Interview - Weaving Compassion into Leadership: Aleisha Jaeger's Journey from Civil Engineer to Director

Have you ever pondered the true essence of leadership? Aleisha Jaeger, Director of Project Engineering at Kerry, joins us to unveil the tapestry of her own leadership path, one that wove through civil engineering and blossomed into a role that orchestrates engineering, sustainability, and more. With a candid recounting of her evolution, Aleisha illuminates how social finesse and adeptness in people management are indispensable, even when the work is rooted in technical expertise. Her voice brings warmth and substance to our conversation, especially as she reflects on her mission to uplift women in the workplace, a passion mirrored in her involvement with CREW, which champions female leaders in real estate.

Revelation and resilience are the cornerstones as our dialogue takes a turn towards the deeply personal—Alicia's narrative of facing her child's health crisis opens a window to understanding how hardship shapes empathetic leadership. It's a poignant reminder that the journeys we traverse outside office walls can profoundly influence our approach to guiding others. This episode isn't just about the strategies for leading effectively; it's a heartfelt exploration of the human touch that truly defines compassionate leadership. Alicia's experiences reinforce the idea that understanding your team's individual stories creates a tapestry of shared strength, ensuring that a supportive and nurturing work environment isn't just an ideal, but a reality.

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:12

Hello everyone and welcome to Success Secrets and Stories. I'm your host, john Wondolowski, and I'm here with my co-host, greg Powell. Greg, hey, everybody, yeah, and today's podcast is going to be a little bit different. We're going to be interviewing someone that we consider, on the MBR approach, one of the better managers that I have had the privilege and the opportunity to work with. So let's cut away to our interview, greg. We're going to be talking to someone who, I think, represents the idea of taking responsibility for their assignment, for their work and for the results. Alicia Yeager. Hi, alicia.

Speaker 3: 1:01

Hey John, hey Greg, Thank you, yep, alicia Yeeger. I am a director of actually Applied Health and Nutrition at a company called Cary. We are one of the largest companies in the United States that nobody's ever heard of. We are global, with 150, some sites globally, 54 in North America, of which I have responsibility for about 15. We are in make ingredients and flavors that go into about 70% of the food that people consume on a daily basis. So we are not insignificant, and I'd like to think that my role at Cary is not insignificant either.

Speaker 3: 1:40

I have been with them for about seven years. I oversee basically our applied health and nutrition group from an engineering, capital maintenance, sustainability perspective, navigating personalities, which I think is part of what you encounter as leaders um and technical solutions. It's a lot of learning about um, our uh processes, which fascinate me and you know being a small portion of delivering food products to the country, and having to do that. You know safety, you know safely and um with the public in mind. Is is a pretty um amazing opportunity to be, to be part of that.

Speaker 2: 2:35

And you have a pretty big team that is associated with your direct responsibilities uh, project not only project team leaders, but you're also working with construction companies and and their support services, and on a normal day, you're probably in contact with 50 to a hundred people.

Speaker 3: 2:53

Probably.

Speaker 3: 2:53

Yeah, I mean, I don't have that many direct reports, but we are a huge matrix organization and so at any moment, you you know, with a lot of dotted lines, as opposed to just direct reporting, and we could be interacting from an engineering perspective with all sides of the company or all aspects, from operations to quality, to safety, to supply chain, to you know our DNA, to, yes, external third parties, whether that be an architect or a contractor or a specialty equipment supplier. Um, in addition to just sort of our day-to-day, you know, staff, um, that run the facilities as well. So it's a lot of of day-to-day. I mean, you know one of the things that I mean.

Speaker 3: 3:39

I went to school for civil engineering. I'm not a chem, I'm not a chemical, I'm not an industrial. There's a lot of that running around. Carry, um, they're very, very smart people. Um, I'm just a civil engineer who's good at running projects and managing, seeing the bigger picture. But I went to school initially wanting to run my own construction company. That dream, long set sail. That dream, long set sail. But if you had told me in school that you would be working more with personalities and you would need to have social skills more than anything, I wouldn't have believed you I mean it's people management every day, regardless of how you're getting to your end result.

