How Heart-Centered Leadership Changes the Way You Live, Love & Lead
In this episode, I'm joined by Cheryl DeSantis, Chief People Officer at National Veterinary Associates.
Leadership expert Cheryl DeSantis shares her inspiring journey to heart-centered leadership.
Cheryl offers thoughtful insights on overcoming limiting beliefs, leading with curiosity, creating psychological safety, and helping teams thrive. She explains the meaning behind "steel backbone, soft heart" and gives practical tips for developing empathy and resilience.
Drawing on her extensive corporate leadership experience, Cheryl makes the business case for this leadership approach - how it drives engagement, retention and performance. She shares how leading with heart enabled her to navigate major challenges.
Chris and Cheryl explore how compassionate leadership will be even more critical as we face economic uncertainty. Tune in for an uplifting and empowering conversation about the future of leadership.
Episode Highlights
How Cheryl's personal journey moulded her unique leadership style
The power of aligning actions with values for trust and team dynamics
How heart-centred leadership fosters loyalty and a lasting impact
Recommended Resources
Follow Cheryl on LinkedIn
Learn more about National Veterinary Associates
📙 Grab a copy of her book - Steel Backbone, Soft Heart
Five tips to increase Workplace Productivity
Accelerate your business growth with workforce upskilling. Implement IDC's top five strategies to build an agile, future-ready team. Invest in your employees' skills today, align their growth with your business objectives, and witness unparalleled success.
🎙️ Automatically generated Podcast Transcript
Chris Rainey 0:00
Talking about human centred leadership. Is that the same as heart centred? Why? Why did you go with heart?
Cheryl 0:06
Everybody can grasp on to being courageous we lose people is they think vulnerability is weakness Craig Brown always says you cannot have courage without vulnerability. So the root of the word courage core is heart
Chris Rainey 0:28
Hi everyone, welcome back to the HR leaders podcast. On today's episode, I'm joined by Cheryl DeSantis, who's the Chief People Officer at a National Veterinary associates. She's also the author of the best selling book still backbone soft heart. How heart centred leadership changes the way you live, love, and lead. Join episode Cheryl shares her personal journey to as home to her transparent, real transformative leadership style of heart centred leadership should also talks about how to be the type of person that leads authentically creates immense loyalty and leaves a lasting legacy. As always, before we jump into the video, make sure you hit the subscribe button, turn on notification bell on a follow on your favourite podcast platform. With that being said, let's jump in. And show Welcome to the show. How are you?
Cheryl 1:14
I'm doing well. Thank you so much for having me, Chris.
Chris Rainey 1:17
It's been a while I love I love the colour. super vibrant today.
Cheryl 1:21
Thank you. I mean, you know sometimes red, you gotta go with it. That self assurance that extra bit?
Chris Rainey 1:27
Yeah. I love your background, by the way, for people who can't see you set the most organised, clean background I've ever seen. In a good way. Yeah, yeah,
Cheryl 1:38
I realised that, you know, kind of having a little order. I used to be one of these people where I didn't really get all of it. But now I'm like, You know what, my brain is more structured when the stuff behind me is more structured. So
Chris Rainey 1:50
Trudeau right, that's so true. And I have to say congratulations again on the book. How very has it been for you?
Cheryl 1:57
It's been a it's been amazing. I know, we're coming up on a year in September. And it's been the favourite thing I've done because it's been the most vulnerable thing I've ever done. And, you know, there are days still where I think back to myself 10 years ago, that person never would have done that. And I just think of all the change and transformation that led to it. It's been really fun sharing that story.
Chris Rainey 2:20
Because a lot of put a piece of yourself out there isn't it, especially in
Cheryl 2:23
today's world where social media can easily pick you apart, kind of faceless, nameless, but for me, it was a calling. It was such a calling on. I felt the world needed more heart centred and courageous leadership that I was I just was willing to do it. And I didn't let the usual barriers of writing a book, slow me down. I just I wanted to get this message out. I felt the world needed it. And it was also cathartic for me.
Chris Rainey 2:50
Before we get into that, let's go back for one moment to the beginning. Tell us a little bit more about your background and your journey to where we are now.
