that the work they do has meaning and it makes an impact and all the good stuff that we always talk about, right? So they want to, in a way, they want to leave a meaningful legacy, whatever that looks like for everybody. It's different for every single person. So when we think about coaching and about life, in general, we often tend to compartmentalize our life a lot, but it's really all one life, it's a whole, it's one entity, and it's not divided into health, wealth, or family or work and all these, you know, artificial areas of life that we sometimes create when we talk about it. And that's why and because life is such a holistic phenomenon. I, I also prefer to do to to approach coaching as a holistic, you know, philosophy in a way to say this in a way. And yeah, and that's why sometimes when my clients come, for example, for leadership skills, or to reach their next career goal, or the next business goal, whatever it is for everybody, then they trust me with very personal things, because we, we really want to look at their entire vision for their lives, right. And vision isn't just about your work. Sometimes when I'm asked, okay, what should I write into my vision? And I say, well, everything because it's about your life. So this is pretty much how I approach coaching and how I help my clients and try to do it in the best way possible. So yeah, I hope this also gives you an idea. Yeah. No, I'm amazed and impressed that you've been able to move around so much, and do all get all these great opportunities. What continent, haven't you been on yet? I have never been to Australia or New Zealand. And that was actually before Spain. There was talk about that, because the global firm that I worked for, at the time wasn't completely global. But they were about to merge with another firm in Australia. That the details about that were not public yet, though. So I was it was mentioned to me as a possibility. But I said, No, I want to move on now. Now I've been with this firm now for two years. I'm ready, you know. And then a colleague walked up to me and said, Hey, I heard about this opportunity in Spain. I said, Peter, I do not speak Spanish. He said, Well, you can learn that. And he said, I know what you're right. I'm so glad he said this, because, you know, at the time it was we have this mindset that we learn languages at school, and then that's about it, or it takes a long time. It doesn't have to take that long. When that ability to step towards fear, right of like going moving to another country where you don't know the language. Like that's intimidating for anyone. Right? Yeah. But I think you have that mindset to be able to step into this. And this is actually one of the questions that I outlined. Just talking about. A lot of leadership starts with that leaders mindset. Right? How so I guess how do you work with your clients to even just help them mentally focus on the right things and show up in the way that they should? Yes, I have created several different frameworks. And of course, you know, when you when you go into a coaching program, this will be completely customized to my client's needs, but I have some underlying frameworks that guide us along with materials and and content that I stand for, and once such framework is called the powerful leadership transformation. And as part of this framework, we look typically into four pillars, they are all of course, intertwined. And they overlap a little bit sometimes as well. And the the underlying principle of this framework with its four pillars is that leadership, leadership always starts with self. And it also starts as you just said, with a self empowering mindset and hearts it. So I don't only talk about mindset, and I'm going to tell you a little bit about that, and just a bit. But the mindset, of course, is very, very critical for all of us. I always say, No one can empower you, but yourself. Everything you need to be successful is in your mind and in your heart, to some extent, right. Or to the, to the largest extent I'm saying everything is there. It's just like, you know, there's some few other factors, of course, that we need to play with. So when I talk about a self empowering mindset and heart said, that's because yes, the mind is key, but the mind is most most powerful, when it's led by the heart. So for me mindset and hearts that go hand in hand, because they're just better together. And when your heart and mind are in co creation, then you will also be able to use the power of both that intellectual power of the mind on the one hand, and your use specific wisdom, which is in your heart, on the other hand, because I believe that our wisdom that that wisdom that we acquire and gather over our lifetimes through our unique experiences is stored in our hearts. And you may also have heard, Chris, that the heart is a part of the brain and neuroscience, we talk about this, right. And also, in my conversational intelligence studies, we talk about that a lot of the different brains that gut brain, the heart, brain, the head brain, and why are we saying this? Well, because the heart has about 40,000 brain like cells. And its magnetic field is up to 5000 times stronger than the head brains magnetic field. So that means that we connect with the people around us and the world around us to a great extent through our hearts. And another idea, there's so much more to this heart side, but I really don't have a whole session. So the whole time for this. So what I just really wanted to add is also that courage is in the heart and fears in the mind. Right. So I think that's important to remember. And then, of course, you know, the second pillar is an distinctive uniqueness. And it's all about knowing, owning and showing your value. So you can stand out, whether that's other leader, as a leader, or just, you know, as a professional in general, and distinguish yourself as maybe the ideal candidate for the role you want or what it is, right, whatever. So, and then, of course, we look at the two sides of the coin have distinctive uniqueness on the unique brilliance, on the one hand, they are genius and the shortcomings on