The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 410: Dustyn Kim - How To Stand Out & Speak Up

Episode Date: March 14, 2021

Text LEARNERS to 44222 for more... Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12 https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 Dustyn Kim is the Chief Revenue Officer at Artsy. Artsy is used by art lovers and collectors to discover, learn about, and buy art. Prior to working at Artsy, Dustyn was a senior executive at LexisNexis. While at LexisNexis, she was my boss! She is a rare combination of highly respected, extremely well-liked, and typically the smartest person of every room she walks in. I loved working for her. Notes: Excellence = Authenticity and team building. "A leader should be focused on building great teams." What Dustyn learned from one of her favorite bosses, Kumsal Bayazit (the CEO of Elsevier) "She was inspiring and very human. Work and life go hand in hand." "When I got a senior leadership role, I didn't want a command and control organization." What she learned from Sebastian at Artsy: "He said to me, 'I advise, you decide.' That empowered me and gave me ownership of my decisions." It's critical to empower others What are must-have qualities in a leader? Empathy - EQ + IQ Communication skill - Set the vision and communicate that effectively to you team Collaboration - Lead through influence. Cross team collaboration is key to getting things done. How to collaborate better? "Map out the key people you need to know and understand their goals." Starting early: "When I was 15, my dad woke me up and told me he was taking me to Wall Street for my first internship." How to lead as a parent for you children? "I try to introduce them to as much as possible." "My job is to help you figure out what you love doing, but you have to show up and do the work." Advice for women leaders? "I don't love the advice from Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In." It's really hard to have a full time job and travel a lot if you want to build a family. It's okay to slow down at times for your family. "Kumsal wanted me to go for a big promotion when I had just given birth to Mason. I didn't want to travel the world and be gone all the time. It's okay to not go for the big job all the time." Advice for new managers: Avoid the desire to micro manage Know that there are lots of different paths to success Don't expect to know everything A lot of new managers are too nice You need to give feedback How to be both respected and liked? Focus on the challenge at hand - "What's the plan? What's the goal?" "Then build the narrative and ask the team, what do you think?" "It didn't work for me to try and act like a guy. I had to be myself." Confidence is very important. That comes from being prepared and knowing your stuff. A tangible takeaway for how to find your voice in a meeting: "In meetings, when I was younger, I would turn bright red when speaking. A trick I had to implement was, 'say something very early in the meeting.' Just so that too much time passes without me saying anything." Career/Life Advice: Stand out -- Be excellent at your current role. Make sure others know they can count on you to do great work. Speak up -- Don't expect others to read your mind. TELL THEM what you want in your career. Make sure people know what you want to do. Give them the opportunity to help you get there... Have a goal, but be flexible on your path to achieving it

A lot of new managers, I think, try too hard to build a great relationship with people that they're managing. And it's ultimately your job to make that team be successful. And to be successful doesn't necessarily mean that your best bugs all the time. To be successful, you've got to be constantly giving your team feedback. You've got to be working with your team to set goals and then make progress towards those goals. and as you're making progress, you should be constantly giving feedback. And feedback, I think, is something that newer managers can a lot of times be uncomfortable with. Welcome to the Learning Leaders Show, presented by Brixie and Meyer.

I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 4-4-222 to join tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world. Receive Mindful Monday emails. Monday morning, 9 o'clock Eastern, I will send you a carefully curated note with useful articles, podcast, ideas, books to help start your week off right. You'll also receive more details about how my book, Welcome to Management, will help you become a more effective leader.

Text, learners to 4-4-2-2-2. Now on tonight's featured leader, one of my favorites. It's the great Dustin Kim. I worked for Dustin years ago at LexisNexis when I was a director in a general management role, and she was the vice president of specialized legal markets. She is now the chief revenue officer at Artsy and remains one of my all-time favorite bosses and you'll see why when you listen to this episode with her. A few of the topics we discussed how to be both respected and liked.

There are so few people who check both of those boxes and yet Dustin is one of them. And then ideas and specific tactics to become a better communicator. Dustin shares stories about how she struggled with this early in her career and how she She's gotten so much better as she's worked on it. And then two pieces of career advice that Dustin learned the hard way. And now she's sharing with you to help you develop and grow and get better. Ladies and gentlemen, I absolutely love this one. It's the great Dustin Kim.

Dustin, it's so good to see you, first of all. I have to say it's been a while. It's been too long. That's on me. But it's great to see you first and foremost. Yeah, great. see you too. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So the reason first to start why I wanted to talk to you was because I get asked a lot of questions about senior executives who somehow can combine being

real with high levels of competence, not much corpus speak, I'll phrase it, but super intelligent. And so like I think you're the first person I think of if you if you put that kind of weird combination together. And you know, I say that lovingly. Yeah. And and the one of the one of the things I really appreciate most about you and working for you when I did was the fact that you could you could start a meeting with our team. And you're leading a team of directors and senior directors when you're a senior VP. And you would be emotional at times. You would talk to us about your personal life.

You'd talk to us about your boss. You would say things that normally a senior executive, I don't think, says. But then with the snap of the fingers, all of a sudden you're talking high-level strategies. You're talking about what we need to do to grow, how we're going to do it. You're right there in the mix on the front line. And you were able to go back and forth so effectively that I thought it's worth talking about this. So first and foremost, from a philosophical perspective and just the way you look at leadership and being honest and real and authentic,

but also highly capable and competent with what you're doing. How do you think about all of that? Yeah, it's taken years, I think, of hard work and practice. But I'd say kind of philosophically, if I think about leadership and my style of leadership, I believe that a leader should be focused on building great teams and empowering those teams to do great things. and I want to be part of that team.

