Shedding the Corporate Bitch
Welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch – the podcast that challenges the status quo and empowers bold professionals to ditch outdated expectations, rewrite the rules, and rise into leadership on their own terms.
Hosted by transformational coach and unapologetic truth-teller Bernadette Boas, each episode delivers raw insights, unfiltered conversations, and practical strategies for ambitious corporate professionals, executive leaders, and HR trailblazers who are ready to level up—without selling out.
Whether you're navigating toxic cultures, battling burnout, or aiming for that next big role, this show is your weekly dose of motivation, straight talk, and real solutions that get results.
Follow now—and start shedding what no longer serves you, so you can build a career and life that actually fits you.
Shedding the Corporate Bitch
Openness and Honesty in Action with Grace Gavin
Are you truly being 100% honest and open with your team—or even yourself? What walls might you be building and what fake personas might you need to shed to become the powerhouse leader you're meant to be?
Are you ready to transform your leadership style by embracing real connections and genuine communication? Join us on the "Shedding the Corporate Bitch" podcast as we dive into a transformative discussion with Grace Gavin, co-founder and author of Know Honesty. In our latest episode, we explore the undeniable power of open and honest communication in the workplace.
Discover how honesty and openness can lead to significant financial gains, enhanced leadership collaboration, and stronger team relationships. Grace shares her expertise, offering actionable insights and six pivotal practices for transforming your team interactions.
Highlights include:
- Understanding the three essentials of honesty
- Identifying and overcoming the great divide in workplace communication
- Practical steps to eliminate fake interactions and break down walls
- How empathetic leadership can turn you into a powerhouse leader
Ready to ditch the corporate fasade and foster a culture of trust and transformative communication? Tune into this episode to unlock your potential and that of your team!
Download Your Free Lead Magnet: "The Open & Honest Leader's Toolkit"
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Don’t forget to revisit this episode for a refresher or share it with colleagues to foster a collective journey in becoming powerful leaders.
For personalized guidance, reach out to Bernadette at coachmebernadette.com/discoverycall for a free 30-minute strategy coaching call.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how open, transparent and honest are you with your team members and yourself? According to various studies, a significant majority of employees value open and honest feedback in the workplace, with statistics showing that around 75% of employees believe feedback is important, while over 65% actively desire more feedback from their managers. However, less than 30% of employees regularly receive it. Yet open and honest communication helps to deliver significant financial gains for companies, improves leadership, collaboration and creates trust, human connection and transformative communication.
Speaker 1:Our guest, grace Gavin of Know Honesty, is here to guide you through how you can develop the skills needed and to stop overcomplicating it, which is what is causing the fear and avoidance with your people and yourself. Grace is a catalyst for open and honest communication and effective leadership, and, as co-founder and author of Know Honesty, she empowers leaders to simplify communication and eliminate organizational gaps, allowing you to be the powerhouse leader you're meant to be. We will discuss the impact the lack of openness and honesty has on you and your team members. Also, the great divide in how you show up and how willing you are to open up to others. Lastly, the six practices that can transform one's relationships with their team and selves. So stay with us.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch, the podcast that transforms today's managers into tomorrow's powerhouse leaders. Your host, bernadette Boas, executive coach and author, brings you into a world where the corporate grind meets personal growth and success in each and every episode. With more than 25 years in corporate trenches, bernadette's own journey from being dismissed as a tyrant boss to becoming a sought-after leadership coach and speaker illustrates the very essence of transformation that she now inspires in others with her tips, strategies and stories. So if you're ready to shed the bitches of fear and insecurity, ditch the imposter syndrome and step into the role of the powerhouse leader you were born to be, this podcast is for you. Let's do this.
Speaker 1:Grace, how are you Welcome? Welcome, welcome.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me. I am pumped for this. Let's go.
Speaker 1:I am pumped as well. Let's talk honesty. Let's talk vulnerability, all the things that make corporate professionals really uncomfortable. Before we do, I always like our viewers and listeners to get to know our guests on a more personal level, and so could you share with us a little bit about Grace.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so many things to tell, but I grew up as the youngest of eight kids on a dairy farm. So if you want to talk about chaos and miscommunication going on which leads into what I do now but there was a lot of it going on in my household didn't know that that's how it was defined. Then growing up and going through all of that, being a student, a really a lifelong learner, and just recently married my husband in June. Married my husband in June. He also happens to be a farmer, but at least this time around he is a fruit farmer, because if anybody has any kind of farming background in your life, they'll understand this.
