Career Conversations | S2 EP2: Transitioning into Leadership (part 2)

Show Notes

Transitioning into Leadership

with Catherine Bachy

Transitioning into your first leadership role can be an exciting, nerve-racking experience. Career coach Catherine Bachy walks you through some of the most common questions and concerns about this important step, and shares some qualities and skills you can develop to be a better leader.

Certified executive coach Catherine Bachy brings over fifteen years’ experience as an advisor and coach to leaders and teams in both corporate and public sector settings. She has shared her expertise as a leadership coach, strategic facilitator, and instructor as part of POD’s University Consulting Alliance and quarterly courses since 2015.

Catherine is known for her ability to capture and communicate insights and visual metaphors that help her clients find clarity, map their future state, see their work in new ways, and move beyond roadblocks into the territory of solutions and achievements. Catherine is also gifted in creating safe space for important and sometimes difficult conversations to take place. She is skilled at noticing the deeper dynamics of what is going on and enabling others to respond in ways that produce more satisfying results.

Her key clients include leaders who want to help their teams become high-performing while creating a positive work environment, and managing conflict and stress along the way.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Creators and Guests

Host

Michaela Gormley

Michaela Gormley (she/her) is a proud alum of the University of Washington, graduating in 2009 from the Foster School of Business with a degree in Business Administration – Marketing and a minor in Spanish. She recently started a new role in tech sales after 10+ years in marketing. She served as a member of the UWAA GOLD (Graduates of the Last Decade) Council for two years, including one year leading the diversity, equity and inclusion subcommittee. As a proud member of the UW Alumni community and as a first-generation college student herself, Michaela is passionate about increasing the inclusivity and accessibility of higher education. She is excited to be back for the second round of UWAA Career Conversations and is grateful to be part of a resource that helps others achieve their personal and professional goals. In her free time, Michaela is an avid fan of Husky Athletics and has been a football season ticket holder since graduation. She loves spending time in the sunshine of Eastern Washington with her family and friends and prides herself on being a cool aunt to all of her nieces and nephews.

Guest

Catherine Bachy

Certified executive coach Catherine Bachy brings over fifteen years’ experience as an advisor and coach to leaders and teams in both corporate and public sector settings. She has shared her expertise as a leadership coach, strategic facilitator, and instructor as part of POD’s University Consulting Alliance and quarterly courses since 2015. Catherine is known for her ability to capture and communicate insights and visual metaphors that help her clients find clarity, map their future state, see their work in new ways, and move beyond roadblocks into the territory of solutions and achievements. Catherine is also gifted in creating safe space for important and sometimes difficult conversations to take place. She is skilled at noticing the deeper dynamics of what is going on and enabling others to respond in ways that produce more satisfying results. Her key clients include leaders who want to help their teams become high-performing while creating a positive work environment, and managing conflict and stress along the way.

What is Career Conversations ?

Frank conversations to help you take control of your career.

Going beyond resumes, interviews, and cover letters, each conversation brings a unique perspective on relevant topics for you and your professional development.

Presented by Pepsi, Career Conversations is produced by the University of Washington Alumni Association.

Learn more: https://www.washington.edu/alumni/career-conversations/

This is part two of career conversations, a discussion about transitioning into leadership. If you haven't listened to part one yet, please begin there and come back here for part two. OK so you've given us intellectual intelligence. Emotional intelligence.

Embodied intelligence.

Embodied intelligence. That's what we were just talking about. And I think you said there are four. So what's the what's the fourth one? The fourth one. Relationship intelligence.

OK.

And, you know, for me, these are all connected. It's like a, you know, a Venn diagram. And you have these four circles and they're all connected. They overlap and they all impact each other. It's you know, they're not just sort of these discrete columns of knowledge. They're all working together. And by relationship intelligence, it's how do we collaborate? You know, what are learned or innate styles of communication and collaboration, and how do these styles mesh with or clash with other styles and other people? And when we find ourselves in organizations, we find so many different styles of communicating, different motivational things that, you know, motivational values, ways of managing conflict. And it, it's important to understand have a vocabulary for understanding what our sort of relationship intelligence is. And I mean, one of the things is there's just a lot of conflict in organizations. And, you know, we tend to—somehow--we're surprised by that. And people often say that that's the hardest thing for them, is how to manage conflict. And many people identify as conflict averse. And yet there it is. And it's hard to avoid conflict. And how we are able to show up in those moments is a testimony to our leadership capacities. You know, how do we manage conflict? Do we run from it? Do we engage in it to seek new understanding? Or do we shut it down and shut ourselves down? You know, there's different, more maladaptive ways in which we manage conflict. And I don't think we've actually ever learned how to manage conflict. I mean, I never had a conflict management class when I was an undergraduate. And it wasn't until, you know, I was studying organizational leadership that I studied conflict. And in fact, it was because I am conflict averse that I became a practitioner of aikido because I wanted to learn what happens when you are in true conflict, when you're doing a martial art. Your body is on the mat, experiencing conflict. How do you manage that skillfully? That has given me a lot of information about my own ways in which I manage conflict or don't manage it very well. It's an ongoing place of learning for me. But that's what I mean by sort of this relationship intelligence is how do we get along with others? You know, and—

Yeah.

