Ep. 53: Rachel Druckenmiller - Invest in Yourself | Self-Care & Self-Leadership

Contact Rachel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelbdruckenmiller/
UNMUTED: www.UnmutedLife.com 

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Adam: (00:00)

Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I am your host, Adam Larson, and this is episode 53 of our series. Our featured expert guests who joined Mitch for this conversation is Rachel Druckenmiller the founder and CEO of un-muted Rachel is a keynote speaker who uses her compelling speaking engagements and live workshops to energize and engage workforces. And her discussion with Mitch, Rachel talks about self care, self leadership and explains how individuals can manage expectations of others to meet the expectations and personal goals of their own. Keep listening to hear more about this valuable leadership topic. 

Mitch: (00:43)

So as we started talking about this conversation, we really said we wanted to focus on what we're calling self-care and self leadership. So the first thing that came to my mind was, you know, how do we effectively assess expectations? And I'm just wondering if you can kind of share your thoughts on, you know, how do we assess our own expectations against what other people are looking from us? 

Rachel: (01:13)

Yeah. There's a, there's a book written by a woman named Bronnie ware called The Top. It sounds kind of morbid. It's called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. And I share these with people when I speak at different events and conferences, but the number one is tied to tied to expectations, the number one and regret that people say that I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself and not the life others expected of me. So I think expectations come in two forms, I think in one form for us to be honest about what it is we want out of our lives and being intentional about designing a life that we want. Because otherwise, if we're not calling the shots, other people will be happy to kind of tell us what they need out of us and, and, and basically design our lives for us. But when it comes to a professional setting, I think a lot of times we have, we make assumptions about what people expect of us because we see how the people before us have handled themselves professionally. And so if they've just driven themselves into the ground, we assume that we have to and we don't necessarily, you know, get curious and ask questions about what is truly expected and from other people and what are the expectations that perhaps are not justified that we're putting on ourselves. 

Mitch: (02:35)

That's great. And how do we go about prioritizing this though? You know, you always want to put your priorities, your goals first. You know, that's kind of the message and being intentional. But um, once you get to know what other people expect of you know, how do you go about reaching their needs to a point where you're still successful? 

Rachel: (02:55)

I mean, for part of it I feel like is you know a matter of really being really being honest about you know what you need from people. I think a lot of times we're afraid to ask for what we need. We're afraid to ask for support. We're afraid to ask for clarification. We're afraid to ask people questions about things cause we don't want them to see us as incompetent or an inadequate in some way. And so part of that I think is around making sure that we have the courage to be vulnerable and to be honest about, you know, what we need. But then I think, you know, another side of this is that, um, we have to, we're working for a business, you know, and so it's important for us to be clear with whoever we're working with that, you know, what are you, what are you expecting of me? So that I can measure my own success. Cause there's, there's a, there's a book called the truth about Employee Engagement. And one of the things that he talks about is that a measurement is one of the key factors that leads to job misery. So basically not being able to gauge our own success and progress. So I think you know, as employees, as leaders, one of the things that we can do to really make people feel, you know, a sense of engagement at work, and this is also tied to expectations, is to really be clear on how they can measure their own success. And so if we don't know how to do that, if it's not clear to us, we need to be willing to ask those questions and get that clarity. 

Mitch: (04:23)

That's a great point. And I actually just looked over, I have that book on my bookshelf right next to me in my office. So that's a great reference. Yeah. I guess, you know, the next question, maybe flipping the perspective here a little bit, but you know, we're talking about someone else's expectations of us. How about those who aspire to be leaders, you know, particularly our listeners, they look to be CFO's, business partners leading in the accounting and finance world. When you are the leader, how do you really, you know, not just develop your own personal leadership style but you know, consider the expectations of somebody else and make sure that you, uh, you know, work with them also from the other side of it. 

Rachel: (05:05)

You know, it's interesting, I think a lot of times, especially in very technical profession, so I've, I've often speaks to people that are in technical fields like, like finance, accounting, engineering, architecture and design, construction. So people that are in spaces that are generally very, very technical. And there's an assumption that in order to advance that we have to have the most technical knowledge, that if we're the most technically competent, that is going to be the thing that is going to help us advance and grow. And what I've come to learn through experience but also through a lot of research that's been coming out lately, is that there's this study done that looked at over 50,000 managers. And what they found is that warmth. So when we think of warmth, we think of approachability, accessibility, kindness, care, honesty, being present with people, that warmth was a greater predictor of leadership effectiveness than competence. And that surprises a lot of people because we assume that if we're just the most technically competent, that's going to get us ahead. And it's changing. So what's expected of leadership is, is changing and it's evolving and it's even been framed by Josh Berson, right? Futurist who has a lot of influence in terms of, you know, talking about leadership and the future of work. And, and he is reframing what we often call soft soft skills like these, you know, the skills related to emotional intelligence, Jensen communication and listening and kind of the behaviors associated with warmth. But he's reframing those and calling them power skills because those skills, if you can do those well they give you real power at work. They give you real influence at work. So I would encourage people to focus if you want to get to the top level of leadership to focus as much if not more on more of these these power skills like your agility people management ability to effectively, those are the things that are going to help elevate you. You still want to be competent. I mean we need people who are technically competent, but it's the combination of those two things that really sets people apart. 

Mitch: (07:14)

That's really interesting. And I like the kind of re categorization of ...