Simply Feedback

64. What is the Leadership Continuum? - Cathleen Swody

• LearningBridge • Season 6 • Episode 4

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This episode of Simply Feedback features an insightful conversation with Cathleen Swody, PhD, an executive coach and organizational psychologist. As the co-author of The Leadership Continuum, Cathleen shares her sharp insights from two decades of shaping leaders and teams that thrive. 

From a pivotal personal experience receiving feedback to practical strategies for managers, Cathleen discusses how to shift from reactive to intentional leadership. She introduces the core idea behind her book's framework, explaining why flexing your leadership style is essential in today's fast-paced environment. She also provides guidance on how to avoid common pitfalls, such as the temptation to go on autopilot, and how to use feedback to identify when your current approach isn't working.

If you're a leader aiming to be more intentional, foster better team engagement, and create a culture where feedback drives success, this episode is filled with actionable advice and valuable perspectives.

📌 Find Cathleen's book here.

Check out the free Q&A videos that we have produced with tips to help you receive feedback graciously and act on it visibly at www.learningbridge.com/tips.

Cathleen Swody:

Sometimes the students will look at me and they'll say, well, that's common sense. Of course, somebody would do that. Nobody in their right mind would wake up in the morning and start micromanaging somebody. That's just a terrible idea, right? Because it makes a lot of sense conceptually to us not to do that. However, because of my deep experience talking to multiple, multiple leaders, I can understand what's going on in their heads as they're doing that. And it's true, they didn't wake up in the morning saying, I'm going to be the world's worst micromanager, but they were worried about a deadline, or they've been so ingrained to get results and get gold stars, or they just don't know the right way to delegate, or they want to be protective of their team. They don't want to give their team members too much work. So it can come from a really good place, but how it impacts others is not what they intended.

Troy Blaser:

Hello and welcome to another episode of Simply Feedback, the podcast brought to you by LearningBridge. I'm your host, Troy Blaser. It's great to be with you today. I'm very excited about our guest today, who is Cathleen Swody, PhD. Cathleen is an executive coach and organizational psychologist who helps leaders see what's holding them back and what will move them forward. She is the co-author of The Leadership Continuum, and she brings sharp insight and real-world perspectives from two decades of shaping leaders and teams that thrive. Cathleen, welcome to Simply Feedback. It's great to have you with us today.

Cathleen Swody:

Thank you, Troy. I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk about feedback because you can't see what's holding you back and you can't see how to move forward without feedback. So happy to be here.

Troy Blaser:

Fantastic. Well, in that vein, and maybe to help us get to know you just a little better, I wonder if you can tell us about a time that somebody gave you feedback in your life. Maybe it was a time when this feedback made an impact on your career or on your personal life. Is there a story that you can share with us?

Cathleen Swody:

Yeah, definitely. So there was a time a while back where I was in an all day session with a variety of subject matter experts and I was listening intently. My style tends to be more reserved. I was paying a lot of attention, having great ideas, but I was keeping them to myself. And I had a colleague who during a break in a couple sentences simply told me that he could see the wheels turning in my head and that it would be a benefit to the team to share some of those ideas, even if they weren't perfectly positioned or weren't perfectly said, just to get my ideas out there, share my insights. And basically he conveyed that to not do so was a disservice to those in the room. And that resonated with me because my main goal is to help people. And so if I'm not being helpful, then that's a sign for me. So he said it in a very kind way. And I went back into the room and I was able to share a few insights. But what I took away from that was more than that one meeting, more than that one session and more than those couple of insights. It was that I don't have to have a perfect sentence in order to share my authentic point of view or my perspective or what I'm observing in the room. I don't have to have all the answers and be the number one expert to add value. And that is something that was a shift for me because it was a lot different than giving me the piece of feedback like, hey, speak up more or we need to hear you talk more. But it was like, hey, I see an opportunity to you to add value in your own way. Here's how you might do that. And I've taken that to heart in terms of when I've been invited to go speak places or I've been invited to be on the panel of media experts for the American Psychological Association or even this podcast. Right. I get the invitation and I'm like, I'm sure there's lots of experts and feedback who they can invite. And you have invited. I've seen the list of podcasts.

