Dr. Christie Smith: How Human-Powered Leadership Can Thrive in the Age of A.I.

Episode recap:

Marcel and Dr. Christie Smith discuss the challenges of integrating technology, generational differences, and shifting demographics in the workplace, emphasizing the importance of human-centered leadership. They also highlight the need for a commitment to development and learning in organizations, the importance of human intelligence in a digital age, and the impact of the pandemic on social interactions and gender equality in the workplace. The conversation concluded with a discussion on the importance of emotional maturity in leadership, the need for leading with love and cultivating insatiable curiosity, and the importance of employee well-being in the workplace.

Bio:

Dr. Christie Smith is a voice in human-centered leadership and organizational strategy. Known as “The Humanity Expert,” Smith spent decades guiding Fortune 500 execs during her time at Apple, Deloitte, and Accenture through the complexities of modern leadership. She’s the co-author of ESSENTIAL: How Distributed Teams, Generative AI, and Global Shifts are Creating a New Human-Powered Leadership. Smith is the founder of The Humanity Studio, a research and advisory institute dedicated to improving the way we live by revolutionizing the way we work. 

Quotes:

• "We are at a unique time in history as leaders with this confluence of issues that we are meant to solve, not only within our organizations, but within the communities in which those organizations reside."
• "Leadership is feeling paralyzed. Only 25% of leaders are thinking of doing something differently, and a single digit percentage are actually positioning to do something different within their organizations."

Takeaways:

• Schedule weekly 30-minute "curiosity conversations" with team members where you ask open-ended questions about their work, challenges, and aspirations - without digital distractions.
• Audit your organization's skill development programs: Are you truly investing in upskilling employees, or just paying lip service? Create a concrete plan to close skill gaps across generations.
• Practice emotional agility by preparing mentally before each meeting, understanding the unique context and emotional needs of the participants - treat each interaction as a distinct human experience. 

Timestamps:

[00:04] Introduction

[03:06] Growing Up in a Competitive Family Shaped My Leadership

[05:11] The Biggest Challenges Leaders Face (And How to Fix Them)

[11:42] Why Human Intelligence Still Beats AI in Leadership

[18:00] The Truth About Generational Gaps in the Workplace

[27:30] How the Pandemic Set Women in Leadership Back $2 Trillion

[35:05] Workplace Well-Being Isn’t Just Perks—Here’s What Matters

[45:08] The #1 Skill Every Manager Needs to Support Their Team

[47:29] These Three Leadership Skills Matter More Than Ever

[51:59] The Simple Leadership Shift That Changes Everything

Conclusion:

Real success comes from valuing employees as people, not just workers. When companies support their growth, well-being, and sense of purpose, they create stronger, more motivated teams. A workplace that fosters meaningful development and genuine connection leads to better outcomes than one focused only on output. Prioritizing people in this way doesn’t just improve morale—it builds lasting success for both individuals and the organization.

Links/Resources:

The Humanity Studio - https://thehumanitystudio.com/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiesmithphd/

Book -

Transcript

Marcel Schwantes 00:04

Hey, welcome back to the show, and if you're new, welcome, welcome. We hope that you get to stay with us for a while. So many of you are leaders, many of you are executives, and so well, here's a question, do you struggle to kind of juggle the pressure to integrate this, this crazy, fast train ride that we're on with technology and generative AI with this, this ever changing shift in demographics and the employees that are coming in with the employees that we already have, plus we got four generations now under the same roof. Okay, so expectations differ, right with people. So how about that? Are we struggling with merging all of that, all of those worlds together to, you know, maximize productivity, having a great company culture, etc, etc. If you are thinking, Yeah, I think you hit on a couple of points there. Marcel, well, enter Dr Christie Smith. She is our guest today. She is a voice in human centered leadership and organizational strategy. So she's this is going to she's going to speak exactly to a lot of those things and more. She's known as the quote the humanity expert. She has spent decades guiding fortune, 500 executives during her time at Apple, Deloitte and Accenture through the complexities of modern leadership. Now she is the co author of a new book called essential, how distributed teams generative AI and global shifts are creating a new human powered leadership that was published by Wiley just earlier this year. We were recording this in February. The book was released in January. So basically, Christie and her co author, they're offering this new blueprint for the future of work based on their research. All right, so a little bit about Dr Christie Smith. She is the founder of the humanity studio, which is a research and advisory institute dedicated to improving the way we live by revolutionizing the way we work. Her work has been featured all over the place, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, see and I can go on and on and on, okay? Christie received her doctorate in clinical social work with a focus on leadership and culture from New York University. And Dr Christie Smith, now joins us. Welcome to the love in action podcast. Thanks,

Christie Smith 02:46

Marcel. It's great to be with you, and I'm a big fan. 

Marcel Schwantes 02:49

Oh, awesome. Well, I'm now a big fan of you after I got this book, I'm like, Huh? I gotta have her on the show. So

Christie Smith 02:55

Well, I'm deeply appreciative of that, likewise.