And I think this is part of just me and my personality. I don't want leadership to be lonely. And in some of my earlier leadership moments, I was lonely because I was trying to be something that I'm not. And I was trying to have all the answers. And I pretty quickly figured out that that was exhausting, that that didn't fit very well, didn't really resonate with me. And so I took a chance. I just started taking a chance and was like,

you know what, I'm going to treat this team as if I'm truly a member of it, as if we are all in this together. I'm going to share what I know. I'm going to be honest about what I don't know. I'm going to have fun. we're going to kind of share the ups and the downs. But it was definitely a decision that I made at some point in my career where I just decided, I know what I've been around execs long enough in my earlier days in strategy and in consulting. I kind of grew up around executives, professionally speaking. And so I'd seen enough that I know kind of what the classic exec looks like. I know, what information I need to present. I know what I need to do if I'm in a boardroom or if I'm sitting around a table with other execs. But with my team, I didn't want to be that distant.

And I just really wanted us to be all in together. Did you have a person that kind of mapped the way for you? Or was it a series of people that that gave you some of the courage to say, I, you know, because I remember you would, you would come in and you would talk. about challenges at home with your kids or you would talk about challenges in the most recent board meeting with a boss and we loved you for it. It like brought us closer together because we felt like there are no secrets. We're in this together and we thought I at least I know I thought I will do anything to make Dustin look good. I want to try my best to help her succeed because I feel like I'm in this with her. And that's not, I don't take that for granted because I've worked

for a number of people. I know you have too. I don't always feel that way. In fact, sometimes I feel the opposite. Like I'm about my team and I'm about me with and the people that work for me. I'm not, I don't really care about above me. You know what I mean? And so with you, it was the opposite. So I'm wondering where that comes from, whether it's just a combination of people or you or how you figured out how to do that. Because I think obviously that's, we all want to build committed teams. And I think that's what you had done with us at Lexus. Yeah, I'd say it was a combination of seeing people that I thought did that relatively well or did parts of that relatively well. So one person that comes to mind is Kumsal, who was one of my, was my first boss at Lexus, actually.

She's now the CEO of Elsevier. She was really inspiring and very human. She was one of the first people that I worked for that really connected with me on a human level. And I appreciated that so much that. And she kind of had a recognition that work and life are one thing, that there's no separation of like work life, like work persona, life persona, even work life balance. It's all one big balance. And so she, I think really as an earlier stage kind of boss and, mentor to me impacted some of those behaviors. I wanted to emulate some of that connection that I

felt with her because she was so human. And then I also had some managers throughout my career that I knew I didn't want to be like, where it was more of a command and control, walk into the room, here's the plan, go execute. I hated that. I found it so uninspiring. And so, So it really was a combination, I think, of just seeing what I, what worked for me and what didn't work for me and then emulating some of that and kind of trying it on for myself. It's like a, I got that, the device where I was brand new telephonic rep at Lexus from Rex Kausel, my first VP. He's like, hey, you're going to be a manager someday. And so get a, get a notebook and put a line down the middle of this notebook. And on the left side, write all the

great things your manager does. On the right side, write all the bad things. And when you become a manager, keep that, keep that notebook close to you. And remember, don't, don't do this stuff, do this stuff. And it was, it was kind of beautiful. And I remember, you find that you really remember the people that, that you're, you're writing about on the left. And I also, don't get me wrong, remember the people on the right. And that's, unfortunately for a lot of people, there's more there. But it is a good learning tool of you, my dad always told me, too, he said, you got to learn from every boss you work for. Some of them you'll learn what to do and some you'll learn what not to do. Agreed. Agreed 100%. And so obviously in that notebook, I have a lot. That's why we're having

this conversation because there's a lot of Dustin Kim down the left side of that for me. You also talked about when I did an email interview with you leading up to my first book. And there was a guy named, I believe, Sebastian, who he worked for. And I remember, I feel like he, you, talked about this, I advise you decide. Can you share more about that, that style of what that means in this I advise you decide? Yeah. Sebastian, he was my, he was our prior CEO at Artsy, just a legend and one of the, still a great mentor of mine. And I'd say my current boss, Mike Stey, the CEO at Artsy, does a phenomenal job of this too, where they have a similar team-based approach that I think I do, where, you know, Sebastian, when he hired me at Artsy,

he would often say to me, you know, look, I consider you a peer. There are going to be some areas where I, Sebastian, have a ton more experience and a lot of insight. There's going to be some areas where you, Dustin, have a ton more experience and a lot of insight. And we're going to work together to take Artsy to the next level. And, you know, that, no surprise, really resonates with me. but he would say, you know, I would bring a problem to him. I do this with Mike, too. Like, here's what I'm thinking. Here's the problem at hand. Here's like three things I'm struggling with. Here's where I'm leaning towards going. What do you think? And then Sebastian would be like, let's kick this around a little bit. Okay, I'm concerned about your approach because of like the

following reasons, but I could see why you might want to pursue it. Have you thought about this? Have you considered that? And then at the end of it, he's like, look, it's your decision. This is, I'm empowering you in this role. your decision, your call, I advise, you decide. And I think that level of trust is something that just makes me as an individual want to go above and beyond and want to get it right, versus a, you know, a leader that comes in and says, it's a terrible idea, you should do this. That's demotivating for me. It doesn't make me want to go above and beyond. But when you put the power in my hands, I'm like, I can't get this wrong for Sebastian. I can't get this wrong for Mike.

