April 16, 2024
The Dynamic and Evolving Role of Today’s Leaders w/ Jackie Gulley
On this installment of Next Steps Forward, Strategic Communications Executive Jackie Gulley joins program host Chris Meek to discuss her experiences as an executive in global communications, marketing, and digital strategy advising clients on executive coaching, brand development, corporate strategy and media relations. Through her work in corporate branding, she built a strategy of outreach and advocacy for business executives with regulators, third party groups, think tanks, trade associations, influencers and media. Jackie’s experience in corporate life served as the launching pad for her career as an executive coach - with her years leading global employee communications, crisis and issues management, strategic messaging, and executive communications, she developed the tools and methodologies to help her clients succeed. As she will share with the Next Steps Forward audience, her secret to success is understanding the dynamic and ever-evolving role of leaders today. Audience members are encouraged to tune in to learn about how Jackie expands the presence and creates strategies to thrive for businesses and high achieving executives, increases productivity and visibility for employers and their businesses and helps entrepreneurs grow and expand.
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Speaker 1: There are a few things that make people successful. Taking a step forward to change their lives is one successful trait, but it takes some time to get there. How do you move forward to greet the success that awaits you? Welcome to Next Steps Forward with host Chris Meek. Each week Chris brings on another guest who has successfully taken the Next Steps Forward. Now, here is Chris Meek.
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Chris Meek: Hello, I'm Chris Meek, and you've tuned this week's episode of Next Steps Forward. As always, it's a pleasure to have you with us. Our guest today is Jackie Gulley, career and personal branding coach and founder of Jackie Gulley Communications. Jackie's experience as a corporate executive in global communications, marketing and digital strategy served as the launching pad for her career as an executive coach.
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With more than two decades working in Fortune 100 corporations, and leading global employee communications, crisis and issues management, strategic messaging and executive communications, Jackie has developed the tools and methodologies to help her clients succeed. She also understands the dynamic evolving role of leaders today. She works with high achieving executives who want to expand their presence and create strategies to thrive. Employers want to increase productivity, and visibility for their business, and entrepreneurs who want to grow and expand.
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She's also going to share with us some interesting phrases and strategies such as executive visibility planning, strategic network mapping, executive presence, and digital branding visibility. They're all likely to be new to some people. Jackie Gulley, welcome to the Next Steps Forward.
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Jackie Gulley: Thank you, Chris. It's great to be here with you.
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Chris: Great to be here. Thanks for your time. It's great seeing you again. We're former colleagues, and so I just appreciate reconnecting, so again thanks. Now you have a busy schedule. Jackie, I touched on that you've had more than two decades of experience working in Fortune 100 corporations. Now, that's the career that make many people green with envy. What inspired you to choose to become the executive coach?
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Jackie: That's a great question. For me, in my career in corporate life had the opportunity to be coached by professional coaches who were serving our organizations. In my experience I've had great coaches, and I've had not so great coaches, but what I noticed about myself was that I was always signing up for the mentor opportunity, the opportunity to coach someone else. If there was ever a chance where someone said, "Oh, we'd like to have more people in the program, but we don't have enough mentors," I always raise my hand to take another one.
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For years I had been assisting executives in my professional work with their visibility, with their branding, and coaching them the whole time along the way on public speaking, on presenting themselves well, how to present the business well. For me, it just all came together. I get energy from helping people, and I get to bring the best parts, I believe, of my former career together to help others.
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Chris: You bring all the best parts with you. What steps did you take to make that transition in the role, and what education or certifications do you need to choose, or to pursue to make that happen?
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Jackie: Right now, coaching itself is not regulated, so there's no state or federal laws, or any requirements to become a coach. What you need to do if you're hiring a coach, or you're thinking of becoming a coach, is to really search out the qualified and credible programs that are out there. Those programs will be part of the International Coaching Federation. If you're looking to become a coach, or you're looking to hire a coach, make sure that they have that ICF that International Coaching Federation on their resume, on their website, or just ask them, "What coaching program did you go through?"
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There are a few that are out there that are really well known, and they're broader, such as Co-Active Training Institute. That trains everything from a life coach all the way to a wellness coach. There's specific coaching directly for your niche, so you are going to become a life coach, or you are going to go into what's known as body work, or moving people through body movement, or you're going to go into executive coaching, which is what I do. You can find an association that's out there that's doing it in your niche and is also registered with the International Coaching Federation.
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Chris: Being a life coach and executive coach isn't something I really heard much about until maybe five years ago or so ago, but now I can't look online without seeing another insert professional coach here. It seems to be a booming profession. What do you think has been the attraction for that? Is people like yourselves that's like you know what, I want to take what I've learned in my professional life and share that with others and help groom and grow them. You mentioned mentoring before, or is there something else in there?
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Jackie: I think it's both. I think it's people are looking for assistance. There's a lot more in the space of social media expanding who you can become and building your brand and putting yourself out there either for new roles, or to promote your business. People are looking for assistance, and how do I move ahead in my business? I want to be an entrepreneur. I have a great idea. Where do I go next? I want to improve my health. Who can help me out there?
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Then conversely, there's people like myself who have years of experience helping people for a profession and say, "I want to take this on my own and go help more people." I think it's really exploded based off of people learning that it's out there, and wanting to do more with it, and then also universities are starting to offer it as programs. Brown Columbia, university of Southern California, New York University, they all offer coaching programs through their schools.
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Chris: Never knew that. That's awesome. Thank you. You work with high achieving executives, and entrepreneurs who want to grow and expand, how those people different from others, and what are the key characteristics, or traits differentiate high achieving leaders from their peers?
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Jackie: That's great. High achieving executives and entrepreneurs can be anyone. What their qualities are that make them different are their focus first off. They're very focused on what needs to get done. I would say in another way, they're able to prioritize better than maybe the rest of us. They take their list of to-dos, and they say, "These three are going to move me, my career, my brand, my business forward," and those are the three they focus on.
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Whereas other people may say, "I have 10 to do. I have to get through them all." They focus on the smaller ones, maybe get them out of the way first, and they never really move those big rocks ahead in their business. High achieving executives and entrepreneurs are really great at that prioritization, and really great at that focus. Staying on track, not getting distracted by those smaller issues. Being able to de delegate them off their plate, and then knowing why they're doing it, what is moving them forward. Then also consistency, being consistent. Every day, waking up, moving it going forward down your path, doing a little bit every day consistently is what really makes a high powerful, or high achieving executive entrepreneur or business.
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Chris: What were some of the key lessons, or insights you gained from your experiences working as an executive coach?
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Jackie: As I said about consistency, all things are achievable through consistency. I really believe that. Tony Robbins has a great quote. He says, "Where focus goes, energy flows." If you think about waking up every day and moving yourself in the direction you want to go, you're going to focus on what it is that's going to get you there, and you're going to put your energy behind it. That's the thing that I've noticed among all of the executives that I train and work with, is that they really are doing the little things to achieve that consistency, and to move their focus forward.
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Chris: Continuous or lifelong learning and personal development, which seem to be critical for leadership growth. Do high achieving leaders prioritize continuous learning and development?
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Jackie: Oh, definitely. I think that the really good ones wake up and think about how they're going to learn something new. Who they're going to meet that's going to expand their network. What don't they know? They ask that question, "What don't I know?" They look further ahead. They say, "What problem can I anticipate? How can I learn something new, a new skill? Someone is doing something in my industry that I'm not aware of. Let me go find that person, figure out how they're doing it, and do it as well as they are."
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They definitely do that, and I think it helps. I think if you look at the books that are on the market, the ones that are for executive education or self-help, they're always recommending, put down the phone, open up the book, read 10 pages a day. Focus in on one paragraph, do it well, et cetera, et cetera. It's really that learning. That constant learning I think is so important for executives, and for anyone else trying to improve themselves.
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Chris: For those professional executives that you coach, do they come to you because they want to get to that next level? Like you said, put your phone down or read 10 pages, or they're coming to you because maybe they're bored or some other peer said, "Hey you know what, we think you'd use a little help in this area," or a combination of the two?
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Jackie: I'm going to let the cat out of the bag here. I would say that most executives that come to me as individuals for their own individual visibility and brands work are coming to me because they saw a peer who had got on television or a podcast like this or wrote a book or got invited to do something that they weren't invited to do. They've come up in the ranks with these folks and they're saying, "I'm just as good as so and so, why are they on TV and I'm not? What are they doing differently?" That's a lot of the coaching that I do with executives, that question comes up.
