The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Ulrike Seminati, Globally Operating Coach, Trainer, and Consultant on Leadership Amplified

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

Ulrike Seminati, Globally Operating Coach, Trainer, and Consultant on Leadership Amplified Ulrikeseminati.com Show Notes About The Guest(s): ​ Ulrike Seminati is a globally operating coach, trainer, and consultant. With 23 years of experience as a corporate communications leader, including three years as a C-level executive, she brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise in authentic leadership and impactful communication. Ulrike Seminati helps leaders bring more humanity to the workplace and navigate change by harnessing the strengths of their team members. ​ Summary: ​ Ulrike Seminati joins Chris Voss on The Chris Voss Show to discuss leadership and leading through change. She emphasizes the importance of bringing more humanity to the workplace and understanding the motivations and strengths of team members. Ulrike Seminati believes that leaders should focus on authentic communication and leading people, not just projects. She shares strategies for persuading change-resistant individuals and creating a culture of trust and authenticity. ​ Key Takeaways: ​ - Leaders should prioritize understanding the motivations and strengths of their team members when navigating change. - Change-resistant individuals can be valuable assets in the change process if their strengths are harnessed. - Authenticity is crucial for building trust and credibility as a leader. - Leaders should be clear about their own motivations and values to lead with authenticity. - Pay attention to your body's signals and listen to your gut feelings when making decisions. ​ Quotes: ​ - "Change-resistant people feel like they get back some control when they can contribute to making the change process smoother." - Ulrike Seminati - "Leaders should be continuously authentic to build trust and credibility with their team members." - Ulrike Seminati - "Authenticity means being true to yourself and your values, even in the face of organizational expectations." - Ulrike Seminati

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So there you go. We have Ulrike Seminati in the show with us today. She's going to be talking to us about how she coaches and helps people in becoming better leaders and improving the quality of their lives as well. And she's here to improve yours. She is a globally operating coach, trainer, and consultant. She brings a wealth of experience as a former C-level executive to her expertise in authentic leadership and impactful communication. By blending the latest self-development methodologies with her extensive practical experience in leading across all levels of hierarchy, she enables leaders to master how to bring change-resistant people on board by harnessing their strengths instead of diminishing their motivation. I should probably start doing that.

I should quit diminishing their motivation and throwing them out of second story windows. Welcome to the show. How are you? I'm fine. Thank you very much for having me. There you go. Thanks for coming. Give us your dot coms. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? It's very simple or very complicated. It's my name, Ulrika

Seminati dot com. It's the most important place and you can also find me with my name, Ulrika Seminati at LinkedIn and that's the best place place and you can also find me with my name or rick saminati at linkedin and that's the best place to go to get in contact with me and the link will be on the chris voss show as well so give us a 30 000 overview in your words of what you do and how you do it well i'm helping leaders to bring others on board in a simple way i help them to bring more humanity to the workplace as well, because I think leaders have unlearned to lead human beings because they lead tasks, they lead for results. And I think there's

something really, really important missing there. Everybody's longing for that. And yet so many people struggle to implement it. And that's a bit my mission. And this is why I help leaders to communicate better, to lead with authenticity. And also also and i have a great focus on that one how they lead people and really people not projects through change because i think that's what's going on out there all the time everywhere so let's expand on that leading through change uh that's that's the the changes that we've seen over the last what three or four years now it's been going on for quite some time, have been mountainous, I suppose. I don't know. We're just going to run with that today.

They've been just extraordinary. You know, between the pandemic, between changing people's buyer stuff. I mean, we just saw the recent Black Friday of 2023 2023 and it appears we've totally switched over to online buying because almost no one was at the stores. All those videos you used to watch of people crashing down Walmart stores and fist fighting with each other are sadly gone. And then you've got, it looks like a lot of restaurants people aren't dining in anymore.