Cheryl 2:57
I started my career in marketing and advertising and communications. And I thought I would take the world by storm as like a chief communications officer. But I had one brilliant leader at where I worked at Mars. Her name is Aileen. She was the Global Head of HR, she liked my leadership skills. And she taught me at the age of 40 into moving over and doing traditional HR. Now I had done HR communications, and I had been a consultant, but it was always in the communication side. And it was such a risk. And I said to her, why are you taking this risk on me I don't. And she just said, because I believe in your leadership. And I believe in your heart. And I took that leap of faith. And it got into HR at Mars where I learned the best in class HR for everything in 2018, I left to go be a CHR O for a startup business called Smile direct club. And I did that for five years, we went from pre IPO to IPO to post IPO to COVID and everything that happens when you just shut down all of your customer facing shops. And I've just recently made the move to be CHRO at National Veterinary associates. And it's a 45,000 person company that has that hospitals and vet clinics, you know, the vet industry, people say why do you do that? And so well, first and foremost, I used to be in pet care at Mars. But in my core values, which you can find right on my LinkedIn are compassion and empathy and integrity and I feel like vets and probably and obviously those in the health care, obviously, they have huge compassion and that's why they do it. They have really tough days they have really tough outcomes, but their compassion leads the way and that was something that resonated with my agenda to change corporate leadership model.
Chris Rainey 4:43
And that's what it's about right you get to a certain point in your career where it's all about the sexy job title the sexy company name or or even the pay raise. It's about aligning with your why your purpose, your values, what gives you energy right?
Cheryl 4:56
It really does and one of the stories I like to tell about smile direct club because It was the chance for me to build HR from scratch. They had nothing. It was also the chance to be the very first CHRO. But most importantly, it also lined up. My dad who's passed away now. He said every day when I came home from school, he'd asked me who do you make smile today? Oh, it was his way of me not saying hey, school was fine. It was okay. I had to explain who I made smile. And so he had passed away in 2010. And it resonated with my heart that I could make millions of people smile. And it really was a huge soul boost for me, not not just a career boost, but it made me feel connected to someone I was deeply missing at that point in my life, and then live his legacy to masses.
Chris Rainey 5:46
How did this all of this story lead to the book still backbone, soft heart, how heart centred leadership changes the way you live, love and lead, love that, by the way, the title?
Cheryl 5:58
Thank you, because we don't leave any of those at the door. It is who we are. Every every day. We have people we love, we have to lead and we have to live our lives. I wanted to write a book back in 2012 or so I had seen some empathetic leadership. I was watching it Mars, who the great leaders were and who was inspiring followership, because there were some great leaders that were really hard driving difficult, but they didn't have that heart. They didn't have the empathy, the heart and the investment in you as a person, they did not have the followership that I saw with people, with leaders who actually invested in their people. So tell me about your family. Tell me about your kids, tell me what's going on in your life, how to recreate a psychologically safe place for you. And that, and I wanted to tell that story, but I just didn't have enough life experience. I mean, I didn't know that at the time. But it started it, I never finished it. Well, by the time 20, when did I start writing this 2021 came around, I had had some real life experience, I had gone through my first huge HR role, I had gone through a bullying experience with that role. I had gone through the death of my partner at the time. And my partner was always like, You got to write this book, you got to write this book. And there was something cathartic in my healing, that said, Okay, you're not here with me, I'm going to tell this story so that you can live on in this legacy, all so. And it was that final push that it again, it was hugely cathartic for me. But it also was, I'm going to live out this legacy and tell the story. And so in some ways, it was a bit of a way of my healing. But I also kept thinking, if I can help one person through one of the moments of adversity, I went through and telling the story, then it'll feel worth it. Yeah.