Speaker 3:But my mother always told me, never marry a farmer, and I didn't listen. But it's okay, because her mother also told her that. And so we're just continuing on the trend. Maybe when we have kids someday they'll listen to us. But we just got married in June, having a fantastic time of that, getting through the busy summer season of craziness, and then we also have Congratulations. Thank you, thank you. And then, to round it out, I have a lovely, crazy three-year-old golden doodle named Nova and she loves to eat anything and everything. Can't leave anything out on the counter. She'll tear up paper. She is a hot mess, but we love her to death. So that's a little bit on the personal side of things.
Speaker 1:For me, that's sweet I have to share. I'm one of 12. So I understand the chaos. I understand just the craziness and the communication. Just the craziness and the communication. And now let me ask you was it those kind of elements of your childhood and upbringing that got you into this particular discrete area of work which is all around you know? Openness, honesty, transparency Did that have your? Did your childhood have anything to do with that?
Speaker 3:yeah, absolutely, because growing up we I didn't realize that everybody else was doing this too but we were kind of projecting this version of a perfect family and I knew for sure we were not perfect. But I was looking around and seeing all of these other quote-unquote perfect families. I was like what, what's going on here, why? Why is it just us that we have this chaos going on? And then, as I grew up, I realized, oh, it wasn't just us. Everybody was really great at pretending.
Speaker 3:And then I went into the workplace and turns out exact same thing there. Everybody says, oh, we're doing great in business and actually they might be really struggling for sales or their team is kind of falling apart, but nobody feels like they can really share that with people. There's just this fear or lack of vulnerability which then leads to an inability to help each other. Right, like, if we're struggling, how can we help each other if we don't know what's going on? And that's on the negative side of things.
Speaker 3:But on the other side of things, I'll talk to people and they won't necessarily know what it is that they want for themselves. And then it's like, how do we help each other go towards that if we don't know what we want as well. So there's a negative side of we're not sharing what's not going well and the positive side of things we're not sharing what it is that we really want so we can partner together and move towards those types of things. I just saw that happening all the time, thought it was just me. Turns out it's absolutely not, but that means that we can definitely do something about it, which that excites me being in action, moving towards goals, making things happen, making life better for people, whatever that looks like and it looks like a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1:Right? No, I absolutely love that and it's so true. So it may seem obvious as to why, especially in a business environment, people are hesitant to open up, to be vulnerable to you know, be transparent. We'll have another conversation about the honesty side of this, but for right now, what have you found to be the core reasons why, in the workplace, you know, the degree of lack of openness and vulnerability is lacking?
Speaker 3:I think there's two reasons for it, and reason number one is that we don't really understand what we mean by openness and honesty. So I'll give you the definitions of that in a second, because it is different than how we think about the phrase just open and honest when you initially hear it. But I think the other part that goes right along into that is that we don't establish the expectations we have for communication. Like, how often have you walked into a business or a corporate space and said this is how we communicate with each other, very clearly, very plainly? Not often. And so to us it's really important to get that clarity to start, because then we can know the path that we're going down. And so, just to be clear on the definitions here, by honesty we mean being truly and freely yourself, speaking into what you want and how you feel Really important. That's the vulnerability, the authenticity, all of those pieces in there.
Speaker 3:Honesty is about you, but what we often get wrong and I see it happen with clients all the time and individuals all the time is the openness side of the equation. So we have honesty. That's about me, it's all about me in this section. Well then, there's somebody else in our conversation right now. Right, bernadette, there's you, right? So openness is listening without reservation, putting your needs and wants on pause for someone else. So then I'm able to make it about you. And how often are we really doing that in conversations? I would dare to guess not a lot, and we're not making it very obvious. That's what we're asking for.
Speaker 3:So that's the part we don't understand what we what we're asking for when we're asking for people to be open and honest, and on the other side of that, we're not creating the clear expectations of that of your boss saying hey, I want you to be open and honest with me. Here's what I mean by that. Here's how I exhibit it, because it is a they're muscles to build. It's not just I'm going to be open and honest with you. This is something that we continue to work on. You're always developing more into being truly and freely yourself, right? But are you also developing your ability to listen without reservation to others? Because when you can help somebody feel heard and respected, aka help their honesty be received, then it goes in tandem that you're going to have your honesty received as well on the other side. But if I'm not open to you, man, I should not expect for you to be open to me. That is not how that's going to work, and I just think it's a huge miss that we gloss over.
