Over the last 2+ years, we’ve all learned how important relationships are—both personal and professional. In her March 21 “Your Best Next Move” video, Bobbie LaPorte shares a simple tip for cultivating (and maintaining) strong relationships as you broaden your network. You might be surprised how easy it is to increase the number of people who will value and support you as you advance in your career.

Transcript of Your Best Next Move: How to Increase Your Career Advancement Advocates

Hi everyone, Bobbie LaPorte here again with my weekly leadership tip for your Best Next Move, where I help you see continuing curveballs as an opportunity. We’re done reacting to them, or pausing, waiting for a new kind certainty to return. This year I will help you actively use your personal agency to accelerate what you want to accomplish in 2022.

If we’ve learned anything as leaders over the last 2+ years, it’s the importance of relationships – personal and professional. This is something we all knew intuitively, but I think it’s become more “real” and present for us to make a commitment, to act more intentionally to build, nurture and repair relationships with key people in our circles of influence.

Add this realization to the velocity of change in your networks due to increasing internal changes as well as “the great resignation” and you have a situation where the people you relied on for support, guidance and advocacy can disappear overnight.

Here is a scenario that a client shared with me last week

This might sound familiar to you. You are up for a significant promotion that your manager assures you is “in the bag” – you’ve met all the requirements and demonstrated your readiness for the role.

Then the promotion curveball:

You learn that a key member of the executive team is blocking your advance, seemingly on what you feel are some unreasonable expectations and incorrect perceptions about you. Nonetheless, this person has the CEO’s ear, is influential in a way that seem unfair – but that’s the way it is.

So how do you ensure you are building relationships with people who can support you in your career advancement – or at the very least be “neutral” and not block you?

You need to be prepared to widen your network, to ensure that you will not be left on the sidelines, wondering what happened and who you can turn to.

So, here’s my tip for this week:

Build a legacy of value in everyone and you’ll never be in short supply of people who are willing to go to bat for you if a key member of the executive team is blocking your promotion.

And here’s how you build that legacy:

Treat everyone like a client. And I mean everyone.

It may sound simple, and basically it is; but it’s not always easy. It means realizing that every person you interact with professionally has value, that they have something to contribute; that we all want to be successful.

So give them respect, show immediate action and solutions, not blame; treat them like a VIP and that might just make the difference with that key person who can make or break your advancement.

That’s my tip for this week. For more help on using your personal agency to make uncertainty a part of your success strategy check out my new book “When the Curveballs Keep Coming: A Leadership Playbook for an Uncertain World” and also my new online course, “Leading Through Uncertainty.”

Alright everyone have a great week and I’ll see you next Monday.

Transcript of Your Best Next Move: Leading Through the Continuous Curveballs of Corporate Reorgs

Hi everyone, Bobbie LaPorte here again with my weekly leadership tip for your Best Next Move, where I help you see continuing curveballs as an opportunity. We’re done reacting to them, or pausing, waiting for a new kind of certainty to return.

This year I will help you actively use your personal agency to accelerate what you want to accomplish in 2022.
This week, I wanted to share a scenario that might feel all too familiar to many of you – to illustrate what to do when the hits keep on coming when you need to turn curveballs into opportunities.

Your company announces a major reorganization that was unexpected and significantly impacts your team. Your first reaction is one of frustration and fatigue for yet another change. You also feel unsure about what, if anything, you can do to prepare your team for how this may affect them.

And like many of your peers, you simply feel resigned to whatever happens next, waiting to see how the whole scenario plays out.

The result: you and your team end up on the defense, reacting to the change, feeling powerless. Sensing a lack of engagement and productivity from your team, you recognize that you need some response, so you address the most obvious organizational changes and do your best to rally your team to get on board with the new direction. With these moves, you at least feel a small sense of control and agency.

But the hits keep on coming. As a result of the reorganization your boss leaves, and you find yourself reporting to someone who was previously your peer. This is really a blow. You had a great relationship with your boss and were hoping she would provide the support and guidance you need to navigate the new organization. Now what?

Well, you could dig your heels in and really feel sorry for yourself and hope that the new boss just leaves you alone. At the same time, you realize that this situation is here to stay – at least for a while. So, you opt for a response that takes advantage of this opportunity to showcase what your team has accomplished and start to build a positive, generative relationship with your new boss.

With these moves, you begin to see possibilities and use your personal agency to make a more optimal move. This is progress. This is what leading through the continuous curveballs of corporate reorgs curveballs into opportunities looks like.

So, that’s my tip. I’ll see you next week. In the meantime, use your personal agency to make uncertainty a part of your success strategy for 2022.

You may be interested in more of Bobbie’s posts about leading through reorganization curveballs.

Leadership Curveballs, Blind Spots and Black Holes, Episode 11

In recent times, leaders have been tested in ways they could never have imagined. They were expected to have all the answers and provide direction to their teams when they had no idea what was coming next or how to take the next step forward when the curveballs kept coming…

In this special episode, Bobbie LaPorte and guest Erin Baudo Felter, VP of Social Impact and Sustainability at Okta, discuss Erin’s approach to leading through uncertainty, social turbulence, and the multiple curveballs leadership has faced since late 2019.

