Episode 48: How Great Leaders Build Performance Without Burnout with Juliette Dupré

Can organizations achieve exceptional performance without exhausting their people?

In this thought-provoking episode of Her Boss Brain, Pallavi Jain sits down with Juliet Dupre, Chief People Officer, Interim COO, and award-winning HR leader, to explore how today's leaders can create workplaces where both people and business thrive.

Drawing from her extraordinary personal journey of becoming financially independent at just 14 years old and her experience leading high-growth technology companies through transformation, Juliet shares powerful lessons on resilience, leadership, psychological safety, organizational culture, and navigating constant change. Together, they discuss why emotional intelligence, mental well-being, and human-centered leadership are no longer "soft skills," but essential business strategies for improving performance, engagement, innovation, and long-term success.

You'll also hear how Juliet helped reduce employee turnover from 20% to just 4%, why organizations must stop viewing people and profit as competing priorities, and how leaders can build resilient teams that perform under pressure without burning out.

Whether you're a CEO, HR leader, manager, or entrepreneur, this episode offers practical insights on leading with clarity, compassion, and purpose in an increasingly complex world.

Because the strongest organizations don't choose between people and performance.

They build cultures where both thrive together.

Connect with Juliet Dupre

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliettedupre/
X: https://x.com/julietdupre

Follow Her BOSS Brain – Stress to Success for weekly conversations on leadership, human behavior, and performance under pressure.
To bring this work into your organization: www.pallavi-jain.com
Share your thoughts or questions: herbossbrain@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

If you're a high-achieving woman who's exhausted by stress, stuck in constant conflict, and tired of being overlooked in the exact rooms where you know you were born to lead, then this podcast is for you. So here's your host, Paul V Jane.

SPEAKER_03 0:25

Don't stop. Welcome to her Boss Brain Podcast.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

I'm Pallavi, and today's conversation is about something I think many organizations are wrestling with right now. How do we create performance without creating exhaustion? We talk a lot about strategy, execution, productivity, and growth. But underneath all of that are human beings who are expected to perform in uncertainty, constant change, and increasingly complex work environments. Joining me today for this conversation is Juliet Dupree. Juliet is the Chief People Officer, an interim COO at Other Side Entertainment, and an organizational strategist who works at the intersection of people, performance, and the future of work and have been recently awarded with three HR Leadership Awards for Innovation and Leadership Impact. Over the past 15 years, she has helped technology companies scale through growth and transformation by building high-performing teams, leading organizational change, and rethinking how people practices drive business outcomes. Juliet, I'm excited for this conversation and to explore what it truly takes to build cultures where both people and businesses can thrive. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Thank you. I'm so excited to speak about this topic with you today. It's great to be here.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

Absolutely. And you know, before we talk about strategy and leadership, I want to touch on your personal journey, which is rooted in resilience, adaptability, and navigating change from an early age. So would you be open to sharing a personal moment or that experience with us that has shaped how you lead today?

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Sure. Yeah, I didn't expect for you to get too into that, but I'm happy to. And I do, you know, I'm not I've ever hidden that or under wraps. It's a little bit about that on my LinkedIn profile. So happy to share. For anyone who is not as familiar as my background, I trained professionally in ballet when I was young and also sort of grew up in a less financially successful home, I guess you could call it. So I ended up financially independent by the age of 14. I was truly my own by that age, managing my own financial life, my own life in general. Everything from going to the dentist to, you know, paying bills and having a bank account. And there were a lot of reasons for that related to my home situation. And it was a little bit scary, but I learned so much at a young age about resilience. I really wanted to believe that I could achieve a future that would be safe and well and financially stable for myself. And I think I did those things, and I'm very proud of that. But even just as a young person, there are many barriers that I ran into, many roadblocks, many confusing things. I did not have a ton of support and help from adults. I did have some unexpected sort of like angels come in the picture to help me figure things on wonderful people that I still consider um family to be today. But no shortage of pretty significant, unusual challenges that I just learned sort of to think about. I don't know if there's any Star Trek fans out there. You run into a problem and you just it seems like you have five or six things and they're unsolvable, and you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and solving the thing that's in front of you. That's how you keep going. You just don't give up and keep striving to solve the thing that's right there and focus on that. Don't think about what if it doesn't happen. Don't think about, well, if I have that solved, then I have four other things to solve, just one at a time, knocking them down. And that's really stayed with me through the course of my life and certainly my professional life. Going through you know recessions and various crazy things. I'm in this tech startup universe, there's no shortage of challenges. So that's my personality sort of baked into who I am. It's become very useful. And I try as best as I can to educate and inspire resilience in others as well and talk about because I think where I came from gives me a lot of perspective and resilience that many people thankfully had not as much challenge growing up, perhaps, and don't, you know, haven't been exposed to that. And that's a good thing. But if I have that, it's something I try to share.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