Speaker 1:No, I absolutely agree with that. That screams from your explanation to be genuinely caring about what the other person's saying, not sitting here thinking, okay, what am I going to say next, how can I showcase my expertise, but it's truly just being very present in what it is grace is saying to me, so then I could just appreciate that, take that in and then if I have something thoughtful to say then I say it. Would that paint a picture as to what many struggle with is being present and in the moment, in that engagement?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, because if you think about the world around us, how often do we have the opportunity to really be present, even just with ourselves but with the people around us? How often are we really present? A lot of times we're trying to do multiple things at a time multitasking. And you know, science tells us we're not great at multitasking and that's really upsetting to me because I like to think I'm really good at it.
Speaker 3:But when we put multitasking in the space of communication, if I'm trying to listen to what you're saying but then I start to pre-populate like you're saying what I'm going to say next, well I've lost the ability to really listen to you, which means I'm losing probably about 50% of anything that you're going to say. I'm only responding to the first half, not letting you finish the entire sentence, and then I'm not. Shouldn't be surprised when you disengage from the conversation, and maybe that's you can think about it. When you have team members who kind of just nod their head. They're trying to wrap up the conversation. Have it be done, because they know it doesn't really matter what they're going to say next and we just we do it all the time to people. I'm just as guilty of it.
Speaker 1:I work on it every single day, yeah sure and I was guilty of it for a really long time in my corporate career where how it came across was I would then ask a question that was irrelevant to what it is that was being talked about, or they had already answered my question and I was so in my head and disconnected to the conversation, worried about okay, what kind of question can I ask? To challenge somebody? Or to, you know, point out something that they might be, you know, saying wrong, that I, all of a sudden, I'd get these looks like that was just disgust, that was just asked, that was just responded to and that can really create some disengagement, would you?
Speaker 3:say yeah, absolutely, that is such a good point too. Like we're just so stuck of how do I, how do I look smart, how do I add to the conversation? Sometimes the most addition you can have to a conversation is I look smart, how do I add to the conversation? Sometimes the most addition you can have to a conversation is just by being open, just by listening to the other person, because this, this stat's going to blow your mind, because it blew my mind. But we walk through our days and we only feel heard 5% of the time, 5% of our day. Yeah, exactly. So if you can increase that 5% for somebody by 10%, you're doubling it and it's still not nearly enough. It's insane. So sometimes the best thing that we can do is just be open to the other person.
Speaker 1:Right Now. Openness, though, can really trip people up, I would think, Because when I hear open, I also hear I need to kind of share me, I need to get personal, which is where that discomfort comes from for many people. It used to for me. And you're not necessarily saying I have to kind of put out on a silver platter every personal thing about me personal you know thing about me. You're also saying that I just need to be open to what it is that you're providing and receive it, and kind of make decisions and appreciate it and respond to it accordingly.
Speaker 3:Does that make sense? It does, it does, and the transparency sharing all of the things comes in the honesty side of the equation. And the thing that's important to remember is the context in which you're in. Right, if we're in a work focus, is this conversation helping us move towards our goals, whether that goal is building trust as this team, or maybe you have a defined project that you're working towards, and there can be different factors that impact that.
Speaker 3:I remember a couple of years ago now, but my dad passed away almost four years ago and there was a thank you. There was a conversation that Ken and I were having just before a meeting and he checked in with me and said hey, I don't know what's really going on, but I don't feel like you're really here right now. What's happening? And I had to look at him and I got kind of angry, but through no fault of his own I got angry and I said my dad just died. I have no context for how I am supposed to go through this and it is affecting every single part of my work. It's like and I and I appreciate he was really great about, you know, giving me the space that I needed to process that and whatever that looked like going through that Cause. If anybody's been through a grief journey, it's messy and it doesn't always work out on the nine to five schedule, but we have a conversation about that and so that's just a little bit of context. So maybe that's a personal thing that comes into the workplace, but it impacted how I was showing up and we need that level of honesty to continue working together as a team.
Speaker 3:And I think we're way stronger for it, because that's not a situation that he had been through by any means, but by helping him understand, he could see my perspective a little bit more and understand okay, how do we continue to work together, knowing that this is something that you're going through and knowing that we still have these really clear objectives that we need to work towards to serve our clients well, and then we figure out what is, what does that meet in the middle, what's that collaboration look like?
