To foster innovation with purpose and impact. What a positive theme for the Women In Tech Global Conference 2023.The philosopher Seneca is thought to have said luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity and I'll modify that a bit to say success is what happens when preparation meets opportunity in this session. I'll share how you can better prepare to lead in the new world of work so that you can deliver innovation with purpose and impact. I'm Jeanne Nichols. After 30 years in the tech industry, I pivoted my career from a vice president and general manager at Intel Corporation to follow my passion, supporting technical women to thrive in industry. I'm an executive coach, a leadership instructor at Stanford and a consulting partner at prison work.

I invite you to pause for a minute. How has your view of leadership changed over the last few years? How is your own leadership changed in this session? You'll learn about the six essential skills that enable modern leaders to attract the best talent, executive support and resources.

We'll start by briefly exploring why what worked at work no longer does I'll introduce you to the hardy leadership model, you'll examine your own strengths, using this model and craft some steps to enhance your modern leadership skills, using three leader tools. My goal is for you to foster innovation with purpose and impact the theme of this year's conference. So what used to work at work for leaders? No longer does a new kind of leadership is required for success. It's driven by all kinds of trends. There's ongoing political unrest, technological disruption, the continuing global pandemic and the rise of an increasingly diverse and multigenerational workforce millennials already make up over 50% of the global workforce. And by 2025 Gen Z, those born between 1997 and 2012 will account for another 27%.

This modern workforce is racially diverse, just under 40% of millennials and nearly 50% of Gen Zs identify as nonwhite compare that to their bosses. Only 30% of Gen X and 18% of Boomers identify as racially or ethnically diverse. So, expectations of these rising leaders is different.

Today's leaders have to shift from fostering this hierarchical profit driven office based cultures to creating democratic people driven cultures that empower teams across a myriad of locations. And those of us who master these modern leadership skills are going to thrive in this new environment, creating inclusive cultures that draw the best talent to their teams. We're seeing this call to action from industry groups like the business roundtable and many leading CEO S like Blackrock's Larry Fink in his annual letter to the CEO S, the more your company can show its purpose in delivering value to its customers, its employees and its communities.

The better able you will be to compete and deliver long term durable profits for shareholders. Is he calling out this shareholder versus stakeholder capitalism? What does that mean for us as leaders, these dynamics require that new model of leadership. One that most of us haven't been trained or prepared for. It means paying attention to all our stakeholders because delivering value to all stakeholders results in that long term durable profits for our investors. So what does this leadership look like the shift? What is needed to become a modern leader? This is how you shift to create that more inclusive, more productive, more innovative work culture rather than being rigidly in control. We used to say my way or the highway that command and control. Modern leaders get comfortable with ambiguity, they encourage collaboration, the old school, tell leaders command, do what I say shifts into the new modern leaders intent. I'll tell you what the goal is and you're empowered to figure out how to get there. So you're clear on my intent, but you've got the flexibility to figure out how in the traditional leader, they were driven by scarcity and guarded with information. The modern leader has a fundamental belief in abundance. We can innovate and create more for all. And I'll be transparent about the goals and how we're gonna get there in the bottom line. The traditional leader had a singular focus on prophets, profits and profits and the modern leader, it's focused on not only profits but purpose and people as well.

So let me share a model that will help you put these new leadership skills into practice. We call it the hearty model of modern leadership. This model focuses on six core principles of modern leadership. They're the foundation of how you can succeed in the new world of work.

As you get aware of these skills, I'm going to provide you with tools and some insights so you can truly thrive and help others thrive as well. The hardy model is built on recent breakthroughs in cognitive and positive psychology, organizational design, performance management and extensive research with thousands of leaders across numerous industries. It focuses on the core principles of modern leadership humility, empathy, accountability, resiliency, transparency and inclusivity and research shows that companies with leaders that embrace and exemplify these traits, deliver better business results and create cultures where employees can thrive.