Marcel Schwantes 02:59

So here we are. So we start like this. You ready? Yeah. What's your story?

Christie Smith 03:05

Yeah. So you know, everything stems from the fact that I'm the youngest of eight kids, and that says everything about me. I grew up in a competitive marketplace. You got to brand yourself early as a kid I was, I was the girl Jack in the family, so continued to identify as that, despite being in business for so many years. But I grew up at a time in New Jersey, that was the 60s and 70s where, you know, we were seeing much of the same issues that we're faced with today, with regards to human rights, civil rights, women's rights, the Vietnam War, although we are not experiencing the Vietnam War, we certainly have involvement in Ukraine and in the Middle East. And so these are things that I grew up around the dining room table talking about with my siblings and my parents. And my parents were remarkable human beings, and that, you know, for many reasons, but most specifically they, you know, shared with us and taught what taught us that, as you know, a white, middle class family, we had privilege and we had an obligation, and we had an obligation to be the voice of the to the voiceless, of the voiceless, and to lean into these issues and have a point of view and an educated point of view, and to fight for the rights of everyone. And it didn't matter if I was the youngest, it didn't matter any of our station in the world, meaning the colleges that we went to, or anything like that. And it certainly, as I went into to, you know, the work world, it didn't matter that I was a newbie in the work world, I still had a right and obligation to be the voice for the voiceless, and so that. That's carried me my entire career. That's

Marcel Schwantes 05:02

awesome. What a message, my goodness. So I hinted a little bit at the book, but in your own words. I mean, how would you describe essential? Yeah, this is

Christie Smith 05:11

a book that looks to acknowledge, first and foremost, all of the issues that leaders, leaders are facing today and the humans within their organizations, we are having a lot of conversations that are one off conversations in the market about either AI or socio political issues or the skills scarcity. And we're we're having single conversations. What we attempt to do in this book is to bring all of these issues together and to say that we're at a unique time in history as leaders with this confluence of issues that we are meant to solve for not only within our organizations, but within the communities And with those organizations reside. So it's not just AI that is a headwind. It is AI skill, scarcity, political issues, war, economic issues. There's a plethora of things that leaders now have to lean into, and their role has fundamentally changed as a result.

Marcel Schwantes 06:20

My goodness, yeah, so many intersecting points now that when you talk about, like, you know, coming out of the pandemic and being hit with generative AI that you mentioned, I mentioned shifting demographics, you know, people younger generations. I don't think it's just younger generation. I think people in general now expect this flexibility that they discovered during COVID, where work life integration really makes sense, and I can do that during work, right? And so now it's an expectation. So the old playbook no longer works, and you mentioned something really key, and I thought maybe we could start with that discussion. It's the the skills scarcity, yeah, gosh, and well, here's how I see it. We were sort of that we reached. I think we're there now where AI and innovation is creating the need for skills that we well, that we actually need. But I think for a lot of companies, they don't even know that they need it. And then we're bringing in these people that are entering the workforce that may not have the skills, the right skills, to work with new technology. Yeah, the skills scarcity did I? Did? I do that right? Or what would you add to that? How do Yeah,

Christie Smith 07:39

yeah, no, I think that you summarized that perfectly. I mean, listen, we are, you know, in such a period of innovation when it comes to not only technology, but automation, data analytics and what it can tell us and where it can point us into solving problems are developing products or services, what have you. But the half life of skills is getting shorter and shorter and shorter, and in the United States alone, right now, we are at a 4.6 million deficit of workers with the right skills in the marketplace. Oh, my God, by 2032 it's predicted to be 6 million. That's a huge economic issue for not only organizations, but for our society. Interestingly, leaders, the skill for leadership is is also half. Skills are shortening interesting. What got leaders where they are isn't going to get them where they need to be, or their organizations positioned for growth, or their employees positioned for productivity. We interviewed 1000s of leaders and to a C suite leader that we spoke to, 100% of them said they know they need to do something fundamentally differently with all of these things and technology being the most and skills being, you know, the highest. And yet only 25% were thinking of doing something so a single digit of those were actually positioning to do that do something different within their organizations. So I think leadership is feeling paralyzed,

Marcel Schwantes 09:31

yeah, so let's project out maybe, I don't know, 510, years. I don't know if you, if you can look into your crystal ball, how do we fix this skill scarcity?

Christie Smith 09:42

Yeah, I think we need a commitment to development learning in a different way than we ever have in organizations. You know, heretofore, right? I think that listen, Marcel, I know you, and I probably share I did when I was in the corporate. World, the phenomenon of we wake up in the morning. We're on a zoom teams, whatever format, you know, back to back to back to back to back. Yeah, right. And that's whether we're at home or in the office. This is a phenomenon, right? We have not made time in our schedules around expectations of productivity and how AI can help productivity. We've not made time in our organizations to focus on the development of our people, and we have to think about structuring work fundamentally differently in order to have significant time spent on up skilling and re skilling employees.

