UpSpiral Leadership

About UpSpiral Leadership

Welcome to UpSpiral Leadership, a podcast dedicated to helping leaders at all levels to think bigger, act bolder and collaborate better in order to create positive change, even when it’s hard. Join us as we explore paths towards a world where everyone is running to co-create a better future because they feel valued, inspired and connected.

Publisher

UpSpiral Leadership

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

4 Aug 2020

Latest episode

31 Aug 2022

Latest episodes

23 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   31 Aug 2022

   Rosie Corvo on Strategic Planning and Investing in Human Capital

   Sue Covelli-Buntley of UpSpiral Leadership interview Rosie Corvo. She is the UpSpiral Leadership team's general manager. But before that, Rosie has had an amazing career in finance for 30 years. She has served as the Head of Risk UKRB for Barclays Bank. Then she moved on to become the Chief Administrative Officer and Chief Marketing Officer at Early Warning Services. While there, she had a pivotal role in launching the fintech brand Zelle. [00:38] Introducing Rosie Corvo [02:29] Components of Strategic Planning [07:21] Adapting to Rapid Fire Change [14:28] Human Capital Investment Strategies [23:46] Pause and Rise Above [28:52] This Simple Leadership Exercise will Change your Business [33:08] The Lightning Round According to Rosie, strategic planning has three phases. You begin the process by thinking about the future of the business. How do you add value for your stakeholders? How do you stay relevant in the future? Once you’ve answered those questions, move on to capacity assessment. Evaluate whether the available resources are enough to fulfill your set goals. Finally, the last step is prioritization. With the finite resources, focus on specific tasks that will serve the growth of the business. A strong strategic plan not only considers the business, but also the people. With the advent of digitization, globalization, ESG, and COVID-19, the environment is nothing like before. Change is happening at a rapid fire pace, it’s crucial to equip employees with skills that can keep them and the business moving forward. It’s equally important to reduce turnover rate to avoid knowledge gaps within the organization. Studies have shown that effective leadership training decreases turnover rate by almost 77%. People yearn for purposeful work. Knowing these facts, seize the opportunity to develop more leaders. Provide coaching or group coaching not just for executives, but for everyone. Coaching small teams can help deepen bonds and facilitate transfer of wisdom from different departments. Another way is to create an unconventional learning structure. For example, you can do something as simple as pairing leadership development with an initiative. Form a small cohort of emerging leaders and ask them to list areas of improvement for the company. A simple project like that can benefit the business greatly by instilling a sense of camaraderie, confidence, and purpose. For more information on becoming an excellent leader, visit the Upspiral Leadership Website (https://upspiralleadership.com/), and remember to tune in to our next episode.

2. 

   29 Jul 2022

   Kim Sandifer on the Importance of Work-Life Integration.

   Sue Covelli-Buntley is joined today by Kim Sandifer, a Lead HR Business Partner at HALO Solutions and most recently held the position of Vice President, HR Business Partner to C-Suite and Senior Leaders at CNA Insurance. She is a Human Resources executive with a consistent track record of enabling business results by delivering value added HR Consultation. Kim has over fifteen years of experience as a business partner connecting talent strategies to business outcomes and ensuring HR processes and programs are practical, deliver value and create a great employee experience. [00:30] Introducing Kim Sandifer [05:22] Setting Boundaries and the Meaning of Work-Life Integration [11:45] How to Set Boundaries [23:23] Learning Through Others, Creating Dialogue, and Doing Well at Work [40:50] Lightning Round [46:51] Closing Notes Kim doesn’t believe in work-life balance. Instead, she believes in balance as integration. Achieving work-life integration is a journey; each phase of the journey may feel different and how you go about attaining balance or equilibrium in your life looks different at every stage. Setting boundaries is a way to go about establishing that integration and can look very different for each of us as individuals. The paradigm of work-life balance 20 years ago was about perfection: you could be a working mom and juggle so many balls at the same time, which created a false perception of work-life balance. Kim looks at integration as self-reflection for our own personal idea of success “how do you focus where you need to focus and be present where you need to be present throughout the day?" Putting boundaries in place allows us the mental capacity to be present in whatever we’re doing, whether in our work or in our personal life. Kim believes that when we don’t set boundaries, we can't show up as our best selves because of stress and exhaustion. She advises two things: first is to let go of myths such as working long hours to "prove" success. The second is letting go of the mindset that a perfect means having a perfect life. As a mom herself, what’s important is the time spent with her partner and children. Boundaries offer protection and freedom to achieve personal and career goals. Another mental model that Kim advocates for is knowing that you have a tribe you can reach out to for help. Among companies, there is a fear of having an open dialogue because leaders feel unable to give options or solutions to their peoples’ problems. For Kim, the solution comes from the dialogue. These solutions can look different in every organization and is not a one-size-fits-all but if organizations don’t know what’s going on, they can’t help people to figure out which solutions to put in place. Kim advises to keep asking questions and challenging one another, because that’s the only way we can help each other step back and rethink possibilities. One of the things Kim is most grateful for is that she can see things differently and expand her thinking, and she predicts that the conversation around integration and work-life balance is going to look so different in the years to come. Forget the whats: how do we get it done? Gratitude is extremely critical for mental health and just being grounded, centered, and graceful is something we need to be as well as to provide more for each other. If we can come from a place of grace and assume positive intent, it ends with better outcomes. When having difficult conversations, if you assume positive intent and give people grace, if you can look at the situation through a different lens, and Kim thinks that this mindset can help us progress better as human beings. For more information on becoming an excellent leader, visit the Upspiral Leadership Website (https://upspiralleadership.com/), and remember to tune in to our next episode.