I'm going to do everything possible because they're trusting me. Yeah. Isn't that, isn't that, I remember talking to James Kerr who wrote the book, Legacy about the New Zealand All Blacks and their goal setting process was all about the fact that the individuals and the team would set their own goals. And he said, he wrote the fact that people are more apt to hit the goals if they're their own. And I sense that that's what, how you.

feel at your current role at artsy with with great leadership and you being one of them um this seems obvious to me why is this not more prevalent where people have more ownership and are empowered to make decisions to set goals why do you think this is something that isn't normal i think it's partly the culture of organizations and sort of what example is set from the top and so i i fundamentally put this on the executive team of any particular company. And if they're leading with a kind of top down, I set the goals, I tell everyone what to do, I have more of a command and control approach, that's going to trickle down. And you're going to see that emulated by managers that are looking up and taking a cue from the executive team, from the leadership team. So I think this is

kind of at the core of responsibility of an exact team at any company. You have been in roles in the past where you're hiring leaders and you're currently in one of those. I'm curious when you have options probably. You have a lot of people who want to work for you. What are some of the must have qualities and a leader who's going to get hired by Dustin Kim? First one that comes to mind for me is empathy. There are a lot of people that are super smart.

I want someone who is super smart, but also has the EQ. So that IQ, EQ combo. I want empathy for our customers. I want empathy for our users. I want to see empathy for your team, your direct team, as well as your teammates. The second thing I'd say is communication. I think, you know, leaders need to communicate, set a vision, set a strategy, and communicate that, get buy-in for it, communicate in a way that's inspiring and motivating, and then over-communicate and over-communicate and communicate one more time just when you thought you'd communicate and just enough, communicate one more time. So strong communication skills, I'd say, is a second one.

And then the third thing that I look out for in leaders is what I'll just put in a broad bucket of collaboration. A lot of leaders, especially today, need to lead through influence. So I'm looking for people that are great at cross-team collaboration. Somebody that I am hiring to lead a sales organization, for example, needs to be a leader and be seen as a leader by the marketing organization or by the product organization, not just a siloed type of manager. that's one that one's critical that i feel like i learned a little bit later in my career and then when i shifted over to elsevere from lexas nexus um that there's so many different decision makers and if i was

not good with the head of product the head of marketing the head of training HR yeah i was i had to learn that pretty quick that uh it was critical to be able to collaborate with each of them and if you didn't do it well, you're basically done. You're toast. Right. It's not going to work if you can't work with Kros. Even if they have the product people, I remember there are different products you sell and they're different product owners.

And they're constantly on top of you about like our product, our product, our product. You know, and you feel like you're like, wow, how do I manage it? This is new to me. And I feel like I stumbled initially of how hard it is to collaborate amongst all the the others within a business. Yeah. I mean, really mapping out. it sounds kind of pedantic, but being able to just sit down and map out the key people that you need to know that you're going to work with on a regular basis,

understanding what their goals are, helping them understand what your goals and your team's goals are. Just, you know, it ranges from, I think, developing a personal relationship to also just being able to share concretely. These are my team's objectives. What are your team's objectives? How can I help you achieve your objectives? How can you help me achieve my objectives? Yeah. Dustin,

I want to go back to earlier in your career. I believe I read that you started having real internships when you were 15 years old. Is that right? Yes. Like real jobs at real companies, not at Starbucks or something? Yes. So a little backstory. My parents had me when they were very young.

Okay. And I think because of that, They were, they very, they were, they were overachievers when it came to raising me. Let's put it that way. Versus my little brother who was born 13 years later and he had a totally different experience. I'm like, who are these parents? But anyway, they, my father was, is a technology executive. And he very much wanted to make sure that I was set up on a successful path in life.

And so one summer, I was 15 years old, I told him that I was ready to have some sort of a summer job and I wanted to be a lifeguard. And he was like, no, no, it's not going to be a lifeguard. I'm like, come on, I want to be a lifeguard. It's going to be fun. I'll be at the pool. You know, I'm a great swimmer. I've taken lifeguard classes. The next morning, he was standing in my bedroom at like 6 o'clock in the morning with a black suit that he'd gone out and bought from like Ann Taylor.

or something. And he was like, get up, you're going into the office with me. And he, I had, he had landed me an internship on Wall Street. And I, I proceeded to then intern on Wall Street with various banks from, yeah, every summer thereafter. Did you like that? I did. You know what was interesting? I, and to make it even worse, no offense against anyone who works in. internal audit, but my first internship was with an internal audit department, which you generally don't think is like the most exciting part of a business. But I was intrigued and fascinated by business in general from an early age. And I really, I liked the people. I'm a, I like being around people. I like interacting with people. I like working in groups and teams. I think that

you see that reflected in my ultimate leadership style. But I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, enjoyed getting to know different teams and helping them out. How does that impact you as a parent now? Your kids are younger, so they're not quite there yet. But is it are because some some kids would rebel. Like I'm trying to think if I showed up, we have oldest is close to that age now and said, this is what you're going to do. I don't know how well that would go. I mean, in fact, it probably wouldn't. I mean, we don't have Wall Street here, but I'm just wondering how that would go. How was that going to impact you as a as a I mean obviously you and your husband as as parents I think it depends on the kid I mean it's every kid is a little bit different he he felt you could you could take it he knew you

right yeah but it's funny my mom jokes around so my mom is an artist so very different extreme kind of technology uh engineering and then my mom you know an artist a poet a singer you have like the perfect job Dustin I mean you have the perfect job I was I was meant to be at arts built for you I joke around all the time that quite literally it's in my DNA. Like artsy is art ex tech. I am art ex tech, quite literally. That's awesome.