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Chris: What you're saying is all the high-profile executives who want to be on next steps forward need to hire you?
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Jackie: That is true. They definitely do.
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Chris: There's a perfect segue. Where can those high-powered executives find you, Jackie?
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Jackie: I'm on jackiegulley.com and I'm also on Instagram and LinkedIn under my name as well.
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Chris: That's J-A-C-K-I-E-G-U-L-L-E-Y.com?
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Jackie: That's correct. I offer a free 15-minute consultation, just to see if we're a good match. Sometimes people come to me, and they want things that aren't in my specialty. We have a close-knit group of coaches and people who are working on social media brand, or media managing. Together we pass around people that may not work for our specialties but do need some assistance. Use me and that free 15-minute consultation to help you move wherever you need to go.
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Chris: I'll go off-script here a little bit. Without you letting out too much of your secret sauce, how much do your emphases do you put on the executive and their demeanor and the way they present themselves and care themselves and think about things? Then the other part of that which you just touched on, is their digital footprint, their social media, things like that? A combination two, is it adjusted per person?
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Jackie: It's interesting when I work with someone, I don't work with just their social media. That is a key component to visibility and brand promotion, obviously. It's where everyone's going to come find you, going to read about you, learn about you. You want that to be tight. You want it to be professional, you want to be out there posting. What I do as a consultant and a coach is I work with your professional identity and then your internal identity.
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If you are not ready to stand in front of a crowd and give a keynote, we have to take a couple steps back and say, "It's not just because you don't have a great presentation, or you've not been invited. What's happening that you are keeping yourself from getting up on that stage? Is it a limiting belief? Are you afraid to speak in front of people? Are you afraid that you'll mess up? How can we help you get there?
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Sometimes it's really as simple as you have no one to practice with. That's what a coach or a consultant in this space can do for you, is really work on your presentation, work on the challenges that you're facing, practice with you and get you out there. Yes, I work on both. It's very important. They're not going to leave me after our time has come to an end or our contract has ended. They're not going to be able to leave me and then be successful if they haven't solved internally what's been holding them back.
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Chris: Great segue to that point. You talk about the executive that may have stage fright of giving that keynote speech. Do you have to stretch high performing executives beyond those comfort zones? Is that a trait most of them already possess, or is that not a necessary component of executive coaching?
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Jackie: No, it definitely is. The first thing I do when I coach someone is I always use something called the Wheel of Life. No matter if they're coming to me, we talked about, we'll just continue with the keynote, they're coming to me, they have to give a keynote, it's their first time, they've never done it. Can we work on it? How do I then take the keynote and use it to build my visibility or brand? That's the tail end. That's the keynote and on.
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What I do is I always say, "Let's start with the Wheel of Life." Which is a pretty common coaching tool, and it's a wheel that has seven or eight different areas, spirituality, finance, health, wellness, relationships. You rank it from 1 to 10, you say, "Where do I think I am now in this space? Then where do I want to be?"
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I do that because it sets a baseline for me as a coach to really understand that mindset of my executives. They might be coming to me because they feel stagnant in their work. They're not moving ahead. They're seeing some people past them. They're wondering why. They're doing all the things, They're getting all their work done, they're really well known what's happening. Then we'll do the Wheel of Life and maybe I'll see that they have wellness ranked really low, like a 2 out of a 10. I'll say to you, "Chris, what's going on there? What is that all about? Why did wellness get a 2 out of a 10?"
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They'll say, "Well, coming out of COVID, I gained 15 pounds, nothing fits. I don't feel comfortable." Then they'll start talking more and they'll say, "I'm not going to the happy hours. I'm not networking with peers, I'm not going to the conference. I gave that to another colleague to go to instead of me taking that opportunity because I don't feel comfortable with where I am in my body right now." That's where the Wheel of Life helps.
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Instead of just working with them on a visibility plan, we're going to go back and add in a wellness piece to it. Let's start talking about your health and how you're taking steps to improve that. Let's go ahead and book you to get new outfits or maybe meet at a clothing store that has someone who will help you dress for the current size that you are while you go and improve your health. Then work towards events. Maybe we put you on a webinar instead of live if you're still not comfortable.
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Right now, we're only from here up. You have no idea what's going on below, and it works. All those things really helped me to serve my client better is really starting with that Wheel of Life and then taking them perhaps places they didn't come to me to find, but that's really where they want to go in the end.
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Chris: I'm going to touch on the point about you highlighting that we don't know what we're wearing below the screen here. A friend of mine shared a story once that during COVID, he was interviewing somebody who had a coat and tie on and his shirt and they were finishing the interview and he goes, "I've got one last question for you and the interview." He said, "Sure, what is it?" The guy said, "Stand up." He's like, "What?" "I said stand up." He was wearing basketball shorts.
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That was it. He didn't get it. He didn't dress for the part. That's a note. If you want to dress for the part, make sure you dress for the part. Jackie, whether it's an executive coach or another career, how does someone build a reputation and establish credibility after a career change? Is it the Wheel of Life or is there more to it than that?
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Jackie: Yes, establishing credibility after a career change is interesting. I work with a lot of people that I know we've been talking about these entrepreneurs and executives. I also work with, I would say, a middle section of executive that is in the managing or director role and wants to move up and is trying to understand. Once they've moved up, perhaps I do interview, work with them or assist them in putting out their profiles and pitching recruiters, things like that.
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They get the next level job and maybe it's a career change. Like you noted, maybe they were working in healthcare as a manager and the new job is in technology as a director or whatever the elevation would be. How do they go about making that, building that foundation of trust and awareness of their brand is really the same way you would do it if you were working on it. Just trying to build yourself up in your current role.
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We're going to go back to that drumbeat of who are you networking with? How are you putting your name out there? It's a great change, is a great opportunity to go and network with people you've been networked with for years, but maybe haven't reached out to that LinkedIn post that says, "I've changed my job," and you suddenly have 150 people writing congratulations to you.
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Take a moment and network with them and especially say, "Hey, I'm new. I see that you are in technology. As you know, I moved from healthcare to health technology. Let's get coffee, let's get a zoom and help me to understand this space better. I'm looking for peers in this space. I'm looking for mentors in this space. I'm trying to be very serious about my work in this space." The way you put yourself out there can really help elevate yourself in that change time.
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Chris: As you made your transition from Fortune 100 to executive coach, what was your approach to finding clients in building a coaching practice when you started out?
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Jackie: When I started out, a lot of it was word of mouth. I had been doing this assisting role getting phone calls from friends who's saying, "Hey, my friend just got their first appearance in front of the board. They're going to go instead of their boss to speak to the board on this topic and they need some help. Do you mind just getting a coffee with them and going over their presentation and talking about it?" That's how it started. Then from there, I got so many requests and then I started doing the coaching training that it just converted naturally into a business on its own. Eventually, I had to make the choice between corporate life and building my own business because of that word of mouth, because of my own reputation and brand that I built as someone who's able to help executives or people in this business. For me, then I just hung my shingle. I put up my website, and then I've been doing my own brand and marketing on social media.
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Chris: Awesome. Congratulations on that.
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Jackie: Thank you.
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Chris: Before you started, or even into today, did you have any mentors or role models who influenced your journey as an executive coach? If so, what impact did they have on your development?
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Jackie: I have one woman that I've worked with for the whole time that I've been in my career. Her name is Rachel Pearson, and she is the CEO and founder of Engage for Women. Rachel started Engage for Women, now back in 2018, perhaps. Engage for Women focuses on a bipartisan solution around common sense issues where women can agree. She's a convener. She brings together communities and dialogue, and she has been a mentor for me in-- I'm in Washington DC and she has been in this space for years.
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The first time I met her, her first question was, "How can I help you? Let me introduce you to people." Really bringing her network to accept me and me into her network the same. Then, anytime I had a question, or even when I didn't have a question, just that outreach of, you should come to this event, this one might interest you. You should be in this circle. You should be in this conversation. For me, I've tried to model that with my own network, helping other women especially but then just generally everyone who I think can be connected in a better way.
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Chris: Yes. I'm going to stick with that for a minute. I was on a call right before this, and we were talking about networking and how do you keep relationships going over time. The one thing I shared for my-- for me, what I do is, particularly in the summertime when things slow down and people aren't as active from a business perspective, go through your Rolodex, go through [unintelligible 00:22:16]. I'm dating myself, not Rolodex.