Speaker 3:And we still work together two years later, two plus years later, right, and that was that could have been a huge miss of connection, a huge miss of communication, but we worked through it and then we continue to do that with every single thing. I don't want people to think you nail being open and honest, and then you're just. You just have easy conversations, great, all the time. No, there's there's still conflict, there's still disagreements, all the things that go through it, but it's just an ability to walk through that easier together and to do that in a way that still moves both objectives forward mine and his and ours together and would you say that in that, was it your anger that kind of made him observe that you must have been going through something?
Speaker 1:or was he observing, as part of being open and the two of you engaging, was he observing not only your, your tone and your attitude, but also your body, your, and he was kind of processing that to then really kind of determine that you were going through something and he needed to pay attention a little bit more closely in order to recognize what you were telling him and sharing with him and being open with him about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think we'd have to ask him for certain, but I think that was all part of it. Right, there was a certain level of distance that I had when you go through a grief. It just kind of to me at least it felt like I was in a bubble, that everything was still happening around me but I couldn't quite touch it. I was a little distance and things like that. And what that meant to me, looking back on it, is that I had a less of an ability to honestly share where I was at, and what he did was use some openness in there, got curious and said, hey, what's going on here? And helped me work through that. Because I needed that freedom that I didn't realize that I didn't have at that moment to talk about that and to understand how does this play out in a work capacity. Because I still wanted to work, I still wanted to engage, I still wanted to make things happen.
Speaker 3:It just had to look differently for a time.
Speaker 1:For a time, which is the key. These things could be for a moment a time, and then there's other things that should be more consistent. Yeah, absolutely Now the honesty part I mentioned. I wanted to come back to that because the honesty part to many, automatically they twitch around the fact that I'm being honest, I'm not lying. What are you talking about? Why are we talking about honesty? It goes a lot deeper than that and broader, correct?
Speaker 3:deeper than that and broader, correct, absolutely. And honesty is about the words that you're sharing, but it's also about being truly and freely yourself. So we have, let me give it to you in this context, we have the three essentials of honesty. So the first one is truly and freely yourself. That's all of the things that are attached to you, how it feels to be truly and freely yourself. I think we I get people asking me a lot like how do I know if I'm truly and freely myself? Well, it's a continuing journey. Okay, the more you know about yourself, the more that you learn. And the second essential we have is the true condition, which is the facts and reality side of honesty. The question is do we have the true condition on the table, aka do we have everybody's honesty around the table? Because if we don't, we're not really going to get to the root of an issue, we're not really going to solve what's going on here, because we're missing a key part of the puzzle. And then the last essential of honesty, the third one, is about you, because again, that's where the spotlight is shining on you. That is your opportunity to share your opinion, your thoughts, your values, your perspective on, let's say, the project you're working on. That's your opportunity to share, really important.
Speaker 3:Because then we have to have the openness on the other side of it, and I think what people maybe don't realize in their honesty is, I'll say, in the delivery of it. How about that? Because a lot of times we say we're being honest, but what we're really being is brutally honest. And so that's a good question for the listener. You say you're being honest. Well, in what way are you being honest? Are you being brutally honest? Because then people are not going to receive what you have to say. That shuts down somebody else's openness. Immediately it's gone. So are you doing it in a way that's 100% honest, yes, really important and 100% loving, giving it with love and care for the other person? If I'm about to give you feedback, bernadette, how do I do that in a way that helps you grow and succeed? Because if I'm going to come at you brutally and say this was terrible, well, are you really going to listen to anything? I say after that, no, absolutely not, and say, hey, I'm bringing this to you because I care about you and the work that you're doing here. I'm bringing this to you because I care about you and the work that you're doing. Here's some ways I could see you improve, here's how I could help, et cetera. So that's part of maybe the delivery part is where people are struggling to actually receive your honesty, and I think that's a huge part of it.
Speaker 3:And then the other question is yes, you're being honest, but to what degree? Are you being 100% honest every time? Are you being 10% honest? Are you being maybe 15% honest? Because 15% honesty is not going to help us. It's not going to help us in our personal lives, it's not going to help us in our professional lives, Because that means we're only getting to 15% of a solution and that's hoping that somebody else on the other side is also 15% honest. They might be less, and how do we figure that out together? So, are you really being 100%? Less is the question.