the other. So we can, you know, work with both in a way. And then there are two more pillars, which I'm just gonna mention quickly. And, you know, if you're interested in more details, I'd be happy to expand. But one is that body and energy conscious presence. So I'm very much into energy as somebody who has also studied how energy works and how important its role really is in business, although we don't talk about it much. And the fourth pillar is inspired and effective action, which is also aligned action through, you know, through the other parts. There's, there's so much we can go into here. So I'm going to try to try to work my way through through everything. Let's start with why self leadership is so important in 2023. Well, you know, self leadership is so important now, but it's always been important, right? I think in 2023. And always, I believe that self leadership is the most important leadership trait. Now, it's a very broad topic, right? And it's about, it's about walking the talk. It's about being able to be authentic, because self leadership for me is the foundation of all authentic, effective and sustainable leadership. We can fake it in a way but if we're not authentic, then if you cannot lead ourselves people will see through that at some point, right. And I believe that any leader needs to go through self as self discovery process, which happens through self reflection, observation, introspection, and then we gain greater self awareness, and then this way, transformation and self leadership that, you know, we can do it better in that way. And we cannot really lead others authentically and effectively and sustainably without having mastered leadership of self first. Why is this? So? And also, of course, let me just quickly add this because it makes us more credible, and we want to be credible as leaders. Right? Now, if you're asking me to get back to the question why it's so important today, maybe it's because people are so tired of seeing inauthentic leaders who only lead with words and not by example, lip service is not what we want anymore. We want transparency, and we want to know who we're dealing with. And I think people have been deceived. And they are recognizing that now they're realizing it more and more, they have been deceived so terribly, by politicians, by so called world leaders, and more and more of that is becoming known now. So to say it bluntly, people don't want to put up with that crap anymore. In a way, and why do we know that some people deceive intentionally in very big ways, we also have becoming more sensitive to the more subtle way of deceit. If someone doesn't come across as authentic, then we don't trust them, although it might not even be their intention, you know, to deceive us in any way. It's just about not being credible or authentic. Right? Yeah, I can see that. And now I have to think through my own leadership styles to make sure that I'm, I'm showing up. So I'm sure one of the ways that we can all get better at showing up more authentically, is by knowing owning and then being able to show our value. How do you how do you approach it, as you work with why especially you know, when we talk about leaders, I like to say leaders don't blend in leader stand out now. And in order to stand out and distinguish ourselves as leaders in though in our very own way, and in a way that we want to distinguish ourselves to be seen as that value driven, bold and visionary leader, or whatever your adjective is, that you want to be seen as, we must be able to show our value and our unique brilliance. Because if people don't know what we stand for, what we're all about, and what we can do what we're capable of doing, then they will not trust us as leaders. And so what we do in coaching, for example, I take my clients through a process of finding that unique brilliance and owning it. And that sometimes we can start that process by very doing very simple things. For example, making a list of all the amazing what I call unique assets, we all have that make up our unique brilliance. Yeah, so for example, for unique talents, abilities, strengths, scale, studies, experiences, stories, whatever makes us us in a good way. And read through those our achievements or accomplishments and start that process, maybe in this way and say, Okay, there's all this great stuff here. What am I going to do with this? And how can I embody this brilliance so that others can see it automatically, and I don't always have to say it, right. And also, part of it is also what we call sometimes executive presence. I like to call it leadership presence, or business presence, depending on everybody's situation. And that's also where that energy part comes in as well. Okay, because we are always told, okay, it takes seven seconds to make a first impression. But our brains actually figure it out in as little as point 07 seconds, whether it's safe to trust someone because that's our survival mechanism. Right. So when we go into that, you know, once a no and owner or the recognize and own their value, they can also then also see it more easily in others, which is also important for leaders, right? They acknowledge it in their teams, the team members and inspire them to own their unique genius and greatness as well because they have gone through this process. Actually, let's go further. Right on that. So me as a leader, I'm now more aware of like my unique skills, assets, everything. How can I start leveraging that within my team to help them to basically do the same Right, because I think now we can like exponentially just like become more productive, become happier, like everything should just flow better. If you can figure this out, yes, I love to talk about how to create more engaged, happier teams, as I call it sometimes, right? I believe that first of all, job descriptions don't necessarily have to be set in stone. Of course, we need a job description to find the ideal candidate for that for a specific role. But once that candidate has joined us, we get to know them better. And if we really take the time to get to know our team members, well, to uncover their unique