Speaker 3: 4:19

It's people management, and you need to know how to interact with people, so, um, it's not necessarily something they teach you in engineering school, right? They don't know that you can be technically sound, and I think that's why I mean I was always, less of you know, sort of a social civil engineer, right Engineer with social skills, I'd like to say, and they're rare and they are.

Speaker 3: 4:44

And it helps me a lot. I it's, it's become an asset, right, um and so, um, I think that's how I I'm able to sort of navigate some of the, the maybe more political situations we come in contact with, or, um, just navigating personalities in general. Um, I would never have said that's what I'm going to be doing when I grow up.

Speaker 2: 5:05

No, and, and those things that you've learned in terms of being able to read the room and and the skill of listening rather than talking, those those kinds of things that aren't coming up on the engineering platforms at any time. That that's. That's usually what's what's missing. I think a wonderful example of what you've just described as far as understanding technology the part that actually creates the glue for the team is your understanding of how to develop a team and how to work with people. I think one of the clearest examples is that you've mentored a lot of people. I think it's interesting a little bit. Maybe you can talk about the mentoring program that you've done in Marquette, the mentoring that you're doing with the crew, and what crew is. I think that'd be an interesting segue in terms of trying to help bring others into the industry.

Speaker 3: 6:00

Yeah, I mean. So obviously I went to school for civil engineering thinking I was going to build buildings, which I did, but ultimately that leans towards construction, so I didn't have a lot of there were a few, but not a lot of female mentors around. Graduation was Indianapolis and that is where I did join crew, um commercial real estate, uh, women, which is a now. It wasn't then, but it is now a global organization for women in all aspects of real estate. So the, the idea is, is smart, support and promote women um in the field of real estate and ideally do deals from beginning to end internal to the organization and help help help promote that visibility in women to to leadership positions. So I've been involved with that. I had to do the math because I had a council meeting just a week ago for like 20 years, which makes me feel very old, um, but just shy of 20 years, and what I, what I did there is it's a. It's a safe place.

Speaker 3: 7:05

I guess everybody there knows the challenges of being a um female in a male-dominated environment. Everybody there, not everybody, but they may understand the, the, the challenges around balancing kids with life and challenges of travel and and working as well as having a family and and just the dynamics that you go through. So there, that was really where I learned a lot about sort of engaging with your peers and and um, establishing your own external network. Um, I think a lot of people jump into their jobs and they forget that they need to develop their own external collateral and network, right, for whatever reason. I need it because I get some personal and professional validation outside of work and that's where I started sort of my mentoring journey and being mentored. To be honest, you know you can collaborate with outside folks, but there we also did mentoring programs with some of the young girls in sixth grade or seventh grade or eighth grade and teaching them about careers in real estate and seeing their eyes light up, learning about something that they had never realized was out there.

Speaker 3: 8:22

And yeah, out there, and yeah, I'm, I'm. I've been a member of a participant in the Marquette mentors program for I think is going on nine years, I think the program is 10 years old this year and that has grown exponentially. When I started that I was one of 30, you know people in the industry and now there's it's global and there's hundreds, and so I'm honored to be a part of it. Dan DeWart runs that program and it's become sort of a flagship for other universities.

Speaker 3: 8:56

But what they do is they pair someone in industry with you know a student. The students have to apply, they have to, they have to take the initiative. You know to interact and we set goals for the year and I have had some really good mentees that I am still in touch with and, to be honest, I learned a lot from them as well. So it's a bit of reverse mentoring. Also, I have one right now who I've actually encouraged to join the crew, apply for a crew scholarship, and you know she reminds me of me when I was her age of I don't want to ever be left without a plan.