Marcel Schwantes 10:44

Yeah, it's really, I mean, I look at it from an HR perspective, that's my background. It's, it's really deconstructing the whole talent management process that we built over the last two, three decades. Is what you're saying.

Christie Smith 10:59

Yeah, I and I don't think it's just hrs responsibility. Yeah. I mean, listen, you know what, what leaders have done for decades is abdicate the responsibility for the humanity within their organizations to the CHRO and their team, with very little team and very little resources, that game's over, and that's part and parcel. Why we wrote this book, is that this is down to every single solitary leader in an organization to take ownership for the people that are within their organization and the development of those people, and to be as obsessive with that as they are with the dialog around AI.

Marcel Schwantes 11:38

Okay, this is good, okay? And I think this segues really well to human intelligence, which is, yeah, a big part of your book. So you talk about investing in human intelligence. Let's put some, some, some definition to that, basically that leaders must realize where, where humans may excel over machines and technology, that we may have an advantage over AI in some aspects of business and the workplace. So talk about what that human intelligence is, and then how do we leverage how do we leverage that in the digital age?

Christie Smith 12:17

Yeah, so we talk quite a bit about human intelligence. Sitting aside artificial intelligence, human you know, artificial intelligence is backward looking. It's looking at data that is historical. It can provide insights, not necessarily the answer, right? Much of that data has been constructed or developed from a homogeneous set of individuals, right? And is it reflective totally on the the entire population? So what? But what AI does artificial intelligence is really critical, and it's important. What it does is help us synthesize all of that data against the right questions that are asked with regards to solving an issue or getting insights. Now, human intelligence is well, what is the quality of the questions you ask? How do you ask questions? Right? The intelligence of asking those questions? Secondly, discernment on the answers that you get, being curious about the answers that you get, not taking them for gospel, but then researching around that, understanding the context of which the results that you get from our artificial intelligence, well, how is that going to impact what's the context of the individual, the team, the product, the customer, as a result of those, you Know, suggestions from AI or from the output of AI, what is the governance around AI? What are the risk controls around AI? All of these things are resident in the human and how do we engage and this is the important thing. It's the connection. How do we engage in conversation around the data to ensure that the outcome is meeting the goals of our customers, our clients, our growth objectives, the culture of the organization we're in? So

Marcel Schwantes 14:39

that not only takes cognitive ability, but I'm thinking the way you describe that scenario. I'm thinking emotional intelligence. I'm thinking into discernment, intuition, curiosity. You mentioned, gosh, what else? Self awareness and being able to detect what's going on around around you, maybe even you. Non verbal communication, like body language, right? Exactly. Those are all skills that that we don't or the AI is not able to replicate. Yeah, yeah,

Christie Smith 15:10

yeah. I mean, and it comes down to, you know, how do you ask a question, and then how do you ask the next question. And the further question, you know, I mean, AI is only as good as the questions we we pose, right?

Marcel Schwantes 15:28

Reminds me of, I'm, I'm an executive coach, and now you're talking about, Gosh, I use a lot of that in my coaching process. Is what questions come What? What questions do I need to ask? And then how do I follow up with the next question based on what I'm listening on what I'm into? It in, well,

Christie Smith 15:49

yeah, it's tooting, yeah? So

Marcel Schwantes 15:53

because I think the power of questioning helps you to make the right decisions and problem solve around issues 100% Yeah, yep. Okay, that's interesting that that is. That's the edge we have over artificial intelligence, for sure.

Christie Smith 16:15

And I think even as artificial intelligence evolves, and you know, people are getting excited about the emotional piece, and, you know, mapping our brains and all of that, I don't think it will ever replace all the things that you just said and that I said is that, how do you read a person with this Information? What's the context in which they're showing up, and the problem of the client or the customer or the product, all of these things do require that emotional, physical connection another. So

Marcel Schwantes 16:56

is there room to develop upskill, reskill, whatever you want to call it employees or even leaders in in in respect to those competencies, those skills, is there room to develop them in those areas? Well, there's

Christie Smith 17:13

absolutely room, if a leader makes the decision, this is the priority in my organization, right? They have to recognize it first. Right now, you know AI is a side of desk effort for most people. You know 25 only 25% of people are actually engaging with AI despite it being in their organization and in very rudimentary ways. What you know, whether that is recording a zoom or teams meeting, you know, maybe using it to ask some basic questions or to write a code. But I don't think that we have yet figured out what humans need to learn, how they learn it and make and, most importantly, make the time to learn it.

Marcel Schwantes 18:02

Yeah. And wow. And then there's your part of your skill scarcity, right there?

Christie Smith 18:07

Exactly, yeah, exactly. All right, let's,

Marcel Schwantes 18:11

I want to transition to generational differences. So, you know, we have four, I think, four generations now working together, some under the same roof, so in your research, tell me what surprised you the most about generational differences in and really how employees now coming into the workplace, we got Gen Z, and we still got boomers who have not left, and how they view leadership the workplace and company culture.