You know, it seems like they've really settled into ordering stuff, everything. I rarely go to Walmart or the store for anything anymore. I go to a local farm and that's about it and everything else gets delivered. So we've seen a lot of consumer changes and stuff and then a lot of business changes where, you know, no one's going to the office, people working remotely. So let's talk about some ways people can lead through change. Well, I think the problematic that we have today is that with every change which we encounter, we don't know what outcome we really want to achieve or we get to achieve at a certain point. You know, like 15, 20 years ago, you had a change project

in a corporation that was beginning, that was a supposed end, maybe it was running late, but somehow there was a plan. And today it's like we have to change so many things without even knowing if we ever end this change. And this is very overwhelming for people. And so I think what is super important, and it was often overseen when it comes to managing change, it's not about the processes and having a strict milestones plan where people can stick to. It's really about really seriously putting a lot of energy, much more than into building the famous milestone plan, into thinking, who have I in my team and how can I help them to go through that change? Because they're not all agile. They don't have all a growth mindset. They will not embrace that change just because they're not all agile they don't have all a growth mindset they will not embrace

that change just because they're paid for that and people don't do that they invest a lot of time into the processes and everything that seems to be more tangible and let aside a bit this human aspect where I think that is the key to making change happen in a way where people do not run into burnout getting to the hamster wheel being being super stressed, you know, all of that. So I think it's very important to shift, to shift actually the priorities there. You know, a lot of people, they find, I forget what the, I was listening to a podcast recently, and they were talking about how people usually don't adapt to change because, you know, like you mentioned, their feelings, you know, it's, it's much more stressful, you know, it's, it's a whole lot nicer

if you just run the hamster wheel that you're used to, you know, you're, you can confidently do it. You can, you can feel pretty secure in your world, but once you start embracing change and everything, you know, it's the, the great factors of the unknowns come out and uh sometimes those aren't fun sometimes they're you don't know how to handle them because you don't maybe have some experience that sort of wheelhouse but but those are the things you have to adapt to the most because whether you like it or not i used to tell people i mean kind of adopted this theory when i was young uh and starting my first businesses where if you don't change you if you don't adopt the world will make you change the universe is a survival game and so it will kick in your door

and go well you've resistance to change is that what's going on here oh I got some change for you baby yeah here you go there you go have fun with that one and you're just like damn it I was hiding so well from that change monster. So tell us a little bit about your upbringing and your work history and your career. What brought you down to where you coach and help people now directly? Well, I have been a corporate communications leader for 23 years. And, you know, in corporate communications, I was climbing up the whole career ladder. I ended up as a C-level executive for three years. And I've seen the different levels of hierarchy as well.

But what I've seen most is that you can have the biggest budgets ever. You can run the best campaigns in the world and the most awarded ones. I got an award also for one in 2013, a while ago, big global award. But it will never, never, never land if the leaders, the human beings who speak to other human beings in the company do not convey the message, not only with the head, but with the heart. And that is what is not done in communication campaigns.

You know, it's all like we plan it from the top. There are key messages and people are supposed to repeat these key messages. Leaders are supposed to have an FAQ and to use that. And I think that's fundamentally wrong. And this is where my whole thinking came from. And I thought I have to step out of this corporate world because experts from the outside are usually much more listened than the experts in organizations have on the inside.

Sadly enough. Yeah. A lot of leaders think that and talks of organizations think that all you got to do lot of a lot of leaders think that uh and and talks of organizations think that all you gotta do is make a pr statement to be good leaders and you're just like hey we're a great company and we got good morals and we got good stuff and people like us you know it's like that snl bit uh and people like us um and then they walk a totally different talk that they do morally, ethically, how they run the company and their employees and everybody else just goes, hey, look at that guy. He's full of shit. And then you lose all your power as a leader. So what is the secret to bringing change

resistant people, people in your companies, people maybe in your personal relationships, et cetera, et cetera, getting them to get on board for organizational transformation projects? In very simple words, you have to change your dictionary. Very simple. To change your dictionary. Oh, just order a different one off Amazon there. Yeah.

So actually, usually when change, let's stick to the corporate world. When change is communicated, it's coming from the top. It's coming from a personality style, most likely, who has interest in growth, in bottom line figures, in performance, in success, in all of these words. Because that's what they embrace. Many leaders, the higher they're up in the hierarchy, the more likely it is that they have this personality trait simply

where they adhere to these words. They love them. They love them with their heart. That's compelling to them. But if you go further down in the organization and already the first senior management level below the C-level, for example, is very, very different from the C-level usually. And there you find an average of 70 of people who resist

change 70 70 holy 70 yeah across the whole global yeah global world population it seems 70 of us are wired to really stick to safety security and stability and we really stick to that and it means we will never really embrace change with our heart. We will never become these agile guys who love growth just because our organization wants that. They will never be that. And what I think we need really to change is that we do not see these guys as being boring or hindering the change and being kind of distracting from what you want to

achieve here but rather use their strengths and i think this is a fundamental shift in how we see people who resist change because at the end those who make it happen those who really go for it until the very end to to carry it through even if it takes two or three years are exactly these people the change resistant people not the change-resistant people, not the ones who come up with the great ideas at the beginning because they will already be on another idea or on 10 other ideas by then. But you need stable people for that, the reliable ones.