Troy Blaser:

Right.

Cathleen Swody:

But I was like, well, maybe I have something to offer. So let me offer it to you and see if you accept it. So that was that was a pivot for

Troy Blaser:

I love that idea of just getting it out there because you never know what's going to happen. If you keep the ideas in your head, you do know what's going to happen and they're going to stay there and maybe they get improved or polished as you think about them over time. But if you get that idea out in the room, it's hard to tell what's going to happen with it. It might be a flop. It might be a non-starting kind of idea or someone else might pick it up and improve it and make it better. even than you would have on your own. And so that was really great feedback. The other interesting thing that I like in that is that there was someone in that room that was observant enough to see that going on on your face or inside your head or whatever and say, no, I can tell there's something going on in there and enough of a mentor to just say, Hey, here's a piece of advice or feedback or whatever that would help you and help all of us in the room if you get to share those ideas.

Cathleen Swody:

Absolutely. A bit of a nudge. And it's interesting because that's not actually a piece of feedback that I often give to leaders for general facilitation. If you notice somebody who's engaged yet quiet, see if you can pull out from their head what's going on because they might have some good observations because they have been quiet. And to your point, ideas don't live in isolation. They bounce off of each other and they go back and forth in conversation. So let's bring them to light and see where they go, see where they take us in those meetings.

Troy Blaser:

I love that. So the book that you co-authored is called The Leadership Continuum, How Flexing Across the Seven Facets of Leadership Increases Effectiveness. Can you explain to us the core idea behind flexing leadership styles and why it's critical in today's workplace?

Cathleen Swody:

Yeah. So the underlying assumption is that leaders, in order to be most effective, they need to adapt to three different things. They need to adapt to the situation at hand. They need to adapt to the specific people that they're working with. And they need to adapt to the kinds of results that they want to go for. And in today's workplace, which is even more fast paced and more uncertain, things are changing pretty rapidly. So being able to read the room, even if the room is more of the market and the situation broader, but being able to read the room and then respond appropriate to it is an advantage. And for most of us humans, when we're under stress and we're under pressure, Our brains tend to go on autopilot. We tend to revert back to what's worked for us in the past. We double down on what has worked, what our most comfort zone is, when really we need to take a step back, a quick pause, and deliberately decide what's the best move here. How do I want to lead my people? How do I want to lead the situation in order to get the best results, rather than just relying on pure autopilot? So it's really about being more intentional in how we adapt to situations.

Troy Blaser:

I think that's important to be aware enough to avoid that trap of going on autopilot and saying, let me be deliberate in my leadership style and make sure that it's an appropriate way to respond to the situation, as you mentioned. Of the seven facets of leadership that you talk about in the book, are there one or two that you've seen where leaders most commonly sort of get stuck?

Cathleen Swody:

Yeah, so we boiled down to seven, but there is one that really stands out to me where I see leaders get stuck most often. And that is the facet of intensity. So for each of these facets, they're on a continuum. So on one side, you have, you know, passionate, right for intensity. On the other side, you have very patient and planful. And I've seen a lot of leaders who've been rewarded as they were coming up the ranks for being very action oriented, for getting results for moving for having a strong drive, a strong passion. And that serves in a lot of situations. But sometimes it doesn't. For example, when you have a very complex problem that you're dealing with, right? In the book, we talk about Apollo 13, right? Ready fire was not an option. There were going to be some bad outcomes if we did that. Yes, they needed urgency, but they also needed to do some aiming. They needed to be really thoughtful. So they needed to weave that in. So it's important to be a little bit more patient and not rush things to check the box, to get things done when you have that kind of complexity and you need to let the team work through the problem. Or if you have multiple stakeholders across the organization and you need to align them, pushing through is going to make them feel like a steamroller came over them. And that's not going to go well in terms of accepting the changes or accepting the new product. So it's pressing pause. And that's really hard for people who've been trained their careers to keep pushing, pushing, pushing.

