Taking Space in Moments of Crisis
Episode Notes
In this episode of 52Humans, Paul talks with Angela Howard, CEO of Call For Culture. Angela shares about how one manager changed everything during a time of personal crisis and loss.
About the Guest
Angela Howard
Chief Executive Officer
Call for Culture
Angela Howard is an organizational psychologist and the CEO of Call For Culture - an organization that applies psychology, anthropology, and, sociology to the science of culture development and change. Her mission is to help transform companies into environments where employees can deploy their contributions for positive organizational outcomes and social impact.
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Paul: I'm so excited today to be chatting with Angela Howard, about human first and empathetic leadership. Angela is an organizational psychologist focused on scaling human centered workplaces that create social impact. I got to meet Angela and be on her podcast for the first time last May of 2022 at the work human conference. And she's also a wonderfully human, warm and fun human being Angela, welcome to the show. I'm so excited. I'm so appreciative of you being on with us today.
Angela: Paul, thank you so much for that sweet words, kind words. And thanks for having me on.
Paul: Absolutely. And so, you know, tell tell the audience a little bit because you, you and I were chatting before and I was talking about the title is going to use for you. And it's a great title. But like you, you do so much. Can you talk to us a little bit about what you're doing kind of what your focus is?
Angela: Yeah, so my background is in Organizational Psychology, like you said, and that is basically in short, studying behavior at work. So my firm has a we have a process that we use to basically operationalize culture building. So a lot of people are talking about culture as a buzzword. But we're particularly focused on building inclusive culture and bringing everybody along because we can't do that without leadership role modeling without involving every layer in the organization. So we're really focused on kind of a long term culture change and transformation.
Paul: Oh, that's wonderful. It's such great work. And yeah, you're right, the culture word gets used a lot. And I think a lot of folks don't necessarily understand it. So helping educate people and helping people change culture is such it's just important work.
And I'm sure in that work, you've seen human first, you've probably seen examples of human first leadership and non human first leadership as we, those of us in the HR space have all seen both of those. Can you tell us a give us a story, give us an example that's specific about how you've exhibited or how you've seen how you've seen it in your work or the work you do with accompanies?
Angela: Yeah, I actually have a personal example. And it kind of transcends into all the examples that I see now working with organizations and my clients. So I'll take you all back to 2015, which seems like lightyears away at this point. I was early in my career, early if I say maybe more mid career, but I had just started with a very large organization leading up their talent management delivery team. And I was brand new to the organization probably just a few weeks in, and my world absolutely flipped upside down. So think about you're fired a new job, started a new career really, because I was jumping into a leadership role pretty much for the first time in my career. And, and my, my dad was put into hospice during that time, unfortunately, it was kind of a very rapid deterioration of his health. And I was as a type A perfectionist personality. I was absolutely beside myself because I wanted to do my best in this new role. I didn't get myself myself the space to say, wow, there's a lot happening around me. My dad is not doing well, let me let me take a pause. It actually took out the leader that I was imported into again, brand new leader, right didn't know anything about me. I had proven nothing zero. To kind of call out like, Angela, like, can I tell him what was going on with me? Right? And he was, so just like, voting of Kyle, I have to give Kyle a shout out and I hope to send this to him too. He's like the most even yield like center person I've ever seen. And he's like, Angela, I need you to take all the time you need and I just, I'm like wait, I just started like you don't know me. I've proven myself because again, in my head, I'm like, I've got to prove myself to earn this. I have to prove myself have permission to handle a life event that NOTICE This big. And that was a flaw in my end, right. But I had learned I had been conditioned through all the other leaders that I worked with if that was how things were, be titled to sat me down, and you said, and we'll take all the time that you need. Don't think about PTO, forget that PTO bucket have a crew time that you were taught when you started. And just the support, the support and the the, to be a centered leader to someone who was just kind of centering me in that moment. They felt very human and empathetic. And I and I bounced back, you know, in time, right, I had to take some time off. My dad unfortunately, ended up passing away —
Paul: I'm sorry,
Angela: — during that period. Thank you, thank you. But it made me even more, I guess, like open and communicative with this leader who will get ahead just not right. But in the end, the kindness Kyle Gerjerts shared is something I will never forget.
Paul: That is like — like that is I could not ask for a better example of what my book is about. And what I'm like out there crusading about a follow up question. So thank you, one for sharing the story. I'm sorry about your dad. Sadly, it's a fact of life. We all kind of have to go through a point and everybody deals with it differently. How did you now that you've had like, clearly it's been a few years? How did you once you got through all that? How did you then think about Kyle? Since you use his name, I'm going to use his name Big shout out to Kyle for for approaching a situation like that. How did you think about him? I think more from like, an engagement, loyalty. Like clearly, you know, it's seven years, eight years later now and you're still talking about it.
Angela: Yeah, and then everything. Obviously, the the openness, the trust was instant, because I was in a position of great vulnerability, and he did not use that he didn't weaponize that he didn't use that as a, you know, something to get back at me later on, like it was it was very, very honest and authentic. So that allowed me to be more open with him in our relationship and our with his leadership. So it set the foundation for our entire working relationship.
Paul: Right? Well, I appreciate you bringing up you, didn't you weaponize it or use it against you, but he set the stage for psychological safety, like from almost the beginning of your relationship with him? And I guess last question for you has it did that interaction with him? Has it changed the way that you've approached your team? Were you more open with your team? I it's it's always interesting, you know, you hope it's kind of a trickle down or kind of, you know, you know, spread the love spread the warm kind of event. But did that have any impact on how you lead your team or you as a leader?
Angela: Yeah, it's a it's a big chunk of, of how I approach psychological safety with my team, getting my team choices, opening up the conversation for health conversation. And again, it's to your point, it's about knowing that this person has a whole human life outside of work, and be able to talk about that at work, and say, you know, what, we can negotiate timeline, we can move things along, we can't recreate the time that you'll have with your dad or with your mom who's sick, or your kids who are going to their math practice, or whatever it is, you can recreate that. So having those open conversations, being authentic, being vulnerable yourself as a leader, all of that affects the way that I lead and how I teach other leaders to lead with my work.
Paul: It's that's so great to hear. It's so great that you're out there helping other leaders become better vulnerability, like it is a scary thing. But it is so impactful in shaping relationships, or reshaping relationships. And I think leaders need to be more vulnerable. And I think, you know, work in life, we talked about that a life I think it's all just life now. And we haven't you have humans that work at companies and that we lead and we need to think about them and show up for them like that. So thank you so much for sharing the story.