Chris Rainey 7:48
On that point. What does it mean to have a steel backbone and soft heart? Yeah, I
Cheryl 7:55
think most of us in school as leaders and people are trained to have a steel backbone, right? It's like, Hey, this is my vision. This is my mission. These are our objectives. This is what we're going to do, hey, this is how we get business results in life. You know, in some some cases in life in our personal lives, we don't as much have to scale backbone, because we are afraid of conflict, but but it is it is leaning into conflict, having those tough conversations. The soft heart is the thing we always feel we have to hide. I mean, I think even in leadership, we used to be told, like in the 80s, and 90s. Like don't bring your stuff to work. It's not good to bring your stuff to work. And that was a real risk. I think what we have experienced in the past at least five years is people want to be seen heard and respected. Right? It started with D and I, but COVID, really, really exacerbated that need for us to be seen as whole people. And so that's the soft heart part, like how do you open yourself up and share what's going on with yourself so others can do the same. I had a very difficult lesson that I was getting, I got in my first leadership role. I had all these assessments done on me. And one came back that said, I was hard to know. And the reason I was hard to know was because I had zero degrees of vulnerability. I would not share things I struggled with. I would not share I always had the answer. I always knew what was going on. I had this armour on. And so I started this journey on like, how do I start to like, unzip the armour around my heart and open that up? Wow, protecting my steel backbone, right? Because you still have to have boundaries, you still have to kind of know what's safe and not safe. So I think the leadership model works well together when you can do
Chris Rainey 9:42
both. Yeah. Just a random question. But we you know, we talk a lot about human centred leadership. Is that the same as heart centred? why did why did you go with heart, just out of curiosity,
Cheryl 9:55
so I had this purpose that I was going to inspire, develop and motivate courageous leaders through courageous conversations through courageous actions. And everybody can grasp on to being courageous we lose people is they think vulnerability is weakness. And you cannot have courage brave brown always says you cannot have courage without vulnerability. So the root of the word courage core is heart. And so I went with heart centred leadership, because it's vulnerability and courage together.
Chris Rainey 10:28
Love that. I didn't expect you to have such a succinct answer. And actually, really, that was super intentional than like a super. Yeah, honestly expect you to be like, Oh, I just liked it sounded better.
Cheryl 10:41
It's a risk, there's a risk of it. Because there's still a lot of leaders who think partner centred means you're soft and weak. Yeah, we're human centred, feels like human human resources, human relations. And I, my big a lot, one of my big things I like to talk about is bringing humanity back to corporate America. So I'm into that into the human element. But no, it really was rooted in the word courage. And it was intentional
Chris Rainey 11:06
love that you mentioned before that this all starts with curiosity, you elaborate on that,
Cheryl 11:10
I started talking about this with a leadership team, that really hot vulnerability was the worst thing that could ever happen to them. And so I started breaking it down into what are the principles that would help even the most scared or nervous person or full of fear, stepping down at least some of the principals so that they can have more of it, but not know they're doing it? And to me, the number one thing was curiosity. If you can be curious about someone, why are they showing up that way? What's beneath that? How do I have this conversation with them on? Hey, what might be going on for you that you're presenting in this way? It's kind of the whole, we had this big breaker when it was like, oh, it's not your intent that your impact? Well, to know that you have to know the person's intent, or hate, you have to ask the question. So like, what, you know, what were your motivations? What were you thinking? So I feel like that's the step into heart centred leadership is getting really deep in curiosity, because it'll get you to a point where you can't not see a person, if you're not going deeper on questions about their behaviour, or their beliefs or goals in life.
Chris Rainey 12:20
How do you advise leaders, the managers to do that, from a practical point of view?
Cheryl 12:26
You know, I mean, certainly different people have different levels of comfort. I mean, I'm a big believer in taking your team off site, I have this 3d model that I really love, which is, one day you do the get to know you tell me about yourself. In the book, I talked about this exercise called the Tree of Life, which enables you through drawing, to share more about how you were brought up and what your values are, and what your gifts are to the world. I like doing that on the first day people share and you start to get deep, people start sharing about their mom and their dad and their, their greater influences. The second day, you start to really focus on there your strategy for your team. I'm an HR team. So what's our business trip? And now we've now we've connected? What's our business strategy? What are we going to do? And then the third day, you focus on yourself as a team, because now we've done the heart, the first day, you've done the vision, the objectives, you know, you've got your brain and your backbone involved in the second day. And then the third day is, how do we become a high performing team? And what are we going to do for each other and service of each other so that we're a high performing team, but it's only on the steps of, we've connected, we've bonded, we've been vulnerable? We've done work, we know what we're going to do and what we're in service out? And how do we do that together. And that's how I advise leaders to that that kind of three day model.