Podcast Transcript

Bobbie: Hi, this is Bobbie LaPorte your host Of Leadership, Curveballs, Blind Spots, and Black Holes, and today we have a special episode featuring our guest Erin Baudo Felter, who is Vice President of Social Impact and Sustainability at Okta.

So, Erin, I think we all know that there’s no question during the last year leaders have been tested in ways they never imagined. They were expected to have the answers and provide direction to their teams when most of the time they had no idea what was coming next and how to take the next step forward. You shared with me a story about how you leaned into your team to help solve a particularly challenging issue, can you tell us about that?

Erin: So, it was probably a few days after George Floyd was murdered. I knew, pretty close to right when it happened that this was probably going to become something big, but I don’t think the rest of my team knew it. And that’s just because, I read too much news and I read too much Twitter and I just I could tell that this was going to bubble into a place that may be prior incidents hadn’t. Although there have been several incidents leading up to it that I think made it what it was.

But anyway, it became clear later that week that this was going to require a response that was significant. And. It was moving so quickly that we were having trouble just keeping up with like where the news was at and then what the pulse of it on the employee base was and so there was a for me. Just as a leader in that it was like it was upsetting. First of all, to know what was happening in the outside world, right?

And then as a leader, it was very clear we had to do something to address this for our employees in that philanthropy and social impact was an important piece of that, as was Todd making a comment and was rallying our employee leaders to, you know…

I remember we were all working from home and hadn’t seen each other in six months or whatever by that point. And I remember being in my kid’s room and on the phone I basically called like an impromptu phone call of my two deputies at the time, because I felt like we needed to have a response, and I and I didn’t know what the answer was.

So I got them on the phone and I basically said we need to do something here. We need to respond on behalf of the company on behalf of our employees and communities. And… They weren’t engaging in the conversation with me is what I remember like what I figured out is that they were basically waiting for me to tell them what we were going to do so that they could take the direction and then go execute on it and. That was not what I needed, I needed them to solve with me and be equals in that process.

And when I realized that they thought I knew what the answer was and they were waiting for it, I knew I had to change my tune. And so I basically said to them at that point, guys. I don’t know what to do here. I literally don’t know what to do. I need you to think with me. I need you to help figure out what the response should be and it was at that point in the conversation that it became an actual conversation and we… you know, we ended up making, I think, a really good plan of what we were going to do in terms of our philanthropic response. And then we went on from there.

But that moment of realizing, you know… I don’t know how else to explain it. It’s just like they were… It was almost like the old ways in that moment of them, expecting that I was just going to say, oh, here’s what we do in this situation.

And it was not the old times and it was not the old ways that were gonna suffice. It was something very new and very different and, I think you know… in that moment because my capacity was so limited because of everything we had been going through.. I’m going through, and I’m home with two kids and homeschooling and husband who wasn’t working and whatever, I was just like I don’t know what to do… I need help.

So that’s the story. Is that helpful?

Bobbie: Yes, just even the way you phrased it, super helpful. So one other question. So. What have you learned about your leadership style and yourself? During the last year plus. It’s a very different environment.

Erin: I’m actually, I think. Felt more like myself as a leader than I ever have in my whole career in the last year. And I think it’s because. I mean a few things, but I think one of the biggest things is like there’s room for empathy in our work lives now. And I don’t feel like there was before. I feel like if you had empathy and if you had vulnerability, you weren’t allowed to show up with that.

And I’ve picked a career path where I’m kind of allowed to show up with that. ’cause I’m like this weird person over here, but in general I just didn’t feel like that was a part of the game, and in the last year and a half I think the people who show up with that empathy and with that vulnerability actually lead better. And I have felt very empowered by my natural tendencies in that arena. That to say like no, no, no, I’m not trying to be like everybody else anymore. I’m trying to be like me and it actually is working. And that’s been, I think, a silver lining.

Bobbie: And that feels much more natural to you?

Erin: Much more natural, much more natural, and it feels like what people need. You know it’s like, you can’t talk to a single person in the daily goings-on of work and not come across somebody who’s going through something really hard, even still.

You know,  I had a great conversation yesterday with a nonprofit leader friend of mine who’s said, “why are we building our systems and goals assuming everybody can work at 100% all the time? We should be building them to assume people work at 75% so that they can get their work done, we achieve our goals, but we don’t burn people out and crash them to the earth.“

And I was like, “that’s interesting.” He’s going through something where his dad’s got terminal cancer, so he’s reevaluating everything.

But, you know, the point is. That I think it’s what people need. People need grace and a break and like to be their whole selves. And if you can as a leader, just leave space for that… It’s certainly what we’ve needed the last year and a half, but it’s, I think what we need forever.

Bobbie: Do you think some of your peers, are they… were they thinking that way or are they thinking that way that people are sort of bending to the business pressures and kind of moving back to the way they used to be?

Erin: I think people were thinking that way very much in the first months of this, like so much so that it was really inspiring. In particular in Okta. And, I see less of it now. I don’t see.. I don’t think it’s gone. I still think we’re much further ahead than we started, but I think there’s been a little bit of a contraction as things seem to be getting back to normal. I think for us as a business, as we saw that our business was healthy and our business was actually growing in the face of all this. So we’re a little bit maybe unique in Okta’s circumstance that like….