Troy Blaser:

Well, yeah. And especially in today's modern workplace with technology, there's very much, there's very often that attitude, right, of move fast and break things. And you're saying often, especially with with highly complex situations, the right step is to do a little bit more planning, have a little more patience before jumping in and firing away, right?

Cathleen Swody:

Yeah, that's right. And connecting with the team, giving them a chance to do their thing. Because oftentimes if leaders are leaning too far on that intensity scale towards that passionate piece, that drive at getting things done, their team members feel that they don't have a voice. They don't have a chance to do things. They don't have a chance to weigh in on the solution. And they're like, why are we here?

Troy Blaser:

Yeah. Like I can, I've been in those situations where it's like, I can bring a lot to this role, but it sounds like all you want from me is to just do the automated task or whatever. You don't want me to be thinking about it. And that's definitely less satisfying way to be a part of a team.

Cathleen Swody:

Oh, yeah. And it's very difficult to grow and develop and thrive in those situations. And so leaders who are cognizant of when it's time to give their people a space to do non-automated tasks, they're the ones who are going to grow and develop their people. And that creates that leadership pipeline.

Troy Blaser:

So thinking about simply feedback, are there ways that feedback can help a leader identify when their current style isn't working and maybe they need to flex?

Cathleen Swody:

A hundred percent. That is the only way people are going to shift in terms of how they how they respond to these situations, because it is so ingrained. We do have these natural tendencies. And so either they're going to get feedback in terms of a big mistake at work, which, you know, we don't want. But more ideally, they'll get feedback from their teams, from the people that they're working with, that the style isn't working, that that people are confused, that people don't see the urgency, that they feel that everything is working. Everything is a fire drill. That's a comment I often see in the feedback reports. Everything is a fire drill. If everything is urgent, nothing is urgent. Or the person, the leader disappears and then all of a sudden they appear and this item on their task list is suddenly the number one priority and we got to get it done today and we're rushing it, we're making mistakes. So you definitely hear it in the feedback and you need that feedback in order to raise the self-awareness that for people to know, okay, this style doesn't work for everything and recognizing that there's a value to shifting a little bit. I mean, we're not asking people to completely change their ways, but just shift a little bit, a little bit more to that planful stage. And that requires feedback to call it out and bring it to their attention.

Troy Blaser:

Well, and even thinking about gathering feedback in the first place on that intensity facet, you know, you can... the feedback is going to come one way or another. It's either going to come when you've jumped in without planning and then you fail and then there's going to be feedback or you can be a little bit more proactive, make room for the feedback As you're going, right? And then you're receiving that feedback as you go along and your aim is then much better. You've made room for the feedback. And then when you fire, you're much more likely to be on target, I suppose, if we're continuing with that analogy.

Cathleen Swody:

Oh, definitely. Yeah, you're able to adjust as you go instead of having a catastrophe,

Troy Blaser:

Yes.

Cathleen Swody:

Which nobody wants, right? It's a very costly way to get feedback instead of getting it on a regular basis.

Troy Blaser:

Yeah. So in your experience, what is the difference between a leader who adapts their style intentionally versus a leader who kind of does so reactively?

Cathleen Swody:

Yeah, I love this question. And the answer is emotional intelligence. So, in the first case, the person is being strategic, they're being proactive. They're checking themselves. And this doesn't necessarily require a lot of time. But they're checking their thinking to make sure that their first reaction or their first step is fitting the situation, is going to get them the results they want them. It's going to influence the situation. They're going to get results, and they're going to be seen by their people as consistent, even though they're shifting their ways, they're still going to be seen as consistent, credible, grounded, because they're seen as thoughtful. Whereas the leaders who have that more reactive stance, they're going to be seen as more emotional, more volatile. They may be shifting their way out of a situation, but it seems almost that they're throwing something on the wall to see if it sticks, right? People don't quite trust that they've put the thought into it. It just seems like they got frustrated and did something else. For example, there was a leader I had worked with who, when there was a group discussion and it got off track and they started to get frustrated, they would say, I can't have this conversation anymore. It's no longer constructive. And they would hang up. And they gave themselves credit for saying, hey, well, we got out of the situation. The conversation wasn't going anywhere. You know, we had it another day. But what they didn't realize is they were being seen as reactive and it kind of shut down the conversation. So even though they changed their ways and, you know, rebooked the conversation another day, it didn't have the impact that they wanted to on other people. It was seen as more emotional than strategic.

