171: Lead Without Losing Yourself, with Robin Goad

What if leadership were less about being impressive and more about being useful? 

Robin Goad joins me to get painfully honest about how most of us learn leadership the wrong way, then spend years unlearning it. She’s a technology executive at Amazon Web Services, a speaker and coach, and the author of Girl By Birth, Woman By Fire, and she brings a clear message: leading well is selfless, practical, and deeply human.

We talk about what it looks like to protect your team in corporate America, from taking the heat when things go wrong to giving your people real ownership when things go right. Robin explains why compassion at work is about guardrails — clear boundaries, consistent accountability, and earned trust that create the conditions for resilience, better performance, and healthier teams.

Along the way, she shares the leadership question she wishes every manager would ask: “What do you want to be when you grow up, and how can I help you get there?” That single sentence changes career development, retention, and the honesty people bring to work.

We close with a look at organizational culture and employee feedback, including a simple daily mechanism at Amazon that surfaces anonymous insights and makes leaders pay attention. If you care about compassionate leadership, employee engagement, and building trust inside big systems, this one will stick with you. 

Robin Goad is a technology executive at Amazon Web Services (AWS), speaker, and coach who helps ambitious women master the corporate game without losing themselves. She is the author of Girl by Birth. Woman by Fire, with practical strategies for thriving in corporate America and in life. Her message is simple and bold: you can achieve extraordinary success without sacrificing your soul.

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Transcript

Cold Open On Curious Leaders

Robin Goad 0:01

I would like leaders to have that curiosity and ask their people, what can I help you? What do you want to be when you grow up, and how can I help you get there?

Manya Chylinski 0:16

Hello, and welcome to Notes on Resilience. I'm your host, Manya Chylinski. My guest today is Robin Goad. She's a speaker, a coach, and a technology executive at Amazon Web Services. She's also the author of Girl by Birth, Woman by Fire. We talked about what kind of leader Robin is and what kind of leader she wants to work with, and how you can achieve success without sacrificing your soul. I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation. I certainly did. Robin, I'm so glad to get a chance to chat with you. Thank you for being here.

Robin Goad 0:52

Thank you so much, Manya, for having me. I've been looking forward to this.

Manya Chylinski 0:56

All right. Well, I'm not sure if you've been looking forward to this question or not, but to get started, what would be the title of a book about you if your worst enemy wrote it?

Welcome And Meet Robin Goad

Robin Goad 1:09

So I have to tell you, when you told me that we were going to start there, I appreciate the heads up. The first thought that came to my mind is do you remember in high school when they would give out awards or they would label in our high school, the juniors would make up titles about the seniors that are graduating from high school and they would publish it in the school yearbook. And my maiden name was Powell. So they would say, Robin Powell will wake up one day and realize the world doesn't revolve around her. So I thought immediately that maybe if my worst enemy was making a book about me. So the actual title would be Robin Powell Will Wake Une Day and Realize the World Doesn't Revolve Around Her.

A Brutal Book Title Prompt

Manya Chylinski 2:04

Oh no. That's a great title for book. It's a little long, right? But I think we can make that work. I bet there are a few people for whom we could write that as the title of their book.

Robin Goad 2:17

No, it's so funny. I thought about that. I think back to then too, that time in my life. And I thought, wow, I must have really projected some image that was so much different than the reality I was living. Because if they only knew, right, the the whole backstory of my life, they would have known that I knew good and damn well. Nothing revolved around me.

Manya Chylinski 2:39

So, Robin, to get us started, everyone has had a moment in their life that changes how they think about leading or taking care of other people. What is one of those moments for you?

Leadership Stops Being About You

Robin Goad 2:53

I've always been a leader. I remember my very first um opportunity to lead was high school or junior high cheerleading. I wanted to be the captain of the cheerleading team. And I was given the opportunity to lead. And I thought that being a leader was being in charge, being the one that made the rules, being the one that told everybody what to do. And that's how I operated back then, you know, as an immature 13-year-old, I guess, being the leader of the team. And as I got older, obviously, and matured and learned the way the world worked. And when I started into really corporate world and probably even some before that, I realized that leading really has nothing to do with you, quite frankly. Leading is really selfless, if you want to know the truth. And it's really all about the team. And you, what I tell people that work for me is I hate being a manager, but I love being a leader. And that's also how I personally prefer to work with my superiors, right? I hate to be managed, but boy, do I love to follow a vision and a mission that I can, you know, get behind. And so um, I would say somewhere in early career, probably in my early sales leadership, I realized wow, this leading thing really has nothing whatsoever to do with me. It's really all about taking care of my people.