Chris Rainey 13:45
I've done something similar with my team before, and I went into it a bit sceptical if I'm being honest. Yeah. But I know more about those people in two days than I did in the two years that I worked with him. Yeah, like when we work together every day, and I'm only getting to know these things now. And we connected on such a deeper level, from sort of the traumas that we shared and gone through, you know, our childhoods, you know, upbringing to your point, so many different things that we had even some people in my previous company that I thought had nothing in common with whatsoever, as well. So it's such an important exercise, and it can it can eat, you know, is uncomfortable. Sometimes it can be uncomfortable, from uncomfortable is where the magic happens. A lot of times Yeah, nobody
Cheryl 14:41
nobody grows in the comfort zone. You only grow when you're sitting in the in the discomfort zone. You just have to have the discernment not to live in the panic zone. You know, there's like three levels and so you want to stay in the discomfort zone but then have the, the resources to help you through that but it's not easy at first, the CEO I'm working for now was the first person I really opened up to about the fact that I was adopted that because I was adopted, I had some of these limiting behaviours, which were oftentimes trying too hard, trying to prove my worth all the time, sometimes just being overselling of what I can bring to the equation. And he was the first person that I was candid with about that. And he gave me really good feedback on my strengths, also, you know, and he was kind of like, it's a bowl with a hand like, yes, work on that, but I don't lose the gifts from it, you know, don't lose the gifts that you care and you are passionate and your energy and want to drive. So you know, I think it does take time to get comfortable with it. But once you are as a leader, then you can create the space for everybody else. And those people will thank you for the rest of your life.
Chris Rainey 15:52
What some quick exercises for people to identify those moments.
Cheryl 15:56
I like that, well, I do love the Tree of Life exercise because it opens the container. But if you if you don't have the benefit of kind of doing that, as a group, I really do think that it is just asking, taking the time, like I just I just started right at a new company. And it's taking the time to say, tell me about Tell me about your life. Tell me about, you know, tell me about your family, tell me about what it was like for you growing up, you know, I'll tell stories about my dad. So again, leaders go first, like, I find, if I share vulnerably, someone will go, Wow, that really touched my heart, here's something that happened to me. And so it's just having the courage to to set that container that it's okay to have those kinds of conversations. And, and again, some people will shy away from it, I had one team where the guy was just like, I don't know, if I can do this, like, I'm not ready for this. And it's meeting that person where they are to say, you don't have to, you can observe this time and see what you think. And, and then the next time you know, people have a little bit more courage and they say, Okay, I'm going to share this. And, you know, so you do have to meet people where you are. And trust me, look, there are some leaders I've worked with that are like, I'm not doing this vulnerability thing like you can you can put it in every leadership course you want. I'm not doing it. I'm this age, I've done it this far. And sometimes you have to go, okay. You know, if that feels too hard for you, I'm not going to waste my time, passion and energy. And you know, and you have to let that person be that person. But if you're changing the culture around them, eventually, they're going to have to start to lean into it because their people are going to pull it from them. Yeah. And that's the beauty of HR is if we set some of these principles, like I mean, some of the ones that I have in here, right? Curiosity, intentionality? Yes, I have vulnerability, but self assurance, some of these things are just good leadership principles. And that's what the book does is it gives you the 10 that I think leads you to heart centred leadership, but people will start to demand it. And when the culture is demanding that type of leadership, that's when you get true change
Chris Rainey 17:58
doesn't come natural to people. Is this a skill that you're going to be developed? Or is it and do you find it comes easy to others?