But yeah, my mom jokes around all the time that I rebelled by being square. That's my rebellion to her, who's, you know, this amazing gorgeous. Does she want you like on Wall Street doing this? She wants me, she wants me to be happy. She's always kind of wanted me to, you know, to be happy. And if being on Wall Street and being an executive makes me happy, then, you know, that's what she's after. There was a time in my life where I actually tried to kind of, I was really stressed out and I tried to blame my dad for this corporate business path that I went

down and my mom stopped me and was like, Dustin. I was there when you were applying for Wharton and that was not your dad. That was all you. You were going to that school, come hell or high water. you were taking the GMAT five times, you were hiring tutors to work with you on it, you were like, that was all you. You can't blame that on your dad just because you're stressed out right now. Yeah. But you know what I would say is with my own kids, my philosophy with my own kids is I want to introduce them to as much as possible to help them figure out what they love. But what I say to them, my daughter's seven, so she's a little early,

for this, but my son is nine. And I've said to him before, Mason, it's my job to help you figure out what you love doing and then help you figure out how to make a life of that if you want to. But you have to show up to this too. You've got to try different things. So I'll help you figure out, you know, if you love piano or if you love soccer or if you love, you know, at some point in time, lifeguarding or working on Wall Street. But you have, you have to participate. And that's all I'm asking of views that you participate and you figure out what you like and then I'll help you figure out, you know, where to go from there. This is a random question.

So, in a side, I may edit this out. How is it growing up with a name Dustin as a woman? Oh, I hated it. Now I love it, but I hated it. Can I selfishly tell you why this matter? So we named our youngest daughter, Charlie. Her actual name is Charlie on her birth certificate, C-H-A-R-L-I-E. and it is not Charlotte or anything because part of it is my middle name is Charles so she is

named after me and it is a family name it comes from like my grandpa's it's important to us yeah and the other part of it I'm not going to lie with a little bit was like I like your name I think it's kind of cool you kind of own it and and and I think it it has some leader vibes to it so like that that may sound weird and selfish but like I love it now we love that she's six and she seems to like it, but she does get the, they mark that she's a boy before they see her and all this. And she's like, no, but she seems to like it. I don't know, though. I'm wondering, am I going to face some issues with this? I also think today, like kids' names are a lot more creative. I feel like when I grew up. For you, that had to be tough, though, did it? Samantha or Jessica or Emily, like they were, you know, they were just much more kind of traditional names. Yeah. And I felt like, You know, and kids were like, what? My nickname was Dusty, too. It's like, dusty. Like, what is that? Are you dusty? Ha, ha, ha, ha, you know? It just was, but I've come to appreciate the

uniqueness of it. I do run into issues where people, I then married Tobin, who is Korean. So my last name is now Kim. And so I've definitely run into instances where people expect me to be a Korean man. And if we've only had exchanges over email and then we log into something like this. They're like, oh. Yeah. I thought that too before my dad told me. He's like, no, Dustin's a female. And I remember we had a team offsite checking into a hotel. And we have, they mistook somebody else for you. I remember. And it was a guy on our team? But no, I'm wondering, was there a shift or a point in your life where you're like, now, this is really cool or was it not until you got into like the working world? I was around college that I feel like I kind of just embraced it and owned it.

Did you ever ask your parents why they named you that? Oh, yeah. They, again, they were young and they were hippies. And they had agreed that if I was a boy, they were going to name me Dustin. And they just flat out could not agree on a girl's name. So I'm born, you know, three days later, still no agreement on a girl's name. And so finally, my mom was like, well, what if we spell it with a why to make it more feminine? And my dad was like, okay, cool.

That was it. That was it. I love it. I love it. Speaking of the parenting part, this is another thing I think you navigated really well, where this was an open conversation in our team meetings. We talked about our kids. We talked about life.

We talked about the struggles of the fact that you were, because you were living in New York, we were all in Dayton. And so you were flying to Dayton quite a bit. And I know from a leadership perspective, it was important for you to be present. But that's hard when you have young kids. And I think we all felt that. So it was a big deal when you're in town, but you were in town quite a bit. How do you, like what advice do you give to others now of how to manage being,