Manya Chylinski 4:31

That's such an important distinction. And from my own experience, I think what you're describing is reasonably common that when we're young, that is how we think of leadership until we start to see, until we start to be in more environments where we are dealing with leaders or we are doing some leadership. Wow. How do you think you are a different leader now than you were for that team when you were in junior high?

Protecting Teams With Clear Accountability

Robin Goad 4:59

I protect my team. I feel like it's my job as their leader to um take the bullets for, you know, I tell them anything that goes wrong, I will take the bullet and I will trust you until I have reason not to. And I will fight, especially in corporate America, where I've spent, you know, 30 years of my career. It is um buffering. I feel like it's my job to buffer some of the noise that happens at the executive level and really take all of that noise, figure out what is really useful and impactful for my team, what is actually going to have some type of input in our everyday life, and then sort out all that noise and then communicate down to the team. And then also, I like I said, I take the bullets for anything that goes wrong. I like my team to know anything that goes wrong, I will take the hit for it. And anything that goes right, I will give you all the credit for it. And I feel like what that has done is it's given my team freedom where they feel like they can make decisions, they feel like they have ownership of their business. But I hold them accountable. And I am very clear that you were given all the grace in the world. But when something happens and you do not do what you told me you were going to do, you get one, you get one of those, but you do not get two.

Manya Chylinski 6:36

People think about when we talk about the idea of compassion in the workforce, for example, that it means not having boundaries or not being accountable. But I believe that boundaries and accountability are a significant part of having compassion in the workplace. Would you agree with that?

Robin Goad 6:55

I do. And and it's so compassion, think about it, it's so compassionate to know what your guardrails are, right? I mean, that that is so comforting, actually. And so, yeah, that's very compassionate. And I'll say, I have some folks that have gone with me from job to job because they like working the way that I work. And and that's the biggest, that has been actually one of the biggest compliments to me is that I have people that they're like anywhere you go, Robin, if you've got space, I want to come. I take that as a huge compliment. It means the world to me because that just says they trust me. And and I I feel like that's the highest compliment that your team can give you.

Compassion Needs Guardrails

Manya Chylinski 7:40

That's an amazing compliment. I mean, you've heard the the saying that people don't leave a company, they leave their manager. And what they're showing you is, I don't want to leave you. So I'm leaving the company so I can stick with you. That's an amazing testament to your leadership, Robin. Wow. You talk about being successful without sacrificing your soul. And here I think we're talking largely about corporate life, but tell me a little bit more about what does that mean? Can you actually be successful without losing a part of yourself?

Success Without Sacrificing Your Soul

Robin Goad 8:15

Well, I think we need to define what do we mean by losing a part of yourself? Because um you can't have it all. Like, I don't think it's possible to say I'm operating at 100% effective at work, at home, with my friendships. And so, do I lose a part of a component that makes me who I am? Of course I do. So, am I able to have as rich of friendships in certain seasons as I would have liked to have had? No. Did I consider that loss? Yes. And so there's that component where I did go through a season where I woke up in my 40s and I thought, man, where'd all my friends go? And it's because I didn't have capacity, I didn't have time to really invest in those friendships because I was doing the best I could at keeping work going and keeping my family going. And I just did not have overflow for my friendships. So I did lose a piece of myself in that season. But uh what I mean in general when I say not losing yourself in the corporate world, at least, is I have felt like I can operate ethically, morally. I don't feel like I've had to do anything in my corporate career that challenged my character, who I was as a human and how I was able to lead my teams, how I was able to engage with my customers. I just always looked at whoever was sitting across the table from me, whether it was a customer, whether it was a team member, or whether it was somebody in my ecosystem at work, like an engineering team or a product team. I always felt like I was operating from a place of what do we need to do together for everyone's best interest? And that feels and has always felt very authentic to me. And I've always found that if you can figure out what somebody else cares about and what's in it for them, and how do I help my customer be successful? And I really mean that. And if the answer is, hey, Robin, you know what? My top three priorities this year, you can't help me. I would be like perfect. I love that. I'll check in with you. We can still be friends. And but if you need me, you know where to find me. Same thing with my product team. My product team, they would have certain metrics that they needed. And if I understood what they were trying to accomplish, then I tried to operate in such a way that helped them accomplish their goals. Same thing with the members on my team. And so that all has always felt very authentic to who I am as a human. And so I feel whole that I never lost peace of my soul in the way that I could show up and work every day. Right.