Speaker 1:Political honesty is the thing that jumped out at me. You know there's honesty Like I'm going to be just as honest as keeps me safe, keeps you know or strokes someone's ego. You know right, absolutely. That's such a good point. You mentioned the word love in there. Again, that's a word that gets you know a lot of professionals uncomfortable when you do it with love, share it with love, give the feedback with love. How do you break down people's walls and resistance to recognizing that we can introduce empathy and compassion? But how do you help leaders recognize that if they bring their heart into it and they recognize the heart of the other person, that it's much more effective than what they might be perceiving as a strong leader, being commanding and being almost dictatorial?
Speaker 3:Well, the first question is would that work for you If somebody was being dictatorial with you? Would that work for you? Because I certainly know it would not work for me. I'm pretty opinionated. I need somebody to come alongside me, help change my mind in a way, that is, with love.
Speaker 3:And so if you're adverse to the word love, fine, use respect, use care, whatever it is. But what it really is is love. And the reason I say it's love is because, no matter what business you're in, you are working with human beings. What business you're in, you are working with human beings. And so if you want the love, the care, the respect that you expect or that you deserve because I do believe everybody deserves it then we need to be able to give it freely to others. And maybe they're not great at giving it back to us initially, but as you continue to build that relationship, going back and forth with openness and honesty, I promise you that theirs will increase too. They might take a little bit. They might not have anybody else in their life who has that love, that care, that respect for them. I promise you, if you keep doing that and bringing it back to it and saying I'm coming in with this, with love with this person. I'm coming in here with love. You will start to see that on the other side, because it's just, it's human connection. It's human connection. We want to feel that love.
Speaker 3:And then maybe one other piece that's really clear here. We're not talking about romantic love, okay, I'm not expecting you to marry your coworker, go on a date with them, whatever. That's the different kind of love. This is the love of care and respect and wanting for growth for somebody else, and it looks a lot of different ways. Sometimes it does look like really tough feedback. I'm giving you this feedback because I care about you, because I love you, yeah. Or I can say, hey, you did a really great job on this, and that's another version of love, another version of care, another version of respect. But what we can't do is shy away from that and just be nice to one another, because nice can get really ugly, can get really insidious. I'm just trying to be nice, I'm just trying to be nice. Well, what happens when your niceness spills over and they find out that they actually did horrible on this presentation? They practiced with you, but you never told them that.
Speaker 1:Not so nice and you know so, when it comes to open and honesty and transparency, what is this divide that you talk about?
Speaker 3:so the divides that we talk about? There's two, and so what listeners should know about no honesty is that we're. We're really here to keep everything simple, tangible and implementable, because this stuff can be hard work. It's hard, and I'm not trying to add more to your study guide and I want it to be simple for you. So these are the two divides that we talk about. Number one is Because this stuff can be hard work, it's hard, and I'm not trying to add more to your study guide and I want it to be simple for you. So these are the two divides that we talk about.
Speaker 3:Number one is called fake you. You can probably imagine what I mean by that. We know what it's like to be fake. This is the premise of what you're talking about, right, bernadette? So that's huge and that's what blocks us from honesty. Is fake you, this facade we project rather than being 100% honest.
Speaker 3:If you would have seen me at networking events six years ago, woo fake you all over the place. It was terrible and I left them exhausted. I avoided trying to go to them and, by the way, never made any good connections. Certainly didn't get any clients out of that time. So fake you, one of the huge divides it's blocking us, because what that really means is that somebody can't connect with you really, and if somebody else is being fake, you can't really connect with them Drives me crazy. I see it all over the place. So that's one.
Speaker 3:And then number two. The other one is what we call the wall, and the wall is the divide we put between ourselves and others, rather than being 100% open. So, in your mind, I want you to just quite literally imagine a brick wall. If I put one up between you and I, what happens to our communication? It's gone, it's done, and we do this all the time to people in our lives. And taking it a step further, okay, so if I'm putting up a wall here and a wall here and a wall here and a wall here to all these people in my life, because I am just unable to listen to them, let alone listen without reservation, let alone put my needs and wants on pause for a moment, and then I have all these walls around me All of a sudden, I'm pretty lonely and I'm pretty isolated and I'm pretty disengaged. And so, looking at the people around you, is that happening? Are you putting up a wall to them? Are they putting up a wall to you and, a lot of times, what it takes to break it down.