Troy Blaser:

Because it felt so reactive.

Cathleen Swody:

Yeah, exactly, versus strategic.

Troy Blaser:

Interesting. So are there practical ways? I mean, obviously, the best advice is go get the book, learn the framework, and figure out how to apply it. But here in our conversation today, is there a practical way that a manager can begin to apply some of the framework from the leadership continuum in kind of in their day-to-day interactions with their team?

Cathleen Swody:

Yes, one conversation at a time. So next one-on-one they have. the next team meeting they have, the next issue that pops onto their plate, whatever it is, just pausing a quick second and thinking through what is my initial tendency? What do I want to do in this situation? What's my reaction to what my direct report said? And then saying, is that the best idea? Is that the best idea I have to react to that? Or is there a different approach that may be more effective given the situation at hand, given this person's personality and what they need? Is that the best way? So I think it's just checking our inclinations and saying, is this the best or should I shift a little bit more in one direction or the other? And that can be done on a pretty regular basis.

Troy Blaser:

Kind of engaging that part of your brain A little more of the monitoring part, right? So there's part of me that's having the conversation, but there needs to be a separate part of my brain that's just, okay, now before you go down that path, is that the right path? There's a little bit of almost a governor on my brain to say, don't jump down there yet. Let's think here. Is there a different path that would be a better way for this conversation to go? But one conversation at a time.

Cathleen Swody:

Yeah.

Troy Blaser:

Just checking as you go. Well, now I'm curious because my wife was telling me as she goes off to work today, she was scheduled to have a one-on-one conversation with her manager. And maybe I'll check in when she gets home and say, okay, how did it go? Were there any intentional pauses where you could see some reflection happening or was it very runaway down the path? So we'll have to see.

Cathleen Swody:

And that reminds me that one of the best tips I have related to the one-on-ones is asking a question. So it doesn't have to be a silent reflection necessarily. It could be a question of, okay, how can I best support you, direct report, or what are you most looking for in this situation? And that gets into more of a coaching conversation with them too.

Troy Blaser:

Yeah, or if your direct report comes to you with some issue or a challenge or a problem and you may have an immediate reaction, But taking that minute to ask a question, to tell me more about that, gives you that chance internally to think through, is my initial reaction the best reaction or is there a different way to go?

Cathleen Swody:

Yeah, it helps you unpack that assumption.

Troy Blaser:

I like that. Over the course of your career, you've had the chance to teach students at the university, right? So as you're teaching these MBA students, these HR students, Are there ways that your academic research has shaped your practical work?

Cathleen Swody:

Oh, definitely. So academic academic research is very humbling. It teaches us that there's a lot of dependencies. There's there's a lot of context to research. There's not an easy answer. And and that it varies depending on who who. If something works, who does it work for? Under what circumstances? What else needs to be going on? That is the frustration of research. There's no easy button. There's no perfect thing. So one, that keeps me humble. But two, it also... helps me dig a little bit deeper and not accept surface answers. So if I'm coaching somebody, if I'm facilitating that, we don't just scratch the surface and say, well, this sounds like a good platitude. Let's go with that. But digging a little deeper to see, well, what's behind that frame of thinking? So if we have a manager and their first reaction is to jump into problem solving, well, let's break that down a little bit. Under what circumstances? Do you notice that with certain people more than others? What's the impact of that? So not just accepting what we foresee, but digging a little bit deeper so that we can understand it and make some real changes, real impact that matters.