Christie Smith 18:44

Yeah. I think a couple of things have surprised me with with the the research. One is that they're actually more similarities amongst the the generations and so, and we don't necessarily talk about that, and I'll get into that in a second, yeah. The second thing is, you know, we when a new generation has entered into the workforce, we have vilified those generations. We have said they're lazy. They expect too much. They want leadership roles without putting in the effort. They don't want to work the way, you know, I, as a boomer, grew up and worked. They're not loyal all of these things, you know, we are, you know, tying one hand behind our back because we've just judged, judged, Judge, the next generation coming in. And what's wrong with them? Yeah, so I think, you know, I you know, what we hope that we are addressing is, yes, there's some differences, but there's a lot of commonality, and we've got to stop this nonsense with pointing the finger, right? I mean, I think I'm blessed in that. You know, I'm a Gen Z and a boomer body. I, you know, I, I love the way, you know, the younger generation is thinking about how they fit work into their lives. Interestingly, boomers absolutely want the same thing. Boomers are looking for the flexibility, the time to fit their their work, into their lives. A lot of boomers, late Gen Xers, are really thinking about their legacy, right? You know, they've been very, you know, command control, because that's the environment. You know, our generations grew up in command control, you know, pushed. It made a lot of money for the company, a lot of things to be proud of. But I don't know if this is your experience as a coach. It's my experience is that when the leader is about five years out from leaving their company and retiring, whatever that is today, but, you know, retiring, it's all of a sudden, like, oh, I want my legacy to be about mentoring and people and the culture and the planet. And it's kind of like, really, you think this is a you know, and but those are the values that they they grab onto that our Gen Zs on the other end of the spectrum and alphas are saying this is critically important now in our businesses and our careers. So I think that you know the generational differences we absolutely have to create for all generations within our organizations a sense of purpose, and that purpose in the organization is tied and explicit in the work that I'm being asked to do. That is the biggest thing we have to address. And we have to address, not so much these, I think, exaggerated differences of the generations, but rather embrace, okay, how does this challenge us in the way we innovate with the way we think, the way we interact with our customers and our clients, and we're not taking the power of those perspectives just like the perspectives of people who grew up in different countries. It's very different if we mute all of that diversity in age and in experience and in where we grew up, and what socio economic, you know, paths we took to getting to the roles we are. If we ignore all that, we're not really innovating and we're not going to connect and grow with our customers. You the 100%

Marcel Schwantes 22:39

everything you said, I do see a tendency, and I think that's its media, media, media's tendency to to want to project that kind of negativity on the latest, the youngest generation coming in. Because the same things that I'm hearing about Gen Z, the complaints, if you go back to when the millennials were coming, coming into the first it was the same things, same things I was here hearing back then as well. That's right,

Christie Smith 23:06

right? And well, and it's they're challenging the way work's done. Yeah, right. And maybe that's a really good challenge. I mean, when you think about Marcel, all of these return to Office mandates that have come down. I mean, that is that's applying a 20th century solution in a 21st century world. Yeah. You know, it's archaic in some ways. Now. I think some roles have to come back to work. I mean, if you're sitting on a bench in a life sciences company, you got to be in the office, right? Manufacturing, yeah, manufacturing, if you're on the front lines, all of that, we have a failure of imagination when we have these mandates to think that, well, this is going to solve for the connection piece. This is going to solve for the apprenticeship piece. I mean, I grew up in two huge organizations that were virtual in terms of working, that probably have the best apprentice programs in the world, in Deloitte and Accenture. So I think that, you know, we've got to listen. And, you know, there was a great phrase when I was at Apple, was, you know, rock tumble. We have to rock tumble these issues, rather than dismissing it because somebody's 25 and not 45 in an organization. Yeah,

Marcel Schwantes 24:26

and I know plenty of Gen Z years and client companies, and even people that I know in my own social social circles that would welcome mentoring opportunities by older Gen Xers and Boomers, right? They want that, especially, I think, because, I mean, a lot of them came into this, this world of work in the middle of a global pandemic, and I don't know they, they got thrust into 100% remote work settings, and I don't know if they were able to, kind of. Raise their their capacity to to deal on the on the soft skill side, the human side of of work, because also now you know you're, you're, you're basically meeting your team members over tiny squares on a computer screen. Well, what does that do to how I interact and relate to people? Right? So I think that there's a lot for younger generations to benefit from. People like you said that might be looking on the way out, might be looking to leave a legacy. Okay, you know what this world of work? Yeah, I've put in 30 years. It was good. I paid the bills, I bought homes, I put my kids through college, but now I'm looking for like, I'm looking at the sunset right on the horizon, like, Yeah, can I serve humanity? Right? And Gen Z are perfectly positioned to benefit from that, well,