Speaker 3:Yes, there's a lot of conversation and things to work through, but it's initially just talking about these things as concepts and what's going on, because we don't necessarily recognize this is happening to us. I see it happening with clients all the time, the light bulb moment, like oh yeah, I do that all the time. And I had a client actually I brought them back in and we were in a review and I said, all right, tell me about where fake you is happening and where the wall is happening. We'll probably hadn't seen them in six months or so. And so they were thinking about it and they were thinking about they're like it's actually a lot. It's a lot harder to follow examples because now I see it everywhere and now I know how to eliminate them. Like that's what we're talking about. But if we don't realize that, if we don't understand how that's happening in our organizations and in our relationships, we're just going to keep living with them.
Speaker 3:It's just going to keep impacting us, hurting our ability to communicate, hurting our ability to connect, hurting our ability to move forward in any positive or meaningful way and so recognizing where are you being fake you? Where are you putting up the wall and then bringing that to the people you're in relationship with, sharing with them? Hey, here's this thing that I learned from this podcast. I see it happening all the time in my life. Is it happening with you? Does it happen between us? Oh, that would be a really interesting conversation. I would love to be on a fly on the walls for it.
Speaker 1:But, like that's, when you start to solve the interpersonal things going on and build a stronger relationship, that actually gets some really exciting things done and I love that because it also creates great visuals the way you explain it, so people can kind of just sit back and just contemplate for even 30 seconds as to whether or not they are creating those walls or being that fake you, yeah. So I love that. Now you also have, and your book might touch on it. And I wanted to mention your book. You know again, no Honesty, and anyone can pick it up on Amazon. Just go to Amazon and look up no Honesty. But you talk about six practices in regards to transforming relationships. Can you give us a very abbreviated breakdown of what those six practices are? And then I'm going to ensure that all of our listeners and viewers go to Amazon or go to tinycc forward, slash no honesty book and get her book. But could you walk through that?
Speaker 3:for us? Yeah, absolutely. We've already hit on a couple of them, so I'm going to move pretty fast through them. You stop me if you have questions, but I get really excited about these if you have questions, but I get really excited about these. And just before we jump in, for the listeners who aren't watching with us, it's no honesty, k-n-o-w. A little bit of play on words there, but K-N-O-W honesty.
Speaker 3:So the first of the six practices that we have, bernadette, is called the assessment. This is where people are going to get the real-time data on where they stand with their ability to be honest and to be open. Then we take it a step further. We break it down into your personal life and your work life, because sometimes those can look different. Fake you, showing up at work means it's not showing up at home, or maybe vice versa. That way you can be laser focused on where is communication hurting your relationships the most and how to move forward solving. So that is the assessment. I start that with all of my clients. It's a free resource on our website too. So if you go to knowhonestycom slash assessment, that is there for people as well. So that's the first one. Then the second and third one we've already talked about, but that's fake you and the wall. So recognizing where are these happening for you? How can you begin to break them down? Eliminate them so you no longer have fake you showing up in your life or the wall showing up in your life.
Speaker 3:Then from there we have the agreement. When I talked a little bit in the beginning about how I don't think people create the clear expectations and boundaries around communication they want to have, that is what the agreement is designed to do. So it's our simple, powerful script that sets out your expectations for communication from the beginning. And if you have a relationship that's not from the beginning because it's ongoing, well it's great because you can put it into place and come back to it. It's a living, breathing agreement and quite simply here I'll give it to the listeners if they want to write it down. But this is the agreement, this is the script.
Speaker 3:Will you agree with me on how we're going to communicate? I want you to be 100% honest, meaning I want you to be truly and freely yourself, speaking into what you want and how you feel. I promise I'll be 100% open to it. I will listen without reservation. I will put my needs and wants on, pause for you and in return, I'll be honest with you and I ask that you be completely open to it. That's the whole script.
Speaker 3:Imagine putting that into place when you have a new employee join your team or you have a new relationship. Start, man, you are starting off from a real good foot and, like I said, put this in place with your other relationships and work towards that and bring it back to it. It's language that you can use. I feel like you're not being 100% honest with me or can you say that again Because I was not 100% open to you Using that language, continuing to work on and build those new skills of openness and honesty. So that's practice number four.