Which of these six qualities do you think is your strongest today? Feel free to type in chat early indicators in our research, tell us that technical leaders or those working in technical fields often assess with the strength and accountability. It could be because many of us work in organizations with OKRS objectives and key results or formal goal setting. And grading systems. But today, I'm gonna share more information on the three skills that I think will be most interesting to you. Humility, empathy and transparency among the thousands of leaders who've taken our hearty leadership assessment, humility is often rated as a vulnerability an area that can be developed further. So obviously, many of us are gonna want to develop that skill, enhance that skill.

The second principle is empathy and if the pandemic has taught us anything, it's shown the power of empathy to support our teams to deliver results. And the third skill is transparency, colleagues, communities, governments all are demanding more transparency in the world of generative A I building trust and transparency is essential for doing business. So this session is gonna provide you with an opportunity to enhance your existing strength or add to your strengths.

And I'll share a link to the free assessment at the end. So you can see uh which of these are your strength. So what do we mean by humility? There are four core elements that humble leaders express. First, they understand their own weaknesses, they're aware of their own limitations and they're not afraid to acknowledge them, they're self-aware and they hire staff that complement their strengths. So they fill in and hire people with strengths that they don't have yet. Second, they understand that their success is tied to the success of their team and their employees. They put the team first, they ask for advice name to, they delegate effectively, they share the credit and hoard the blame. They also operate with a service mindset. They invest in the development and growth of others. They focus on goals bigger than themselves or any one individual and they take a long term focus over short term achievements. And lastly, they're driven by a higher purpose. They're not driven by their self interest and they keep their personal bias in check. What are some examples of leaders who embody humility. Former US Congressman John Lewis, he was a lifelong champion for equality and voting rights. He was gracious and down to earth rich with gravitas, but he wasn't boastful. He wasn't a pushover. He held firm in business, I think of Indra Nui, former chairman and CEO of Pepsico. She was praised for her humility.

She was known for soliciting and listening to all opinions related to a subject before making a decision. She was also seen as being very affiliated with the workforce. She was always learning, make no mistake. Humble leaders can be ambitious and competitive but they are more likely to stay out of the spotlight and give credit to their team. They ask for help and they listen, giving permission for their colleagues to do the same. So why is humility important for leaders? Well, research by catalysts across six countries showed that humble leadership results in increased team collaboration, more alignment on vision and goals, greater transparency across teams and more engaged and productive employees. And there's research uh published by Deloitte and Deloitte and in the Wall Street Journal that shows lower absenteeism, higher teamwork, lower employee turnover and a prediction of more ethical behavior, right? The other thing that's interesting about humble leaders is they very often have a growth mindset.

And many of you may have heard of growth mindset by Carol Dweck. We have a fixed mindset on the right hand side, someone with a fixed mindset thinks I have a certain amount of talent or capabilities or skills. I am what I am now, this is a challenge. If you want to be a modern leader, we're living in a time of massive change. And neuroscience shows when we feel threatened by change, chemicals are released in our brain that set up the fight flight or freeze response. Unfortunately, our brain treats social threats the same as when you're under a physical threat and change is a social threat because if I can't learn new things, my career is at risk and it can trigger those fight flight or freeze chemicals for many leaders. On the left hand side with a growth mindset. I believe I can improve my intelligence, my skill or I can gain new capabilities if I put in the effort. Now, I might never get as good at basketball as Steph Curry or lebron, but I can be better than I am today. Humble leaders are more likely to have a growth mindset. They acknowledge behaviors that they can improve people with a growth mindset are more adaptable. They're able to detect and recover from mistakes, they recalibrate and begin again. In fact, growth mindset catalyzes transformation leaders with a growth mindset. Welcome. Dare I say, seek out feedback. So what can you do this coming week to practice expressing more humility?