Cheryl 18:05
I do think in some cases, it comes easier to others. But I'm a firm believer that it's a skill that can be learned. And it's funny, because in the you know, speaking of 10 years ago, when I first kind of started thinking about this, I can remember people saying to me, Well, I've taken all these assessments, it shows I don't have high EQ, I don't know how to, you know, and it was almost like they were giving themselves a pass, you know, but But what I'd say now is, well, you have empathy for our customer, you have empathy for that person buying our product, you know, everything about them, you know, where they buy, how much they put in their basket, what their age demographic is, approximately how many kids they have, you have huge empathy for our customer. Why don't we try showing that for our employee? And it does break through and their brain a little bit where they can go, oh, oh, okay. But But no, we I mean, we're actively working on that on on building those skills. And a lot of it, it's I said earlier, you know, I'm so glad I get to put it in leadership development, but it really is having the right leaders at the top people are looking who you promote, and our core part of culture is who you promote, and who gets the big jobs and people are watching
Chris Rainey 19:15
one of the topics that you talk about, which is something that I've been struggling with, to get to grips with for years it which is kind of around how you overcome limiting beliefs. And some context, I grew up in a very poor part of London on a council was they single parent for kids, not much, you know, a lot of drugs, alcohol, violence, etc. And there was a limiting belief in that community that this is, this is all we're ever going to achieve. You know, that's my example. And it was really tough for Shane and I think shame of Shane's mentioned to you when you met him. We were next door neighbours growing up so we we grew up as kids together and we came on this entire journey and we kept each other accountable. And when one of us had that limiting belief that we couldn't achieve any more than we have, we kind of picked each other up along the way. But many of my friends, family members still sit with that. This is all we can achieve, because this is where we are. And it's been an ongoing battle. For me, it's something that's really frustrated me if I'm being honest, over time, so I'd love to hear your, your, your thoughts?
Cheryl 20:31
Well, first of all, thank you for sharing that. You gave me chills when you were telling that story. Because first and foremost, to change a systemic belief and systemic pattern like that. It takes the courage of one individual, and here we have the two of you doing it, which I love. But it takes the courage of one individual now that same generation, may not be courageous enough to say, I can do that, but the next generation will see it and it'll start to really change and move very quickly. So what you guys are doing by being successful by role modelling that by showing people actually, people say this, but look at those two, they did something. So that's going to start to seed into the generations that come and you'll you'll end up being a pattern breaker, which is why it gave me chills, because that's just such an honourable, honourable thing. The secret to limiting beliefs is a identifying them, and then be having people that we resources that aid can help us reframe it, what's what's the new thought, if you can have one new thought and one new belief about that limiting belief, it starts to transform over time. But then you have a partner with shame that says, if you ever slip back, that holds you up, you know, and, and that's what most people miss is like, I mean, there are still limiting beliefs that I'm working on 13 years later, where sometimes I'll get caught in the grip. And I need to reach out to someone to remind me who I was, when I was going through that really tough period around the just the bullying behaviour, I needed people to pull me out of the pit of despair and remind me of not my limiting beliefs, because when you're in the grip, you slide back into those limiting beliefs and they become true, but having someone who's a mirror to you, because you say like, no, that's not who you are. This is who you are. Yeah. And so that's how you continue to work on them. Because most limiting beliefs are really things that are a core, and it takes practice, just like meditation takes practice, a sport takes practice, overcoming that limiting belief takes practice, but But what you guys did is really pioneering for that for that community. And that's, that's inspiring, and that that will change people over time.
Chris Rainey 22:43
How do we learn to see others and develop empathy? Like, as you mentioned, if something can be learned, how do you learn empathy?