Speaker 3:Then, number five, we have the still and what the still is. It's one sheet of paper and it helps you uncover and become aware of the current version of yourself today. Because I think listeners here they do a little bit more self-reflection than the average leader, but most leaders are just so caught up in the busy, busy, busyness of their lives that they don't pause to reflect and understand where am I really at in my life and how are these things affecting me? Because what we do is we look at it from two perspectives Are you content in this area? Are you discontent? Because if you're content in a lot of areas, fantastic, it is showing up in your leadership. If you are discontent in a lot of areas, not so fantastic, also showing up in your leadership. And we got to get really clear on. So that is the still. That's the fifth practice.
Speaker 3:And then, lastly, we have your pursuit, and your pursuit is designed to answer the question what do you really want? Because when I talk to leaders, it is just amazing to me, bernadette, it's crazy. But I will talk to leaders who are leading teams, leading projects, leading entire companies, and I look at them and I say what do you really want? And they look at me back with blank stares. They don't know what they really want. And they're leading all these people right. They might have clear goals and projects and objectives that they're working on, but they can't answer the question of what do they really want and how does that play into those goals, those objectives, those projects? And so we got to get really clear on what it is that we want.
Speaker 3:And then, from there, I also have clients define what are their next three action steps to actually move them towards what they want, because it is amazing to see when people really uncover what they really want. It's some of the most beautiful things. But they want better cultures for their people. They want to make the workplace fun, they want to have strong personal relationships, and when they identify what their next action steps are, I think it's fascinating. About 80% of them are to go have a conversation with somebody. And what do we need? To have a conversation? We need to be open and honest. It's all cyclical. So those are the six practices be open and honest.
Speaker 1:It's all cyclical. So those are the six practices and that ties back. You can then say, okay, I want to go and have these conversations with my people and you know what I'm going to introduce this agreement.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:I just absolutely love, love, love that this has been fabulous, grace. I didn't realize that we could get so much packed into as such a short period of time, but you certainly did If you were to say all right, any listener and viewer, the first thing I want you to do, leaving this conversation, is what?
Speaker 3:That would be to go take the assessment. So it's 10 minutes set aside for a little bit of quiet reflection. Take the assessment, get your numbers and then, if you really want your A+ here's what you do you take it and then you have somebody else take it and have a conversation about your results. Talk about what is holding you back from 100% honesty, what's holding them back, and then what's holding you back from 100% openness and what's holding them back, and then build some accountability with each other. So go take that assessment. It's free on our website. Knowhonestycom slash assessment. K-n-o-w honestycom slash assessment.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's awesome, and we'll make sure that that link, along with the other links that we've been sharing on the video, are put into our show notes for all of our listeners and viewers to take advantage of, including picking up her book no Honesty as well, and you can find that on Amazon, grace, thank you so much. This has been absolutely fabulous. I so appreciate you sharing and being so open with us.
Speaker 3:Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. We really had fun. I love it.
Speaker 1:Thanks. So I'll be open and honest and say I absolutely loved this conversation with Grace Gavin of Know Honesty that's K-N-O-W honesty Because she really hit on some key things that really helped to simplify and not overcomplicate our communications with other people as well as ourselves. So she walked through the three essentials of honesty. She walked through the great divide, two critical components that create a division between who we truly are and connecting genuinely with others, and then she walked through the six practices that will transform your relationships and your communication style to ensure that you are that powerhouse leader that you're meant to be. What did you take away? What will you start acting on and implementing?
Speaker 1:Feel free to DM me on LinkedIn at Bernadette Bowes and be sure to also follow me. At the same time, be sure to follow the show. Go to anywhere you get your podcasts or go to falloffirecoachingcom forward slash podcast and be sure to follow the show so you don't miss out on any of our amazing guests and our solo discussions, Various topics that are critical to you to ensure that you are being the powerhouse leader you're meant to be. Until the next time, I look forward to having you for the next episode of Shedding the Corporate Binge. Bye.
Speaker 2:Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of Shedding the Corporate Binge. Every journey taken together is another step towards unleashing the powerhouse leader within you. Don't miss any of our weekly episodes. Subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you love to listen. And for those who thrive on visual content, catch us on our Shedding the Bitch YouTube channel. Want to dive deeper with Berta Dent on becoming a powerhouse leader? Visit balloffirecoachingcom to learn more about how she helps professionals, hr executives and team leaders elevate overall team performance. You've been listening to Shedding the Corporate Bitch with Bernadette Boas. Until next time, keep shedding, keep growing and keep leading.