And how can we improve that? How can we understand a variety of ways of communicating, a variety of value systems, you know, and, and, and be, be really curious about, wow, that person is so different from me. Where are they coming from? You know, how can I better understand where this person's coming from?

Right.

You know, so it's just really, really developing a vocabulary and an understanding of how relationships work.

Yeah, that one. So relevant, I think obviously in a career, but also just life. I mean, I think all of these are good things to think about as we're just navigating life, right? Because leadership isn't even necessarily just in a career, although that's sort of what the context is that we're talking about today. But being a good relational leader not--or understanding how to navigate conflict. Oh, imagine what that could do for all of the relationships around you, right? Now in your family, in a romantic relationship, with your friends, with maybe people who you run into on the street. Who knows? But what a wonderful skill to work on and develop and really just be mindful of it and think of.

Yeah.

I really like that.

And you know, I think you mentioned earlier, sometimes like we were talking about emotional intelligence, you said sometimes it doesn't seem valued, right. As valued as like intellectual intelligence.

Sure.

And all of these, you know, kind of come under this sort of label of what people sometimes referred to as the soft skills.

Ohhh.

And I'm always curious about what people mean when they say the soft skills. And is there a certain bias, perhaps?

I think there might be, but I’ll let you—

You know, I had a friend who was teaching communication skills and she was saying, you know, people always say these are soft skills, but why if they're soft, why are they so hard to learn?

That's awesome. That’s funny!

And you know, it's different. Like, it's not like solving a math problem or, you know, a chemistry problem or a problem in a computer science problem. It’s really. It's a practice. And all of these skills, we practice them and they, you know, it's a lifetime of practice. You asked me before. So how does one go about. You know, practicing new skills or learning these skills. I mean, there's—

Yeah.

There's a number of ways. There's obviously there's, you know, lots of books out there on leadership. Yeah, there are classes. You know, if someone's interested in saying, gosh, you know, I can really relate to that issue of being conflict averse. Many people can. What what could I do about that? You know, and one is like, find out what your conflict style is. You know, there are assessments people can take that are fairly easy to access. You can access them online. There's one on conflict called the Thomas Kilman Conflict Mode Instrument or the TKI. And, you know, these are tools that are available to people. And, you know, do an assessment, find out what, you know, where you land on this spectrum, because it's really is a spectrum around conflict management. Sometimes it and it can be contextual depends on the context. But that's a way of learning about ourselves. And then and then realizing that, you know, maybe there are some areas to grow into. Maybe I need to learn how to be a little bit more directive, or I need to learn how to be more collaborative and what does that look like. And I think we start to develop a certain--kind of assess sort of where you're starting from and what opportunities there are to grow into just feeling more comfortable. It's kind of like, you know, when you're a musician and you play one instrument, you play it really well and then all of a sudden you get really interested in another instrument or, you know, several other instruments. And it's like it's like playing many instruments, learning these different skills. And it's—I really invite people to think about this in a fun way and in, as a, as a lifelong practice, rather than just to get from point A to point B. And I'm sort of convinced that when we can learn in that way that, you know, serendipity happens and opportunities happen. And when we're in a good space, you know, we attract opportunities and great relationships.

Yeah, yeah.I think that's true. I, I mean, that's even how you and I sort of came together today is there's a little bit of serendipity between that and, um, you know, my, my involvement in wanting to get more involved in the Alumni Association and—

Yeah.

Seeing that as an opportunity to do something I was passionate about and being add some leadership. Opportunity to my life, I guess to my resume really is probably what I was thinking about a couple of years ago when I started and saying, OK, I can get on this council and then how can I grow there? And then making lots of connections and then being able to work on this project as well and meeting lots of wonderful people, very intelligent people in all sorts of intelligences, right?

It has been really wonderful. But it does it starts to snowball, I think a little bit. And I, I keep thinking about the leadership program that you were talking about earlier in just having exposure to other people and getting to work on projects and not knowing where that might go for people.