Troy Blaser:

I like that. Yeah. As you spent time in the classroom, were there ways that you were able to bring lessons from your executive coaching into the classroom to share with those students?

Cathleen Swody:

Yes. And I want to call this empathy, but I think it's a little bit different from empathy. And that is when we talk about some of the concepts that make up leadership or make up good interpersonal relationships at work, sometimes the students will look at me and they'll say, well, that's common sense. Of course, somebody would do that. Nobody in their right mind would wake up in the morning and start micromanaging somebody. That's just a terrible idea, right? Because it makes a lot of sense conceptually to us not to do that. However, because of my deep experience talking to multiple, multiple leaders, I can understand what's going on in their heads as they're doing that. And it's true. They didn't wake up in the morning saying, I'm going to be the world's worst micromanager, but they were worried about a deadline or they've been so ingrained to get results and get gold stars or they just don't know the right way to delegate or they want to be protective of their team. They don't want to give their team members too much work. So it can come from a really good place but how it impacts others is not what they intended. And so being able to explain that to students or other people early in their career, it gives them some empathy and gives them some understanding of no leader has it all figured out. We all have these tendencies we need to manage and mindsets and habits we need to overcome. And it's not common sense. I mean, it is common sense, but it's not common practice. And so they can kind of understand how that could happen without ill intent.

Troy Blaser:

And that's fantastic to be able to bring into the classroom to say, you know, I have experienced this. coaching leaders, coaching managers. Let me share with you, maybe I'm sharing a story or an example, but it really can bring real credibility into the classroom as you're trying to teach these lessons to say, as counterintuitive as it might be, These managers wind up in a situation, it's coming from a good place, but they're acting in a way that's detrimental to the team overall.

Cathleen Swody:

That's right.

Troy Blaser:

And so I think that's really valuable. Is there a psychological insight or a lesson from your academic work that you find yourself using repeatedly in your executive coaching, kind of going the other direction from academics into sort of real-world

Cathleen Swody:

Yeah, yeah. So one... concept that has stuck with me that you know comes immediately to mind I call it I call it using your turn signals okay and there isn't there's a classic experiment that took place a long time ago where they had students online or in a line, to make photocopies and if they gave a reason to the person in front of them to cut ahead even if it was general as I need to make copies, the person was much more likely to let them go ahead um so the thinking was is that if you give an explanation, it helps people understand what you're trying to do. And I certainly do not advocate taking one experiment and using that as a story and using it all over the place, but it's stuck in my head. And that idea of use your turn signals, explain your why to people. And I don't mean that in a rationalize everything away and explain everything in your head, but give them some insight as to what's behind the decision or what's being done or some context. And it's because I've seen so often leaders assume that people aren't interested or they don't need to know or they don't have time to share the information with them. And it creates this vacuum. And in a vacuum, our brains assume that negative things. So, for example, if a manager, if a leader suddenly sets up a one-on-one with a person, doesn't tell them why, gives them no context as to why we're having this meeting, in today's work environments, that employee is probably going to be like, am I in trouble? What happened? What did I do? Am I being let go? I've been reading the news. What's going on? And so giving a little bit of context to why we're having a meeting, even if it's just a sentence, can go a long way. Or if a leader, you know, cancels a product or moves things in a completely different direction or picks up a new strategy, just gives a little bit of context behind why and what's not changing can really go far in terms of helping people get on board with the changes in the environment.

Troy Blaser:

I love that. I mean, people want to follow leaders who are people to them. And so like you say, giving that context helps me understand and relate to that leader to say, oh, maybe they think like I do. And because they shared that context, I'm fully on board with that. But if they don't ever share that context, then it's just sort of this blank, like you said, a vacuum. And it's much more reluctant to jump in there. because I can't relate. I don't know. I don't have that bigger context. So I really liked that idea. I want to follow a person, not just a, yeah, not just an automaton or a robot or something

Cathleen Swody:

Right. And yes, I agree. And to build on that, following a person in a direction, right? People like to follow people, especially those who are forward moving, right? So saying, you know, like, hey, here's the benefit of what we're doing. You know, even if it's like, hey, I'm going to start giving more feedback, right? If all of a sudden that happens in a vacuum, it's like, oh, what's going on here? But if you say, hey, we want to create a feedback culture. We want to have conversations about how we can be successful together to do that. we're gonna start giving more feedback. Oh, that feels a lot different.