I think it's especially harder on women for guys. You can just fly wherever, do whatever, you know. But how do you, how did you manage that? And what advice you give to others to manage this? I don't like to use the word balance because it does all go together, but whatever word you would use to manage home life as well as being present as a leader. Yeah. And I think it was, it's complicated when you're traveling to. So I guess I'll start with kind of those days, those earlier days where I was going back and forth between New York and Dayton. One of the things that I would try to do is really make sure that if I was in, you know, Dayton Monday, Tuesday and then I was home Wednesday through. Friday, that when I'm in Dayton, I am like really fully invested in the team and in being as present for you guys as possible. And then when I'm home, you know, I'm home and I'm fully present

and engaged with the kids. And then that's the same thing even if you're not traveling. If I'm in, you know, this home office, when I'm here, I'm heads in, you know, all in on work here. And then when I walk outside, I've got to carve out that separate dedicated time for the kids. And I just think that that's something that children, it's kind of a nice blessing, frankly, because I was a bit of a workaholic. I probably still am, but a bit of a workaholic pre-kids. And they do force you out of it. And I think you're better when you're not a workaholic and you're not, you know, in work 24-7. It's, you know, some of your greatest ideas come when you're, you know, when you're not thinking about it, right? And so I think just creating the dedicated space for, okay, these are my

working hours or this is my, I'm in, you know, I'm in Dayton, or in the case of my team at Artsy, I go to London for a week every quarter or I used to. And, you know, the kids know, mom goes to London once a quarter for a week. And I think, I guess the other thing I'd say about that is the kids like structure. And so it was easier for them to understand. understand, okay, well, mom's in Dayton, Monday, Tuesday, or mom goes to London once a week every quarter. I find what's harder for them is when it's more of a one-off where it's like, sorry, guys, I've got to go to a really super important client meeting. I'm leaving tomorrow. That's harder because there's just no, you know, there's no structure behind that.

There's a lot of advice out there for working women all across the spectrum. What is some of the advice that's out there that you disagree with or you think is like, I actually kind of say the opposite. Is there like what's out there that? Because I get a lot of these questions and I don't, I'm not really good at answering it. So I may maybe better than me. This is such a like, this is such a interesting topic for me. And it is something that I feel pretty passionate about.

Yeah. I actually have issues with. some of the advice around, you know, I remember when Cheryl Sandberg's book, Lean In came out. Actually, I had just recently had my daughter and I was sitting there feeding her and trying to read this book in the middle of the night. I totally think that women should be all in on their career. I don't think you should hold back in terms of considering a new role just because you're pregnant or wanting to, you know, push for a promotion, even though, you know, you just had a new baby and you're worried about your ability to deliver, for example. Like, that's all, I always tell women,

don't worry about that, park all that, pursue what you want to pursue. Having said that, I think that there's been, in response to that book, there's this kind of what's become a pressure almost, or like an expectation that you do leave. in all the time and that you don't miss a beat and that you never have to slow down just because you are a working mom with kids. It is hard. It is really, really incredibly hard to have a full-time job and raise a family. Like there's just no ifs, ands or butts about that. And I think that you need to be, as as any human, whether or not you're a woman or not, you need to be really in tune with your own health, like your mental and physical health and well-being, and know when is the right time to

lean into your career and push for something more versus what might be a time where you're totally happy and roll and you don't mind continuing as is for, you know, a year or two more. I had actually an experience with Kumsel, one of my favorite leaders of all time, where I had just had Mason and she was moving to another role and was pushing me to consider her role for myself. And I remember having this pretty heated debate with her. And I said, you know, I just had, I just had Mason. I just had a child. I don't think I'm ready to be in this big global role where I'm flying all over the world. And I've got, you know, the pressure of working with Mike, with the CEO on a day and a day out basis.

Like it just, it's not sitting well with me. I don't think it's right for me at this point in time. And she was like, you're making that classic female mistake. You are making a mistake that so many women do. And she raised some good points. Like you would have a bigger team. you've got more flexibility in terms of your own schedule when you're in a more senior role like that. You're capable. Don't think that, you know, just because you had a child that now isn't the right time for you to kind of put your hat in the ring.

But I ultimately decided not to pursue that. I trusted my instinct and I don't regret that. Careers are really long. Careers are marathons. They're not sprints. And only you know what pacing is right for you at, what point in time. And it doesn't mean that I don't have huge goals or that I gave up on those big goals because I had kids. Absolutely not. But I have learned as I've gotten older to recognize when I'm burning out and when I'm tired and when I might need to take it easy versus when I'm ready for a new challenge. You know what's interesting, Dustin, my wife, Miranda was a part of this they called them this empower group. It was all women. They met monthly in person. This was a couple years ago. And they had the speaker come to say, and it was a, it was a female speaker saying

I think the title of the speech was like how to get to the C suite. And she gave the speech and apparently she was really good. But at the end, there was a person who was also part of the Empower group. There's 15 or so people in the group. And she raised her hand and she said, great job to the speaker. But how many of you actually want to do that? And and all the, and Miranda told she's like people were afraid to say anything initially and then they all said i don't want to do that another one said i don't want to do that another one said i don't want to do that and they started they started saying similar things to what you what you just said and these are women who are very bright very strong independent well-educated super accomplished but also very happy with kind of their

home set up and had really good jobs currently but didn't necessarily want to change that and i my thing to me, she was like, in a way, I almost felt bad for admitting that because she was one of the ones that said, I'm very happy with what I'm currently doing. It's a good job, pays well, I'm fulfilled. And, you know, we have lacrosse and volleyball and dance. Right, right. You know, like, I can do that stuff too. So in a way, like, I think it's, I think as a guy, it is also important to just be aware of all of this. And that's partially why I wanted to talk about this with you too. Yeah, I also think, you know what? like Miranda can change her opinion. Two years from now, she might raise her hand to be like, I want it.