3. 

   3 Jun 2022

   Mykala Sandifer on Honoring Pride Month

   UpSpiral Leadership’s Rebecca Braitling Interviews Mykala Sandifer. Mykala is the Director of Inclusive Programs and Talent Development for the Kansas University Alumni Association, where she leads DEI&B as a strategic partner focused on community building to connect all Jay Hawks to the university with an intentional commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. She also works closely with senior leadership on issues surrounding organizational development to improve culture and organizational effectiveness. She is also a member of various diversity committees. [00:42] Introduction of Mykala Sandifer [01:52] Mykala’s past experiences with diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging [07:16] True definition of diversity, equity, and inclusion [10:12] The importance of of celebrating pride month with true intentions [22:02] Leadership traits that create a more inclusive environment [27:18] Get to know Mykala and Lightning Round [36:00] Around the UpSpiral: Limiting beliefs about DEIB and how to reframe it Mykala began her career in diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging based on her past experiences and childhood activities. She discusses her past work environments wherein she used her skill sets to see perspectives of different people with various personalities. She built personal relationships with others based on their own personal intersectionalities. Mykala’s experience as a competitive dancer in childhood gave her the opportunity to meet people from all walks of life. Her dance director emphasized the foundation of community and enjoying the culture and experiences of others, which piqued Mykala’s interest in sociology and DEI&B. With different interpretations of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, Mykala enumerates the true definition of DEI&B. To her definition, diversity is appreciating the uniqueness of each individual and that not everyone is the same. She elaborates that equity is giving people what they need and that it is not the same as equality. Inclusion, for her, is having the intention to get people involved in order to alleviate biases. In Mykala’s perspective, it is important to celebrate pride month to honor the historical struggles and barriers the LGBTQ+ community has faced. Gender and sexuality discrimination isn’t as apparent as racial or ethic discrimination. The pride movement is an effort to create a space for awareness, education, and honoring lives lost within that community. To be an authentic and intentional ally, Mykala advises us to lean into our allyship and take action rather than just saying that we support pride. It helps to have ongoing, uncomfortable conversations regarding gender and sexuality in order to challenge ourselves and create meaningful change. Mykala advises leaders who want to create a more inclusive environment for their organizations to follow 4 steps. First is through humility; leaders must acknowledge that they do not know everything and are open to learning from their peers and colleagues. Second is psychological safety, which allows a space to show up as themselves without negative consequences. Third is to model what they are trying to embed in their culture by shifting away from old models of leadership. Mykala believes that the one leadership trait our world needs most is humility. In a generation where people are afraid to speak up out of fear of being wrong or insensitive, Mykala advises that humility is the key to communicating that we are all still learning. Though she has never met Denzel Washington, Mykala finds Denzel to be thoughtful and intentional in his interviews or interactions with others. She strives to mirror this intentionality as a way to communicate with emotional intelligence. What Mykala wishes for the world at this point is to heal, especially after a series of tragedies that have recently occurred across the nation.

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Apple Podcasts (US)

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