You know, the world didn’t come crashing down like we thought it might, and in that period where we thought it might, nobody knew. I think that the most… I saw the most empathy I’ve ever seen, probably in an organization.

Bobbie: Yes, how, you sustain this going forward, right? It’s really the challenge.

Erin: Yes.

Bobbie: Yes, you and your organization can definitely be a role model for that, so I hope that continues.

Erin: Yeah, I hope so. Trying to keep the wheels going.

Bobbie: Yeah, that’s great. Thank you, Erin, thank you for your vulnerability and for sharing your story. And for those of you who are listening, you can learn more about Erin’s leadership journey in my upcoming book called When the Curveballs Keep Coming: A Leadership Playbook for Uncertain Times that will be released late October.

There is no question that the requirements for strategic leadership are changing in an uncertain environment. In the past, leaders could rely on being experts in a specific functional area.

We were chosen and advanced in the organization for our functional expertise, because we directed people what to do and because we delivered results. We learned through time that we are the ones that need to be unfazed by change, that we need to be the ones walking down the hallways erect, purposeful, in control of our environment.

We knew our stuff, gave directives to our teams and relied on our personalities and charisma to be efficient.  Today’s requirements are very different. Less importance is placed on subject matter knowledge, more on self-knowledge and awareness, on being open to multiple perspectives, to having the capacity to envision and articulate where we want to lead our teams to be effective. 

In my experience, few leaders have acknowledged this level of change in what it means to lead thought uncertainty; fewer have taken steps to build the new skills needed to lead in this time.

There is no doubt: the mindset and skillset changes required to evolve into today’s new leader are significant. I have seen this in many of my client companies where, even though technology continues to drive change in their work environment, people struggling with constant change and uncertainty get stuck. They are afraid to make decisions and move forward. They hit the virtual “pause” button, waiting for certainty to return.

We see how uncertainty can put us on the defense, avoiding risk instead of embracing opportunity. Uncertainty can definitely throw us off our game: we give in, then we give up. But uncertainty can also be a gift, because it allows us to look at challenges from a place of “what can be”, not a place or resignation.

How will you embrace uncertainty – and see it as a way to help your teams realize what is truly possible in this age of uncertainty?

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Bobbie LaPorte draws on the sciences of positive psychology, neuroscience and behavioral fitness to help challenged executives navigate today’s uncharted territory to achieve their goals. Learn how our approach can transform your people, your processes, and your entire organization—and help you get ready for anything!

Bobbie’s new leadership book is available on Amazon now!

As leaders in an uncertain environment, we rarely have the answers our teams expect from us and trying to “spin” how we respond, pretending that we do have the answers will not help us. We don’t know where to turn for support for fear of seeming week and irrelevant, even as our natural networks of supporters disappear. Deep down, we are afraid that our eroding feelings confidence and competence will be found out, and that can be a paralyzing thought in our demanding and competitive workplace where our identity has been largely defined by how we perform at work.

And that can be a scary and unsettling thought. In an uncertain world, our instincts tell us that it is impossible to have all answers. We can’t possibly know how to confidently answer every question that is posed to us, to choose the right course of action, to give clear and informed direction to our team – even as the world shifts and changes around us. Deep in our being..we know this; and yet it feels wrong. It runs against everything we have learned about what it means to be “the boss”. And our ego is our own worst enemy to admitting that we don’t have the answer.

In our survey of tech leaders on managing through uncertainty, not having the answers was cited as the most frustrating issue for today’s leaders. So, how do you retain confidence in the face of not knowing?

The strategy I recommend here is to approach challenges from a strengths and capacity angle, focusing on the assets you have available.  Start with your best tools: what do you know; what are your strengths, what are you known for in the organization?

Start with what you have done in similar situations in the past. What worked? What did you learn? What are the common denominators that have created solutions for you time and time again?  Uncertainty changes what you need to know: you don’t need to know the solution….only that you are going to get there. Your role now is to be a “Navigator” in uncharted territory. And navigators are never irrelevant.

Not having the answer starts with asking question: “What is the possibility here?”  – being to open yourself up to the vulnerability of not knowing.  This is the entry point to having a possibilities mindset, and to inventorying, accessing and deploying the strengths, talents and assets available.  For today’s leaders, this becomes a capacity issue. What is the present capacity of your team? How do you intentionally build additional capacity in your team to position them to handle future challenges (and there definitely will be) more effectively. And how are you creating the necessary mindsets, behaviors and infrastructure that will enable people quickly shift their value contribution to where it is most needed?  If you take this approach, you just mind find that the best tools to solve a problem already exist in yourself and your team; they are the ones you rely on every day.

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Bobbie LaPorte draws on the sciences of positive psychology, neuroscience and behavioral fitness to help challenged executives navigate today’s uncharted territory to achieve their goals. Visit bobbielaporte.com to learn how our approach can transform your people, your processes, and your entire organization—and help you get ready for anything!