Yeah. But, you know, at that point in time, I did not want that. I did not think that that was the right thing for me and for my family. And here I am in a C-suite role now, you know, nine years later. So it's just, it's okay to know when to kind of put your foot on the gas versus when not to. I've also had personal experiences, frankly, where I pushed my, myself too hard, you know, right after having my second, right after having Lila, I jumped back into work right away. Like I didn't really respect the full maternity leave period. And I ended up

with some pretty serious like postpartum anxiety. And I think it's because I pushed it too hard and I was, you know, not listening to my body. I was kind of jumping in feet first, right back into work, trying to prove that I didn't miss a beat and I was, you know, right there and ready for the next thing. And I wish I hadn't done that. I wish, you know, I tell people all the time, women that work for me or with me or around me, respect that maternity leave. You have such a short, it's such a short period of time and your career is so long. Like just focus on yourself, focus on the baby.

Work will be here. your career will be here when you get back. Yeah, Dustin, a lot of people I work with are also newer managers. And I vividly remember this time when I got initially promoted. I partially got promoted because of my athletic background, quickly learned that, you know, there was very little that applied. I mean, I'm leading 10 other guys in the huddle as a quarterback. And then I go lead a sales team at Lexus and which is quite frankly not very good.

And part of why it went well is sheer luck. I mean, a couple of great people got hired and they were good and they helped build a culture. And I was just kind of there and then learn some things, you know, and got a little bit better. For people who are newer into leadership roles and you're working with people like this, you're promoting people, you're hiring people. What are some pieces of advice you'd give to someone in that stage of their career to help them, maybe not make some of the mistakes that either you did or certainly that I did when we were first time newer managers. Yeah.

Well, first I'd say I think you're probably shortchanging yourself because you've got great, you have like a great natural leadership instinct. But parking that, I'd say one of the things I always told newer managers is try to avoid the desire to micromanage and control everything. A lot of times people that are put in. new managerial roles are because they had knocked it out of the park as an individual contributor in that role. So you were an amazing sales rep and now you're leading a sales team. But because you've been in that role, you might have strong opinions about what the team should do and that everyone

should do the role just as you had done the role. When in reality, there are lots of different paths to success and you're going to need every single individual is going to have their own. unique brand of, you know, salesmanship, for example, sticking with the sales example. So don't, don't micromanage either because you've been there before or another thing that I see a lot of new managers do is expect that they have the answer to everything and expect that they know everything. You just come in with this like, well, I have to be an expert in order to be a leader in order to manage this team. And that's just mean to yourself. It's undue pressure. that you're putting on yourself and probably sets up just an unrealistic and untenable kind of vibe

with your team. So I always coach people to, you know, go into the new role with more of an open mind. Share what worked for you. If you were in that role before, go ahead and absolutely share with the team. Hey, when I was in your position, I found that these three things worked really well. you might want to consider them, but don't assume that it's kind of has to be like your way or the highway. And then the other thing that I often coach people around is, this kind of sounds bad, but being too nice, a lot of new managers, I think, try too hard to build a great relationship with people that they're managing. And it's ultimately your job to make that team be successful. And to be successful doesn't necessarily mean that your best buds all the time.

To be successful, you've got to be constantly giving your team feedback. You've got to be working with your team to set goals and then make progress towards those goals. And as you're making progress, you should be constantly giving feedback. And feedback, I think, is something that newer managers can a lot of times be uncomfortable with. And so they avoid it or they avoid more difficult conversations. And I encourage them to lean into it and get training on. how to give good feedback and set that expectation with the team that, hey, I'm going to be giving you feedback regularly and this is a good thing. I'm doing this to help you. And I want you to give

me feedback. Together, we're going to get better as a team in total if we're kind of in this constant coaching dialogue. That is an interesting dynamic being liked and being respected. We can picture people in our mind who maybe fall into one or the other or neither. You fall into both. Is there a conscious decision that one's more important? I assume respect's more important than being liked, but you kind of are both. You are both.

So what do you think is the proper formula to be both respected and likable? Yeah. That's a great question. I would start with, you know, one, I guess I would say don't overthink it. But my sort of from a first principles perspective, if I think about my own career and my own style, I'm going to focus on, okay, what's the challenge at hand? What's the right strategy for this team? What's the right?

Even if it's a project, right? Let's say you're just managing a particular project. I'm going to sit down and spend some quality time with myself and first figure out what is the plan. What is the plan? What are we trying to get to? like what's our end state goal? How are we going to get there? And then I'm going to work on building out that narrative to share back to the team. This is our goal. This is how I'm thinking about how we're going to get there. What do you think? Does this make sense to you? What would

you change? What would you approach differently? All right, are we ready to kind of stack hands and then go? So I'd start with that piece. That is you're worrying more about the, I guess this is getting more at the respect angle in terms of like go in there with a solid plan and approach. And the likability will come later as you're in the trenches and working together on executing that plan. I wouldn't necessarily get in there and be like, all right, come on, we've got to go out for pizza and beer. Do that too. And do both well. I think also that comes from just show like listening and caring and showing that you actually don't view them as an FTE but they're a person and somebody that you're you're going to listen to. I mentioned to you before we were

recording that I remember I don't know if you remember this but we went to a Dayton dragons game a minor league baseball team here in Dayton. We had a suite for the night and we sat there. I sat next to you for like 45 minutes and I think we talked about your family, talked about your upbringing and talked about getting your MBA at Wharton. And I remember just being like, wow, I went home and said it was just so great. I don't think we talked about work or career at all other than just kind of getting to know each other on that level. And I think that's where some of the likeability can come as well, where I was like, Dustin's obviously really smart.