That's right.

Just sort of diving into to whatever options they can find, I think is it's such a cool place to start.

Well, Yeah. So what you've just described is just really modeling that sort of looking for opportunities, getting involved, making a contribution and doing it from a place of passion.

Right.

And seeing where that leads you and meeting people and all that. You're just modeling that. That's wonderful, that's a wonderful activity that you're doing, it’s great.

OK, I was going to go back. I know we were talking about maybe some advice or next steps that you have for people if they are wanting to get started or move forward a little bit in leadership, we talked about maybe taking some assessments online, finding out what that baseline is for them. What else is there for maybe next steps for people?

Looking for opportunities to practice in your current environments. Like where? Where might I deepen my engagement in a certain area. In a current environment, you know, taking a class, taking a class in emotional intelligence or conflict management. Mentorship opportunities.

Oh, Yeah.

I think that's a great opportunity, you know, and people can look for mentorship opportunities sometimes in their workplaces, their mentorship programs, sometimes alumni associations may have a mentorship program or other professional organizations sometimes have a mentorship programs. I think that's another great way to get information outside of our own experience and consult with someone who's been in the field. It's and usually, you know, mentors really enjoy that. You know, it they get a lot out of the relationship. So it's really a two way type of engagement.

I do, though. I will give a little plug here that the UW Alumni Association does have some great mentorship programs that they do, and they're always looking for both mentees and mentors. So we can talk more for people who are interested, but it's is a really, really cool program to do.

Yeah no, that's wonderful. I think sort of having an idea of where those opportunities are possible is, is really great. And then just ongoing learning about yourself and we talked about that Thomas Kilman Conflict Mode Instrument, that's one. I mean many people have taken the Myers Briggs or it's called MBTI, that's the acronym and that's another assessment that's very well known in organizations and really gives people a sense of, you know, what kind of communicator they are, how they process information, what's their sort of ideal work environment. Clifton Strength Finder is another one. There's one that I used a lot in that we use it in POD, which is the Core Strengths, SDI inventory and that's really more around relationship intelligence. So really assessing what motivates us, assessing how we are in conflict. The Disk is another one, Disk Inventory. So these are available, you know, online fairly, fairly easily. And often there's a report that comes with it. You can debrief that with somebody, you know, get it. It's helpful to have someone to debrief it with and it shows you just get more from the report and then yeah, so I think those are, those are some, some ideas in terms of just learning about yourself.

Yeah, those are great. Some of those assessments I've done, but some of them I haven't. So I might have to go through the list and see if, see if there are any that can offer some new insights. I'm sure people listening will recognize some of those names on the list as well.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. OK so we've talked about some assessments online. And do you have any other resources that you might recommend, like books, maybe podcast, people listening to this probably enjoy a podcast? Or do you sort of draw your inspiration or what would you recommend?

Well, you know, one of our boss at POD, Professional Organization Development says leaders are readers. And that is true. I have a, you know, my bookshelf full of books. You can’t see it, but I can see it.

I'll vouch for her. Yes and it's true.

Like there's always so many books. I know you can't learn to be a leader through reading. I already said that. But leaders are curious. People want to know more from a variety of fields. But some of the ones that I really enjoy these days, I really, of course, love Brené Brown. And she has her Dare to Lead podcast, which is great. You know, you can list look at the listing and see what topics might interest you. There's she's also had a new book out called The Atlas of the zeart. That's really all about emotional intelligence. And it's a wonderful book that really goes deep into emotions and really understanding our emotions and where they come from and how to use them. And, and really like distinguishing the nuances in emotion. Some others that are maybe a little bit more practical in terms of, you know, kind of more actionable kinds of things. there's this book called Design for Belonging that is from the Stanford d.school how to build inclusion and collaboration in your communities. Very new book, really great, especially when we're talking about, you know, diversity, equity and inclusion. You know, how do we build programs that really have an equity lens? And I think this is a great guide for that. And it's certainly something we're talking about a lot.

And what was the name of that one again?

Design for belonging. Oh, OK. With the Stanford d.school, they have a series which is great. Navigating ambiguity is another one. Drawing on courage is another one. And then, just back to that diversity, equity, inclusion. I think, you know, there's always so much to learn in this space and you know, I mean, how to be an anti-racist by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, I think is a wonderful start and/or continuation in his journey around diversity, equity and inclusion. So important for us to broaden our understanding and our abilities to show up in a more, more skillfully in the area of diversity, equity and inclusion. So that's certainly something that I'm always studying as well. So those are some ideas. Oh, and one more.