And I think this is a difference, to see them as an asset in change and not seeing them as an obstacle so that people do not feel like, I'm not appropriate anymore these days. I feel like I'm outdated in some way. And I think that's an important change to make. I think more and more we're realizing that people are important. And if people don't realize, leaders don't realize, and companies don't realize how important people are,

they certainly aren't being taught a lesson in it now uh i think you're over in switzerland in europe correct yeah exactly there you go uh i don't know what's i don't know what you're going to this job market is over there but over here in america uh you're probably aware of this too um the the the shift is totally flipped to employees having power of quitting their jobs, going to other places, making more money someplace else. The competition for employees has gone totally through the roof. Part of it is because the boomers and some Gen Xers retired early with the COVID crisis. And so by doing so, we actually have a lack, a severe lack of employees. That's why you've seen us when weathering the recessionary storm of COVID fairly well with a high unemployment

rate, even though the Fed has jacked up the interest rates. And it's going to be with us for a long time. In fact, I think I was reading that for every seven boomers and people that have a lifetime of experience in trade that are retiring, there's only one person to replace them. And that person is a beginner or a novice. And so you have not only a lot of seven to one employees leaving the job market, you have seven employees that are masters of their trade over a lifetime. And you're left with some new guy who doesn't know how anything works basically. And so I don't know if that's going on in Europe, but that's what's going on over here. And so,

you know, we're seeing the empowerment of unions and everything else. And so if you're not taking care of your people, they're going to go someplace else at this point, because they can easily here in our market. Yeah. You have the same situation. It depends on the country in Switzerland is the same.

They always were lacking. They always were lacking people. Actually actually it's a small country with a lot of industry so that's a bit different if you look into other markets it's not like it's spain or italy for example it's a bit different because their unemployment rate was much much higher so they're just catching up slower on this on this tendency actually it's the same trend and we have exactly the same and i think that hasn't landed yet in the heads. It starts to be felt because, yes, companies, as soon as they need to hire someone, it's very difficult to find somebody. And it's very, very difficult to find somebody

who has the right qualifications and to keep the people. You know, all of that. But all of that was not necessary for a long time. And many leaders out there who are leaders for 20 or 30 years, they have lived, if they have 30 years of career, they have lived 20 years where this was never an issue. No, but it was the other way around. And so they're used to this way of thinking

that if people are paid for their job, they must be motivated. What an illusion. What do you think? Seriously? Give them paychecks, damn it. what more do they want pizzas they'll throw a pizza party it's an old exactly yeah exactly yeah and in it in it you know it kind of gives me an epiphany it hits me here that to realize that um well companies need to realize what's going on with the employment situation. They also need to realize from the paradigm I gave earlier that they need to develop these employees more. And that just searching for employees or trying to find other employees that are older, that have experience, well, they're great to have because I'm on.

The competition, you need to start investing in your future. And so you're going to have to retrain all these new employees that are coming up. And Gen Zers are spectacularly more interested in life fulfillment jobs or jobs where they feel better about them. And they want to feel like they're making a difference in the world. And they want that right away as opposed to someone who, you know, at 55 I feel like I'm making a difference in the world with the work I'm doing or I hope I am. You know, it gives me something meaningful to give back. But, you know, when I was young, I didn't really care.

I'm just like, I'm trying to make a buck and scratch around here and get things to work or figure all this stuff out. Uh, but they're, they're more into that. And so, you know, now we see, especially here in America, we see people hopping jobs. Uh, you know, I went into one of my favorite restaurants the other night and they, they, they told me that they started, uh, doing table service where, or they don't do table service anymore, where they don't have waiters. They just have someone who brings your food when you order with a little sign at the cheap restaurants. And I'm like, why, how am I paying luxury fine dining prices for this? But they, they had to convert to it because they couldn't get enough waiters to serve. And so they were

kind of forced to as a business, which kind of sucked in my opinion, but that's the way it is. I've actually gone to restaurants in my area that they actually have a sign on the door. They're offering a hundred dollar gift certificate or a hundred dollar certificate at their restaurant. If you refer employees to them to work in a restaurant, I'm like, wow, that's novel.