Manya Chylinski 11:17

Well, it sounds like you've got a real human-centered leadership style. That isn't something a lot of leaders bring to the table. What kind of question about leadership and compassion do you think we're still not asking?

The Career Question Leaders Avoid

Robin Goad 11:34

Wow, that's a really good question. What are we not asking? I don't know. I guess I feel fortunate that now hang on a second, let me pause. I can't say that all of my leaders that I've worked for have operated the same way that I have operated. And so I'm trying to think what would I have wanted them to be asking, right? That I'm when you ask that question, that's kind of where my mind is trying to process an answer there. And I think maybe it is having a leader that really cares about what I want to accomplish or what I want to be when I grow up. And I've never had a leader ask me that. I've never had someone that I worked for ask me, Robin, what do you want to be when you grow up and how can I help you get there? Now I've asked that of people that have worked for me. I've asked that of partners and customers that I've worked with. Also because, by the way, any company that you work for or work with, they have what they're doing today. They have the business that they're in today, but that isn't what they necessarily want to be five years from now because every company is trying to evolve into the next thing, right? They're adding a different line of business or they're growing into a new industry. So they always have the this is what I've always been, but here's what I want to be in the next five years. And so I do ask people that work for me and I ask customers and partners. I know what your core business is, but what do you want it to be five years from now? And how can I help you get there? I've never had a leader ask me that. And as I'm sitting here processing that in real time, that's a shame. You know, that's a shame that I haven't. So I guess my answer would be I would like leaders to have that curiosity and ask their people, what can I help you? What do you want to be when you grow up? And how can I help you get there?

Manya Chylinski 13:39

You haven't had a leader that thinks you do. Have you ever said to one of those leaders, hey, how come we don't talk about this? Or this is the way I'm thinking about leadership?

Robin Goad 13:52

Yeah, no, no. No, we haven't. And I'm thinking about it right now, thinking, Robin, why haven't you? Why haven't I operated with my managers and my leaders and even skip level, like I do with my own? And it's a good question. I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to dig a little deeper and think about that. I don't know why I haven't asked them or or set an expectation.

Manya Chylinski 14:21

Right. Right. Well, thinking back to my own corporate career, I certainly never thought about leading up. I just thought that what what the leaders and supervisors above me said to do was what I do. And then if there were people that I was responsible for, I carry that message through. It never occurred to me that I could have a two-way conversation with a leader and I could share things about what I needed or what my team needed.

Robin Goad 14:53

Yeah, I'm really good about communicating what the team needs from a tactical perspective, not from a leadership perspective. But what a valuable asset, what a valuable asset I would be to my leader if I did have that conversation. Well, there's still time. There you go. I'm gonna take that as an action. Um I that is a good nugget I need to take with me. And hopefully, folks that are listening, if if they haven't had the same conversation, maybe they take that as a key takeaway. Yes.

Why Speaking Up Feels Risky

Manya Chylinski 15:27

Although, you know, just thinking back to, I had many managers and leaders who were lovely people, friendly, I could talk with them, but I was still afraid to talk about this kind of thing with them. Where do you think that comes from? That fear of talking to the leaders in your organization.