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You don't have any more LinkedIn. Whoever you talked to in a while, haven't you seen and reach out to them, just say, "Hey, let's grab a cup of coffee. Let's grab a beer, a glass of water, whatever, and just catch up." I love that part of your model. Earlier, I mentioned today's dynamic evolving role of leadership, and actually, those are your words. I lifted from your biography. How have the concept expectations and responsibilities of leadership evolved in recent years, and what factors have contributed to those changes? For instance, the COVID pandemic, and you mentioned the COVID 15, the shift to work from home employees. Did that influence any evolution?
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Jackie: Oh, definitely. I think what you're seeing now in executives and leaders is different from maybe even what you saw 10 years ago. 10 years ago, when you were trusting in a leader. You were trusting that they had gone to a really good school, perhaps like an Ivy League school, that they really understood the subject matter of the business. They really conveyed that trust factor to you. When they spoke on television or when they sent an internal email, the communication was approachable and humble.
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They seemed like a wise old owl in a way. Now, a good leader has to have that intelligence, but more so has to have that EQ to go with that IQ. That emotional intelligence to go with that just straight up book smart, especially in the changing dynamic of the workforce, you really see the younger generations wanting someone who relates or even understands what they're going through, someone who shares maybe where they fail as well as where they've succeeded.
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A lot more openness around the conversations of what's happening in the business and where's the business going. Also a lot more pressure on the leader to direct the business in a way that makes it a good corporate citizen, the business as its own humanized entity being a good corporate citizen. What does that mean for how green the business is or the issues that the business becomes involved with, or how they support their employees on social justice issues? That's a lot different than it had been, and a lot more pressure on executives to lead with both that IQ and EQ.
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Chris: EQ is something you're hearing more and more about, and we're going to talk about the differences in generational leadership later on the show, but sticking with COVID and virtual work, with all remote work and virtual teams, how can leaders maintain cohesiveness in their teams and maintain effective collaboration?
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Jackie: I think everyone during COVID who had a team atmosphere was really tired of the Zoom happy hour. Please don't ask me to play a game with my colleagues from my home on Zoom again. Please, no more. It's true, though. The difference now is that you're hybrid. You have some employees who might prefer to go back in, some who prefer to stay at home, and if their work allows for that, how do you reach both of those groups? That is really all about communication.
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There may be some ways that the people staying home feel threatened by the people going into the office. Since COVID, my situation has changed. I'm no longer able to be in the office, but I want to be at this job, but so and so is in the office now because they're able to be and they're getting more FaceTime. Making sure your executives are reaching out to those employees with Zoom Town Halls and other activities they can do virtually with those employees just as long as they're not perhaps the forced happy hour fun.
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That's a great way to connect by having your-- if you are a multi-region firm by having other members from other regions get on with those members that are hybrid and having those one-on-one times with them, the same way that you would have an executive visit in office and have that live town hall.
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Chris: We've been talking to Career and Personal Branding Coach Jackie Gulley. We'll be right back after a short break.
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[music]
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[music]
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[music]
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Speaker 1: You are listening to Next Steps Forward. To reach Chris Meek or his guest on the show today, please call in to 1-888-346-9141. That's 1-888-346-9141, or send an email to chris@nextstepsforward.com. Now, back to this week's show.
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Chris: We are back. I'm Chris Meek, host of Next Steps Forward. My guest today is Jackie Gulley, Career and Personal Branding Coach and founder of Jackie Gulley Communications. Jackie, before the break, we touched briefly on generational differences. I used to ask what baby boomer bosses needed to learn in order to work with other generations. Lately, I've been asking the other question from the perspective of Gen X bosses.
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As you know, there are fewer and fewer baby boomers in the workforce. Generation X, and to be clear, those were born between 1965 and 1980. More millennials, those born between 1981 and 1994, have ascended into leadership roles. What do Gen X and Millennial bosses need to understand about working with older and younger generations?
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Jackie: This is a true challenge for leaders who are sandwiched between the generations. I think that it's important for everyone to understand the communication that needs to happen between those generations is really essential to helping the workforce play well together or get along or help achieve. When you think about the baby boomers, they are the generation that they just believe like, come in, do your work, get it done, do it well, go home, have a whole separate life. When you think about gen Z, millennials, their work and their life blends more. They bring their personal life very much to work. They want to bring their dogs to work. They want to bring their everything to work. Sometimes their work is in their home, and that's all they want. There's nowhere to separate between the two.
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Really, it comes down to great communications. In leading global internal communications teams in my past, really having open channels of communications between managers and employees was our greatest assistance to just getting the work done. Having people understand that if they're work from home, if they're work at home, if they're a global team, be considerate of people's time. If it's outside of work hours, think twice before sending that message. If they're not awake yet because you're in New York and they're in a European or an Asia-Pacific country, you be considerate not to make a major announcement while they're sleeping so they wake up and miss all the explanations. Just those simple things can really help people understand each other better.
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Chris: Sticking with the different generations, who do you spend most of your time with these days? Is it the baby boomers, gen Xers, or millennials? If there's a way to generalize an answer, what issues or challenges each generation most want to focus on?
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Jackie: That's a good question. I really don't have one generation that comes to me for assistance. Everyone's looking for the podcast, their next step forward. They really come to me because they've got a problem they can't figure out, and they're hoping that together we can work on it and figure it out.
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For example, I have baby boomers that come to me to work on their secession plan. They want to lead well from their firm. They've built a business, they have pride in that business, they love their employee base, they feel like that's their second family, and they want to lead them well. I work with them, perhaps on a session plan.
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Then I'll work with a younger generation who's coming up and they're trying to interview for the next step or the next level, or they're trying to even figure out, are they in the right place? Do they need to be somewhere else? I don't really have one particular generation or space that I work in. If I could dumb it down a little bit, it's really just people who are looking for a coach in their career.
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Chris: In the beginning of the show, we mentioned a few phrases that you coined. Let's start with an executive visibility plan. What's the importance or value of an executive visibility plan for leaders and their organizations?
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Jackie: It's very key these days. As we talked about before, there is more expected out of a leader than just making the bottom dollar, making that bottom line. They now have to be present. They have to be visible. People have to know them and trust in them. There is a strong pull between how much the leadership leads the brand and how much the brand leads the leadership. An executive visibility plan allows you to map out who's speaking for us. How do they speak about the brand?
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Where are they speaking? Where's our audience? How can we improve how we're talking to people? Or how can we improve how we're promoting our business or getting recognized or getting attention to us? Who talks in a crisis? That's also part of an executive visibility plan. At that point, if something happens, do we want it to be our CEO or have we built an executive visibility plan around our CEO that we don't want damage by having that person be the face of the crisis? In which case, who is that? Is it the general counsel? Is it the head of sales? Is it your head of marketing? Executive visibility plan can work across your entire C-suite to really map out the qualities and characteristics of each executive and placing them well for your business externally.
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Chris: As we're talking about executive visibility planning, strategic network mapping, executive presence, and digital branding visibility, I know you work with high-achieving executives and those who want to be high-achieving executives, but can and should people who don't want to lead a Fortune 500 company, the people who are often called everyday employees, should they do these things to make their own career stronger?
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Jackie: Absolutely. You should take a blank sheet of paper and write down what you want to do this year. It doesn't have to start in January. It drives me bananas that everyone writes these goals in January, and then by March, they're done.
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I actually set my goals in March after the parties, after my head has calm down from holidays and out of offices. After everyone has circled back from the circlebacks, then I write my goals for the year. I say, "March to March, what am I going to do?" That includes how visible I'm going to be, what I'm going to do for my brand, what I'm going to do for myself, my wellness.
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We talk about that Wheel of Life again, filling in those seven or eight key parts of your existence. Where am I improving my spirituality? Where am I improving my health? Where am I improving my relationships? I do it for myself and I do it for my business. For me, that's key for everyone to do.
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Chris: I got feedback on my mic over here. Sorry about that. I love that when you said the circle back from the circle back. I've never heard that before, but it's so 100% true. Jackie, before you build a visibility plan, is it necessary for the executive to have a strong personal brand first, or can the brand and the visibility be built simultaneously?
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Jackie: This is an interesting one because when you think of leaders that are well known today, you think of, say, an Elon Musk. Is it his personal brand that drives car sales, or is it Tesla's brand that makes Elon Musk interesting? Does Elon Musk, his personal brand, harm car sales? It's an interesting question because he's going to space and he's changing the future of transportation, and he's buying the blue bird company that he renames X and fires everyone and then changes the rules around that social media outlet, and yet his sales of Teslas are still high, high, high.