I can probably, maybe I can go make more money just out hustling people to hire for employees. But that's how tight our job market is out here. It's freaking crazy. And I think companies need to learn that they're going to have to start, you know, figuring people out better and educating people,

training them more, but also being better at leadership. I think there's a lot of one size fits all approach still. And that's a problem because we think, yeah, okay, there's a specific training. People adhere to that. Or, you know, the idea of, for example, leadership behaviors, big corporations have leadership behaviors. There's a list of five to 10 behaviors that are the desired behaviors.

I have rolled out many leadership behavior programs in my corporate life. It's logical that because they want to have a specific culture, for sure. But at the same time, how can you expect that people with very different personality styles apply the same behaviors? Or how can you aim for diversity? I mean, there are now departments who are called diversity and inclusion yeah departments for that and at the same time you say hey we have seven leadership behaviors we want all our leaders to behave like that

i mean it's totally contradictory and it doesn't i mean like just thinking about it doesn't make sense and i think that's a problem people feel like I have to play a role. I have to embrace these roles. I have to be like that. If I'm not like that, I'm not valued. And then they start being someone else. And then you have a lot of fake leaders out there who feel very unhealthy in their skin because it's unhealthy to be someone else.

And they don't go in with their full energy, not with their conviction, not with the full self-confidence either. Because if you do that, you tell your subconscious all the time, I'm not good enough as I am in reality. And I think that is a problem. We should just open much more up. Organizations should open up much more to real diversity.

It means people are different and they come with a different motivation. They come with different fears when it comes to change they come with fears and that alone allowing for that thought people have fears when it comes to change and they are allowed to have fears because you cannot forbid them to have them they will still have them so if you don't let it come to the surface speak about it create a more human approach to that well everything is happening under the surface underlying fears are there and they're cooking up and at some point people just leave the company in the worst case or they don't they don't work properly they they

just don't look into details anymore don't care anymore all of that is happening then and i think it creates such a such a used feeling of not well, whereas we could have a different kind of corporate work life out there. And everybody I speak to says, things need to change. I want it to change. We want it to change. But how do we do that? So I think there's a lot happening in the minds of people that they need to just shift really the perspective on how we see these things. Going more for individual freedom of expression, I would say, instead of trying to create this famous corporate culture that has to be like that.

Because yes, culture, it's a strategy for breakfast. We all know that sentence and it's true. But if the culture is fake, then there is no real culture. You know, then it's that's a culture on paper you have a lot of fantastic posters on the wall with your values and all of that all those motivational posters yes it doesn't work i mean as i said i have done this is why i'm coming to that because i've done this my whole corporate career through for for two decades and it's nice but it does not work it it feels like you know an alibi uh event which

we do here but nothing that is really truthful or or making sense yeah it's it's uh i i see the leadership by fiat through pr so many times where people you know they put out these pr statements and they're all they're all filled with uh buzzwords, words that you sit and you go, what the hell did they actually say exactly? I mean, I feel like something happened, but I don't know what it is, and maybe they don't either. It's interesting to me how people lead, but you bring up a good point. You need to have an organization that's adaptive to change. I remember when I was coming up through practicing to be a CEO, I read The Fifth Discipline by Peter Singe, and it made me want to create a learning organization, have a culture of a learning organization, and trying to get people to ask questions

and facilitating the type of culture that, you know, one of the sayings around our office was the only dumb questions, the unasked question. Uh, so please ask questions because the, usually the person who hadn't, who'd slept through training or somehow hadn't gotten some different aspects of training, uh, was the person who had break the $30,000 machine and cost me 30 grand. Uh, and you know, you're're like didn't you learn in training not to throw that switch uh and they're like uh i think i missed a few things well why didn't you ask if you didn't understand uh i was afraid that i'd be criticized and there's a lot of that goes on in corporations uh talk to us about uh one of the things you talk about is the uh art of persuasion

and mastering it i imagine persuasion is one of those things people need if you're going to create that learning organization and help people embrace change. So persuasion all has to do with emotions. We don't take any action without emotion, not even the simplest action we take without emotion. So let alone the bigger actions we ask from people. So you need to understand what are the motivations the intrinsic motivations of the people in my team or the people i want to persuade of something and we all usually think that what we believe is attractive in this project for example in this goal that's logically attractive to the others. And when we speak to others and we try to persuade,

