With 25 years of experience in HR, Sarah has dedicated her career to empowering leadership teams and coaching emerging leaders in competitive industries. Her unique approach combines bold leadership with kindness and compassion, creating environments where individuals can truly thrive. Get ready to be inspired as Sarah shares her vision of using compassion and humor to unlock the potential in others. Join us as we explore her insights and learn how we can all lead boldly in our own lives! Stay in touch with Sarah: www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-boardman To learn more on Sarah and her services: www.lightstonecoaching.com Script: Just putting put love out into the world and it's not about being perfect it's not about not using your horn or rolling your eyes it's about you know the intentionality of of looking and saying okay you know what there's a better way. Welcome to Weirdos in the Workplace, the podcast that celebrates authenticity, transparency, passion, and purpose in our world of work today. And I'm very excited to have Sarah Boardman on the show today. Welcome, Sarah. No, very excited. Wonderful. Okay, so I'm going to just do a little intro for you first. Sarah Boardman has spent 25 years in HR and now works with leadership teams to take their organizations to the next level. Her particular passion is coaching emerging leaders in competitive industries who wish to lead boldly, yet with kindness and compassion. Thanks for joining. Thank you for having me. I'm excited. Fantastic. Okay. So why don't you tell everyone out there exactly who you are, what you do, your life story and your purpose all in 30 seconds. All in 30 seconds. So actually the purpose part is actually the easiest part. So as part of the coaching process, you know, you do your work on yourself first. And, and the thing that they're sort of the two purposes that have emerged for me, there are my initial one was to be the light that illuminates the brilliance of others. So I love seeing that growth. And then as I started my master's journey last year, the first part of that program was, okay, what is your higher purpose? Like what is your research higher purpose? And, and what sort of came to me and like literally almost a bolt, a bolt of lightning was, um, to create understanding around the link between love and profit. So like love is, is, is the thing it matters. It's, it's not a dirty word at work it's not a four-letter word uh so those are really my purpose and if I actually look back at my life um it's it's been there since the beginning so my parents emigrated from the UK as sort of specifically to have us they had a technology here to fix my mom's infertility that they didn't have there. So, you know, they made this, this giant leap, a large part of it was so that they could have a family. So even though we were separated from our bigger family, we were, you know, we had this unit and my parents, I was just saying to a girlfriend this morning, like, I think my mother created the concept of chosen family. Like they just really created an environment for us where we had that.  So we grew up, we were so privileged, you know, we grew up being extremely loved and, and talking about it. And, and again, love was, was always set, you know, every time we hung up, every time we leave the house, every time you, you know, it just was. And, and so I think, you know, the, the, the weirdo part for me, which is why I love the name of this podcast is, is that didn't always translate to, to corporate. And, you know, if I had a dollar for every time that I was told you're too much, I, I would be doing this you know from the Caribbean or you know Vancouver Island or you know somewhere like you know real estate unattainable because that's that's the weirdo part is that you're too much you're too much you're too much you're too much you're too much and so the the inner battle has been that no I'm not I'm not um even something is as you know simple as as being enthusiastic about something like it's it's sort of surprising to me how many people in in corporations are offended by enthusiasm it's like really just saying yeah so it's it's it's just that so that's the the weirdo part and and so five years ago I left I never thought that I'd be an entrepreneur I never thought I'd have my own business I'm like like staunch like employee roots like I'm you know I'm an early adopter I'm someone who wanted the the front of the bus getting people organized but I realized I had to leave to be able to step into that too much and when you do work for yourself and you're you know I I only work with nice people . I have the great privilege of working with some truly truly truly amazing organizations they bring you in because of the too much yeah because of those things right it's like all those things like you're told to stamp down for you know 25 years of my career all of a sudden they're like oh you're so enthusiastic we just love it it's so great you know you bring so much humor to this and I'm like it's interesting actually um I it's something I've mentioned to a few people who've been on the podcast who are also like consultants it works really well as a consultant to have that passion and drive but it doesn't always translate as well into your everyday you know work environment for whatever reason um it's interesting. But I also do think the world of work is changing. And I think maybe businesses are a little more open, you know, to adopting. They're definitely getting there. They're getting there for sure.  