Cheryl 22:53
I think first and foremost, we have to learn how to be empathetic with ourselves. And if you can't kind of be empathetic with yourself, it is a little harder to turn it on to others. Now there are people who naturally kind of self abandon themselves to to do more for other people. And that is a form of empathy. But it's coming from a place of wound and fear of, I'm not good enough to take care of myself, but I'll take care of you. And so I think that truly empathetic leaders who are doing it from a clean space, which is what we have to be as leaders, they they learn first how to turn that on to themselves. Because I think that people who are most guarded have not yet forgiven themselves for something or have a limiting belief that they're not enough or that if they share who they are, people will reject them. And so they build this wall up of it's not safe to be empathetic, because then I have to share something about me and I don't want to do that, because that's risky. And so I think it's that, like I would say a coaching journey with set individual, so that they have their own breakthrough moment, and then they can then go create that forever. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 24:00
and you just said you just described my exact personal story, which is for years, you know, for what the best part of 14 years i i hit my panic attacks and anxiety from everyone Shane, my wife, you know, friends family, since I was a kid, I didn't know I was told by my mom that you shouldn't share that because people will see it as weakness. She thought she was she was just trying to protect me. She didn't know she didn't know what she didn't understand that the consequences of what of those words was I realised now but it meant I hid it for years. You know, the weeks I wasn't turning up for work. And it was because I was having anxiety attacks and follicles having a heart attack every time I left the house, to even to as a parent being scared of being alone with my own daughter in case I had a panic attack. So I was lied to my wife about reasons why couldn't Kate take be at home alone with our daughter? She was like, What do you mean I don't understand this and that causing a lot of conflict in our marriage. And when I finally kind of I opened up and shared the real reasons. Behind all of those things. It was a moment of terrifying moment of all of the fears. I think, what what are people gonna think of me. But it was actually only in that moment to your point that then I could start having those conversations with other people. Because I didn't want to have any this conversation over here because I was feeling the way I was feeling. So the last thing I want to do is open up a conversation around that when I'm feeling exactly the same way. Right. And I'm sorry, I'm hiding it. So I was exactly that person. The year just
Cheryl 25:34
in our, in our loved ones. We started, like, we say, smell it, like they can tell something. Were like, out of alignment with ourselves and our authenticity. Yeah, that's why that,
Chris Rainey 25:46
and I can tell you like that I have such a bad, you know, relationship with my wife. Now my friends, Shane is like 10. Next, the love the level of the connection and everything because there was always that fit that thing there looming. Unspoken, the unspoken truth. That was there as well. And it's also meant I've had much more meaningful conversations with my team. Now they come to me when they're struggling, we have conversations, they feel safe. Even customers, I've had conversations around these things as well, right? And many HR leaders, you know, feeling the same way as older for, Hey, who do I go to when I'm having a conversation, right? Who do I share my concerns with as the HR leader in the business?
Cheryl 26:35
It's so true. Well, first and foremost, good for you. Because kind of when we disown a part of ourselves, it comes back and gets us some other place. And so that's why the book is like live love and lead because it's all parts of us. But for HR leaders, especially like, the best thing for me was getting into a high functioning CHR o group, not one of these go to a conference and you don't talk about anything real like RC HR group talks about our hopes, our fears, like what we're facing our struggles. And when you can get into a group because I always say the CHR of job can be the loneliest job, because you are expected to be you are expected to bring a lot of positivity even when there's negative business results. You're you're you're meant to inspire, develop, motivate, you know, and bring that to others and help leaders do that. So we need each other. We need a community that's honest, authentic, that will talk about real stuff, not like oh, what are we going to do with this legislation? It's like I am struggling right now, because of what's going on and how I lead my business. It's yeah, you need that connectivity. And I think, you know, it can be from a coach or someone else, but when it's a fellow CHRO, huge power in that because we understand the context that's on our shoulders every day.
Chris Rainey 27:49
Yeah, you're speaking to people to live and breathe to same thing, you do the same fires, as well, internally and externally. You mentioned before, and I love this, quote, diversity can only thrive in an environment where it didn't empathy.
Cheryl 28:05
I love that one. Again, it's kind of rooted in curiosity, which we've talked a lot about today. But, but having empathy for one situation or one's experiences, you know, I always say you kind of build trust. One of the core elements building building trust is knowing people's motivation, and knowing their core story and knowing who they are. Because otherwise, we put everything through our lens of our human experience. And if we have empathy for their human experience, we can separate the lens that says, that's good, bad or different than mine. Right? And that's the glasses we have to take off is go. Well, this is what my experience was when I when I started corporate America, well guess what people of colour may have a very different experience when they entered and if I don't have empathy for that, I will never see and understand the adversity or challenge they may have gone.
Chris Rainey 28:56
Yeah, super important to look at it through that lens. And everyone's on that point. Everyone's looking for a different lens in their career, right to something as leaders fitness one, that one thing isn't spoken about enough. If I'm being honest.