what we usually do is that we customize our message absolutely perfectly to the only person on this planet who will never get it, and that's ourselves. Sounds like you need a book editor to edit your own stuff so they can speak in your voice, but then they can also go, hey, no one else is gonna get this but you man the way you wrote this so there you go i mean i've seen that movie yeah exactly and and that's what we do it's natural obviously it's natural yeah but when

you really want to persuade you have to think completely out of the box and there are many profiles who might be at the opposite end of what you think is attractive. So when you come, if I speak from a typical leadership perspective and use the words that I said before, a leader might say, oh, we can be super successful here. We can outperform the competition. Wow. Okay. And you say that to a person who is very strongly in the area of, I need stability. I need the people around me. I want to keep my team. I want to make sure that the people I work with stay the same, for example.

Then they will just freak out with these words because they will make an interpretation of, whoa, whoa, whoa, danger, right? Lamps are going on all over the place, yeah? Because they think, my God, my team will be destroyed. Things will change rapidly. We have no control over anything anymore if we do that. And they hate it. Whereas you could just change the dictionary.

You need to think what is motivating the person in front of me. If it's a person who needs stability instead of speaking about outperformance or success, you might want to say, if we do that project, then we can, on the long run, create more business continuity. This might help us to stabilize some of the jobs here so that we do not have to turn everything upside down. So you can try to come with something where you think this creates some stability.

And when it's about persuading people, good is always, I mean, obviously, that they have something that they can contribute, something where they can have the feeling that they do something about it themselves. And when you have somebody who's change-resistant, for example, instead of persuading them with again and again emphasizing the same arguments which they are not at all receptive for, like growth, success, outperforming, competition, all of these words. Don't use these words anymore at all. Rather, ask them and say, hey, I know for you, you hate the fact that we have to change again.

You hate the fact that we have to behave differently with different processes. And I know it's the 10th time this year. Okay. I understand that. And instead of that, ask them, you know, okay, it is unstable for sure, but you are a specialist in making things reliable. You are a wonderful planner. You are very analytical.

You see the details. Can you help us to make this process as stable and smooth as possible so that it's less painful for you and your colleagues? And then it's a different way of thinking. For change-resistant people, they feel like, oh, I get back some control, obviously. I mean, they feel like, well, I get some control back. That's good. Yeah, that's good. I can do something to make it a bit less painful. That's good as well. I can maybe watch out for something that makes it less shaky than it would have been if I, me, the expert of not, of stability, yeah, if I was not involved.

And that is a different way of how you can persuade people. Give them something that relates to their strengths, not something that you think is absolutely useful. You, from your perspective, might not think that this is useful at all because you don't need it. You don't need maybe that stability. The other person needs it. And that's their strength. So building on that and giving them the chance to live their strengths,

even if it feels at the first sight very contradictory, how can somebody where the strength is stability and being a good planner, how does this fit to something where everything will be unplanned and chaotic and changing? So it seems counterintuitive, but I think there's very secret lies. Bring people in by helping them to live their strengths, even if they don't look like fitting in at the first place. And you will see by doing this with different, very different profiles, you will have a wonderful diversity. And this is finally where this project will become very rich and maybe something completely

different than you planned in the beginning, but maybe something that is much more sustainable at the end. And I think this is a way of how we can manage change differently. Definitely. I mean, you've got to have a living, breathing organization that can adapt and adopt, because if you aren't, your competitors are. And as you mentioned earlier in the show, while you're trying to answer one question to get down the road of change, they're on the 10th question. So they're definitely way ahead of you. And in a world today with AI and everything moving whipping fast, you've got to be able to embrace change. And so what's a way that leaders can shift to communicate in a way that builds trust and gets people to buy in?