Speaker 3: 9:27

I got a plan ahead. I got a plan ahead. Just take a step back, you're good. Now you've just got your job, your first job. You know you, you're good. I'm going to introduce you to some networks so you can start to develop. You know, relationships outside of that. So she's, she's so great, so great um, and I've had I've had um others that I was able to take to some of my facilities in in rome under construction um and you know, eye opening.

Speaker 3: 9:55

A lot of people don't know what the food industry looks like, what's in those big warehouses and what is coming out of them, and you know. So it was very cool to share that. I had a mentee that during COVID as well, which was enlightening for me, as the college experience for her was absolutely not anything I could have ever fathomed. It was really for me to kind of what can I do to make your day better?

Speaker 3: 10:26

or different and you know also like understand what kids in that age group were going through or went through, right, I mean so you also, if they want an introduction or if they want a tour or if they want to learn more about you know, whatever I try to get them really engaged and introduced, and some take full advantage of it and some don't.

Speaker 1: 10:58

And that's you know too sad.

Speaker 3: 11:01

But, I think the ones that take advantage of it. We I was still in contact with many of them- so, engineers careers girl is really was really cool.

Speaker 2: 11:12

Engineers, for the most part, are pretty much introverts. They're not really extroverts.

Speaker 3: 11:16

A lot of them yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:17

And and especially during what you're describing with the pandemic and how it drove people into isolation, and it's good that you're reaching out and we're affecting what has really left a scar, a problem that we're trying to address and giving people access.

Speaker 2: 11:52

But you've identified a number of things that you've done in terms of organizations and I think, in terms of engineering, you're more the better example of stretching and doing the things after work to expand your network, to expand your knowledge and create little contacts with other people that are having similar backgrounds. I'm involved in a couple organizations, hesni being one of them, uh, which is a healthcare engineering uh organization. I'm still in contact with those people. I'm still mentoring some people indirectly, indirectly. But that whole thing about helping people and and and giving them the opportunities to see the other applications and to develop contacts, because a lot of jobs are found through contacts and we have found that people don't know how much that social skill is necessary and the element that we see we see people who are more comfortable not stretching that takes risk. That's that whole thing that we talk about when a wonderful author.

Speaker 3: 12:56

Brene Brown.

Speaker 2: 12:57

Oh, there you go. She saved me. We talked about this before and I always destroy names. Greg is the person that saves me on a regular basis. Thank you, Alicia.

Speaker 3: 13:10

I was hoping it was the right one.

Speaker 2: 13:12

No, no good choice. And she made reference to, I think, something that I thought was a very good quote from, believe it or not, teddy Roosevelt. And it's to stand in the arena and just for the sake of saying it out loud, so that people who haven't heard this quote, I'll quote Teddy it is not the critic who counts. The credit belongs to the person who actually is in the arena, who spends themselves on a worthy cause, who is at best known in the end of triumph, of a high achievement, or who, at worst, if they fail, or at least they fail while daring greatly, and it's basically not taking the sidelines but sticking your nose in there and seeing what you can do and taking those risks. And sometimes, when you're a new engineer and you're mentoring someone, they're very timid and they're just trying to conform. That conformity creates that kind of isolation and you're one of those things, that kind of pokes, that Maybe you can talk about that.

Speaker 3: 14:22

Yeah, no, no-transcript questions. And don't be afraid to ask questions, even if you're fresh out of school. Nobody expects you to know everything and there's no way you could. I don't know everything. I ask dumb questions all day long. My whole team, anybody that interacts with me, will tell you yeah, she asked dumb questions, but nine times out of 10, we're getting somewhere when we ask those right.

Speaker 3: 15:07

Because I have never I don't think I've ever been afraid to ask questions. When I started right out of school, I was working with a superintendent. I'm running some sort of construction project, building a parking garage. I don't know anything about building a parking garage, so I spent a bunch of time with that superintendent and I just learned what was what was what and all those things.