Troy Blaser:

Yes, it does. Well, and looping all the way back to the beginning of our conversation, if I know the context, I may have an idea in my head and because you've given me the context for it, now I'm like, oh great, let me share this idea that can improve or, or, you know, that maybe I wouldn't have shared if I didn't know the, if I didn't know the direction we were going. Right. Oh, you want to go there? Well, I've had this idea in my head for a while. That'll help us get there. So I'm so glad you said that, you know,

Cathleen Swody:

Yeah, I'm happy to help, right? People are more likely to give feedback if they know where you're open for it.

Troy Blaser:

Yes. So, yeah, continuing to think about feedback. I know that you recently wrote an article about Gen Z employees and their desire for meaningful work and what that means to a Gen Z employee, what meaningful work means. How does their relationship to feedback differ from older generations?

Cathleen Swody:

Yeah, it's so interesting. So my colleague, Kelly Kennedy, has worked with so many Gen Z and early career professionals and really has honed in on this idea of they want purpose and they want meaning. And so this isn't to say that other generations don't, but it really stands out. And if you can tie that into feedback. it is more likely to be heard and absorbed by early career professionals. So if you can give them a piece of feedback and say, hey, you're on the right track with this. Next time, if you tweak that, this will happen. And it's going to benefit what we're trying to do here in this way, even if it's just alignment. So it could be, here's how it's going to help our department. Here's how it's going to help the overall project. Here's the general culture we're contributing to. So helping... Put it into context beyond a piece of criticism or a piece of evaluation, but tying it to here's where we're trying to go. And that's the intent in which I'm giving you this feedback is I want to tie you to that. And that helps them see the meaning in it. And the other thing I want to say is we hear a lot about how feedback is given within the context of a relationship. And so if they have a good relationship with a colleague or a good relationship with their manager and the manager expresses that this is to help their growth and development, they're more likely to hear and absorb that. So I think we're seeing less of an interest in the annual reviews and more of an interest in timely, helpful growth and development suited feedback. So I think that applies to all generations, but I think this particular group benefits from it because We hear a lot from managers who are like, oh, these young people, they're so entitled. They want this and they want that. And it's like, they want helpful feedback. I mean, that seems pretty reasonable. So let's give it to them.

Troy Blaser:

Cathleen, I wonder, you shared a story earlier in our conversation about a time when you received some feedback But during your time as a coach and working with some other leaders, can you share maybe a time when you have seen feedback cause a point of inflection in someone else's career or life?

Cathleen Swody:

I love that phrase, a point of inflection. There was a leader who I'd worked with who was very good strategically, got high marks for what they were doing in the business, but they found themselves at a point in their career where they just weren't getting traction with their team. Morale was low. There was some potential retention issues bubbling up. The results were stalling out and there seemed to be a disconnect. So we started off as we do with most of our executive coaching with some good feedback let's ground ourselves in the data and what people have to say and the feedback had some themes in it around they didn't know where they stood with this person and they didn't know what her perspective was on various things and they didn't know if they were doing a good job or if they were disappointing her and they were going to be next on the list for some type of you know PIP plan and And so when I gave her the feedback, there was that reaction to it of, I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm a good business person. What do you mean? They want me to smile. They want me to pat them on the head. They're getting a salary. Isn't that enough of a sign that they're doing a good job? What more do they want from me? Because this person had grown up with a story in their head of that's how you are a leader. But they hadn't paid much attention to how do you connect with your team in a way that engages and motivates them. And, you know, and there was a bit of a resistance at first to to embracing emotional intelligence. And they didn't want to put a lot of fluffy language in their world. And I said, you don't have to. But, you know, we talked about ways they could recognize when people were doing a good job, like what they wanted to see continue, what they wanted to see more of, you know, reporting out on what they were excited about or what they were pleased to see in terms of how the projects were turning out. So it was just a turn of phrase here or there and being a little bit more deliberate with their positive feedback. And it started to stick. And when it started to stick, it gave her momentum. And she realized she could get a lot more done with her team behind her than on her own. And so it took a little while to get there. But once she found ways that she could take the feedback and make it hers and integrate it into what she was already doing, that's when the results really started to happen. And then she didn't go back. from there because she was getting what she needed to and the team was happy and they were doing a lot better all together.