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The question is, is it the strong personal brand or is it the brand of the company that makes the sale? It's hard to say. For another example, I think of Nick Bare, a Bare Performance Nutrition, BPN. The man has a massive following on YouTube. He created a nutrition supplement company, I think when he was still in college, if I have it right. He has told his brand story, and he has been the brand story, the face, the brand, the product, everything of BPN the whole length of the time.
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It works for the company. He tests all the products, he goes to all the factories, he runs all the races, and it works. He is the brand. In that case, you can't separate the personal man from the brand. It really just depends on, I think, the product that you're selling, whatever it may be, and how well your executive matches with that product.
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Chris: Those are two fascinating examples, and I'm expecting at some point a Harvard Business School case study on each of them. Those are also, to your point, very unique and distinct different types of leaders. One is driven by, I don't know if it's brand ID, name ID, and the other one is driven more by, I think maybe cult's not the right word, but a certain mindset in terms of the product and testing it all. That's just fascinating in thinking about two high-performing leaders, two very successful leaders, two totally different platforms and programs that they run on.
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Jackie: That's right.
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Chris: Just wired differently.
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Jackie: That's why each executive visibility plan that I create has to be specific to each individual. There's no way to cookie cutter how you're creating your brand and visibility for a specific leader. It has to match up well with them or else it'll come off inauthentic to the public. They know. They can't be fooled.
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Chris: I'm glad to hear it's not cookie cutter because just got rid of my next three questions. We'll just skip ahead a little bit. When you're doing the executive visibility plan, what strategies do you recommend for enhancing executive's visibility, both internally within their organization and externally in their industry or community?
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Jackie: Internally, it goes back to how your employees are viewing you. That's essential for a leader because if they don't have trust in you, they don't want to follow you, they're not going to perform well for you. Their buy-in has to be there. The brand internally has to be pretty connected now to the external brand. Your employees are also your greatest allies and amplifiers of the brand externally. If they're not believing in you internally in the brand and what you're selling internally, they're not going to turn to their neighbor and say, "You should do this. You should buy this. You should be a part of this group." They are your biggest mouthpiece. I think it needs to start with the internal before you find success with the external.
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Chris: What is executive presence? Is it the ability to command a room when they walk into it or is it something else?
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Jackie: I think executive presence definitely is about, as it says, your presence. How you walk into a room. When I have an executive that comes to me, and I usually do it as part of my network mapping package that I work with executives on who are trying to network better, part of that is presence. When they are going to a conference, are they hiding in the back of the room? Are they on their phone during the coffee breaks between sessions or are they intentionally connecting with people?
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Are they walking in with their head up like you noted? Are they appearing confident? Are they engaging with people at events or even at their workplace or are they walking down the hallway with their head down, getting wherever they need to be as fast as possible?
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Chris: Communication skills are often cited as essential for effective leadership. How often do you find that's actually a weakness for a high achieving leader and something they need to improve?
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Jackie: You're making me tell on everyone.
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Chris: No names. [laughter]
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Jackie: That's right. No names. A surprising number of leaders, and this is I think a challenge for business, is it's that middle management section that does not receive the appropriate amount of training and then suddenly gets pulled out. It's like getting a call to the bullpen for someone who hasn't warmed up. They're not ready to go to the mound and perform to their best. I get a lot of straight out of the bullpen, no warmup executives who have been called up. They just came up with a deal, and they're up again, and they haven't stretched.
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A lot of what I do is working around public speaking with them. A lot of what I do is communicating with teams and engaging teams to work. Things that I think people take for granted that if you've been managed well, you will manage well, but that's just not the case for everyone. If you speak well in a meeting that you'll speak well to the board, and that's just not the case. For me, a lot of the people that I work with that need the most help are really that forgotten middle that then gets pulled up.
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The best that I've seen is when firms look at who is next in line and really try to put an executive training session or an executive program together for them to help give them those skills so when they are called up, they are closer.
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Chris: My listeners and viewers know I'm an avid die-hard sports fan, so I love, love, love the baseball analogies. Thank you. I will [unintelligible 00:43:50] Yankees in first place even after losing last night to Toronto Blue Jays, but we'll just throw that out there for all the Mets and Boston fans. Jackie, going back a few minutes, you were talking about how nothing's cookie cutter as you develop these programs. Maybe giving, again, not your secret sauce, but sort of an overview, how do you tailor an executive presence program to align with the leaders' individual strengths, personality and leadership style?
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Jackie: As we've talked about before, it really comes off inauthentic if you try to have the same program for everyone, even if they're not working with me, even if they're working in a Fortune 100 company and they're working with their teams there and they say, "This is how your predecessor did it. This is how you should do it, or this is how we've always done it." It's really important for you to take a look at their strengths and weaknesses and to focus in on what they do well and what they don't do well, honestly. Then to say, "Who do they resonate with? When they convey their message, who most hears it? Who receives it well? What are they comfortable doing?"
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I've had executives that I've tried to get to do video, or I've tried to get to do webinars, and they just don't like talking to a screen. They prefer to be in-person. They hate it and they're bad at it and they put their head down and they don't look at the camera or they rush through their words. Then I have executives who prefer to be behind the screen and they hate being in front of the public. You really have to work with these people because you want the best for your audience. It's the same thing as making sure your executives are culturally aware.
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If they are speaking from New York and they're speaking to a non-English speaking country, slow down, use smaller words. Have someone introduce you who is from that region, who is from that office. Warm up the crowd, make them feel comfortable. Just be smart about how you're utilizing your executives in that way and build the program around their skills.
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Chris: It's funny you mentioned about talking too fast. I'm from New York in finance, fast talker. I've been told numerous times, "Chris, slow down, we're having a hard time here understanding you." I find it fascinating that maybe a decade or so ago, but your main newscasters, they would send them to school in the Midwest to slow down their speaking, have them be a little more thoughtful and methodical, and so I completely appreciate and understand that. Can you explain the concept of strategic network mapping and its significance for organizational as well as personal success?
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Jackie: I love this one. I love this one because as a woman, for years, it would frustrate me when I would watch my male colleagues go play golf for the day and I did not have golfing buddies. For me, I started this program before I even realized I started this program. In my 20s when I realized I wasn't getting that call to go play golf and I was sitting back at my desk doing all the work and I wasn't pushing myself out there to meet people. I built this program for myself where each month I would say, "I'm going to meet a certain number of people and I'm going to reach out to them."
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If they don't reply, fine, but I'm going to reach out to them, let them know I exist. I put them into three categories. I put out of my atmosphere, like completely starstruck. They probably will answer me. The next section is they will probably answer me because of who I work for or what I do or we're in the same industry or my really well-written pitch note that I love to send and then my peer group. I map it out in those three sections and then I make sure each month I'm meeting my target. Now my target may not be someone else's target.
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I actually tell people who come to me with, "I'm so busy," when they say that to me, I say, "Let's just do one. Let's just do one this month." Just one connection is more than you had last month and set that goal for yourself. It's important because if you open up your LinkedIn right now and you looked at who you're connected to, you're going to find that most of your connections are your peers or people you work with. That's not a network. That's work. You really want to stretch that to be who's interesting, who's going to help me grow, who's out of my atmosphere and is really going to take me places and stretch your network that way.
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Chris: We have just a few minutes left. One more time. Where can people find you?
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Jackie: I'm on jackiegulley.com and then Instagram and LinkedIn under the same name, J-A-C-K-I-E, G-U-L-L-E-Y.
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Chris: Jackie, I always like to have our guests take us to the end of our conversation with advice or a story that helps our audience become less stressed, more resilient or more empowered. Would you share with us, please?
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Jackie: Yes, absolutely. It's been a pleasure, Chris, to be with you today and to talk about these things. I just want to let everyone know that consistency wins every time. If you're feeling overwhelmed, if you're feeling stuck like you don't know where to go, take a blank piece of paper and write down your goals and then try once a month to just achieve one or a piece of those goals and just be consistent about it. Consistency, consistency. That's all I can really tell you.
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Chris: Love it. You're going to [unintelligible 00:49:43] your team throughout the show today. Jackie Gulley, thank you so much for being with us today. I really appreciate your time.
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Jackie: Thank you, Chris. It's been fun.