And that like we've talked about, like, that's what gives me the hope. Yeah. And I think the Gen Z, like you were saying on our previous call, I think they're really starting to drive the bus here. I think they're starting to drive the bus. And I think they're starting to recognize that someone else, so they can drive the bus or they can let someone else drive the bus or they can get off the bus and on the bus. And it's like, hey, it's just a bus. The bus is a construct. It's not the thing anymore. And then, I mean, Gen Alpha is going to do like incredible things as well so you know getting the privilege of seeing that um and just working with emerging leaders who get it like they just get it and they get why and they're very intentional and very purposeful about the way that they want to lead which is really really like it's it's inspiring and humbling but also like yeah like it's about time so it's awesome right yeah I mean I I know I've talked to a lot of people about this there's a few of coaches in Ottawa who really believe that like love is what you know is is the concept is the thing that is going to you know if we can change the world and have like world domination for good like I always say you know love is what's going to change it right um and I know I was never hesitant to to say I love you like to my employees and I know you were mentioning like that's kind of an HR nightmare earlier that might be an HR nightmare um and that's okay it depends but when you when you're in an environment and again love isn't just like I love you it's it's attention it's listening so um in May I went to the IOC conference in Boston and Dr. Robert Waldinger, who's leading the Harvard study on on happiness and life is like an 85 year study.  And, you know, he quoted John Tennant, who said, you know, attention is the most basic form of love. So even if we show our team's attention, if we listen, if we regard, if we're caring, all of those things are in this like love bucket that we're, you know, however we choose to say it, it is the only thing that will change things. I think it is taking the hard path though in a lot of organizations, right? Like if you choose to take this path, you're taking the path less traveled. You're taking the path, you know, your competitors may not be taking this path. And so there are pros and cons, right. That we should probably elaborate on a little bit. You know, if you're an organization that wants to take this love approach, this caring approach, the empathy approach, the know the um the grace approach giving people grace and time and space and health and wealth you know and all these things um you may be shocked at how your competitors treat your their employees and that they may be actually getting further ahead of you because of it sometimes yeah again i think it depends what matters to the organization so um like last year at royal roads we were really fortunate to be there on indigenous people's day so we had an indigenous scholar that came in and talked to us and robin ward and she said you know she often gets asked like what is decolonization and what she, she's like, I'm going to give you the really simple example. It's moving from fear-based and command and control to a love-based leadership. And, and I think that what is going to happen is maybe the command and control gets a little bit further ahead for a little while, but it will, it will get stuck or it will, you know, everyone's going to go, oh, wait a minute. I want to be treated better over here. This will slowly, but surely, you know, it is the, the, the tortoise and the hare.  I, I just, I can't live in a world where love doesn't ultimately win. And when you, when you treat people with respect and you listen to them and they know they're valued and you know you're you're you're holding you know you're ensuring accountability there's productivity there's effectiveness it's not that it's just this big like you know love circle anything goes done right yeah it's it's how you choose to treat people most people will take that over an extra ten thousand dollars because we're starting to realize the impact it has and and not everyone will and that's okay and that's what makes the world go around but i just i can't live in a world where it doesn't ultimately win or it doesn't ultimately get at least the same because people want to be there they're they're proud of the work they do they love their co-workers they love their passionate what they do they love their job we spend more time with our co-workers than we do with our spouse yeah that's true for sure so like why would I want to work with a bunch of jerks no I'm curious what do you think like love looks like as a business process I I think it looks like asking questions and actually listening and acting on the responses I think it's being compassionate and seeing people.  