Christie Smith 25:57

and the reverse mentoring, right? Oh, he's teaching the, you know, old dogs new tricks, so to speak. You know, I think that you know, one of the things that I found fascinating during the pandemic, and we saw this with some of our research, but I'll give a personal anecdote. I remember, you know, my kids were in school at that time. I mean, they still are. They were in, you know, middle school at the time, and, you know, we worried incessantly about, you know, social development and who they were going to hang out with and all of that. And I remember agonizing, you know, as the coming out of the pandemic. And afterwards, my son was still playing video games. I'm like, Jake, you gotta get off the video games and go, you know, play. Go see your friends, go get on the bike, do whatever. He's like, I am seeing my friends. Like, what do you mean? He goes, Well, we're all on the game, you know, and that's how we're socializing and talking. And then I remember, because I was, you know, so worried about this listening outside his door when he was on and the conversation and the laughter and all of that was happening, you know, through video through the video games, connection means. What that taught me is that connection means something different in these younger generations than it does in the more mature generations, if you will. And it's not right or wrong and it's not either or, but it's a blend of the two. And how do we teach those capabilities that both are right? Both work in terms of social interaction, but we need to have more agency ourselves to say I need this more, or to develop this, or to have a mentor, or be in an apprentice kind of role, and organizations have the ability to create that.

Marcel Schwantes 27:56

Yeah, yeah. Okay. I want to transition to a sensitive topic that for a lot of people, okay, and that's women in leadership. So and I need your help here with the data, because I'm not completely on top of the researcher, but I know that there was a mass exodus of women from the workplace during the pandemic, many of them in leadership roles. So maybe let's rewind back to the to that time, timeline of 2021 I think 2020 Yeah, because I I don't want history to repeat itself. If we have another pen, God forbid, right? Or, knock on wood, here you have another pandemic. But I want to, I want you to take us back to what caused so many women leaders to leave in droves and and hopefully. I mean, are we seeing a return, or is this still the case? Yeah,

Christie Smith 28:52

so during the pandemic in the United States alone, the exodus of women from the workforce cost us $2 trillion a year. That's remarkable. Women make up over half the employee base in most organizations, yet you will not see that reflected in senior roles. I mean the fact that for decades and decades, we've been talking using the measurement of women in the CEO suite as the measure of, oh, you know, women have made it. We're only at 10% of CEOs are women. Now. Is that better than the last couple of years? Yeah, but it's pretty pathetic when you look at the number of women and people of color for that matter. And this is, this is 10 times harder for women of color, right? The representation of the these women in organizations is, is well over that of men, right? And so the fact. Fact that we're not actually turning the dial or promoting women into leadership roles and using the same old excuses as we've used for millennia. Well, they're going to have children, so we're going to make the decision not to give them the big job or Well, she's going to end up going out on maternity leave anyhow. Oh, they just, I mean, these are things I've heard personally. Oh, she just got married, another two years, she'll be out on pregnant, you know, on a on a leave, and then she's not going to want to come back or do the hard jobs. I mean, this is, frankly, crap that I've heard for nearly 40 years in our workplace, and it's costing us an exceptional amount of money to to, you know, our country, in the United States and globally, frankly. So you know, the the the arguments, and this is why we need a mindset shift in leadership is, you know, we will not survive. We are at a skill scarcity. Going back to what we talked to earlier. We don't have the right skills in the right places to execute on our strategies within our organizations. If you cut out half the population, over half the population women, you are now really not going to be able to get the right skills in your organizations to meet your business goals. You simply won't buy sheer numbers, right? There has been also, you know, a lot that contributes to this globally is we don't have the right care for child care, or we're not putting enough on men on those basic needs at home. So the issue of women in the workforce, sadly, continues to be really an assault on our ability to economically grow, and an assault on women's, you know, capabilities to take on significant roles within our organizations. So

Marcel Schwantes 32:15

are most of the obstacles in the minds of of male dominant, dominant decision makers at the top of the hierarchies that still think, like, okay, so, yeah. I

Christie Smith 32:25

mean, I think that is true. I have hope for, you know, Gen Z. I have hope for xers as well, the younger Xers, who are saying, you know, young men in particular, who are saying, Hey, I don't want to, I want to take paternity leave, and I want it to be long. I want to be home for my kids, you know, as much as my wife. I mean, there's more quality there that is a social shift in our organization. I mean, in our in our world, not enough, you know, not enough. But yes, this is this still. Is that rooted belief that in organization there's one archetype for leadership, and that is the straight white male. Yeah, and I'm not bashing straight white men, but this is a reality that it continues to permeate our organizations. And you know men that research is really clear on this, men are promoted based on what we think they're going to be able to do. Women and women of color 10 times harder. Have to prove over and over and over and over and over again that they demonstrated a set of behaviors in order to be promoted. It's not an equal playing field. Yeah, yeah.

