Navigating COVID and George Floyd Through Vulnerability
Episode Notes
In the first episode of 52Humans, Paul talks with Carmen Bryant, VP of Marketing at WiseHire. With a team already overwhelmed by COVID when George Floyd’s murder occurred, this was an inflection moment for many leaders around the country. Hear how Carmen relied on perspective and vulnerability to support her team in a time of crisis.
About the Guest
Carmen Bryant
VP of Marketing
WizeHire
Carmen is a fearless, authentic, and experienced marketer, people leader, and storyteller. As the VP of Marketing, Carmen has been called pivotal in forging strong internal and external partnerships, developing our go-to-market strategy, and building an "always on" marketing engine that delivered exceptional results year after year.
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Paul Wolfe : Hello everyone, and welcome to another weekly episode of 52. Humans vlog cast on stories of human first leadership. I'm your host, Paul Wolf, and also a human first leadership advocate. And I hope this show can be a source of inspiration to all of us to transform our workplaces by returning to the humanity that binds us all together. Today, I'm excited to be joined by Carmen Bryant, and we're going to be talking about human first and empathetic leadership. Carmen is the VP of Marketing at wise hire. Carmen, welcome, full disclosure to everybody. Carmen and I did work together at Indeed for a while. And that's how I met her. And I admire her and I am excited for her to tell us her story today. How are you?
Carmen Bryant : I am doing wonderful. Thank you so much.
Paul Wolfe : Happy February, Happy Black History Month, I forgot it was February, this morning, somebody had reminded me.
Carmen Bryant : Same here, I'm actually you had to remind me I as you were sort of talking. So I am stand corrected. I am so excited that it's Black History Month. And I'm actually really glad to be here to talk about my story with you.
Paul Wolfe : Excellent. Like, let's dig into it. So, you know, the whole concept of 52 humans is the fact that we're all human beings. First, I have a book coming up March the eighth on that very concept. And I think at times we lose sight of that certainly as leaders. And so can you tell us or give us an example, your example of where you've seen or you've displayed? Human first and empathetic leadership?
Carmen Bryant : Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I have typically thought of myself as being an empathetic leader, I will say that COVID really sort of tested me and I had to go to sort of like new depths to really continue to be empathetic. At the beginning of the pandemic, which we know is the beginning. Now, at the time, we weren't that sure. But I'd say around May, I was leading a remote team. What about 25 Folks, that fortunately, I had built relationships with, and that was, you know, had a very strong relationship with, we're all trying to navigate this new world that we live in. I had also recently had someone on my team who had been let go in a very kind of, you know, sort of unexpected way. And so the team was really kind of processing that and reeling from that as well. And we were, we were coming together.
And I'd say about a week later, the George Floyd, beating and murder happened. And you know, I think especially as a woman in leadership, and probably a black woman in leadership, there's a constant, you know, you know, line you're trying to straddle in terms of showing up strong and powerful, but also showing up with empathy and humanity. And really, this fear that if you veer too much too one side, or show too much of one side, that it's going to be held against you. And so, you know, many people, not just myself, were just really, you know, honestly quite traumatized by this. And I was really, in this space where I didn't know if I wanted to talk about it, I have a black son, and it's really impossible not to think of your son or your family members in that position. And, you know, at the same time feeling, you know, that I want it to talk about it, but really unsure of how to do that. And, you know, I think for someone who has really over the past, you know, four to five years really trying to model vulnerability more, this felt like an opportunity to do that.
And, you know, instead of having a sort of like big public, sort of, you know, speech to the team, I decided that I wanted to be really thoughtful about my words, and really just put together some things that were like on my mind, because so many people are trying to process it. And I think inevitably, they look to their leader to give them some guidance. And so what I shared was really my personal perspective in terms of how I was thinking about it, how I was dealing with it. I talked about my experience growing up in Mississippi, and you know, some of the ways that I felt that that had shaped the way that I think about race and really try to win hurts them to be vulnerable as well. And after that, I got so many emails from folks.
And it was interesting, because some of them were actually not people on my team, they were emails that have been forwarded to people or people in operations, we kind of sat on the background and reached out and really, you know, we're, we're just really quite excited or quiet sort of, you know, please just see someone speaking on it. And it really sort of demonstrated to me that you can be strong and vulnerable. And actually, it takes a lot of strength to be vulnerable. And, and that was a really big, big learning for me.
Paul Wolfe : No, I, I love the example. It's an unfortunate situation that put you in that space. And sadly, these things still go on today, which, you know, we all have to process I love the, the your comment about vulnerability, it's hard, but they can you can be a strong leader and be vulnerable. I think vulnerability is scary, but it can really change a relationship in a very meaningful way. I also think it's amazing for a leader, any leader, I think, especially a woman of color, who is a leader, to be vulnerable in talking about racial unrest and the injustice, is that still happen in this country of ours today? Did you just a follow up question, did you? Did you think about, like, if this? How are people going to take this like, did you? You're a very thoughtful, smart person. So I think I know the answer this, but I asked other people that like, did you think about, like, if people don't react well to this? What's going to happen? Or how am I going to come back from that? Or was that thought not even in your mind?
Carmen Bryant : Yeah, I mean, definitely, I thought about it, because I think that was part of the reason why I decided to write something. Because I felt like it was a message that needed to be said, even though I was being vulnerable, I didn't want to get on a call and become emotional, and lose the points that I really thought were so crucial that I really wanted to get across. So I really wanted to take the time to think through, you know, how I wanted to talk about my personal experience, how it affected me personally, but my own thoughts about how it could potentially be affecting others. And I think the real reason to is I want it, you know, to give people some grace to make mistakes and asking questions, and to make other people comfortable to say, I don't want to talk about it, I do want to talk about it. Because I think in those situations, people are either like afraid to share, or afraid to ask questions. And so I just wanted to give people some some, you know, permission, basically, to kind of show up how they needed to show up.
Paul Wolfe : Yeah, no, I love it. You also created psychological safety by doing that, because you as the leader set the tone, like, is this a safe space? Am I going to be That's why I asked the question about did you think about it. And so you showed up as a human and you allow them and I love the comment you made about you know, not everybody wants to not every humans the same. And not everyone is going to want to talk about it, or in that moment, or in that space, and some are and so giving people the grace to use your word, to be able to do it as they felt comfortable is amazing. Like that is such a powerful example of human first and empathetic leadership. I thank you so much for sharing that with us and being brave and being a leader. And I thank you for taking the time to be on this blog cast.
Carmen Bryant : Thank you so much. I love what you're doing. I love the idea of human first. And we all need it. Right. We definitely need more of that right now. So thank you so much. It was a pleasure to be here.