Cheryl 29:10
Yes, it is inherent in all the training we do on unconscious bias, right? It's, it's, you know, if you're really tackling unconscious bias, you're learning how to have empathy and really see people for who they are versus what makes you feel comfortable because it's familiar.
Chris Rainey 29:25
Yeah, I just noticed something and it just made me really happy and smile. Is chapter nine. You put resilience is my superpower. Yes. You know, that's literally something I say to myself every day. Oh, that just gave me chills in my coaching with Chester Oh, and he's no, he's my coach. He's an amazing friend and coach. That's something that we kind of we went for an exercise about so identifying your superpower. And he said to me, after many conversations are going pretty deep. So Chris, resilience is your superpower. And I say that I say that as a mantra probably 100 times a day. Yeah. And I wake up, I wake up and say it, I go to sleep and say it. It's, it's, and I mentioned it to you earlier in the conversation with me and Shane, if people ever asked us why we are, where we are, and why we always succeed, it's because resilience is our superpower. I know, I know, it's like a comfort. I know, no matter what the world throws at me, and us, personally, professionally, home. Resilience is my superpower. I'll figure it out. And I'll get through it. Because as you said, that's where the magic happens. That's where the growth happens, as well. So when I saw that, I didn't see that until just now. And I know you put it in the notes, but I was going down. And I was like, I thought I wrote that. I went down and I was like, no way does that say resilience is my superpower. Well, I say that all the time. Anyone, anyone who's listening knows me. And probably close to me know what I say that all the time. So why did you add that like, in there?
Cheryl 31:02
Well, when I was first kind of, to two reasons. When I was first thinking about the book, I was like, Okay, this is the undercurrent of it. abandonment, success, pain, death, bullying, death. And I was like, wow, there takes a lot of resilience to have one of those, let alone all of those. And so it reminded me my my, the greatest influence on my career was my boss at Mars who brought me over to HR, her name's Aileen, she really believed in me. And I remember she used to say that, to me, resilience is your superpower, like you are so resilient, that I know you can navigate any complexity, and you're going to be calm, and you're going to come up with a great answer the first time. And, and so she kind of seated that in my head. And then when I was walking out the book, I was like, I got to talk about this, like, that. This is how we build our resilience is actually part of the why this impacts how you love and, and live your life. Because we are as humans, we're going to be faced with hardships with hard times with trauma with with death, you know? What, so it's a really meaningful mantra to me.
Chris Rainey 32:15
I love it. I absolutely, honestly, I love it. I feel like what you've done, not what we've not spoken about is invest is also good for business. Yes. So let's talk about that. So I was talking about this. And some people may see this as a fluffy topic. Yes, subject. But what's the bottom line on that? How does this impact the bottom line?
Cheryl 32:36
Yeah. To me, it's not that dissimilar to some of the research you see from like Gallup, that's driving engagement. When you look at some of their core questions, some of them are business related, right? I know, my goals on being given feedback, suck. The other ones are my supervisor, my supervisor cares about me, I have a best friend at work. And people used to really recoil against the best friend at work. But what it meant was somebody in that company knows your true story and knows who you truly are. And a supervisor that cares about you. You don't just care about the work product, you care about their family who they are as a human being. So there's been oodles of research that shows if you can excel in these areas is going to drive productivity. What I've seen since COVID, is that leaders who are coming forward with that more heart centred approach are creating the organisation that people don't leave from. So at STC, when we were navigating through the great resignation, we were having less turnover than we should have than the years prior. And we were having less turnover than our peers. Because we had put in a lot of these principles on heart centred leadership and the business was struggling a bit because we did close all of our shops. So it wasn't like, oh, man, we're working for Apple who would ever quit, you know? Hard, hard times. But it was the fact that leaders cared. We were role modelling empathy. And people were wanting to stick around for that. I mean, I think the great resignation initially, it was like, oh, people are leaving for pay. It's like, no, they're leaving toxic cultures, to go try to find one. And then they realise it's not easy to find a culture that is rooted in compassion and empathy, and things like that. So I think it drives retention. I think it drives engagement. And I think it drives followership. And honestly, you want your leaders to have an impact on their people and to be even if someone leaves you, you want to be known as an exporter of talent as a business for them to say, the best development at that company, because that creates an ambassador outside your business that's saying go there to develop. Yeah, even if they leave, like we got to a point where I'm like, let's embrace the people who leave because guess what, they're all getting promoted. They're all going to like these big amazing jobs and, and we helped create that. So that's what that's where I see the cross into that it's good for business.