Marcel Schwantes 33:44

So how do we fix this? Is it a question of mindset, or is it a question of strategy, hiring, promotion? Maybe all of the above, all of

Christie Smith 33:52

the above. Yeah, it's all of the above. I do think this is where leadership and the board become CEOs, in particular, in the C suite, become incredibly necessary to saying enough is enough. I mean, this the whole dialog now around dei and companies who are removing policies and companies that are doubling down on it. I mean, you look at my old company, Apple and the board saying, you know, we are not backing away from our values as a company, right? And we are continuing to double down on this, the demonstration of how they Well, a of doing that, how they do it, you know, is, and you you look at, you know, there are a lot of women who are in leadership roles at Apple, right? There is a absolute commitment to not make this 4567, priority on their list, but make it number one, number two, just as much as getting a product out. Yeah, and that's that's really what's going to be needed again, is. Is not the CEO saying, oh, you know, I'm going to give this to the CHRO or the chief diversity officer again, with very little resources and very little power or influence, you know, and go solve for the humanity in your workplace. That's a failed strategy. Leaders have to own this themselves.

Marcel Schwantes 35:17

Yeah, that's good. That's good. Okay, let's transition to well being. Okay. The word well being, well being could be one word. Maybe there's a dash in there, depending on what your dictionary says, it's an overused buzz word that now has taken on multiple, multiple meanings. Some of them are misinterpreted the wrong way. So define for us what is workplace well being? Yeah,

Christie Smith 35:49

so let's take a look at where, where this became popular, right? I mean, this really, this whole notion of well being. It's certainly been around for a long time. There were Maverick companies like Johnson and Johnson, who built their corporate Athlete Program that was all about the whole human and all of that really landmark work that they were doing. Or, you know, Microsoft working with Michael Gervais from finding mastery that really focuses on the mental, spiritual, physical, well being of their top leaders. These are really fabulous things, but it became popular around the pandemic. Coming out of the pandemic is how do we you know, I think it was the first realization that organizations saw themselves as societies themselves, and in society, we not only care for the financial well being, so it's a broad definition, but the emotional well being and the physical well being of our employees and those within our communities and so well being is come to the forefront because of a demand of employees for their organizations to have these things, not as just benefits, but part of the cultural norms of The organization that we care for in leaders, the financial, the emotional and the physical, well being of our employees, because there is, you know, a gain in productivity, commitment, loyalty and health of our of our people as A result of doing so. So it is an outgrowth, you know, more broadly, from the pandemic, but also because employees are demanding it. Yeah,

Marcel Schwantes 37:51

yeah. Okay. So help me to spell out, though, let's, let's build around each of those so financial well being. I'm assuming it has to do with fair compensation practices that you are, you're paying what you're worth, etc, right? Is there more?

Christie Smith 38:08

There's fair compensation, right? There's retirement, so 401, K is things like that. There is fair transparency around you know your financial well being there's fair and equitable decisions being made in performance. You know cycles where you know the financial rewards, whether that's stock, or whether that's a raise or bonus. Are, you know, available and equitable across the board? So that's really, you know, financially, how we care for it, financially investing in my development, my growth and development of new skills or of degrees. I mean, many of the companies I've worked with, you know, paid for graduate schools, yeah, and so it's that kind of thing.

Marcel Schwantes 39:12

And not to go down this rabbit hole, but I just want to make sure that the financial well being we touched on women in leadership roles is to make sure you know that we are addressing that whole gender pay, pay and yeah inequities, right? Yeah for sure there. Because if I, if I know that I am a a woman in elite or any role with the same exact skill set and qualification as my male counterpart, and I'm being paid $30,000 less, that's an issue for me, for well being, that's going to impact my emotional and mental well being

Christie Smith 39:47

and my commitment and my productivity. And, you know, I think too, that one of the big things that we have to remember here is the way that. Social media has become a tool for for exposing bad practices within our organizations. I mean, there's a reputational risk to leaders themselves and to their organizations based on the plethora of avenues an employee has to, you know, write an open letter. You know, use things like fish bowl. You know that that, you know, reputational risk is a big thing and customer risk is a big thing. There again, we're seeing this play out largely in, you know, companies like Target, who you know, I, you know, have decided that to roll back their DEI efforts. Well, that's costing them quite a bit of money right now.

Marcel Schwantes 40:51

Okay, okay. And then the physical well being is, for me, is like, if you know, if I'm in a manufacturing environment, is make sure that they're safe, that I'm physically safe. Is there any other other ways to physical well being?

Christie Smith 41:05

I think safety is number one, right with with, you know, just on a, as you say, manufacturing, or working on a wharf, or whatever manual labor jobs that there are to make sure there are safety protocols in place for physical safety of and emotional safety, frankly, of those employees. But it's also memberships at gyms, the stipend for that. It's all the preventative medicine work that one might do if there are organizations, you know, again, the organizations that I've been a part of have been very generous in terms of gym memberships and repaying those, all of those things around our physical well being, meditation, providing apps for meditation, providing employees With an, you know, a device that reads their biorhythms. Those kinds of things have become so much more important as a preventative measure for health issues on the job. Yeah, right.