brilliance, and have those conversations one on one sometimes as well, then we'll be able to figure out whether it's potentially a good idea to shift a few tests around on the team. Yeah, so maybe someone is doing something grudgingly. And not that well, just because it's part of that job description. But they are taking even way more time than necessary, because somebody else could do it faster and with more joy. And so we want to figure out who is great at what, and then maybe shift these tasks around a little bit. That's one way. I also believe that. And there are many examples I could mention here. But one of them is also story sharing. I call it story sharing, because we don't just, you know, put your story onto somebody who really reshare who you are, right. And I so I like that term better than storytelling, actually. So I think that story, sharing sessions can make a lot of difference. It's a playful way for everyone in the team to get to know each other better. And it gives a leader some valuable insights at the same time, as well. So it leads to greater understanding. And it can make the team more cohesive as well. And you know, sometimes when I've done these things, even in bigger groups during a speaking engagement, for example, people were surprised when they found out about some of their colleagues, especially if somebody there to speak all of a sudden, who doesn't usually speak that much somebody's more introverted, right. But you can, you can take all that out of them if you do it, right. Yes. And then also, I believe, one last example is appreciation, appreciation really goes a long way. And this can be done in so many ways. Of course, we can do it monetarily, with special bonuses or raises, but also by recognizing People's Daily contributions, as we move along in our work right on a daily basis. So if someone feels valued in this way, they want to give more, they want to show you more of their best side. Definitely have you. So I've seen this. And so I'm sure you have seen this as well, right? You, the leader understands what they're best at, and where they should be spending a majority of their time. But they have some tasks on their plate that they still feel like they have to be the one running this. Right? How do you how do you coach them out of that to find someone else to fill that role? Who might actually enjoy it more? And potentially be better? Right? Like, yes. Yeah. How do you approach it? Exactly. It's exactly the same process, you want to find out more about who the people in your team are. Because if you don't, then you wouldn't know can take that task on. And sometimes that requires a little bit more productive activity, talking to people having brainstorming sessions, hearing people out, getting their ideas, making it a bit more playful sometimes or asking the right questions, questions, for example, like, what would you do? If you were in my position? How would you handle that system situation if you had full authority? And I believe that in this way, when we ask more open ended questions, we can find out many precious details about our teams that we would not otherwise know. Yeah, no, that's, that's great. That is one of the challenges I've often run into. It's like, well, no one can do that, like me. So I will go find out if someone can write. Absolutely, and I think it does, you know, we all need to trust each other in order for this to happen, and it's a lot about building trust. Your team members also have the responsibility to build trust, not just you as a leader, and I believe that can also be taught and that, you know, it depends a lot on our conversation style on our communication style. When we lead by example in that way, then it's probably easier. Now when I work with somebody new, like a new virtual assistant, or whoever that is, I also have my concerns, because I don't know that person enough. And I also have had some not so great experience. You know, and it's understandable. Yeah. Okay, let's change pace for a second. I want to talk about that new paradigm leadership framework. Okay. Well, the no paradigm leadership, our NPL is a framework that basically builds on the other framework, that powerful leadership transformation is very much a self leadership framework, which then though, can be taken to your teams as well, it can be taught, I've taught this, you know, for example, in Rwanda is a four day workshop to a group of young people who complemented each other in their in their, in their team, right. And there was one leader who was sort of the founder of this group, but the workshop was for everybody. So it's definitely a transferable to the entire team, as well or to any single individual. However, the new paradigm leadership is really more for that. Teamwork specific, that team specific leadership, sorry. And it is meant to create more engaged and happier teams, it has four puzzle pieces, again, four pieces, I call them puzzle pieces here big just because of how I show this framework graphically, usually. And the first one is again, mind, because of course, you know, your mind has to be everywhere in a mindset, it in your mind impacts all you do, it determines how big your vision can be. It determines your drive, what you can achieve what you want to achieve. And then the message which in this case stands for communication, but not just verbal communication. Because as you now press, whether we speak or whether we don't speak, messages are always transmitted also in silence, and then also transmitted through our body language through our posture through our energy, as I said earlier, everything that makes you you and how you show up. Yes, there's a third element here. And the third puzzle piece is trust. Again, they overlap to some extent, because nothing is really separate, right and leadership. But just just as in life, as we said earlier, it's a holistic concept. The trust, I like to say trust is the glue that holds teams together. And it also allows creativity to flow it allows innovation to happen, because when we trust, we are more likely to share, when we trust that you have that we are valued that we