I'm not really in her league. But I also like really like her and the fact that that she seems has like a really cool story and is close to her parents, which I relate to a lot. And I think that's part of it too of just being willing to kind of share more about you and be curious and be a good listener and show that you care. Yeah. You know, again, I earlier on in my various management roles, leadership roles, I tried not doing that. I tried the likeability thing. And then I just tried to back away from that. I like auto corrected too far.

I went too far to the other extreme. It was like, I'm just going to be like, you know, insert corporate CEO name. I'm going to be like him, him, right? Wearing a, you know, a maybe pinstriped suit with a red tie, and I'm going to spout out statistics and facts, and I'm going to like, you know, just come in with this like authoritative perspective. And it just didn't work for me, frankly. it didn't work for me. And I think you've got to be kind to yourself in terms of recognizing what

does and doesn't work. And also confident. Confidence comes into play in a really big way here. And I think for me, as my confidence grew, my leadership improved. So as I gained confidence with, you know what, I am confident enough to just be myself in this role. I am confident enough to tell the team when I don't know something. I am confident enough to stand behind the plans or the recommendations that I am putting forward. And you get positive reinforcements then from your team giving you positive feedback that this is working or, you know, the executive team giving you positive feedback that this is working. And you kind of learn how to flex your style for different audiences. But most importantly, I learned how to just develop and stick with what worked for me. But I had to have the confidence to do it.

And one of the things that I tell women all the time, because I think women struggle with this more than men is you've got a, you might have to fake it for a bit. You might have to be like, ooh, this is uncomfortable. I'm not sure if I want to, if I want to try this. And I would say, you know, pretend you are Beyonce, whatever, whoever it is, walk out there on that stage as Beyonce, because it's too uncomfortable to walk out there as Dustin and do that. And once you get into that kind of, once you like fake it or act it a couple different times it starts to get more comfortable and again you get the live feedback loop in terms of oh this is working and i'm more comfortable okay i'm gonna i'm gonna keep going with this but you've got to push yourself you know bioncé um use the name sasha fierce do you know about sasha fears yes so sasha fierce was like a made up person she had to create because she was so nervous she was terrified right yeah and And eventually she said she got to the point where she didn't need Sasha Fierce anymore, but I think it took a couple years.

And I remember, I've written a lot about this and thought a lot about it because I know, like I get up on stage a lot and especially when we meet in person. And that's a big part of what I do. And my hope is that it looks like I just walk on stage with a lot of energy and like I'm not nervous at all. And like it's no big deal. I'm just talking and oh, look at the. the colorful slide, you know. Yeah. But I mean, the nerves are like underneath the surface.

They're like nothing I've ever felt. I mean, I played at Michigan of the 110,000 people. I think giving a speech in front of 200 is more nerve-wracking than that. And you could actually die playing football. And so I think there's a lot to that part, Dustin, of I don't, not necessarily fake. Yeah. I mean, trying to think, I talked to Ryan Sourhan. He's another New York guy, a real estate broker just recently. And his whole thing was I tried to sell myself on the person I'm going to become. And I thought, huh, I never really thought of it that way. That's interesting.

And it actually, I kind of liked it because it's kind of out there and wild, but is more not naturally like that. And it kind of became that. And I sense that that's what you're talking about here. Yeah, that's right. That is right. And you've got to get the just like a sport. You've got to get the reps in.

You've got to keep at it. and then it kind of becomes second nature. But one like really tangible thing that I did when I was much younger, I used to turn, people who know me when I was younger would attest to this, probably giggle. But I would turn bright red if I even opened up my mouth to speak in a room. And I finally got, I figured out this little trick for myself where it was like, if I said something earlier in a meeting, so we're in a big comment.

conference room, it's full of, full of people. If I could get myself to say something, anything, anything, even like I agree or isn't the weather great outside today, if I could get myself to say something in the first like 10 minutes of a meeting, I was okay. And eventually, once I figured out that little like hack for myself, I kept doing it, kept doing it, kept doing it, kept doing it. And then eventually I got comfortable speaking in front of these broader groups. And it didn't have to be within the first five minutes. And I was comfortable saying more than a sentence. And now look at me, I don't shut up.

That's a good point, though. Like get one on the board early. Like in football, I remember my brother playing defense. He's like, I just so badly want to get a tackle, like get a good hit on the first drive. And now you're like, then you settle into the game. And I think there's something to that. And for me, whenever we won the coin toss, at times I was. captain for most of the teams. My coaches like defer defer,

meaning we want our defense to go first. And sometimes I would be like, we want the ball because I wanted to get a rep like immediately. I want to get on the field as soon as possible to get into the flow of whatever it is and the same thing can be said in a meeting. Dustin, this is great. One more question. So there are people earlier in their career, maybe recent college grads. And I know you work with a lot of people like this. And so they're coming to you quite frequently. I'm curious, are there a couple of general pieces of life slash career advice that you would give to somebody