Robin Goad 16:20

I think it's probably just there's some insecurity, that there's some insecurity there because once you speak it, and let's say that they dismiss it or they don't take action, they're basically telling you, I don't care. And so there's that fear that once I make a need known and someone doesn't respond positively to that need or that request, wow, then you have to really face the truth. That speaks volumes about the relationship, and it also speaks volumes about where you stand with this person and you know, do they really care? But that answer might be no.

Manya Chylinski 16:58

I know the answer might be no. And on one hand, just kind of going through the day thinking, oh, they don't care about me is different than knowing they don't care about you.

Robin Goad 17:09

Exactly. Exactly.

Manya Chylinski 17:12

Oh my goodness. Well, if you could redesign an organization to fit your ideal leadership model, what would you build first?

Building A Path For Frontline Truth

Robin Goad 17:24

I would build a mechanism that allowed for um true dialogue from the frontline employees. I feel like the frontline workers have the whether you're a customer service rep that's taking all of the calls with with customer, I feel like, or you're a salesperson or you're an engineer. I feel like those frontline workers that are the ones actually engaging with customers, they have the real pulse on what's going on. And in corporate today, we have way too many layers of management. And I understand, right? You can't have a you can't be a manager and have 57 direct reports, and that's that is not scalable. That that would be a horrible experience for everybody. But there's got to be a mechanism for true communication from that frontline worker. And but and what I've seen in organizations where they try to do this through different communication mechanisms, where it's whether it's a town hall or whether it's brown bag lunches, when that middle layer of leadership is threatened, communication up stops. And what I used to say a decade ago is the higher you get up in the organization, the more the leaders really care about the truth. But you just have to get your message up high enough to those people because they will make quick decisions and they really want to know. They really do want in my experience. When I have had conversations with people that are reporting to the CEO of a Fortune 100 company, that individual really does want to know the truth about what's going on because that is affecting the bottom line. That's affecting the people, that's affecting the buyer, that is affecting the customer experience, and they want to know it's generally that frozen middle that's so worried about keeping their job that they stop doing their job. And so if there's a way to create a culture where it isn't about losing your job, right? It's about what's best for the business and what's best for the people. But golly, it's hard. It's hard to create a culture where that is true. I haven't seen it. I, in my experience, I I have not seen, I haven't seen it work.

Manya Chylinski 20:00

So, other than what you just mentioned about that middle management layer and they're sort of being stuck in the middle, what else contributes to the difficulty in that communication between the front line all the way up to the top?

Amazon’s Daily Anonymous Feedback Loop

Robin Goad 20:13

I mean, just access. I mean, I mean, I think there is just just straight out access to those those folks. They're busy most of the time. They're leading a very large global organization. They're on the road 200 days a year, traveling all over the world. You know, their organizations, at least in the companies I've worked for, their organizations are thousands of people. And they're just, I mean, they are literally doing their best to just have enough FaceTime with everybody. So to me, it's time. But I will say there is something that's really very interesting at Amazon that we do that I love. And um, every day when you log into your computer, a quick question comes on your screen. And it's basically just a one-sentence question about something about your manager, something about your business, something about working for the company. It takes me, you know, I can't go on and do my day until I answer. So there is this direct feedback that you get. And as a leader in the company, I get data reports once a month that kind of tell me the temperature of how my team is feeling. And maybe they love working for me as a manager, but maybe they don't think the strategy at the company level is what it should be. So it I get to see where the problem, and so they ask us these questions 365 days. I mean, every day that you log in, you're getting this, you give feedback. And so, and and we look at that all the way up to the CEO of the company. We really do, and managers are graded on the data that we get from those, you know, that feedback. But I love it. It's anonymous and they always give you a text box to be able to provide feedback in. So it's I really like that mechanism.

Manya Chylinski 22:09

What a nice, simple way to incorporate getting feedback without making it heavy handed, without making it have to be a once a month multiple question survey that you do. And I'm I imagine people can put as much or as little as they want on a particular day based on what's happening. What an I really like that. That's so interesting.

Robin Goad 22:30

I like it too.

Manya Chylinski 22:31

Yeah. And what I really Appreciate is that you said we look at it because I think so many of us employees have had experience of sharing feedback, filling out these employee engagement surveys, and then nothing ever comes of it, and you know nobody's reading it.