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Chris: Thank you to our audience, which now includes people in over 50 countries, for joining us for another episode of Next Steps Forward. I'm Chris Meek. For more details and upcoming shows and guests, please follow me on Facebook, at facebook.com/chrismeekepublicfigure and then next follow me on [unintelligible 00:50:06] at ChrisMeek_USA. We'll be back next Tuesday, same time, same place with another leader from the world of business, politics, public policy, sports or entertainment. Until then, stay safe, be kind and keep taking the next steps forward.
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Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in to Next Steps Forward. Be sure to join Chris Meek for another great show, next Tuesday at 10:00 AM Pacific Time and 1:00 PM Eastern Time. On the Voice America Empowerment Channel. This week, make things happen in your life.
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Speaker 1: There are a few things that make people successful. Taking a step forward to change their lives is one successful trait, but it takes some time to get there. How do you move forward to greet the success that awaits you? Welcome to Next Steps Forward with host Chris Meek. Each week Chris brings on another guest who has successfully taken the Next Steps Forward. Now, here is Chris Meek.
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Chris Meek: Hello, I'm Chris Meek, and you've tuned this week's episode of Next Steps Forward. As always, it's a pleasure to have you with us. Our guest today is Jackie Gulley, career and personal branding coach and founder of Jackie Gulley Communications. Jackie's experience as a corporate executive in global communications, marketing and digital strategy served as the launching pad for her career as an executive coach.
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With more than two decades working in Fortune 100 corporations, and leading global employee communications, crisis and issues management, strategic messaging and executive communications, Jackie has developed the tools and methodologies to help her clients succeed. She also understands the dynamic evolving role of leaders today. She works with high achieving executives who want to expand their presence and create strategies to thrive. Employers want to increase productivity, and visibility for their business, and entrepreneurs who want to grow and expand.
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She's also going to share with us some interesting phrases and strategies such as executive visibility planning, strategic network mapping, executive presence, and digital branding visibility. They're all likely to be new to some people. Jackie Gulley, welcome to the Next Steps Forward.
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Jackie Gulley: Thank you, Chris. It's great to be here with you.
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Chris: Great to be here. Thanks for your time. It's great seeing you again. We're former colleagues, and so I just appreciate reconnecting, so again thanks. Now you have a busy schedule. Jackie, I touched on that you've had more than two decades of experience working in Fortune 100 corporations. Now, that's the career that make many people green with envy. What inspired you to choose to become the executive coach?
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Jackie: That's a great question. For me, in my career in corporate life had the opportunity to be coached by professional coaches who were serving our organizations. In my experience I've had great coaches, and I've had not so great coaches, but what I noticed about myself was that I was always signing up for the mentor opportunity, the opportunity to coach someone else. If there was ever a chance where someone said, "Oh, we'd like to have more people in the program, but we don't have enough mentors," I always raise my hand to take another one.
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For years I had been assisting executives in my professional work with their visibility, with their branding, and coaching them the whole time along the way on public speaking, on presenting themselves well, how to present the business well. For me, it just all came together. I get energy from helping people, and I get to bring the best parts, I believe, of my former career together to help others.
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Chris: You bring all the best parts with you. What steps did you take to make that transition in the role, and what education or certifications do you need to choose, or to pursue to make that happen?
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Jackie: Right now, coaching itself is not regulated, so there's no state or federal laws, or any requirements to become a coach. What you need to do if you're hiring a coach, or you're thinking of becoming a coach, is to really search out the qualified and credible programs that are out there. Those programs will be part of the International Coaching Federation. If you're looking to become a coach, or you're looking to hire a coach, make sure that they have that ICF that International Coaching Federation on their resume, on their website, or just ask them, "What coaching program did you go through?"
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There are a few that are out there that are really well known, and they're broader, such as Co-Active Training Institute. That trains everything from a life coach all the way to a wellness coach. There's specific coaching directly for your niche, so you are going to become a life coach, or you are going to go into what's known as body work, or moving people through body movement, or you're going to go into executive coaching, which is what I do. You can find an association that's out there that's doing it in your niche and is also registered with the International Coaching Federation.
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Chris: Being a life coach and executive coach isn't something I really heard much about until maybe five years ago or so ago, but now I can't look online without seeing another insert professional coach here. It seems to be a booming profession. What do you think has been the attraction for that? Is people like yourselves that's like you know what, I want to take what I've learned in my professional life and share that with others and help groom and grow them. You mentioned mentoring before, or is there something else in there?
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Jackie: I think it's both. I think it's people are looking for assistance. There's a lot more in the space of social media expanding who you can become and building your brand and putting yourself out there either for new roles, or to promote your business. People are looking for assistance, and how do I move ahead in my business? I want to be an entrepreneur. I have a great idea. Where do I go next? I want to improve my health. Who can help me out there?
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Then conversely, there's people like myself who have years of experience helping people for a profession and say, "I want to take this on my own and go help more people." I think it's really exploded based off of people learning that it's out there, and wanting to do more with it, and then also universities are starting to offer it as programs. Brown Columbia, university of Southern California, New York University, they all offer coaching programs through their schools.
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Chris: Never knew that. That's awesome. Thank you. You work with high achieving executives, and entrepreneurs who want to grow and expand, how those people different from others, and what are the key characteristics, or traits differentiate high achieving leaders from their peers?
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Jackie: That's great. High achieving executives and entrepreneurs can be anyone. What their qualities are that make them different are their focus first off. They're very focused on what needs to get done. I would say in another way, they're able to prioritize better than maybe the rest of us. They take their list of to-dos, and they say, "These three are going to move me, my career, my brand, my business forward," and those are the three they focus on.
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Whereas other people may say, "I have 10 to do. I have to get through them all." They focus on the smaller ones, maybe get them out of the way first, and they never really move those big rocks ahead in their business. High achieving executives and entrepreneurs are really great at that prioritization, and really great at that focus. Staying on track, not getting distracted by those smaller issues. Being able to de delegate them off their plate, and then knowing why they're doing it, what is moving them forward. Then also consistency, being consistent. Every day, waking up, moving it going forward down your path, doing a little bit every day consistently is what really makes a high powerful, or high achieving executive entrepreneur or business.
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Chris: What were some of the key lessons, or insights you gained from your experiences working as an executive coach?
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Jackie: As I said about consistency, all things are achievable through consistency. I really believe that. Tony Robbins has a great quote. He says, "Where focus goes, energy flows." If you think about waking up every day and moving yourself in the direction you want to go, you're going to focus on what it is that's going to get you there, and you're going to put your energy behind it. That's the thing that I've noticed among all of the executives that I train and work with, is that they really are doing the little things to achieve that consistency, and to move their focus forward.
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Chris: Continuous or lifelong learning and personal development, which seem to be critical for leadership growth. Do high achieving leaders prioritize continuous learning and development?
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Jackie: Oh, definitely. I think that the really good ones wake up and think about how they're going to learn something new. Who they're going to meet that's going to expand their network. What don't they know? They ask that question, "What don't I know?" They look further ahead. They say, "What problem can I anticipate? How can I learn something new, a new skill? Someone is doing something in my industry that I'm not aware of. Let me go find that person, figure out how they're doing it, and do it as well as they are."
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They definitely do that, and I think it helps. I think if you look at the books that are on the market, the ones that are for executive education or self-help, they're always recommending, put down the phone, open up the book, read 10 pages a day. Focus in on one paragraph, do it well, et cetera, et cetera. It's really that learning. That constant learning I think is so important for executives, and for anyone else trying to improve themselves.
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Chris: For those professional executives that you coach, do they come to you because they want to get to that next level? Like you said, put your phone down or read 10 pages, or they're coming to you because maybe they're bored or some other peer said, "Hey you know what, we think you'd use a little help in this area," or a combination of the two?
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Jackie: I'm going to let the cat out of the bag here. I would say that most executives that come to me as individuals for their own individual visibility and brands work are coming to me because they saw a peer who had got on television or a podcast like this or wrote a book or got invited to do something that they weren't invited to do. They've come up in the ranks with these folks and they're saying, "I'm just as good as so and so, why are they on TV and I'm not? What are they doing differently?" That's a lot of the coaching that I do with executives, that question comes up.
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Chris: What you're saying is all the high-profile executives who want to be on next steps forward need to hire you?
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Jackie: That is true. They definitely do.
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Chris: There's a perfect segue. Where can those high-powered executives find you, Jackie?
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Jackie: I'm on jackiegulley.com and I'm also on Instagram and LinkedIn under my name as well.
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Chris: That's J-A-C-K-I-E-G-U-L-L-E-Y.com?