Marcel Schwantes 42:16

Oh, and then my favorite is, of course, emotional well being, because I'm thinking, oh my goodness, this is, this is sort of the world I live in as an executive coach. Is how to how to apply more so that there's healthy communities, there's healthy connections, people feel inclusive, there's belonging. Am I missing anything else on the emotional well being side?

Christie Smith 42:40

Well, I think it's the resources. So if you think about and I'm sure you're seeing this, you know, over 57% of all workers globally say that they're burnt out. 54% of leaders say that they're burnt out or have had a mental health issue over the last year, right? That is significant and related to the anxieties of work. Gotcha So, things like better help, you know, having those resources that you know beyond an ERP, you know, unmind is a phenomenal resource for organizations to take advantage of and provide for their employees. So this is really about a safe environment in which employees can get their mental health cared for.

Marcel Schwantes 43:38

Yeah. And again, folks, we're talking about, yeah, yes, and we're talking about removing that responsibility from HR. There's no longer HR sole responsibility to make sure that we have a wide scope of health, emotional, physical and financial, even spiritual, so that our our workforce is, is running on all cylinders and being productive Exactly,

Christie Smith 44:05

exactly where. I mean, you know again. I mean, I will say to you, you said, you know earlier, you know, you pray for for the fact that we don't have another pandemic. We are in another pandemic. We are in a mental health and emotional pandemic today, with the rise of anxiety, addiction, depression, suicide at work, all of these things are catastrophic today, right? We're not dealing with it. You know, some of the other things around well being is, what are the resources? I as a parent who may have a kid on the spectrum or a Down Syndrome kid or, you know, a learning disability, or a parent who is, you know, suffering from dementia, you know, all of these things. How can my organization provide the resources that I can get the help needed to manage. Things

Marcel Schwantes 45:00

interesting. So I'm going to throw another one a little monkey wrench for those of us that work in remote or and or hybrid settings. Okay, this is a leadership question. What role does relationship building, if you're a manager, play and the emotional well being side of the equation.

Christie Smith 45:26

It's a huge, huge role. I mean, in some ways, if I'm if a manager is keyed in to their employees and spending enough time with their employees, whether that be a remote or in person. You know, this goes to, you know, we wrote about in the book what we call the need for emotionally mature leaders. And you know, this is, this is not emotional intelligence, which is really all about me. And you know, how apt Am I to be compassionate or transparent or to communicate and all that kind of things. You know, emotional maturity is an evolution from emotional intelligence to emotional maturity in the suspension of self interest. Well, one of the key differences in this suspension of self interest and interest in the humanity within my workforce is this behavior of insatiable curiosity, building this kind of need, not just curiosity, but insatiable curiosity about my people and managers haven't been trained on how to ask questions, especially across difference. If you know you're talking to somebody who's a different gender or different race that you know, people are terrified to do that for some reason, which I, you know, have never had a real understanding in my career. I know some circumstances that haven't worked out well, but you know this idea of knowing your employees and what is going on with them, and know them well enough to know if they're having an off day, just by the their voice, if they're having they're having an on day, if they're distracted, all of these things are really important. So in some ways, managers and leaders are the first responders. Yeah, yeah.

Marcel Schwantes 47:14

Okay, this question 1015, years ago, may have been the answer to this question, which you're about to give, because I know the answer may have been counterintuitive and kind of you know that that one eyebrow raised look, but what is the new power skill in leadership in the year 2025

Christie Smith 47:37

Yeah. I mean, it is about this kind of curiosity, okay, new power skills. You know, soft skills have always been kind of poo pooed, not taken seriously. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I need to be empathetic. I need to be able to be transparent or communicate. You know, all of these things that you know, the soft skills are, in large part, a lot of those emotional intelligence, skills, empathy, all of that. You know, Satya Nadella is the first one who said, you know, soft skills are the new hard skills of leadership. And 100% no leader was prepared for the pandemic. And again, this is where this became popularized. Again, is that no leader was prepared for the emotional toll and the fear and the anxiety that was collective in our societies around the world when they were dealing with their, you know, businesses and the people within their organizations. You know, I did a study where I interviewed 600 CEOs and the CEO just coming out of the pandemic. And what skills do you need? You know, you need to develop more than any you know, transparency, empathy and caring, compassion, right? And they were, like, completely lacking. I know how to run the business. You know, I grew up with a phrase that my mother used to say to my father, you know, Charlie, don't be logical when I'm being emotional. Leaders have won out being logical for decades. Yeah, that's not going to work anymore. Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes 49:25

I love how you come full circle with the title of the book, essential. You will end the book with chapter nine as the essentials of leadership. So I thought we then there, and like to ask you, well, I mean, if I want, I'm a CEO, and I want to shift my leadership culture based on those essentials of good leadership. What do you recommend?