Troy Blaser:

I love that. I thought it was interesting what you said, how she took the feedback and maybe it initially came in in a way that didn't really resonate, but she sort of interpreted it into her own it made it her own um

Cathleen Swody:

yeah

Troy Blaser:

you know sometimes I communicate with folks that are that are different than the way I communicate and I learned to sort of translate in my head when this person says this this is what they really mean to me right and so I thought that was interesting the way she took that feedback internalized it and interpreted it in a way that made sense to her. And then you could see, oh, well, now going forward, I can do that. I can offer that feedback or offer that positive feedback, I guess, or express the appreciation in ways that are natural and don't feel forced. But it's exactly what the team needed to really make

Cathleen Swody:

Yeah, it's that translation piece that's so important.

Troy Blaser:

Yeah, it must be so rewarding as a coach to have instances like that where, you know, you see a change happen and for the good and it and all of a sudden the team's functioning on all cylinders now and you're like, I got to watch that transformation happen.

Cathleen Swody:

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Especially because it's part of the process. It doesn't always look like it's going to go smoothly at times, right? Because we're human. We react to things. And if you can't speak in safety with your coach, who can you speak in safety to, right? And then getting to the point of action, it's tremendously rewarding.

Troy Blaser:

So, you know, as you think about our audience, HR professionals, other folks that are interested in feedback, interested in leadership, And I'm not asking you to give away your secret sauce, but is there some specific advice that you could give to our listeners, maybe around leadership or around feedback? What's something that you've learned that you would share with someone else in your position?

Cathleen Swody:

Well, something I have run into time and time again, so maybe this is just a reminder to myself, is that Insights are great, but they're not impact. In order to get impact, we need to have follow-up, we need to have traction, and we need to make it sticky. And so I am constantly finding myself working that angle of how do we make it stick? How am I going to get this person to continue doing this for their own sake when I'm not here, when I'm not meeting with them anymore, when the engagement is over? Or if we do an employee survey, how do we know they're actually going to action plan and implement? And sometimes people get through the assessment process and they're done right and and that you know but that stickiness is where it gets it actually becomes impact and turning those insights into habits and part of the business that's that's the challenge Because it sounds great in theory, but sometimes people get tired and they want to move on and they get busy with the rest of the work that they have to do. So constantly looking for ways to weave it in, just like that example with the leader I described.

Troy Blaser:

Find ways to change the behavior that you just, the feedback about your current behavior is useful, but it's only the beginning. You've got to figure out what am I going to do differently going forward and make it stick, like you said, to really to have an effective change. Insights are not impact. I like that. Well, Cathleen, I have loved this conversation that we've had. I'm sure we could continue talking for a long, long time. But if people do want to know more, or if they want to continue the conversation that we've been having, what should they do? What are ways that they can connect with you?

Cathleen Swody:

Yeah, I'm always up for a thoughtful conversation and a connection, especially on these topics. They are near and dear to my heart. The best way to reach me is on LinkedIn. I'm the only Cathleen Swody out there, so I should be pretty easy to find. And certainly the book is available wherever books are sold.

Troy Blaser:

Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for being a guest today. Like I said, I had a wonderful time. Thank you, Cathleen.

Cathleen Swody:

Yeah, it's my pleasure. Anytime, Troy. Thank you so much.