What are some ways they can do that? I think the most important thing is that first of all they become clear about their own motivations because we will trust only when we are authentic and when they are continually authentic because as soon as we aren't anymore then this thing is broken and because people say it's different than yesterday or last week strange don't trust them anymore yeah so we need to have this continuity and the best thing is to be authentic because when you are continuously authentic you are yourself so there's some continuity in that but i know it's very very different what i realized that many leaders there's so much thinking i call i call it that two dimensions the i dimension and the we dimension

and most leaders think permanently in the we dimension. We have to do this. We, our team, we have to do this. And when I work with leaders on the I dimension, they immediately switch into the we and me and my team thing. And I think, stop, take a bit of time for yourself. And first of all, become clear about your own motivations. Because if you're not clear about why you want to achieve that goal, and it's certainly not the reason that is given to you by your organization, it's something completely different maybe. And to

be really clear about why you want to achieve that and why you can put some heart in it, even in a project or a change that you do not like at all, you need to find a why for yourself. Only then you can become convincing and you can build that trust because you speak out from an authentic place to your people. And that is totally different than just repeating the FAQ, which you got from the top. I wrote a lot of FAQs. It's a stupid thing. I mean, at the same time, people need something. Yeah, you got to read something. But if they don't reflect on it and make it their own, you know, and pick and choose what suits to them, then it's not authentic

and then it doesn't make sense. And then people mistrust immediately because they feel that. We all see it immediately when somebody is making something up. We see it in the face. We see it in the micro mimics. You can be the best actor ever. People feel something's not quite congruent here, so don't trust it's not credible to me and that is something where people need to be much bolder oftentimes because the true authentically that they have somewhere inside

of them is maybe not the ideal version of what they think they should be or what the organization thinks they should be and if you then need to be a bit different or very, very different even, then you need a lot of courage to be yourself in organizations where we're so much used to have a specific leader persona in mind, you know, specific characteristics, for example, which are still out there. When people speak about a leader, they see certain characteristics immediately. All around the planet, it's like that. And it must shift to something that is much more differentiated because only then when people start being different as a leader, but

still be a leader, then we have a much broader picture of that. And then it's easier to open up for that as well and to live these behaviors. But I think some are real pioneers in being very, very different from what we were used to. And I love that. I think it's bold. I think it's great. And it's authentic. And their people love these leaders because they feel a real human being with real, you know, with their vulnerabilities and their strengths and everything is there. And I can feel the whole and not just the glossy surface that is shown most of the times there you go i you know the difference between you know i i think uh there was a leader uh of i believe it was t-mobile for a lot of years and i forget his name we used to chat on uh clubhouse back in the day i think it was john something

but uh he was a dynamic leader of t-mobile and he came in and and he you know he would dress down and he would interact and he would do fun things with his employees you would see him constantly going around and doing fun stuff and and all that uh and i was really impressed with it because he he really seemed like the great cheerleader of his company. And wherever he went, he was engaging with employees and not putting on, like you said, that veneer of where people feel. There's kind of a sob between you and employee. You touched on my question that I was going to do next, the what is authenticity and leading with authenticity, being an authentic leader? That's my final question. What does authenticity mean?

I don't know what's going on. It's Monday. How do we lead with authenticity, and how do we be an authentic leader? Become clear about your motivations and your weaknesses as well. Your strengths, it's very classic. Strengths, weaknesses, but be aware. And first of all, start being honest with yourself. We are very unhonest with ourselves usually. We try to make things prettier or the other way around. We are super, super critical, but try to be honest to yourself

and to find out who you really are and also what kind of leader you want to be. I mean, there's also this dimension of who do I want to be actually, because it's this new personal growth, which you have in mind then as well. And be very clear on that dimension and look at your organization.

Look at these behaviors that are out there. Look at the values that this company has, for example, and they want you to embrace it. They want you to role model that. But be very clear and make like a self-analysis. What does that mean to me? I mean, if there are four values, for example, what are my values? Are you aware of your values? If there are values you need to embrace, you first of all need to know your own values, for example. And then you see, is there an overlap? Where is the authentic overlap? What does this mean in terms of true situations, exact behaviors, real actions?

You know, make it tangible, bring it to your workplace. What does this mean in terms of behavior? For me personally, how I can be authentic while my values are somehow not the same, but fit to one or two of the company values, maybe not to all of them, or the famous leadership behaviors, or what you think your boss expects from you. Whereas how you would feel, how you want to behave, how you want to deal with your people, is there an overlap? And how does this look like in concrete situations, in one-on-ones, in team meetings, you know, bring it really to your workplace. But you need to really take a step back and look at yourself first. Who am I? What are my motivations? What are my values? Like I said, what are my strengths? What are also my weaknesses?