Speaker 3: 15:25

Nine times out of 10, I've garnered his respect because I wanted to know what he was doing and learning about that as I've gone in the construction side of what I do, you know, I'll ask the welder how long he's been doing that. How do you do that? How do you get to be an expert? I will ask the slia guys how do they know what weapons to buy for the? You know the the tactical force on force thing that we built at cod. Or I had no idea that the bedding in the hotel thing has many different. You know all of those things. You cannot be afraid to ask questions. I think I I find a lot of young people, specifically like one two years out, that think they have to know everything and oh, if I don't have the right answer or say something, they're going to think I don't know. It's like well, actually, like it's okay to not know, and so to me that's how I function today right, still right and I think it's.

Speaker 3: 16:21

I think young people feel intimidated, like I have to know, and it's like you don't. You absolutely don't. At some point you will have to be the expert on something but you don't.

Speaker 3: 16:31

No one's expecting that of you right now and I I just think I see that a lot, particularly in folks that are recently graduating that they, they really need to know everything and it's like, well, you're not going to get to know everything, and then you're, you're not going to have credibility. So, by all means, embrace everyone around you. I promise you, no one is going to say they don't have time for you, particularly if you're showing interest in anything that they're doing.

Speaker 2: 16:53

Now I also remember another quote from Steve Jobs which I thought was pretty interesting. And the co, the founder of Apple, and he talked about the time he called uh, hewlett Packard uh, I think it was Packard Um, and the number was in the phone book and he could actually call the, the creator of a Hewlett Packard, and ask him a question and ask for help. And he ended up getting a part-time job and he worked in a division that he was looking for for parts. He was looking for spare parts, but he's he, his, his core message was ask, pick up the phone and ask, ask for help, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 2: 17:34

And his comment was I have never had somebody say no, and I come to think of it whenever. I've done that myself. I've always had the person help me. There's only one occasion I can think of that it didn't work and that's when. That's when I was in um being a mechanic and said that's not something I want to try to explain, but I've. I've run into a no, but I've heard more yeses to asking for assistance and help, and one of the tricks I think that you've learned, that I've learned, is if you're, if you're going to have a problem and you don't have good listening skills and you don't know how to ask good questions that are trying to look for root cause, and that was one of the other references you had talked about your description of what you think a leader has, and you've done that.

Speaker 3: 18:18

You've described it, but it's also listening skills and finding root causes um, when I try to be, so you know, the one that can prompt folks to ask questions, I also really think that, um, not being afraid to put yourself out there, not being afraid to make those phone calls, right I firmly like.

Speaker 3: 18:42

I may not have the answer for somebody, but I want to be that connector if they need it, right. So, whether that's a crew connection, whether that's a mentee, whether that's somebody at work, um, and even in within my organization, we're we're huge 26,000 employees. How on earth, as a grad student, do you even learn to navigate something of that size and stature? Right, you ask questions and you make your own internal network as well. You know, and fortunately I've been able to, you know, hitch my wagon to some of the folks that have directed me. They may not know who, but they'll know who to call, right.

Speaker 3: 19:19

And then I'll take it from there. So, whether it's internally or externally and I hope this does that other people would would validate this. But I don't need to be the reason you need something, but if you know that I can help you, I'm more than happy to do that Right. So if I may not know, I may not be able to give you business, but I can connect you with other people that can be more helpful and and that alone is like something I'm happy to do for anybody that reaches out.

Speaker 2: 19:51

So I had a psychological profile once and it was interesting. They, they did it. It was middle of my career and they said well, you know, looking at your results, we find one strange and abnormal approach is that you trust people. And I said, well, yeah, well, you trust people too much, it's true, but if you're going to give of yourself, you have to trust people and at some level. For me, if you lie, then yeah, the trust is gone. But the trust is a requirement because you're giving somebody your authority, your ability to approve and represent the organization of Cary. There's a certain element of trust that you know what you're doing when you're doing that that you've given that person. That whole part of leadership is also giving that the respect that they can do the task, they know when they're over their skis and they can ask for help task.