So one of the things I would say in my leadership development is we are a stew, not a bento box. So we show up as a stew. We've got, you know, home, family, kids, parents, you know, society, all these things in this, you know, big, beautiful bowl. We're not like, oh, now it's nine to five I only think about work or this or that like understanding that people have things going on and when you um you know building trust and building relationships and knowing people so that when someone says hey you know what my dad's not doing very well you say okay what do you need to do and somebody goes to work for six weeks from their dad's house right like yeah it's not it's not that hard and so that's that's why I think that even though like the love word has this like big like romantic and you know groovy connotation it's actually the roots of it are, you know, attention, intention, and respect and just respecting the person. So what does love look like at work? It looks as, you know, acting with integrity and, you know, all of the trust things like speaking, you know, not speaking of someone when they're not in the room or, you know, list like really listening to what people have to say, letting people finish a sentence yeah saying what do you think and then actually listening saying oh oh here's a big one that's love apologize i'm sorry i need to i didn't i didn't mean to hurt you i didn't realize that i'm really sorry and here's like love next level make amends right you got the acknowledgement how can i win you trust back i'm really sorry i didn't mean to do that what like how can i help you and then respecting what the person says if they're like i'm just really mad right now i can't deal with it okay you say okay let me know when you are like whatever the case is all of the things that we talk about love are actually just being a good human right and that's where like that human-centered leadership I think that's where emerging leaders are are like absolutely kicking ass and taking names yeah so far above and beyond for sure so far and they just they get it we talk about this stuff in leadership development nobody ever bats an eye I've never once I've I have a leadership development program that I run and I've done it with probably 300 people. And not once has anybody said, well, they should want to do it because I asked them to. Okay. No, people just want to be good because they know how they want to be treated so it's it's really it's really powerful it's incredibly hopeful like and and so energizing like i it is it is honestly the privilege of my life to get to work with these individuals you know across north America so far who want to lead intentionally and they think about things oh have you seen um one of my favorite books is actually called Against Empathy uh The Case for Rational Compassion yes um because what it talks about is when empathy goes bad um the ruinous empathy like the um when empathy goes into its shadow right and so i think it's a really good book uh because it's very well balanced uh you know because we do have a generation of gen zs right now and then Gen Alpha after that and I've got three Gen Zs right that I'm raising I've got 19, 17, 15 year olds and a couple of them have very high empathy levels and so and we're encouraged it's not that we're we don't want to discourage it right and like you're saying you, you're seeing this in your Gen Z emerging leaders, you know, how, you know, how intuitive and empathetic and they've just grown up with specific values and very open-minded, right. Very willing to adapt and willing to accept other people's perspectives.  My, my concern sometimes is that, you know, we're not prepared. We're not preparing them necessarily for how hard the corporate world and how cutthroat and ruthless it can be because not everyone has empathy. In fact, the episode that came out this week was literally about psychopaths in the workplace and how prevalent that can be, you know, so we're not necessarily preparing them well for the psychopaths in the workplace. Although one of the things Amy Davies, the guest this week said is that this style of culture, the empathy culture, this like gratitude culture is very difficult for psychopaths. So anyways, I'm curious what you think about that. How can we also prepare? I think it's an and like, how can we also prepare them for this? Right. That's, I mean, it's such a great question because we still have to get stuff done. still have to make the widgets we still have to you know like all of the things need to be done and so i think we're still figuring this piece out but you know empathy isn't at the exclusion of of ensuring accountability and it's not it's not looking at that but what i do see which is really interesting is, is a, I'll call it like a broader self-awareness where people show empathy to themselves. So, so I'm Gen, I'm Gen X. So we just put up with shit. Like we got, we got yelled at, we got, you know, told we were stupid. We got, you know, like, like harassed up the like it's just it just was right it was different it was different in the 80s and 90s and we're like okay i guess this is just the way that it is so no that's wrong and i i have to wonder if if we'd had empathy and there were situations that I left like there were situations where I was like no I'm not dealing I'm not doing with this I'm I'm worth more than this but I think that's that's the balancing piece is is people who who know what it feels like to be led well and with empathy and, and with passion and purpose, they will, they will leave.  