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Jackie: That's correct. I offer a free 15-minute consultation, just to see if we're a good match. Sometimes people come to me, and they want things that aren't in my specialty. We have a close-knit group of coaches and people who are working on social media brand, or media managing. Together we pass around people that may not work for our specialties but do need some assistance. Use me and that free 15-minute consultation to help you move wherever you need to go.
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Chris: I'll go off-script here a little bit. Without you letting out too much of your secret sauce, how much do your emphases do you put on the executive and their demeanor and the way they present themselves and care themselves and think about things? Then the other part of that which you just touched on, is their digital footprint, their social media, things like that? A combination two, is it adjusted per person?
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Jackie: It's interesting when I work with someone, I don't work with just their social media. That is a key component to visibility and brand promotion, obviously. It's where everyone's going to come find you, going to read about you, learn about you. You want that to be tight. You want it to be professional, you want to be out there posting. What I do as a consultant and a coach is I work with your professional identity and then your internal identity.
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If you are not ready to stand in front of a crowd and give a keynote, we have to take a couple steps back and say, "It's not just because you don't have a great presentation, or you've not been invited. What's happening that you are keeping yourself from getting up on that stage? Is it a limiting belief? Are you afraid to speak in front of people? Are you afraid that you'll mess up? How can we help you get there?
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Sometimes it's really as simple as you have no one to practice with. That's what a coach or a consultant in this space can do for you, is really work on your presentation, work on the challenges that you're facing, practice with you and get you out there. Yes, I work on both. It's very important. They're not going to leave me after our time has come to an end or our contract has ended. They're not going to be able to leave me and then be successful if they haven't solved internally what's been holding them back.
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Chris: Great segue to that point. You talk about the executive that may have stage fright of giving that keynote speech. Do you have to stretch high performing executives beyond those comfort zones? Is that a trait most of them already possess, or is that not a necessary component of executive coaching?
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Jackie: No, it definitely is. The first thing I do when I coach someone is I always use something called the Wheel of Life. No matter if they're coming to me, we talked about, we'll just continue with the keynote, they're coming to me, they have to give a keynote, it's their first time, they've never done it. Can we work on it? How do I then take the keynote and use it to build my visibility or brand? That's the tail end. That's the keynote and on.
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What I do is I always say, "Let's start with the Wheel of Life." Which is a pretty common coaching tool, and it's a wheel that has seven or eight different areas, spirituality, finance, health, wellness, relationships. You rank it from 1 to 10, you say, "Where do I think I am now in this space? Then where do I want to be?"
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I do that because it sets a baseline for me as a coach to really understand that mindset of my executives. They might be coming to me because they feel stagnant in their work. They're not moving ahead. They're seeing some people past them. They're wondering why. They're doing all the things, They're getting all their work done, they're really well known what's happening. Then we'll do the Wheel of Life and maybe I'll see that they have wellness ranked really low, like a 2 out of a 10. I'll say to you, "Chris, what's going on there? What is that all about? Why did wellness get a 2 out of a 10?"
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They'll say, "Well, coming out of COVID, I gained 15 pounds, nothing fits. I don't feel comfortable." Then they'll start talking more and they'll say, "I'm not going to the happy hours. I'm not networking with peers, I'm not going to the conference. I gave that to another colleague to go to instead of me taking that opportunity because I don't feel comfortable with where I am in my body right now." That's where the Wheel of Life helps.
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Instead of just working with them on a visibility plan, we're going to go back and add in a wellness piece to it. Let's start talking about your health and how you're taking steps to improve that. Let's go ahead and book you to get new outfits or maybe meet at a clothing store that has someone who will help you dress for the current size that you are while you go and improve your health. Then work towards events. Maybe we put you on a webinar instead of live if you're still not comfortable.
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Right now, we're only from here up. You have no idea what's going on below, and it works. All those things really helped me to serve my client better is really starting with that Wheel of Life and then taking them perhaps places they didn't come to me to find, but that's really where they want to go in the end.
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Chris: I'm going to touch on the point about you highlighting that we don't know what we're wearing below the screen here. A friend of mine shared a story once that during COVID, he was interviewing somebody who had a coat and tie on and his shirt and they were finishing the interview and he goes, "I've got one last question for you and the interview." He said, "Sure, what is it?" The guy said, "Stand up." He's like, "What?" "I said stand up." He was wearing basketball shorts.
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That was it. He didn't get it. He didn't dress for the part. That's a note. If you want to dress for the part, make sure you dress for the part. Jackie, whether it's an executive coach or another career, how does someone build a reputation and establish credibility after a career change? Is it the Wheel of Life or is there more to it than that?
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Jackie: Yes, establishing credibility after a career change is interesting. I work with a lot of people that I know we've been talking about these entrepreneurs and executives. I also work with, I would say, a middle section of executive that is in the managing or director role and wants to move up and is trying to understand. Once they've moved up, perhaps I do interview, work with them or assist them in putting out their profiles and pitching recruiters, things like that.
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They get the next level job and maybe it's a career change. Like you noted, maybe they were working in healthcare as a manager and the new job is in technology as a director or whatever the elevation would be. How do they go about making that, building that foundation of trust and awareness of their brand is really the same way you would do it if you were working on it. Just trying to build yourself up in your current role.
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We're going to go back to that drumbeat of who are you networking with? How are you putting your name out there? It's a great change, is a great opportunity to go and network with people you've been networked with for years, but maybe haven't reached out to that LinkedIn post that says, "I've changed my job," and you suddenly have 150 people writing congratulations to you.
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Take a moment and network with them and especially say, "Hey, I'm new. I see that you are in technology. As you know, I moved from healthcare to health technology. Let's get coffee, let's get a zoom and help me to understand this space better. I'm looking for peers in this space. I'm looking for mentors in this space. I'm trying to be very serious about my work in this space." The way you put yourself out there can really help elevate yourself in that change time.
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Chris: As you made your transition from Fortune 100 to executive coach, what was your approach to finding clients in building a coaching practice when you started out?
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Jackie: When I started out, a lot of it was word of mouth. I had been doing this assisting role getting phone calls from friends who's saying, "Hey, my friend just got their first appearance in front of the board. They're going to go instead of their boss to speak to the board on this topic and they need some help. Do you mind just getting a coffee with them and going over their presentation and talking about it?" That's how it started. Then from there, I got so many requests and then I started doing the coaching training that it just converted naturally into a business on its own. Eventually, I had to make the choice between corporate life and building my own business because of that word of mouth, because of my own reputation and brand that I built as someone who's able to help executives or people in this business. For me, then I just hung my shingle. I put up my website, and then I've been doing my own brand and marketing on social media.
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Chris: Awesome. Congratulations on that.
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Jackie: Thank you.
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Chris: Before you started, or even into today, did you have any mentors or role models who influenced your journey as an executive coach? If so, what impact did they have on your development?
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Jackie: I have one woman that I've worked with for the whole time that I've been in my career. Her name is Rachel Pearson, and she is the CEO and founder of Engage for Women. Rachel started Engage for Women, now back in 2018, perhaps. Engage for Women focuses on a bipartisan solution around common sense issues where women can agree. She's a convener. She brings together communities and dialogue, and she has been a mentor for me in-- I'm in Washington DC and she has been in this space for years.
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The first time I met her, her first question was, "How can I help you? Let me introduce you to people." Really bringing her network to accept me and me into her network the same. Then, anytime I had a question, or even when I didn't have a question, just that outreach of, you should come to this event, this one might interest you. You should be in this circle. You should be in this conversation. For me, I've tried to model that with my own network, helping other women especially but then just generally everyone who I think can be connected in a better way.
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Chris: Yes. I'm going to stick with that for a minute. I was on a call right before this, and we were talking about networking and how do you keep relationships going over time. The one thing I shared for my-- for me, what I do is, particularly in the summertime when things slow down and people aren't as active from a business perspective, go through your Rolodex, go through [unintelligible 00:22:16]. I'm dating myself, not Rolodex.
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You don't have any more LinkedIn. Whoever you talked to in a while, haven't you seen and reach out to them, just say, "Hey, let's grab a cup of coffee. Let's grab a beer, a glass of water, whatever, and just catch up." I love that part of your model. Earlier, I mentioned today's dynamic evolving role of leadership, and actually, those are your words. I lifted from your biography. How have the concept expectations and responsibilities of leadership evolved in recent years, and what factors have contributed to those changes? For instance, the COVID pandemic, and you mentioned the COVID 15, the shift to work from home employees. Did that influence any evolution?