Well, there's a tool I use with my coaching clients. It's simple and it's powerful and it's easy to put into action. Let's do it right now. Think of something you're not good at. You can type it in chat, say it out loud with me. I'm not good at networking. I'm not good at presenting. How does that feel in your body? Did your chin drop down? Did your shoulders round in? Did you become smaller? Did you mumble? Let's try it again. Using this tool. Add the word yet to every negative statement. This will help you build humility and a growth mindset. When you hear yourself say something negative about your capability, pause and add the word yet. Let's try that again. Adding yet. I'm not good at networking yet. Does it make you feel a little hopeful? Did your shoulders go back and down? Did your chin tip up? Did you say the yet loudly? I challenge you to find five times this week to reframe and change your mindset by adding the word yet. And as you go through the work week, observe yourself. Are there any patterns that you notice? Do you need to add yet with family? When you're managing up, when you're managing down when you're working with your peers, you can also interrupt your colleagues or your Children and add yet. Do it for yourself. Catch others in the act.

Adding yet is the leader tool for building more humility. The next principle is empathy, empathy is the ability to understand the feelings and needs of others. Empathetic leaders are active listeners, they're compassionate and deeply curious. They have a mindset that's focused on. Tell me more.

It means you're aware of the other person's feelings and how those feelings impact how they perceive the situation. It doesn't mean you have to agree with how they see things rather being empathetic means that you're willing and able to appreciate what the other person is going through.

It helps create a sense of belonging, reinforcing a belief that an employee's perspective matter and their voices are being heard. How do you be empathetic? An example at the beginning of the pandemic. Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg had a COVID press conference focused on Children and she said it's OK to be scared. Now, there are three kinds of empathy, cognitive, emotional and compassion, cognitive empathy is basically being able to put yourself in someone else's place to see their perspective.

Emotional recognition is at the core of comp a cognitive empathy and it can be taught emotional empathy is when you quite literally feel the other person's emotions along with them. It's as if you'd caught the emotion. You know, if your colleague tells you some sad news that's happening to them, your breath catches in your throat and tears might well up in your eyes or your heart starts pounding and your face gets red in your fist clench when a colleague tells you about how they were, how angry they are over some injustice that they suffered.

It's emotional empathy is like catching the emotion. Now, compassionate empathy is feeling someone else's pain or their emotion and being able to take action to help. So how do we compare these three kinds of empathy? Well, cognitive empathy can often be considered under emotional.

It involves uh perceiving that people have insufficient feeling, perhaps too much in their head, too much logical analysis. And it can seem to be unsympathetic by somebody who's in distress. Emotional empathy by contrast can result in empathy overload. Emotions are primitive and feeling.

Strong emotions, especially distress, makes us less able to cope and certainly less able to think and apply reason in the situation. It's very hard to help anyone else if you're overcome by your own emotions. So in exercising compassionate empathy, we can find a balance between logic and emotion.

We can sense another person's pain and therefore express the appropriate amount of sympathy. But at the same time, we can remain in control of our own emotions and apply reason to the situation. It means that we can be a better decision maker and provide appropriate support when it's needed. So, aim for expressing compassionate empathy. So why is empathy so important? Well, there's a number of research that had been done showing the business impact of empathy. The World Economic Forum created a resource called the empathy Index. And it broke down empathy into a number of elements, ethics, leadership company, culture, brand, perception, and so on. And they tracked over 100 publicly traded global companies on these metrics and discovered a big difference between the top 10 rated empathetic companies and the bottom when it came to business impact. So companies in that top 10 generated 50% more earnings and they increased in value more than twice as much. And interestingly, within those top companies, they found an 80% correlation between departments where the leaders expressed higher empathy and those with higher performance.

So again, showing that when leaders demonstrate empathy teams perform better, but it's not just about profits and the company's benefit. Business impact of empathy extends to our employees and retention. This uh study uh which was published in Harvard. Business Review showed 93% of employees reported they're more likely to stay if their leader was more empathetic. And 78% of the employees said they would work harder if they felt their manager was more empathetic. Now, we're all being asked to do more with less. So having our employees stay and, and giving them a reason to work harder to achieve our objectives is really key. The challenge for us is there's a perception gap. 92% of CEO S said the organization was empathetic, but only 72% of employees said they work for an empathetic employer. So what can you do individually as a leader to retain those employees or perhaps engage any quiet quitters? The great reassessment that brings us to our second leader tool. Bring awe a we a sense of wonder to your next conversation. How do we do this? Empathy is about really listening and trying to see through someone else's eyes. So to put it into practical action, I invite you to bring some wonder curiosity, some awe to your next conversation. All means ask and what else? And you can ask this multiple times. What else? Is there anything else before we move on?