They will, they will, you know, vote with their feet and get you, you out. So if you treat people like crap, they're going to leave. And so at some point, all the bullies just end up together when it's like, no, I'm not going to do that I'm not going to be treated that way they they will leave and and like my dad you know was at the same organization I think for like 20 something years and before that it was like 15 years we don't see that anymore we do see you know transitions more but from what I'm hearing and what I understand is people are leaving for that leadership culture they're leaving you know for promotion more. But from what I'm hearing, and what I understand is people are leaving for that leadership culture, they're leaving, you know, for promotion, but they're also leaving for like, this is more aligned with how I want to live my life. So we're understanding that the roles that the ingredients of the stew, like you can't have stew without onions, and you can't have, you know, work without challenge, but what kind of challenge? So I think that, you know, the concept of ruinous empathy, that's radical candor, right? We're like, like, everything is okay. It's like, no, not everything is okay. We do have to, we have work to do. And so people are more aware. So they're, they're making intentional choices of what I'm moving to. And so even like I haven't worked in corporate for five years, but even like the last couple of years of that corporate, people are starting to say, okay, what is the management team function like? What is this like? It wasn't necessarily, they were asking questions about the work, but it was more about like, what's the leadership? What's the culture? Like, how does this work? So people are becoming aware of it. So I think, I think people are aware that there's a balance, but I also think that people are internalizing what that balance means to me. So self-awareness is a part, part of the protection I think as well. Right. Oh my gosh. So I have said a thousand times that self-awareness is the most important leadership skill. Yeah, it absolutely is because if you are not self-aware, you can't improve. No, you, it just, it just doesn't work. So that self-awareness and again, that's a journey that never ends. And awareness, it's self-awareness, but it's also just awareness in general, right? It's the external awareness and the internal awareness. We need to be sensing, we need to sense into the environment. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, and I think that's where, I think that's where, you know, later generations are just better at that. And, and folks, folks who've done the work too. So like, you know, when I say emerging leaders, some of them are my age, some of them are, you know, like mid fifties and, and it's just, that's where they're in their career or, you know, they made a change or whatever, but it's still that same idea of, of, okay, how did I do? Did I do that? Okay. Yeah. You know what? That went well, that didn't, that didn't like that self-assessment is just become a critical leadership skill. And I, I see people being able to do that. And that's really exciting. So I mean, the leadership anxiety has never been higher. And I wonder how much of our like, this like necessity for awareness and sensing into everything. You know, there's so many variables. And now we're we're you know we're taking it all on ourselves all this complexity we're taking inside of us you know and trying to parse it out as best as we can uh how much do you think that's contributing to the levels of anxiety today for leaders so i have a little bit of a different thought on that and it's it's interesting because as soon as you said leadership anxiety I thought oh fear so you know it's interesting because one of the first things I say in the program is okay I'm gonna like spoiler alert most of leadership is being a good person right yeah and go and be Oh, it's like, you're going to make mistakes.  Yeah. You're going to do things wrong. You're going to screw up. You're going to hurt people unintentionally. You're going to completely mess up something to tell you, but that's what's going to happen. But how we react to that and how we treat people after is, is, is the true leadership piece. So I tend to think that most of that leadership anxiety comes from that fear based leadership. Am I doing the right thing? Am I doing this? Am I going to get in trouble? Am I going to get in trouble? If I give that person the day off, their mom died, can they take an extra week? Oh my gosh, you know, their mom died and their dad's not doing well. Can I give them an extra week? What's going to happen there? I feel like a lot of the, the, the anxiety comes from that fear. And if we're able to just lead authentically.  