Robin Goad 22:51

I know for a fact. Um, I had some pretty uh stern feedback once, and and I wrote several paragraphs in the in the text box, and I said, I know this is anonymous, but if you really read this and you really want to get in touch with me and talk about it, here's my alias. Here's my email. And they did. So I mean, talk about building trust with your employees, right? That oh, not only did they read it, but they actually reached out to me, thanked me for all of my candid feedback, and scheduled a meeting with me to talk about it, wanted to understand.

Manya Chylinski 23:30

Wow, that is important. And as you said, the key word that I just live on, which is trust. You now trust that they're listening and they care on some level about what's going on. Exactly. So interesting. So, Robin, we are getting close to the end of our time. Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your book so folks can learn more about you and how to reach you?

Trust Gets Built When Feedback Is Read

Inside Girl By Birth Woman By Fire

Robin Goad 23:57

Sure. Um, my book launched on January 6th. And I say that somebody asked me how long did it take to write? And I said, Oh, about 35 years. But um, seriously, it took me about a year to write it, and um, it launched on January 6th. So far, all the feedback I have gotten, honestly, it has been overwhelming. It from the reviews on the Amazon um reviews have been fabulous, and those are all people I don't know who they are. But then the the messages and the text messages I've gotten from people in my community, it's really blowing my mind every day. And this book, it's about every piece and facet of being a woman. It's uh my own personal journey from relationships, the family that I was born into and the things that I believed and learned. And some things, not all things your family's passed down to you are great. And so you sometimes have to unlearn certain things. And so the first part of the book is really all about relationships. The middle part of the book is all about my vocation and my career and my corporate experience. I did just get a note from somebody I hadn't talked to in over a decade, and she's about my age, uh, mid-50s. And she said, and I didn't really think about somebody in their mid-50s reading my book. I really thought more about younger girls, younger women reading it, because I'm just trying to help share wisdom with the younger folks. Um, but this woman was my age in her 50s, and she said, reading your book has given me the courage to think about what do I really want to do next. And so that was just a sweet, you know, she's an executive vice president at a Fortune 100 size company. And so that was really sweet. And then the third part of the book is about um really our health, our emotional, spiritual, physical, financial health, and all the things that I wish I had known good health is wasted on the youth. Yes. Yes. Um, and so uh, and also on the financial side, you know, when you're in your mid-50s and you're really looking over that horizon and you want to retire, there were a lot of decisions I could have made in my 20s and 30s that would have really set me up differently financially. And I just didn't know. And so this book is really all the things I wish I had known with all three of those lenses. And so, anyway, it's girl by birth, woman by fire. I'm gonna be recording Audible in two weeks. It's available on Amazon in print, in Kindle, and then hopefully in the next few weeks, it'll be out there on Audible. Anyway, I have thoroughly enjoyed writing it, and uh the feedback so far has just it's really been overwhelming. It's blown my mind.

Manya Chylinski 26:55

Oh, that's fabulous. Congratulations. Writing a book is such a huge accomplishment. Um, and you're right in the exciting part where it's it's out and now it's in the world and people are responding to it.

Robin Goad 27:08

Scary, right? It's so scary. You're like, oh my gosh, I put all this out there and secrets that I have been holding for 40 years, right?

Manya Chylinski 27:20

It is an act of trust that you put this out in the world and that people are going to take it the way that you mean it. And how can folks get in touch with you if they want to learn more about you and your work?

Robin Goad 27:31

Yeah, you bet my website is probably the best way to get a hold of me. It has all of my social media connections. The website is therealrobingoad.com. And uh there is actually a little box on that website that says book a superpower session. And that's a free 30-minute. I feel like the the first thing you need to do is really understand what your unique superpower and your unique value that you show up with every day. And if you don't know what that is, I am more than happy to invest 30 minutes with you and help you figure out what that is.

How To Connect And Book A Session

Manya Chylinski 28:10

Oh, that's so wonderful. Thank you. We will put links in the show notes. And Robin, thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure talking with you today. Thank you so much for having me. And thank you to our listeners for checking out this episode of Notes on Resilience, and we will see you next time.