Chris Rainey 34:55
And last thing I'll add to what you said is a lot of them will boomerang back.
Cheryl 34:59
Yes. So what we started to see is that I didn't realise, you know, having a CEO who comes out with empathy, and who's thinking about things and who's willing to listen to us and change. And, you know, one thing he had that was tremendous was humility. And I think that's also a secret sauce to empathy. It's like, maybe it's hard for you. But if you can have humility and curiosity, you're gonna want to know how that impacts your people, you know? And so I think that's
Chris Rainey 35:27
a way forward. How do you think this is gonna play out in the current economic climate? Slash recession? So we see,
Cheryl 35:35
you know, I think so I started with COVID, where I wrote a little piece on anticipatory grief. And it was like, people are fearing the worst. And when you fear the worst, you start to operate out of a place of fear, and you can't be your best self, you can't be your best self, at home at work anything. I think with the recession, it's the same thing. We all have this fear, we keep hearing about it. It's causing us to change our behaviours. I think now more than ever, with those two things adding on top of each other, and the crisis around mental health and mental illness, we're going to need to double down on it, we're going to need to do more. I mean, we did something at Smile direct club before I left on suicide prevention. Five years ago, most companies would not have let you go and say, Hey, we know there's mental mental health issues, we're going to really talk seriously about suicide today. And it just didn't, it just wasn't like that. I mean, I was a consultant back in the day for Willis Towers Watson. And we used to try to talk to companies about mental health, they wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. Now we're doing, you know, workshops and trainings and information about suicide prevention, and how you help people and how you reach out to help people. So we've just come a long way in 10 years. And I think this fear of the recession, for good companies, and good HR people and good leaders, we should be doubling down on that, because there's more pain in the system because of the fear of the recession.
Chris Rainey 37:01
So what was the one thing that you learned about yourself was writing a book?
Cheryl 37:05
It's funny, no one's asked me that, because I learned so much to have to write it. But I think I think the big thing is when you feel inspired and have a mission and a message, it's the most empowering thing, because a lot of people who write books, everybody says, I have a book in me, right? What stops them as they have this blockage. But I think when I had true connection to my values, my vision, and my life's purpose, it just flowed out of me. And it was that alignment between the three, I had to really get core with my values as well, and line those up. And once I lined them up, it's like, almost everything came to support me. The whole universe case supported me, I found an agent, I found an editor like, you know, I found a social media company, everything just kind of clicked. So I think it's like, take time. And really, if you haven't done it recently, really think about your values, your your mission in life, and really that vision of like, what you know, how do you want to put that lifestyle? How do you want to live? What's the impact you want to make on your company, on your team, on your family, and, and really curate that sometimes we're on autopilot, and we just go to our job and leave. But if you can get really clear on that, it's gonna change. I had a new sense of peace and tranquillity after writing this, even though it was the most vulnerable thing I ever did.
Chris Rainey 38:28
Listen, before I let you go, where can people grab a copy of the book? And where can they connect with you? If they want to say hi, and reach out?
Cheryl 38:35
That'd be great. The book is available on Amazon. And then I'm on LinkedIn, Cheryl DeSantis I so please, please link in with me. I also have a website, Cheryl desantis.com. And then I'm on Instagram as Cheryl DeSantis official. So I do have
Chris Rainey 38:53
some quotes there too. As always, everyone listening those those links are below. So wherever you're listening or watching right now, all the links will be in the description to make your life easier. So make sure you grab a copy of the book, go and connect with Cheryl, but honestly, thank you so much for coming on the show. I've really enjoyed the conversation and wish all the best until next week.
Cheryl 39:11
Thank you. It's been such a joy to be here and thanks for sharing your stories with me. I loved it.
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