And again, we all have like, I'm HR, like God knows I love a policy. I love a, you know, I love a standard, right. It's like, okay. But there's, there's a human approach to, to all of that. And so it's, we, we need and want, I think, to be flexible. Yeah. And I think part of the anxiety comes from not knowing how much give things have and not knowing that flexibility. So I think when I look at leaders who are anxious, I see a lot of fear there, a lot of fear, making a mistake, fear of doing the wrong thing fear of getting in trouble fear of what their boss is going to say fear of the shareholders you know right like like a lot of it is fear-based yeah what it's a you know how how can they make a decision i'm almost we're at the point where almost any decision is the right to just make a decision which is interesting because coming from from people looking at their leader um when google did their um what makes a good leader like ability to make a decision like make a decision and stand in it i think we've all had that leader that's like okay we're gonna all wear orange t-shirts tomorrow and they're like oh well no oh sorry i told him blue and i told him yellow and like well orange like yeah make a decision yeah yeah yeah and feel confident to to stand in the decision right it's that that confidence yeah and and sometimes we have it and sometimes it's beat out of us and sometimes we have to do all the work to get it but I I see a lot of the anxieties coming from fear yeah I am I'm i'm with you 100 do you see the same fear in the gen z's as you do as they're as you do in their their more mature leaders i i would say emerging leaders have less fear in their cocktail that way so i'm going to say that I'm not going to say there's no fear, but I'm going to say there's what, what I see again, this is just in my practice and my business and the people I get to work with, I see less fear. And I, the, the, I think the less fear comes from knowing that you're not going to get um I don't know why I just had this memory but like in French class if we said something wrong like we'd literally get like chalk chucked at our head totally yeah sometimes it hit sometimes it didn't and and when you grow up thinking you know it can't make a mistake, you know, teachers in, in the late nineties and two thousands weren't allowed to throw chalk. So, so they kind of like, that's, I think where it came from. And that's why there is absolutely fear and there's anxiety. And we know that, you know, anxiety rates among, you know, millennials and younger generations are skyrocketing. But I, I think the fear of leadership is less because they haven't been conditioned as much yet. Maybe they just have so much overall anxiety that doesn't even register. Oh God, right? And the loneliness epidemic.  Oh, I know. Oh my God. Like the Surgeon General of the US has actually declared a loneliness epidemic. And I think it's like 24 to 35 is the worst heartbreaking when you're supposed to be, that's your prime party time. Yeah. I have so many questions around that and I don't have enough information to be able to even ask the question. Like I, you know, I have to have the conversation properly. Really? I am, I am, but scratching the surface and I'm sure you could do the podcast. They would do an amazing job of talking about the loneliness epidemic. That's interesting. I only, cause I don't see that in my children. Right. I don't see that. And I'm not seeing that in a lot of people. I'm like, I'm trying to figure out where that is like like call me I'm open give me a call I'll always answer um yeah I mean I know one of the hangovers from COVID and when I was at the IOC conference they were talking a lot about the loneliness epidemic and were saying that loneliness uh again not sure where it came from I don't know where to cite it but it was loneliness was the same as smoking 15 cigarettes a day oh yeah that sucks like the same impact on your wow your body yeah it's like whoa but even like like I don't know about you but like when I was a kid I wanted to do something I picked up the phone and I was like hey can Natasha play I was probably the loneliest child in the entire world I didn't oh really oh yeah no I didn't even talk outside of my house basically until I was like 11. You had said that in yeah you had said that in an earlier one yeah so my like really my first like really good well she's my best friend she's my co-founder now, Sarah, I met her in grade five and I had a couple of playmates before them, but nothing really like nothing that really stuck or anything that I was comfortable with. