The Role of Values in Cultivating Leadership Skills
Summary:
Janine Yancey, CEO of Emtrain, joins Dr. Jim to discuss getting your people ready to lead. Janine shares her experience as an employment lawyer and how it shaped her approach to building a successful organization. She emphasizes the importance of understanding the why behind each team member's goals and needs, and how leaders can cultivate a culture of continuous learning and collaboration. Janine also addresses the challenges of peer-to-peer coaching and offers strategies for overcoming resistance. Tune in to gain valuable insights on developing leaders within your organization.
Key Takeaways:
- Leadership doesn't only mean managing people; it comes in many forms and fostering an early understanding of this within a company's culture is crucial.
- New managers should allocate dedicated time for learning essential leadership skills and practicing peer-to-peer communication.
- Organizational values play a significant role in guiding behavior and resolving conflicts within teams.
- Building leaders involves
Chapters:
00:00 A Conversation with Janine Yancy
00:57 Janine Yancy's Journey: From Employment Lawyer to CEO
01:42 Building M Train: Legal Foundations and Team Development
02:39 Emphasizing DEIB and Continuous Learning in Talent Strategy
03:33 Cultivating Leadership and Nurturing Talent
04:56 Addressing Challenges in Leadership Development
06:09 Practical Advice for Emerging Leaders
09:03 Navigating Generational Dynamics in Leadership
11:11 Closing Thoughts and How to Connect
Connect with Dr. Jim: linkedin.com/in/drjimk
Connect with CT: linkedin.com/in/cheetung
Connect with Janine Yancey: linkedin.com/in/janineyancey
Music Credit: Shake it Up - Fesliyanstudios.com - David Renda
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Transcript
janine, welcome to the show.
[:[00:00:22] Dr. Jim: Super excited to have you here for a number of different reasons. We very rarely have female executives in the HR tech or even tech space. Chatting with us. So that's important. We have a perspective of a high growth startup leader coming into the conversation.
So there's a lot of stuff that we could talk about, but before we talk about those things, I think it's important for you to share with the listeners a little bit more about your story and M train story so that we can get a good understanding of the lens that you bring to this conversation.
[:[00:01:05] Dr. Jim: lawyers deal with conflict,
[:And you can start to predict outcomes based on what people are, how they're interacting with each other. And that was actually the motivation for me to start M Train. Which provides online lessons and courses on respect and inclusion, as well as work, workforce analytics.
[:That's an interesting perspective on what drove you to start M Train and the things that M Train brings to market. But I want to wind this back a little bit. When you talk about how you build an organization and scale an organization, I'd like you to bring in how your legal experience and your compliance experience shaped how you built the foundation of the organization and how [00:02:00] that foundation has prepared you for success and growth.
[:And that I just had to learn the old fashioned way, frankly. So none of my legal experience lent itself to that. And so that was on the job training. Which sometimes is painful, but sometimes that's the best way. You'll, you definitely learn it.
[:[00:03:09] Janine Yancey: That actually has been pretty darn easy. I have to say, because we're pretty mission driven. So our platform, our solution is continuous learning and learning. We're always there to improve. And our focus is to, build in greater ethics, more respect and greater inclusion within teams.
[:So you've seen a lot as a founder and the organization has grown. So when you look at year zero, and now you're at almost year 20 of growing M train, how did you cultivate a leader full organization and get people ready to lead as [00:04:00] you're going through this growth trajectory?
[:It's not just being a people manager. I think that's important to put out there as early as you can in your culture. Because people want to feel successful. And they need to know there's a few different paths to be successful, . As it relates to being a people leader, What I will typically do is when we've got somebody who is on the cusp, .
They show a lot of potential. They're a great individual contributor. I, and, or, a more direct manager will usually start to ask that person to think through their teammates and figure out the why for each of the teammates. And so a first order of business is shifting that perspective because when your individual contributor, it's all about ourselves being successful,.