No, wow. Oh my God, like financial independence at the age of 14, that's huge. And I can't even imagine what you had to go through to do that. But like you said, I mean, those challenges are shaping how you're showing up. So give us one example. Like, how does that show up in your decisions today? If you can think of one thing that you can share.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it is, of course, you know, the attitude that you take when something doesn't work out, the perspective that you have when situation isn't what you want it to be. I have at least some confidence to know that I've been through harder things and that hard things did happen. There is a future day, there's you know, more to come if you're fortunate and have your health, there's a lot there. It's important to remember that especially if you've been through very tough things, that you can get through them, you can't survive. There is still a lot of good in what you're doing and you know, what you're pursuing, what you've built for yourself, you know, as far as you've come, to just not give up. And that, you know, I've been with companies who've been through very serious financial hardships or downturns, always in the live event business when COVID hit. So live events fell apart. Our business was, you know, say the least heavily impacted, basically kind of destroyed. So, you know, these things are very serious. They affect people's livelihoods, their health insurance coverage, all these things. And also tomorrow is a new day. And that's the kind of attitude and approach that I think I learned early in life that is extremely helpful in the crazy times you're living in, which is an overused phrase. No less.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

Yeah, I think that makes sense. It kind of I think builds that mindset that how you're approaching certain things and with that grid, but at the same time with that hope that things will get better because you've gone through those kind of rhythms so many times. So that makes sense. So if we now move to your role as both the CPO and the interim COO, it's interesting because you know, as an HR leader, so I have been the CPO and you know the HR leader of various organizations and also collaborated with other COOs and CEOs. So you sit now at that intersection of people and business performance because I think that's how I would see both roles in my experience. What are some of the biggest people and culture challenges you're navigating right now?

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Sure. I think it is really does come back to resilience. It's sort of a related point to what we just spoke about is that the pace of change has accelerated, which is really a dramatic gift in the past 20, 30, 40 years. Change transformation used to be something that you know, business writers for HBR, you know, there's plenty of books out there, would really characterize a one-time experience. There's a new big technology, there is a thing happening over here. We're pivoting the business, particularly in the tech startup field if you're in there, but really across all fields with the advent of our political and economic climate, AI as a major disruption. It's just constant. It is not a one-time, oh, let's run a transformational change. Let's here's our checklist, here's the steps we're gonna take to move these thousands of people forward or even tens of thousands to some cases. It is a daily experience if you have to, you know, pull from one's resilience and manage the emotional impact of change fatigue that people experience. This is no longer and probably will not revert to a world in which business operates with periods of long stability and then occasional disruptions that people get their feathers rifle out through. It is just non-stop. Who knows what the next email is gonna bring? Who knows what the next announcement's gonna bring? Who knows what the next news headline is gonna be that's gonna affect my life day to day kind of.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

That makes perfect sense. And I see that a lot with organizations I work with because you know, our own program is built on that change in resilience of making people capable to do that. You know, you understand that, but from your vantage point, like what are leaders underestimating in all of this?