Speaker 2: 20:54

They know when they're over their skis and they can ask for help. Greg, you had a couple questions in terms of how the long-term piece of this works out in terms of leading people.

Speaker 1: 21:01

Yep. Thanks, John, and again, Alicia, thanks for joining us today. You have a fascinating background and I really like, from the HR perspective, the mentoring, those extracurricular things that are really, really important, have a lot of impact. They don't always show up on the performance evaluation as John and I talk about, but you know they have impact. How would you say, Alicia, that your leadership journey has shaped your life?

Speaker 3: 21:27

That's a good question. I really want to turn that around and say how my life has changed my way of being a leader, potentially, um. There's a couple of spots, um, in my career that I'm not particularly proud of, um, just in terms of how I might have been built right or envisioned that I had to fight my way through things. Early on on in my career I 100% was very, very aggressive is an appropriate word. I felt I knew what I wanted. I mean, I'm learning the whole way, but I had a mission. I was getting to the next letter rung on the ladder. I was doing that. I was going to get here, I was going to get there, and I probably had very little regard for the emotional aspect or family aspect of those people around me. I was all about the job right so and that's what was fine for me.

Speaker 3: 22:25

I could work 24 hours a day if I wanted to, whatever. But understanding if somebody had a medical emergency that they you know, and how to respond to that and navigate that. Um, and maybe I wasn't as soft about that as I should have been, or understanding or kind or any of those sorts of things. Not that there was anything negative, but it was just more like oh, that's an irritant, let's move on Right a tent. Let's move on Right, Um, I have a special needs child, um, who was born with a serious heart defect.

Speaker 3: 22:59

Um, I was actually working with John at COD at the time and it changed everything for me, Um, because not only I mean and I had another child at the time but the amount of emotional toll that that took on me and still had peers that donated their vacation days to me so that I could, I could continue to stay with my kid, they let me bring her to work when she was still very sick so that I could just get some work done, Understanding that that kind of thing is happening in people's lives every day, Um, and to be a bit more compassionate about that, you know, and I've had some issues with you know both of my kids over the course of their their lives, and just knowing that other people are going through that same kind of thing, and so, and even if they don't have kids, fine, but I, you know, I've got some co-workers and if you're having an off day, let's talk about the off day.

Speaker 1: 23:56

Like.

Speaker 3: 23:56

I. I have been through stuff as well and it's not about trading stories as much as it is. I can be understanding and compassionate and kind. I have had other bosses in addition to John who have said I don't even need to know the details. You tell me what you need help with. Go do what you need to do, and I so respect that. It's scary to ask that. It's scary to ask for that help in those times. But I want to be that kind of boss that they feel that they can and that there's no questions asked. I want to be that kind of leader where people know that they're not going to judge me, they're going to help me, take care of this and I'm going to come out on the other side.

Speaker 3: 24:30

So, I'd say I've gotten softer, I think, over the years and it just it comes with time and experience, Right, and so I really do think some of those, my life changed how I lead. I can be in this world as any kind of leader, to be honest.

Speaker 1: 24:52

So, alicia, I would say that the E word comes out as empathy, that you developed a high sense of empathy in that situation.

Speaker 3: 25:01

Yeah, very much so. And I think in the business world you don't think about that. In construction, you don't think about it. In, you know, manufacturing, you don't think about it, and it's. It goes back to that communication piece, that listening piece. People, you have to actually also have empathy. I think people who don't have any level of empathy are going to have a hard time really succeeding. Because you do need to understand. It doesn't mean you have to be a bleeding heart, but it does mean you gotta like put yourself in other people's shoes. Um, it needs to be, it needs to be a priority heart.

Speaker 2: 25:33

But it does mean you got to like put yourself in other people's shoes.

Speaker 3: 25:40

It needs to be a priority. Yeah, it's been a huge priority.