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Jackie: Oh, definitely. I think what you're seeing now in executives and leaders is different from maybe even what you saw 10 years ago. 10 years ago, when you were trusting in a leader. You were trusting that they had gone to a really good school, perhaps like an Ivy League school, that they really understood the subject matter of the business. They really conveyed that trust factor to you. When they spoke on television or when they sent an internal email, the communication was approachable and humble.
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They seemed like a wise old owl in a way. Now, a good leader has to have that intelligence, but more so has to have that EQ to go with that IQ. That emotional intelligence to go with that just straight up book smart, especially in the changing dynamic of the workforce, you really see the younger generations wanting someone who relates or even understands what they're going through, someone who shares maybe where they fail as well as where they've succeeded.
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A lot more openness around the conversations of what's happening in the business and where's the business going. Also a lot more pressure on the leader to direct the business in a way that makes it a good corporate citizen, the business as its own humanized entity being a good corporate citizen. What does that mean for how green the business is or the issues that the business becomes involved with, or how they support their employees on social justice issues? That's a lot different than it had been, and a lot more pressure on executives to lead with both that IQ and EQ.
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Chris: EQ is something you're hearing more and more about, and we're going to talk about the differences in generational leadership later on the show, but sticking with COVID and virtual work, with all remote work and virtual teams, how can leaders maintain cohesiveness in their teams and maintain effective collaboration?
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Jackie: I think everyone during COVID who had a team atmosphere was really tired of the Zoom happy hour. Please don't ask me to play a game with my colleagues from my home on Zoom again. Please, no more. It's true, though. The difference now is that you're hybrid. You have some employees who might prefer to go back in, some who prefer to stay at home, and if their work allows for that, how do you reach both of those groups? That is really all about communication.
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There may be some ways that the people staying home feel threatened by the people going into the office. Since COVID, my situation has changed. I'm no longer able to be in the office, but I want to be at this job, but so and so is in the office now because they're able to be and they're getting more FaceTime. Making sure your executives are reaching out to those employees with Zoom Town Halls and other activities they can do virtually with those employees just as long as they're not perhaps the forced happy hour fun.
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That's a great way to connect by having your-- if you are a multi-region firm by having other members from other regions get on with those members that are hybrid and having those one-on-one times with them, the same way that you would have an executive visit in office and have that live town hall.
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Chris: We've been talking to Career and Personal Branding Coach Jackie Gulley. We'll be right back after a short break.
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Speaker 1: You are listening to Next Steps Forward. To reach Chris Meek or his guest on the show today, please call in to 1-888-346-9141. That's 1-888-346-9141, or send an email to chris@nextstepsforward.com. Now, back to this week's show.
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Chris: We are back. I'm Chris Meek, host of Next Steps Forward. My guest today is Jackie Gulley, Career and Personal Branding Coach and founder of Jackie Gulley Communications. Jackie, before the break, we touched briefly on generational differences. I used to ask what baby boomer bosses needed to learn in order to work with other generations. Lately, I've been asking the other question from the perspective of Gen X bosses.
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As you know, there are fewer and fewer baby boomers in the workforce. Generation X, and to be clear, those were born between 1965 and 1980. More millennials, those born between 1981 and 1994, have ascended into leadership roles. What do Gen X and Millennial bosses need to understand about working with older and younger generations?
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Jackie: This is a true challenge for leaders who are sandwiched between the generations. I think that it's important for everyone to understand the communication that needs to happen between those generations is really essential to helping the workforce play well together or get along or help achieve. When you think about the baby boomers, they are the generation that they just believe like, come in, do your work, get it done, do it well, go home, have a whole separate life. When you think about gen Z, millennials, their work and their life blends more. They bring their personal life very much to work. They want to bring their dogs to work. They want to bring their everything to work. Sometimes their work is in their home, and that's all they want. There's nowhere to separate between the two.
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Really, it comes down to great communications. In leading global internal communications teams in my past, really having open channels of communications between managers and employees was our greatest assistance to just getting the work done. Having people understand that if they're work from home, if they're work at home, if they're a global team, be considerate of people's time. If it's outside of work hours, think twice before sending that message. If they're not awake yet because you're in New York and they're in a European or an Asia-Pacific country, you be considerate not to make a major announcement while they're sleeping so they wake up and miss all the explanations. Just those simple things can really help people understand each other better.
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Chris: Sticking with the different generations, who do you spend most of your time with these days? Is it the baby boomers, gen Xers, or millennials? If there's a way to generalize an answer, what issues or challenges each generation most want to focus on?
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Jackie: That's a good question. I really don't have one generation that comes to me for assistance. Everyone's looking for the podcast, their next step forward. They really come to me because they've got a problem they can't figure out, and they're hoping that together we can work on it and figure it out.
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For example, I have baby boomers that come to me to work on their secession plan. They want to lead well from their firm. They've built a business, they have pride in that business, they love their employee base, they feel like that's their second family, and they want to lead them well. I work with them, perhaps on a session plan.
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Then I'll work with a younger generation who's coming up and they're trying to interview for the next step or the next level, or they're trying to even figure out, are they in the right place? Do they need to be somewhere else? I don't really have one particular generation or space that I work in. If I could dumb it down a little bit, it's really just people who are looking for a coach in their career.
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Chris: In the beginning of the show, we mentioned a few phrases that you coined. Let's start with an executive visibility plan. What's the importance or value of an executive visibility plan for leaders and their organizations?
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Jackie: It's very key these days. As we talked about before, there is more expected out of a leader than just making the bottom dollar, making that bottom line. They now have to be present. They have to be visible. People have to know them and trust in them. There is a strong pull between how much the leadership leads the brand and how much the brand leads the leadership. An executive visibility plan allows you to map out who's speaking for us. How do they speak about the brand?
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Where are they speaking? Where's our audience? How can we improve how we're talking to people? Or how can we improve how we're promoting our business or getting recognized or getting attention to us? Who talks in a crisis? That's also part of an executive visibility plan. At that point, if something happens, do we want it to be our CEO or have we built an executive visibility plan around our CEO that we don't want damage by having that person be the face of the crisis? In which case, who is that? Is it the general counsel? Is it the head of sales? Is it your head of marketing? Executive visibility plan can work across your entire C-suite to really map out the qualities and characteristics of each executive and placing them well for your business externally.
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Chris: As we're talking about executive visibility planning, strategic network mapping, executive presence, and digital branding visibility, I know you work with high-achieving executives and those who want to be high-achieving executives, but can and should people who don't want to lead a Fortune 500 company, the people who are often called everyday employees, should they do these things to make their own career stronger?
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Jackie: Absolutely. You should take a blank sheet of paper and write down what you want to do this year. It doesn't have to start in January. It drives me bananas that everyone writes these goals in January, and then by March, they're done.
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I actually set my goals in March after the parties, after my head has calm down from holidays and out of offices. After everyone has circled back from the circlebacks, then I write my goals for the year. I say, "March to March, what am I going to do?" That includes how visible I'm going to be, what I'm going to do for my brand, what I'm going to do for myself, my wellness.
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We talk about that Wheel of Life again, filling in those seven or eight key parts of your existence. Where am I improving my spirituality? Where am I improving my health? Where am I improving my relationships? I do it for myself and I do it for my business. For me, that's key for everyone to do.
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Chris: I got feedback on my mic over here. Sorry about that. I love that when you said the circle back from the circle back. I've never heard that before, but it's so 100% true. Jackie, before you build a visibility plan, is it necessary for the executive to have a strong personal brand first, or can the brand and the visibility be built simultaneously?
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Jackie: This is an interesting one because when you think of leaders that are well known today, you think of, say, an Elon Musk. Is it his personal brand that drives car sales, or is it Tesla's brand that makes Elon Musk interesting? Does Elon Musk, his personal brand, harm car sales? It's an interesting question because he's going to space and he's changing the future of transportation, and he's buying the blue bird company that he renames X and fires everyone and then changes the rules around that social media outlet, and yet his sales of Teslas are still high, high, high.
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The question is, is it the strong personal brand or is it the brand of the company that makes the sale? It's hard to say. For another example, I think of Nick Bare, a Bare Performance Nutrition, BPN. The man has a massive following on YouTube. He created a nutrition supplement company, I think when he was still in college, if I have it right. He has told his brand story, and he has been the brand story, the face, the brand, the product, everything of BPN the whole length of the time.
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It works for the company. He tests all the products, he goes to all the factories, he runs all the races, and it works. He is the brand. In that case, you can't separate the personal man from the brand. It really just depends on, I think, the product that you're selling, whatever it may be, and how well your executive matches with that product.