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I was, yeah. Talk about lonely. Like, you know, that was, that was awful. So if anyone's feeling that, like, please, I'm not even kidding when I say, so if anyone's feeling that like please I'm not even kidding when I say call me please you know talk about it right because there's no reason to feel that way like I I did feel that way for my entire childhood and learned how to learn how to be a I always say Sarah taught me how to be a person right because I didn't know I didn't know how to socialize I didn't know how to be a person. Right. Cause I didn't know, I didn't know how to socialize. I didn't know how to talk to people. I couldn't talk to people literally. Yeah. And I look, I do a podcast now, so I think, you know, we can learn these skills. Yeah. And run a successful business and do all these other things. That's actually a really interesting point though, is they can be learned. Totally. They can be learned and we can, like, there is a cure to loneliness there is there is no reason for people to be lonely yeah I believe that yeah yeah yeah wow it's just it's I'm really sorry to hear that but amazed that you were able to like overcome it but yeah like when we just I mean god we have lonely days or whatever but like imagine being lonely yeah yeah yeah that's and and lonely when you work right like you you know you you go to work you do remote you do whatever um you know it speaks to hybrid and remote you know then the extra need for connectivity but um I know a lot of people are really big fans of remote work and I am sometimes one of them, two minds of it, you know, and, and one of my, one of my, half of my brain says, you know, people need to be in the office. Sometimes people need to see other people. And see you know work is is such a big part like you said before we see our colleagues more than anyone else in our lives pretty much unless we're literally at home isolating ourselves at a desk because we don't want to go in the office you know and it takes some get up and go some motivation and so maybe it's painful I remember coming back to the office after the pandemic I was like like, I don't want to do it. You know, but then I went in and I was like, I forgot how fun this was. Yeah. My, my brother-in-law has was off for a number of years with some health concerns and he goes back five days a week. He works for the feds and he's like, Oh, I want to be with the peoples yeah the adults especially yeah right yeah well I mean that's it and like someone to confide in yeah right and someone to to say things out loud like you know when you don't talk to somebody like till like 10 in the morning you're like like just like does your voice stop working if you don't talk to anybody like oh my gosh when I first had my son, I was 20 years old when I was pregnant. I just turned 21 when I had him. And I remember that first year, I hardly talked to anyone. I didn't know how to be a mom. I didn't know how to socialize. I like retreated right back into my shell again. And I came finally when I was like, okay, I need to do something about this. I need to get out of the house. I need to talk to people. I literally forgot how to talk. I literally had forgotten how to communicate with people completely. I was like a bumbling idiot. I had no idea what I was going to say or how to say it or do anything. I was, it, you can lose it. You can lose it. And that's, so when I was working with organizations organizations sort of as we were coming back into the office, they were like, people are forgetting their manners. They're forgetting like table manners, like all these things. But we do forget when we, you know, isolated and lived in our family little bubble. It's a muscle, it's a muscle that needs to be flexed and needs to be worked out and, and needs to be stretched and, and, you know, paid attention to, but yeah, I, I'm, I have no issue. Like, yeah, absolutely. We would forget. Yeah. With others. Yeah. I think this circles back really nicely to the, the love conversation where, you know, we can kind of summarize with like, people need people. People need people. They need to feel listened to. They need to feel valued. And they need to be connected. Whatever form that looks like, whatever you want to call it, love is connection and connection is love. Yeah, totally agreed. And I think that you can do that virtually, but I think it's really hard and I don't think people do it very well I think you have to work harder at it and there's that intentionality piece I have to reach out to my people every day yeah just a quick check-in I we have to have videos on videos on for meetings I want to see your face I want to you know I want to see your expression I want to ask you about the plant in your background yeah yeah absolutely it's it's it's harder for sure yeah yeah yeah well did you have anything else that you wanted to say any words of wisdom or goodness any words of wisdom keep looking for the hope and looking for the love because you will see it a thousand times a day. And, you know, to everyone that I get to work with, profound thank you. And thank you, Erin. This has been amazing. Just putting, put love out into the world. And it's not about being perfect. It's not about not using your horn or rolling your eyes. It's about, you know, the intentionality of, of looking and saying, okay, you know what, there's a better way. And it's not a word.  Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Don't forget to stay weird, stay wonderful, and don't stay out of trouble!

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