are not not ignored or, or even laughed at when we say something or that, you know, when we're not afraid to make mistakes, that's when the greatest creativity happens, usually when we want to contribute our million dollar ideas, right. And then the fourth a puzzle piece is the heart. Again, we have the heart here, and this has a twofold meaning here. The first meaning is that people are the heart of any organization, we always must remember that I talk a lot in my work about humanizing the workplace. And that's also something important that we have to consider in any small business, right, you always want to keep it human and humane. We want to be people focused because they are your most important asset. And then also the second meaning of the heart here is that as I mentioned earlier, people connect through the heart. And there's a lot more to say about the heart, you know, how we, how we also can access our wisdom there and and our intuition, how we can ask our heart for answers to make our potentially best decisions and so on. Right? Yeah. We've covered a lot hear what now I'm gonna throw you just another one. What are the big I guess mistakes that you see leaders making as you're you're stepping in to help coach them help coach their teams? Like what are the things that they should just start? People listening today can start paying attention to these things. Yes, sometimes leaders are very self focused. And I believe that you know, we focus so much on okay, what do I Want to achieve? What are my goals? What is my vision and we don't always include our team enough in this, for example, if you have a vision, but your team does not know, your vision, no, has no clarity on what it is, then that is a problem, right? But it's also about ownership and about involving the team and creating the vision potentially, for example, if you work in a, in a company, it doesn't have to be always, you know, just a small business, even in a big company, and you have a team and you have a new project. Why don't you create, it could be a subdivision of the bigger vision, right? Sup vision, three of the bigger vision, and why not create that vision together? It creates automatic ownership, automatic accountability and, and, you know, and people are committed to having their part in it and to contributing to the success of this vision. I did this, for example, in Rwanda with this team of young people, and this thought they had a vision, but it was actually more like a mission. So we first of all, define what a vision is. And then they were working on this vision for several hours on one day to come up with a much more substantial one. And now everybody, you know, everybody was ready to buy into it. And to heart, I think we're going to move into a rapid fire round now. What, uh, what is one book that you would recommend everyone read? Well, one book that I believe can help be helpful to literally anyone, whatever your role is, whatever you, whoever you are, is becoming supernatural by God, Spencer. I really love that book. I read it a while ago. So don't ask me about too many details now. But it's stuck in my mind, because I also read some other books of his. So sometimes I might mix it up with anything that stands out. Awesome. That was a very good book. What is next for you professionally. I am looking to hopefully travel to Zimbabwe and of September and going back to the African continent for a little bit, as well and not not for a very long period of time. But hopefully more often, again, we've been working on a leadership summit that is not still not 100% confirmed, but I'm crossing my fingers for that, because that's so much fun. In that case, it would also be speaking at a different event as well in aurorae. And apart from that, of course, you know, I always look forward to supporting new clients, new coaching clients, but I'm also teaching a little bit more in Spanish now. So I have a session coming up tomorrow in Spanish for a client, I have another one coming up in August. And I would love to, you know, maybe also extend that to Portuguese to my other languages. Although I have to say I would have to brush up my French first to admit that I love to work is in Spanish and Portuguese as well. So maybe that's another thing that I want to put out into the universe. And for my private coaching clients, I can certainly do that as well. Awesome. And speaking of private clients, where can people find you? Yes, I have a website. It's called Transform your performance.com. And of course, also on LinkedIn as Regina Huber my name. I also have a YouTube channel. It's at Regina Huber. I should produce more for that again soon. It's more active at some times than another. But, yes. And then on LinkedIn, I actually also have a LinkedIn newsletter that people can sign up for and subscribe to it's usually weekly last week, I can make it work to write the article. That will be more again this week. And yes, I usually I do crank out an article per week and it's it's pretty diverse content in terms of career growth strategies, which is also the title of the newsletter, you can find that on my LinkedIn profile and leadership and also other aspects of our professional lives and leadership. As I said, I have a very holistic concept of you find all sorts of different topics. And then of course my books speak up, stand out and shine if somebody can lead us a little help preparing for challenging speaking situations in business such as presentations or whatever it is for everybody. It has some tips for that. And yeah, and then I'm also offering a complimentary session but it's really for the listeners who are super committed to being bold, value driven and heart centered leaders of self and others I should say. Not just team leaders and I'd be happy to share that that link as well. That'd be great. Regina, thank you so much for joining us today. This is great. If you enjoyed today's episode, I would love a rating and review on your favorite podcast player. And for more information on how to build effective and efficient teams through your leadership visit leading for effect.com and as always deserve it