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Chris: Those are two fascinating examples, and I'm expecting at some point a Harvard Business School case study on each of them. Those are also, to your point, very unique and distinct different types of leaders. One is driven by, I don't know if it's brand ID, name ID, and the other one is driven more by, I think maybe cult's not the right word, but a certain mindset in terms of the product and testing it all. That's just fascinating in thinking about two high-performing leaders, two very successful leaders, two totally different platforms and programs that they run on.
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Jackie: That's right.
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Chris: Just wired differently.
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Jackie: That's why each executive visibility plan that I create has to be specific to each individual. There's no way to cookie cutter how you're creating your brand and visibility for a specific leader. It has to match up well with them or else it'll come off inauthentic to the public. They know. They can't be fooled.
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Chris: I'm glad to hear it's not cookie cutter because just got rid of my next three questions. We'll just skip ahead a little bit. When you're doing the executive visibility plan, what strategies do you recommend for enhancing executive's visibility, both internally within their organization and externally in their industry or community?
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Jackie: Internally, it goes back to how your employees are viewing you. That's essential for a leader because if they don't have trust in you, they don't want to follow you, they're not going to perform well for you. Their buy-in has to be there. The brand internally has to be pretty connected now to the external brand. Your employees are also your greatest allies and amplifiers of the brand externally. If they're not believing in you internally in the brand and what you're selling internally, they're not going to turn to their neighbor and say, "You should do this. You should buy this. You should be a part of this group." They are your biggest mouthpiece. I think it needs to start with the internal before you find success with the external.
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Chris: What is executive presence? Is it the ability to command a room when they walk into it or is it something else?
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Jackie: I think executive presence definitely is about, as it says, your presence. How you walk into a room. When I have an executive that comes to me, and I usually do it as part of my network mapping package that I work with executives on who are trying to network better, part of that is presence. When they are going to a conference, are they hiding in the back of the room? Are they on their phone during the coffee breaks between sessions or are they intentionally connecting with people?
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Are they walking in with their head up like you noted? Are they appearing confident? Are they engaging with people at events or even at their workplace or are they walking down the hallway with their head down, getting wherever they need to be as fast as possible?
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Chris: Communication skills are often cited as essential for effective leadership. How often do you find that's actually a weakness for a high achieving leader and something they need to improve?
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Jackie: You're making me tell on everyone.
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Chris: No names. [laughter]
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Jackie: That's right. No names. A surprising number of leaders, and this is I think a challenge for business, is it's that middle management section that does not receive the appropriate amount of training and then suddenly gets pulled out. It's like getting a call to the bullpen for someone who hasn't warmed up. They're not ready to go to the mound and perform to their best. I get a lot of straight out of the bullpen, no warmup executives who have been called up. They just came up with a deal, and they're up again, and they haven't stretched.
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A lot of what I do is working around public speaking with them. A lot of what I do is communicating with teams and engaging teams to work. Things that I think people take for granted that if you've been managed well, you will manage well, but that's just not the case for everyone. If you speak well in a meeting that you'll speak well to the board, and that's just not the case. For me, a lot of the people that I work with that need the most help are really that forgotten middle that then gets pulled up.
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The best that I've seen is when firms look at who is next in line and really try to put an executive training session or an executive program together for them to help give them those skills so when they are called up, they are closer.
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Chris: My listeners and viewers know I'm an avid die-hard sports fan, so I love, love, love the baseball analogies. Thank you. I will [unintelligible 00:43:50] Yankees in first place even after losing last night to Toronto Blue Jays, but we'll just throw that out there for all the Mets and Boston fans. Jackie, going back a few minutes, you were talking about how nothing's cookie cutter as you develop these programs. Maybe giving, again, not your secret sauce, but sort of an overview, how do you tailor an executive presence program to align with the leaders' individual strengths, personality and leadership style?
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Jackie: As we've talked about before, it really comes off inauthentic if you try to have the same program for everyone, even if they're not working with me, even if they're working in a Fortune 100 company and they're working with their teams there and they say, "This is how your predecessor did it. This is how you should do it, or this is how we've always done it." It's really important for you to take a look at their strengths and weaknesses and to focus in on what they do well and what they don't do well, honestly. Then to say, "Who do they resonate with? When they convey their message, who most hears it? Who receives it well? What are they comfortable doing?"
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I've had executives that I've tried to get to do video, or I've tried to get to do webinars, and they just don't like talking to a screen. They prefer to be in-person. They hate it and they're bad at it and they put their head down and they don't look at the camera or they rush through their words. Then I have executives who prefer to be behind the screen and they hate being in front of the public. You really have to work with these people because you want the best for your audience. It's the same thing as making sure your executives are culturally aware.
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If they are speaking from New York and they're speaking to a non-English speaking country, slow down, use smaller words. Have someone introduce you who is from that region, who is from that office. Warm up the crowd, make them feel comfortable. Just be smart about how you're utilizing your executives in that way and build the program around their skills.
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Chris: It's funny you mentioned about talking too fast. I'm from New York in finance, fast talker. I've been told numerous times, "Chris, slow down, we're having a hard time here understanding you." I find it fascinating that maybe a decade or so ago, but your main newscasters, they would send them to school in the Midwest to slow down their speaking, have them be a little more thoughtful and methodical, and so I completely appreciate and understand that. Can you explain the concept of strategic network mapping and its significance for organizational as well as personal success?
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Jackie: I love this one. I love this one because as a woman, for years, it would frustrate me when I would watch my male colleagues go play golf for the day and I did not have golfing buddies. For me, I started this program before I even realized I started this program. In my 20s when I realized I wasn't getting that call to go play golf and I was sitting back at my desk doing all the work and I wasn't pushing myself out there to meet people. I built this program for myself where each month I would say, "I'm going to meet a certain number of people and I'm going to reach out to them."
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If they don't reply, fine, but I'm going to reach out to them, let them know I exist. I put them into three categories. I put out of my atmosphere, like completely starstruck. They probably will answer me. The next section is they will probably answer me because of who I work for or what I do or we're in the same industry or my really well-written pitch note that I love to send and then my peer group. I map it out in those three sections and then I make sure each month I'm meeting my target. Now my target may not be someone else's target.
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I actually tell people who come to me with, "I'm so busy," when they say that to me, I say, "Let's just do one. Let's just do one this month." Just one connection is more than you had last month and set that goal for yourself. It's important because if you open up your LinkedIn right now and you looked at who you're connected to, you're going to find that most of your connections are your peers or people you work with. That's not a network. That's work. You really want to stretch that to be who's interesting, who's going to help me grow, who's out of my atmosphere and is really going to take me places and stretch your network that way.
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Chris: We have just a few minutes left. One more time. Where can people find you?
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Jackie: I'm on jackiegulley.com and then Instagram and LinkedIn under the same name, J-A-C-K-I-E, G-U-L-L-E-Y.
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Chris: Jackie, I always like to have our guests take us to the end of our conversation with advice or a story that helps our audience become less stressed, more resilient or more empowered. Would you share with us, please?
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Jackie: Yes, absolutely. It's been a pleasure, Chris, to be with you today and to talk about these things. I just want to let everyone know that consistency wins every time. If you're feeling overwhelmed, if you're feeling stuck like you don't know where to go, take a blank piece of paper and write down your goals and then try once a month to just achieve one or a piece of those goals and just be consistent about it. Consistency, consistency. That's all I can really tell you.
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Chris: Love it. You're going to [unintelligible 00:49:43] your team throughout the show today. Jackie Gulley, thank you so much for being with us today. I really appreciate your time.
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Jackie: Thank you, Chris. It's been fun.
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Chris: Thank you to our audience, which now includes people in over 50 countries, for joining us for another episode of Next Steps Forward. I'm Chris Meek. For more details and upcoming shows and guests, please follow me on Facebook, at facebook.com/chrismeekepublicfigure and then next follow me on [unintelligible 00:50:06] at ChrisMeek_USA. We'll be back next Tuesday, same time, same place with another leader from the world of business, politics, public policy, sports or entertainment. Until then, stay safe, be kind and keep taking the next steps forward.
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Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in to Next Steps Forward. Be sure to join Chris Meek for another great show, next Tuesday at 10:00 AM Pacific Time and 1:00 PM Eastern Time. On the Voice America Empowerment Channel. This week, make things happen in your life.
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[00:51:05] [END OF AUDIO]