Speaker 1: 25:41

Right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 25:42

So so I don't hopefully that answered your question. That's that's how I would answer that, yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:45

Thank you, and one quick question, and you've kind of answered it partly already, but what advice would you give new managers and I'm already hearing the thought about be curious, ask questions? You probably would recommend that. What else would you recommend to new managers?

Speaker 3: 26:02

I would say, be curious, ask questions. I would also say, as a manager, you really need to get to know your employees. You need to know what makes them motivated, what makes them tick. Maybe they do have some chaos happening at home and you need to be aware of that. Maybe they have some other restrictions, maybe they are really passionate about certain things.

Speaker 3: 26:27

I would say, particularly when I had to manage people that were maybe my senior in age, I found that initially probably very strange because, like what do I, how am I supposed to tell you what to do? Right, it's not really about that. It's about building that team and John referenced it earlier. You want to make everybody better so that you, you, you know everybody looks better. I want to have somebody else promoted, you know, to take my job and you have to know the people that you're working with, and I think there's some managers that don't spend time doing that. I hope that I do a decent job of doing that, and it might even be that you have to do that outside of work. It's not just a hey, we need to have our one on one, it's let's, let's like put that job aside and let's just talk about how you're really doing right now. You know what I mean, so.

Speaker 3: 27:15

I would say that that's something that's important that I don't think is common all the time.

Speaker 2: 27:19

I think one of the things that that you probably are doing that.

Speaker 2: 27:23

I'm not sure if it was back when we were working at the same place, but I spend more time talking about career performance reviews rather than performance reviews. It was trying to find out how do we get to the next step of what somebody wants to do, whether it's an annual or whether it's semi-annual If you're lucky, you do a lot more than that, but it's having an idea of what the career that they're interested in and how do we get you from point A to point B? I think one of my favorite stories from our examples is that I had that one particular individual who was a painter that wanted to be a farmer. It's like dude, let's help you get be a farmer. There's no making it a horrible environment while they're trying to make that transition. Help that transition, get to where you want to be.

Speaker 2: 28:10

If this is your career path, my job is to help you get to where you want to be. If this is your career path, my job is to help you get to where you want to be in your career, not why you're not performing and how we're going to be firing you. That's not really the goal. If you have interest and I can help you to get to that point, whether it's going back to school, whether it's reassignment all those things I think you do on a regular basis too. When you're looking at a diverse team, you're dealing with tradespeople that have different skill sets and different interests. You never know when you have somebody that wants to go into a different part of the trade or start going into the professional side of it too. You have both. So I think this kind of covers a lot of what we wanted to try to get in terms of communicating to others how leaders are responsible and the things that you've done. Thank you for taking the time. We really do appreciate it, and more success as you go forward. Continued success, yes.

Speaker 1: 29:08

Professional, yeah, so that's awesome, thank you.

Speaker 2: 29:09

Appreciate it, guys. Thank you. Professional, yeah, yeah, so that's awesome, thank you.

Speaker 3: 29:11

Appreciate it, guys. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

Speaker 2: 29:17

Well, that was awesome, all right, so next time on our podcast we'll be talking about performance evaluations, and I know we said that last the last podcast, but this opportunity with Alicia was something we wanted to take advantage of, so that was pretty cool. So, if you like what you've heard on this podcast, there is that music. My book is available at amazoncom and lulucom and my ebook is available at Barnes and Noble. The podcast is on the format that you found, thank you, and other popular podcast formats. Dr Durst's books and his MBR program is available on success, success growth academycom. We also have ways of contacting us. There's buy me a cup of coffee and you can get ahold of us that way. We also have our emails Wando 75 period, jw at gmailcom and Greg, your contact.

Speaker 1: 30:15

John, that can be reached at gpowell374 at gmailcom.

Speaker 2: 30:21

And the music's by my grandson. So we want to hear from you, let us know, and hopefully you've enjoyed our guest. We'll be doing a few other guest interviews as we go forward. So, greg, thanks.

Speaker 1: 30:37

Thanks, john, as always.

Speaker 2: 30:39

Next time, next time.