But you need to somehow make that leap. And now you're shifting your perspective and understanding the world of work through your colleagues lens. So that's the first kind of activity we do.
[:Why is it important for that emerging leader to identify the whys of everybody that is in their peer group? How does that set them up for success as a leader?
[:So that's the first thing. The second thing is, it's the flip side of that is, what can you do as a leader that's going to make that person more successful. And package it in that way. Don't package it as, Hey, there's this development needs, but Hey, I see some areas really of opportunity.
bolts, and those two things [:[00:06:03] Dr. Jim: I understand. That from a theory perspective. And I also understand how you actually execute it. If you have some maturity as a leader to have those conversations, let's say you're talking to that emerging or new manager.
How do you build the habit of having those custom conversations that are success oriented? focused on the individual that's across from you on the team. What are the tools, mechanisms, skills, capabilities that new manager should be seeking out or practicing so that it get effective at doing the thing?
[:And then at M Train, as with our clients too, we, this is what we do. So we have micro lessons. We have, hey, This video shows you [00:07:00] what good looks like. You want to have a conversation with a teammate or direct report on what, what they're looking for. Just watch this video, basically YouTube it, and this is going to show you what that conversation should look like.
[:Everybody's running super busy. What are some things from an intentionality perspective that leaders and emerging leaders need to do in terms of what their schedule looks like? So they're freeing up time to put this in action. Because if you watch a video but never practice and start executing, you'll just be watching videos all day long and not really doing it, .
[:What do you think you're strong at? What do you think you're weak at? As a peer, what can I do as a peer to help you? So that's excellent because you're not that person's manager yet. So there's a whole lot of psychological safety going on, . And you could get the reaction from your peer at that point on, am I showing up like a good teammate?
[:The whole time, like her teammates would go to her first, . So she was already moving down that path. Yeah. And then it was a question of like, all right, you've got great natural instincts. Now let's give you a little bit of structure [00:09:00] and a little bit of formal development.
[:So I'm a feral Gen Xer. So that's the world that I grew up in go above and beyond. But today's world is a little bit different, especially when you look at younger millennials in some cases, and certainly Generation Z, where there's this mindset that you need to act your wage and not really color outside the lines in terms of what your role is.
And I can see in those environments there might be some resentment when one of their peers is really stepping out and being highly collaborative. And somebody who doesn't have the right mindset or maybe is in this other mindset might be looking at that and saying, why are you telling me what I should or shouldn't be doing?
e that might be resistant to [:[00:10:01] Janine Yancey: So funny. You should say that we actually, I just encountered that at M train. We've got a lot of Gen Z ers on our team and it was a Gen Z er reaction.
[:[00:10:11] Janine Yancey: No. Love them. Love them. I actually just reminded a whole team. So I didn't want to single out the person.
I reminded a whole team like, Hey, one of our core values is we're all customers of each other. And in that whole kind of context, we're constantly up leveling each other and helping each other out, be our, get to the next milestone, be our best self. So that's just part of how we do business. So when I anchored the action to a corporate value, there was a little bit more receptiveness to it.
[:So I think that's an important point. That a lot of people might miss because they think all of those values and culture stuff is just squishy and doesn't matter. So really great stuff, Janine. We're scratching the surface on this conversation, we could talk about this for a really long time, especially if you're nerdy like you and I are.
If people want to continue the conversation, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?
[:[00:11:31] Dr. Jim: We appreciate you hanging out. For those of you who have listened to the conversation, if you liked where it went, leave us a review.
what behavior and what good [:You need to create the infrastructure and support that allows that to happen across all levels of the organization. And I think that's absolutely critical. So I appreciate you sharing that bit of insight. For everybody that's tuned in, appreciate you hanging out. If you haven't already done so, make sure you join the HR Impact community.
You can find that at www. engagerocket. co slash HR Impact. Tune in next time where we'll have another leader joining us and sharing with us the game changing insights that help them build a high performing team.