Is there anything else on that you want to share? People often take a bit of time to warm up. They're actually not used to being listened to. So they tell you what they think you wanna hear, especially if there's a power differential, if you're the boss. So you can hone your empathy skills using this small phrase and doing it a few times, try it with different intonation or inflection along with silence to see what else might emerge. It also forces you to sit in their space a bit longer and you get to experience something together. I'll caution you if you feel the urge to speak, don't try to fix or win as leaders. This is hard. People come to us all day long expecting us to have the answer. But some of the responses you might use when someone, when you ask and what else and someone shares something to support the process of awe. You can say things like I'm sorry that happened. Well, thanks for sharing that with me and don't try and fix or win. You can use awe for good things as well as challenges. What went right? And what else is there anything else before we move on? What else should we do again to get great results? Don't let them stop at their first answer. Mine for more gems. I have a bonus tool in our leader tool kit to help you out here. This was research done and published in Scientific American. The leader tool is to walk in others shoes.

How can you experience something looking through someone else's shoes? Reading is another way to virtually walk in others shoes. So the Scientific American Magazine published this research that showed how reading literary fiction improves empathy, the ability for you to infer other people's thoughts and emotions.

So I'm curious, I ask in chat, I'm always looking for a good read. What fiction book or story allowed you to get new perspective by walking in someone else's shoes. I recently read the Night Watchman by Louise Tich and gave me insight to the Native American experience. It's fiction based on a true story. Have you read a book or seen a movie that showed you what it's like to walk in someone else's shoes? What were their concerns and issues and how they perceived an experience? You can do this with your friends and colleagues as well. But just by asking, how is it being Sarah today? Hey, Steve, how is it for you today? See if their perception is the same or different from yours? All right. The third trait I wanted to talk about was transparency. Transparency is a commitment to clarity and genuine intent and communications. With the goal of creating trust, transparent leaders are trustworthy and trusting. You're not trustworthy. If you're not demonstrating integrity, integrity means you walk the talk.

What you see is what you get. There's no hidden agenda. You do the right things right? You act in accord with your why your beliefs, your purpose. When you're trustworthy and consistently demonstrating integrity, your communications will inspire and motivate your team to accomplish big goals.

You have to have the courage to communicate with candor in good times and even more so and bad often we hesitate to share bad news. The best direction I've ever been given as a leader is if you have bad news, text me, if you have good news, save it and share it when we see it chipper. So we can celebrate together. In other words, make bad news, travel faster than good news. No leader wants to be surprised and they'd rather hear it from you first. So this version of transparency that modern leaders experience is not just being open with their feelings and motives, but it's knowing what you stand for and making that clear to others. Transparency is powerful for you as a modern leader, we know research shows transparency increases trust and productivity. It's about open and honest and direct communications with all of your stakeholders. You know, being honest to me means telling the truth before you need to.

So let me show you a a simple model that will help you build your skill with transparency. This is our third leader tool. Oh Wait, first, we're gonna talk about the leaders trust triangle. So I'm gonna double down on this how modern leaders add their skill of being trustworthy and trusting the leaders trust triangle, Francis Fry on the lower left is the head logic. I trust your reasoning and judgment. I know that they're sound on the lower right. Is your heart, your empathy. I believe you care about me and my success. And that at the top is authenticity. What you say and do aligns. I experience the real you. There's no hidden agenda. If you pause and think about these three Pras, which one is your strongest and which one do you want to develop further? You could type in chat or in the Q and A is your strength in logic, is your strength and empathy. What is your strength in authenticity? Some of my coaching clients often ask about authenticity and they link it with imposter syndrome or having self doubts, which is normal and natural. Being transparent and authentic. Doesn't mean we say or act on every idea that comes into our head. We might have some fears or reservations.