Christie Smith 49:50

Yeah, I think there are three that we talk about in depth, in the in the in the book, and these are around this notion of emotional maturity. And this is. Intention of self interest. I talked a little bit about this. I as a leader. It's not about me, it's how well I care for the team. Construct and architect the team, all of those things, the behavior of insatiable curiosity, really knowing what each team member, what their headwinds are, what their tail winds are? What are their skills? What do they need to develop? How does their work tie to the rest of the team's efforts? Right? So that they feel as though their work is connected to purpose? The third is this notion of emotional agility and contextual competence. You know, emotional agility is, again we talked about this, is that most leaders that we talk to are back to back to back to back meetings. Each meeting could be vastly different. It could be a customer on one meeting. Now I'm going to an employee review. Now I'm going to a product development review. Now I'm going to an economic you know, how do I spend time preparing and being emotionally a Agile to be present for each of those scenarios and prepared? And how do I understand the context of what my people are faced with, how they're coming to work? What are the things that are those one hands tied behind the back that I as a leader can help that employee with? Yeah, they can be as productive as possible.

Marcel Schwantes 51:32

Okay, we are almost at the speed round. But before we go there, I just want to make sure, is there something we have not covered that our listeners absolutely have to know.

Christie Smith 51:44

Yeah. I mean, I think that I think leadership is at all levels. I think that we don't have to wait until we're in a position a title to do to be an emotionally mature leader. I think that starts from the minute you walk into your organizations, we've got to stop looking at people within our organizations as a set of competencies and as humans, and that will be the differentiator between fully productive and growth and not productive and loss of customer. You know, commitment, absolutely,

Marcel Schwantes 52:22

absolutely. All right. Ready to have some fun? 

Christie Smith 52:25

Sure. Bring it on

Marcel Schwantes 52:27

Speed round. I'm going to throw questions at you. You zip them right back at me. Or here we go. Best book you've ever read,

Christie Smith 52:35

essential.

Marcel Schwantes 52:39

Why didn't I see that coming? Yeah, all right. Name one simple practice we can start doing today to increase engagement,

Christie Smith 52:51

talking making time and talking to your employees and your colleagues.

Marcel Schwantes 52:56

There you go. Okay, best way to minimize conflict,

Christie Smith 53:00

seek to understand,

Marcel Schwantes 53:03

yeah, okay, best way to motivate someone who's underperforming

Christie Smith 53:09

find out what makes them really excited.

Marcel Schwantes 53:12

Okay, name a person dead or alive that you would love to have dinner with.

Christie Smith 53:18

Oh, my God, so many I toto from f1 who runs the Mercedes team. He and his wife,

Marcel Schwantes 53:28

Oh, wow. Okay, all right, we're gonna have to tag, tag them on LinkedIn. My god, they're great. Yeah, your biggest hope for the rest of 2025, I

Christie Smith 53:44

equality and equity.

Marcel Schwantes 53:49

Congratulations. You have survived the speed round.

Christie Smith 53:52

Excellent, excellent. This has been so much fun. Thank you.

Marcel Schwantes 53:57

All right, we bring it home, as we do with every guest. There's two traditional questions. This is how we end the episode, and the first one is the love question. Pick anything we've talked about as a leader. How do I lead with love, actionable, practical love, day in and day out,

Christie Smith 54:16

is to is to be exceptionally, insatiably curious and make with no distractions about the person you're speaking with. Nothing makes a greater impact than eye to eye, no distractions. Tell me about yourself. Sure,

Marcel Schwantes 54:34

cultivate insatiable curiosity. Those three words are really going to be embedded in the back of my mind for days and weeks to come. Okay, bring us home. Christie, that one thing that you'd like us to walk away with,

Christie Smith 54:50

that we're all human first and with a set of competencies second, and our organizations, our societies that need. To thrive with everyone's input and engagement.

Marcel Schwantes 55:04

Yeah? And that goes right back to the first, the first piece, the human, the human part, Yep, yeah. All right. Well, if people want to connect with you, where can they go? Send us to a couple of places, yeah?

Christie Smith 55:18

So LinkedIn, at Christie Smith, PhD, and my business, The Humanity Studio. It's the humanitystudio.com, and for the book, smith-monahan.com.

Marcel Schwantes 55:34

Perfect. There it is. Again, the cover, if you're watching on YouTube. And again, the book is called essential. It's a long subtitle, essential, how distributed teams, generative, AI and global shift are creating a new human, powered leadership. It's been a blast, and oh my gosh, so much fun. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. We're gonna have to do this again. I would love it. All right, folks, you can keep the conversation going on social media with hashtag love in action podcast and look for my show notes, as well as a YouTube link to watch this show everything, including all of Christie's contact info and websites are going to be on my website. marcelschwantes.com, for Dr Christie Smith, I'm Marcel Schwantes, and remember love well and good things will happen. We'll see you next time you.