OK.

Because people often find themselves in transition, especially. Perhaps this audience thinking about career, thinking about change, and there's a lot of transition happening in the world. Organizations are changing a lot, especially, you know, right after this as we're heading out of the pandemic. And that has definitely transformed our workplaces. But there's a wonderful reference that I turn to a lot. His name is William Bridges, and he's written a lot about transition and both on a personal level as well as organizationally. And I find that it's a useful resource and model for people, both individually, as well as within an organization.

Well, that's fascinating. OK his name is William Bridges?

William Bridges. Yeah.

OK. Well, I'll be bookmarking all of those and attempting to get through them. It's nice and cozy now. So yeah, it's more, it lends me more to reading than maybe the summer months do, but.

Well, you know, it's an ongoing thing. Like it's, it's just and even in reading outside of your field can be really interesting too, just to get a different perspective on things. Broadening our perspectives. It's always it's always useful.

Yeah Yeah. That's always so helpful. We talked about a lot today. It's been wonderful. So to wrap this up, what would you say are some things that you want people to really take away from our conversation? We've obviously talked about a lot, but maybe some highlights that you hope are the things that people really take away from this.

Yeah well, one, we talked about how, you know, leadership is not just a title. Right some titles might and may imply leadership, but it's not. You can be a leader without having a title. Leader of self is a great place to start. You can lead from wherever you're sitting or standing wherever, from wherever you are, because it's really about, you know, leading yourself in pursuit of your purpose and your sense of mastery in the world and pursuit of the change and the transformation you want to see in the world. And I think it's important to keep coming back to that and to be know, it's sort of really that purpose driven leader. Now, that's my bias, right? I'm purpose driven. Not everyone is. And that's OK. But finding what is it that really motivates us and you know, for the sake of what? For the sake of what do we want to lead? And there's so many oh, you know, there we're at such a critical place in our evolution as humans. And there's so much great work to do in the world. I for the sake of what that is different, right?

Oh, I love that question. That's a good.

Yeah, it's one of my favorites.

A good one to ponder for sure. Yeah, I love that. Well, Thank you so much for joining me today, Catherine. It's been really wonderful talking to you and learning from you. And I know people listening are learning a lot from this conversation. And if they want to continue learning from you and supporting your work, what's the best way for them to do that and connect with you?

Yes, Thank you for that question. Well, I work at Professional and Organizational Development at University of Washington, so sure, I can be reached through my email. [e-mail]. And so I'm a, you know, like you said earlier, organizational consultant. I teach classes. I teach classes on Introduction to leadership embodiment and on--another class called the coach approach, which is another, you know, learning how to coach is also a leadership skill.

Yeah.

And then. And so I'm happy to to, you know, to hear from people if you have other questions. Also, just in terms of supporting me, I feel like I want to just say, take a moment and let the audience know that I just wrote a book. And that was a leadership that was a leadership challenge for myself to go from a myself to myself—

And implementing all these things we're talking about.

Well, it took me years, but I did it. And the title of the book is Guardians. And it it really doesn't have a whole lot to do with leadership. It's really a passion project. It's a memoir, creative nonfiction. It's where the Poetry in the bio shows up that I'm a poet and I like to write. And I've been wanting to write, you know, publish for a long time. And this is a compilation. It's a collection of about 33 micro essays and poetry that's based on memoir writing.

Oh, my goodness. I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. And congratulations on a huge accomplishment.

Thank you.

I’m sure was not that's not something you just sit down and do in a day or two.

No, it takes discipline and structure and getting up early and writing and, you know, but, you know, commitment sometimes I'm sure that many people in this audience are, you know, have a sense of commitment towards a goal, a dream that they have. That's that first place of leadership. How how can you do it there?

Great. Well, Thank you so much. I am, like I said, so glad that you were able to join today. And I look forward to talking to you again someday.

All right. Well, Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, Catherine. We'll talk to you soon. All right. Bye bye.

OK bye bye.

Thank you for tuning in to career conversations and audio series created for the University of Washington alumni community that focuses on deeper topics to help you create and sustain a fulfilling career. This series is one of many programs and events created and supported by the UW Alumni Association to keep alumni, students and friends connected to the University and to each other. To explore more ways the Alumni Association can support you and your career, or for you to mentor and support other UW alumni and students. Visit UWalum.com to learn more about programs like UW Husky Landing and Huskies@Work. You are a Husky for life. And there are many ways to stay connected and be more involved in your Husky community. Join us at UWalum.com. I'm your host, Mikaela Gormley. Thanks so much for listening and Go Dawgs!