And how can these weaknesses even help to create more connection with people? Because the perfect leader who stands on a stage and who is always the perfect speaker and has the perfect ideas, this person is not tangible to anyone. The higher you are up in a hierarchy, the more powerful it is to admit sometimes that you're not perfect, that you don't know it all, that you have slept not well this night because you were nervous to come on that stage, for example. Give away some of your humanity, show it and be very clear what is it in you. What do you also want to show? Obviously, you can make a selection. That's not a problem. But be very clear about, okay, that's who I am. And then I would just say many people are very disconnected from what they feel

in their body when it comes to being authentic they think it's all happening in the head because we are these rational human beings kind of thing you know we think we have control totally illusion as well anyway wait what what our head so it's like listen to your body you know when you do not have a good feeling in your belly, and we have that, I don't know how many times throughout the day suddenly. And usually we go over it to the next thing and we just don't pay attention. But pay a bit of attention. When you don't feel well in your belly, most likely you have done something that was inauthentic or going against what you actually wanted to say or to do.

So just look at yourself a bit more. Take some time to self-observe and create more self-awareness. And when you see where you are coming from, who you really are, that's the I dimension that I mentioned before, the dimension of yourself, then you can really work on, okay, what does it mean now in my relationships with my people? Also in private life, it's exactly the same thing. you can apply that very well in your private life too but how can i relate to others in this authentic way where i just stay true to myself and what is my no-go areas you know defining that what is something that i will never want to do never because it's

just totally against myself i don't do that even if for it, even if I get into trouble at work, I won't do that, for example. Create for yourself this field of authenticity. And then when you act out of that, and especially for young leaders, I think it's super important to start with that before they slip into this corporate persona thing where they are someone else at work, which older leaders are very much used to do every single day. And to just give yourself that chance to be yourself. It's such a much, it's such a happier place for you than,

than the place of not being yourself. And you will live your career in a totally different way than if you're not. There you go. All the difference in the world. That's a great wrap up. You just gave the one time. The only time I don't feel good on my belly is usually after Taco Bell night. So, I don't know if you guys have Taco Bell there in Switzerland?

Yeah, we do sometimes, indeed. That'll make your belly hurt the next morning. So, very inspiring message. Tell us about some of the offerings you do on your website when you're coaching people, when you help people be better leaders, when they work with you. I believe you have a podcast, a free e-guide, and a few other things. Let's get some plug-in for some of this stuff. Yeah.

So I'm doing in-house trainings for leaders, for corporations. So if anybody wants to book me on these kind of trainings, I'm here. I'm also doing courses for individuals. So you have like 90-minute sessions, very easy, not very expensive, really easy to go in and plug in and just start working on yourself, offering these regularly. And what is really nice, I'm very excited about that, I'm starting a new podcast.

Tomorrow's the first episode. Oh, congratulations. It's called Leading Change Conversations. And it's a bit of an experiment because I will go through real cases with people who have a problem in leading change or leading. It's always leading people through change.

It's always the people aspect in change. And where we try to solve that issue in 30 minutes and to come to one, two, three concrete action steps they can take actually to get out of the situation. So yeah,

and that's starting tomorrow. So you can also find that on my website or on the leading change conversations.com directly. There you go. Congratulations. It's a, it's a hell of a road. I think I,

I don't even remember if I remember the first one. I know it's on Google somewhere because we did on YouTube too. But yeah, it's, it's always fun to start and then begin, and then you end up down the road. So thank you very much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. It's been very insightful. Give us the.coms one more time to close as we go out.

UlrikeSeminati.com. There you go. Oh, yeah, that's a complicated one. Or leadingchangeconversations.com. It's maybe easier. It leads to my podcast page, which is on my website, so you can find me by that as well. There you go.

Well, thank you very much for coming on. It's been very inspiring, motivating, and give us new tips on being a leader. Thank you very much for having me. It was a great pleasure to speak to you. It was a pleasure as well. Thank you very much to my audience for tuning a great pleasure to speak to you it was a pleasure as well thank you very much to my audience for tuning in go to goodreads.com for just christmas youtube.com for just christmas linkedin.com for just christmas subscribe to that big linkedin newsletter the

130 000 group over there on linkedin as well we love linkedin it's such a great place of course the tiktokity and the chrisfossfacebook.com thanks for tuning in be good to each other stay safe and we'll see you guys next time