who maybe graduated a year or two ago, the pandemic aside, but graduated a year or two ago to say, hey, Dustin, like, I love what you've done, male or female, doesn't matter. I love what you've done career-wise, family-wise. I'd like to do something similar. What are some things you would tell that person? Yeah. I'd say two things. The first one is I always tell people, you'll remember this from Lexus, I'm still telling people

to stand out and speak up. So stand out, be great at what you do. Don't have that come into question at all. Be the best at your role, whatever that role is. And put in the time, go the extra mile, just be top of the pack. But also speak up about what you want and where your interests lie. I think a lot of people earlier in their career make the mistake of assuming that because they're great, they'll get, someone will come to them and offer them the next great role that opens up on the team or, you know, a team lead role, for example. And it's like, I'm so disappointed that I wasn't considered for that. And I always ask people, well, did, you know, did Ryan know that you were interested in being a team lead? No. Okay. Well, that's, that's a problem. So I always tell people,

think about who it would be good to inform and chat about what your career goals are. It could be me, it could be your manager, it could be that you ultimately want to work in product. And so you start networking with the product organization and, you know, let a key manager over there know that you're ultimately interested in moving into product. You've got to speak up and kind of advocate for yourself. The second thing that I would say is, have a goal in mind, but be flexible about how you get there. Oftentimes, I see people get way too rigid in terms of, you know, I'll give a personal life example as opposed to even a career example. I want to be married by the time I am 29 years old and I want to marry, you know, a guy who's

six foot two with blue eyes. Versus I know I ultimately want to. want to share my life with someone and start a family. Very different kind of mindset and ability to work towards that end state goal and be successful. And so, you know, back to the work example, it could be, okay, I want to work in product, but then it might not be a straight path to product. It might mean that you need to move up in sales and then move like lateral or lateral to down into product and you might need to take classes on nights and weekends in order to kind of get the skill set that you need. But just put a goal out there and then be flexible enough to recognize when opportunities come along that might help you take a step towards that end state goal.

Love it. Dustin, it was so good to catch up and have you share your wisdom. Let's keep doing it. Whether we record them or not, I'd love to keep doing. Every time we talk, I learn something new. and I'm very appreciative of you, especially the time of my career. When I had no idea what it was doing, I felt like we could help each other a little bit where I shared some sales knowledge and you certainly shared how to be more strategic and how to be more of a general manager when I had no idea what I was doing. So huge, huge, you made a big impact on me. How long did we work together?

Was it a year and a half maybe? I think it was, yeah, just under two years. I remember when you called me and told me you were taking a different role when I was so sad. more so more so just because I you know I enjoyed working with you and likewise I was learning from you also it was fun I remember being so nerd I was actually glad you were in town I mean I wish I could say like I'm a tough guy I am a tough guy and I walked in and told you I was so glad that I that I that I made the decision at a time when you were not in town so I could call you because I was so I just hated I felt like I was letting you down.

And I thought like, oh, no, I got to tell her I'm taking this other job. But then eventually, of course, you were like, oh, I'm so excited for you. That's a big step. And that made me feel a little bit better. But I did feel temporarily like, oh, this is going to be brutal to tell her this, you know. But it was okay. You know what? I always tell people too, especially people, you know, like you.

It's like, I've got your back. I'm on your side. And so I always tell my team, like, don't, you know, don't feel afraid to talk to me about, hey, I think I'm ready to move on XYZ opportunity. And that could be on my team or not on my team. But I've got your back. Anyway, I still have your back. I'm in soon. Thank you. Thank you. I got yours too. I really appreciate you. It's so good to talk to you, Dustin. Anytime. I have been very fortunate in my career to have worked for some incredible bosses. And Dustin Kim is one of my all-time favorites, as you can probably tell from listening to us talking. I'm very happy that we got this one.

on tape. A few of my notes, key takeaways. The very end is the pieces of advice. Stand out and speak up. Be exceptional at your day-to-day work. Whatever your job capacity is, be so good. They can't ignore you. And then secondly, as Dustin mentioned, do not be afraid to tell your boss, your boss's boss, other peers and colleagues, what you want in your career. If you want to make a lateral move or move to a different part of the business, make sure people are aware of that. Now, never forget that your first job is to be excellent at your current role, but make sure people know what you want to do.

They'll probably be more likely to help you if they know. And then that combo of confidence, humility, and authenticity, I think you could probably tell just in the stories in the way Dustin told them that that is how she is. And it was one of the reasons she is one of my favorites is because she would walk into our meetings and not be afraid to share her true, honest, sometimes emotional thought. about family life or her boss or challenges she was going through and asked us how we could help her. But then at the same point, she could turn on a dime and share this incredible strategy for how we're going to solve a problem and grow our business. And it was evident every single meeting, Dustin was the smartest person in the room. So I loved that combination of confidence, competence, humility, and authenticity.

And then the advice from one of her favorite bosses, I advise you decide. We are teammates here. We're working together. And I like that approach of having people a boss or others in your life who advise, but then it's on you to make the decision. And then one of her must have, or I guess two of her must have traits and a leader, the combo of emotional intelligence and high IQ. EQ plus IQ is what she wants in a leader. And I think that is a fantastic combination because it brings both empathy and high levels of competence in order to understand people, but also get the job done. Once again, I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did.

If so, I'd love it if you would tell a friend or two. You should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Dustin Kim because she will help you become a more effective leader just as she is. And because you continue to do that, you give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon. Can we?