But as a leader, we choose to take courageous action, we can still be authentic and act with restraint or with compassion and with discretion. In fact, to grow in our leadership, we have to start practicing behaviors that feel unnatural and you can read more about that in Harmonia, Aba's authenticity. Paradox. If you're interested these three traits in the leaders trust triangle matter because when the leader does them, it gives permission for employees to do the same and that is a positive snowball effect on your culture. So how are you gonna put this into action? Here's the leader's tool.

Candid communication with six steps. There are six prompts here. And if you answer them in your communication is a surefire process to communicate transparently and build trust. It works in uncertainty, it works in crisis. I'll give you one caution about candid communication.

As a senior leader, you need to meet your team where they are. If you see something, say something, but you need to know when to hold your opinion. You have to use discretion with confidential or need to know topics. And candid communications goes both ways. When you're candid with your team, expect they're going to respond positively and you need to react positively and welcome the honesty back from them. So the leader tool kit here for Candid communication. If you structure your communication, answering these six prompts, your message will be complete and clear.

You start with why here's why this matters. And then you add, here's what I think as a leader, then you move on to what, here's what we know and here's what we don't know and you end with how here's what you can do and here's what you can count on from me. Let me give you an example. If I'm in a start up, I might have this candid communication to share with my team. Our latest round of fundraising didn't yield the funds that we wanted. That means we won't be able to pursue all of our initiatives. That's why this matters. Here's what I think my gut reaction is, things will get better and it'll take about a year before we see the market improve to go raise more funds. We've had a challenge raising funds in the past and I believe in our ability to rebound. That's what I think move on to what. Here's what we know. We have cash in the bank, we have solid backlog commitments from our customers. Here's what we don't know. We don't know how long it will be before we go back to the market. Again, an end with the house. I need to just stay focused on our top priorities. We wanna show that when things get tough, this team rises to the occasion and here's what you can count on for me.

I'll continue to give you an update on the plan each week as it evolves, I'll continue to lobby the board for resources we need, I'll push hard and I'll support each one of you. Let us move forward and stay true to our commitment to bring these great solutions to the market. Bye. So answering all six of those is clear and candid, that's how you grow your transparency with your team. And as I said, expect them to be more transparent in return. So I've given you three tools to add to your leader tool kit, to build your humility, to build your empathy and to build your transparency. You can leverage these to increase your skill as a modern leader. And if you're curious, you can take the leader, the hardy leader quotient assessment. It will provide your strength, vulnerability and a comparison to the global norm of thousands of leaders who are engaging to grow their leadership skills. And the goal is to find the right combination across these six traits. Sometimes they seem in contradiction, sometimes taking decisive action and yet being accessible as a human can be hard. And so by adding to your strength that all six of these, you're going to cultivate a culture of inclusion that's gonna bring out the best in all of your people.

So what did we talk about today to recap with the ongoing political rest, unrest, technological disruption, the global pandemic and the rise of an increasingly diverse and multigenerational workforce. A new kind of leadership is required for success. Today's leaders have to shift from fostering hierarchical product focused, profit driven office based cultures to creating democratic people focused people driven cultures that empower teams across a myriad of locations. Those leaders who master these modern leadership skills will thrive in the new environment and attract the best talent to their teams. The new leadership skills we explore through the hardy model, humility, empathy, accountability, resiliency, transparency and inclusion. We highlighted how companies with leaders that express these qualities, deliver better business results and you had a few moments to reflect on where your strengths are today and which skills you'd like to develop further. I invite you to leverage the three leader tools I shared to accelerate your journey as a modern leader. And if you need a leader tool kit for a hardy quality, I didn't share her reach out to me. I've got a lot of resources and I'm happy to share we can continue the conversation, connect with me on linkedin. As I said, you can send me a message and request a tool for one of the hearty skills.

You can visit my website and gain leadership insights from the blogs or schedule a complimentary career chat. Thank you for joining me today. We want to make innovation and make impact through purpose at this global women in tech conference. And I'll open up for any questions if you want to type in chat.