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Yeah, it's a psychological impact for sure, the mental health impact. We just had May was Mentira Health Awareness Month for anyone who is maybe not keeping track of the many different months of awareness of pinks, which is understandable. There's all the processes that are going on all the time. Yes, it is a very real uh impact to our cone, right? If you have an entire group or generation or multiple generations of folks dealing with constant resilience limitations and change fatigue and mental health impacts from the feelings of uncertainty, living in a VUCA world, a body world, whichever acronym you prefer, it all really comes down to the same thing. It's exhausting mentally. You talk about exhaustion in some of your work, it's really a mental hardship for a lot of folks. And if you take that and sort of extrapolate it to you know it's funny how executives and businesses and folks trying to focus on profitable outcomes are very quick to find any little way they can to improve productivity, yeah, and assumedly ROI, assumedly push it. When something like this is a huge impact to our workforce and therefore to our profitability across the board as an economy. And it's just very hard to get focus and attention and resources for mental health or you know, taking care of people as humans so that they can actually thrive and be their best and be their most productive and engaged. It's wild to me.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

No, you're absolutely true. And you know, kind of it's like we talk a lot about strategy and execution and about performance, but pressure seems to be this invisible force that is sitting underneath all of it. And and like I said, you know, one thing I've observed in my work is that the most organizations invest, they invest heavily in these technical capabilities, leadership skills, and operational excellence. But performance is really lost in these documents and strategies. It's literally lost in these real moments when everyday pressure arises, when emotions escalate, when priorities, and and people are unable to make good decisions, right? So do you think organizations are intentionally building that human capability today? Or are we assuming that people will figure it out on their own because they're smart, so they'll figure out that. And if that capability gap exists, if you think it exists, what does it cost us, like in performance, culture, retention, and business outcomes? Kind of what you were saying.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Yeah. But I think there's probably research out there on this, but if I were a betting woman, I would bet that it does cost us billions of dollars in revenue for across the US. Like I think that's actually an easy statement for me to make. And there are lots of ways that companies attempt to quantify this and are very legitimate. Like today's missed, you know, unexpected time off. There are all these metrics and KPIs that we use. But what can't be really accurately captured, I think, or is very difficult to capture in numbers, is just the day-to-day kind of like you're speaking about the day-to-day lack of velocity, lack of engagement that doesn't really get, you know, it doesn't get manifested in necessarily days specifically, it gets manifested in interactions that kind of go viral instead of going somewhere or departments not speaking to each other, people not, you know, really just thriving and being in a flow state. There's a lot to be said about that. I think if you study professional athletes, if you study how the brain works when it's an unoptimal state, there's a reason why that is such a big industry, right? Trying to sort of get oneself to this the promised land of brain activity and comfort. We know that there is a huge difference in our own performance and how people perform when they're in that optimal state. But it's not really possible to achieve that state when you feel like you're in a constant state of pain. Because safety, psychological safety and trust, and all those things that would, you know, the squishy things that a lot of CEOs think are stupid is prerequisite to having that flow state, which is critical to having optimized productivity. So I don't know what, you know, for those out there who are skeptical, I know what to tell you. You know, this is how the human brain operates. And you, as someone who studies neuroscience and adaptability and how the brain operates in stress situations versus low state situations, which are kind of to me the opposite ends of the business brain perspective. It's quite obvious. But I think there are a lot of people out there who are very skeptical of that. And well, absolutely waste money on new technologies and things like that, are just a total not a total waste of time, but just to me, a lot more spurious in their outputs, actually, than investing in people's wellness, their mental health, and making sure that folks can have a chance at achieving that that level of performance that is really desirable and really the sweet spot that we all want our businesses to break in all the time.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Yeah. And what you said makes so much sense because, you know, it's like you like you said, right? They're busy spending all this money on all this technology. It's like, you know, you're getting all this decked up car with all the bells and whistles and everything, and the person don't even know how to drive. What's the point of all those features? And I think in technology too, we end up like even when I was an HR leader, right? We would take a system, we'll spend so much thousands of dollars on that, then we'll train people, and then people don't even end up using 10% or 20% of the features of that software. It's really that, right? And I also really try to make a point that it's not just well-being or mental health that we're talking about here. It's truly, you know, preparing them and teaching them how to operate under this pressure and change, because we have never been taught. We just assume that, you know, if a person is smart and competent, they will just take care of that or they will just know that how to do it. But now, kind of what you said a few minutes ago, that you know, it's not like change is going to happen once in a lifetime, it's every day. You know, you've talked about COVID, you talked about AI, all the other things that are happening every single day. This is a norm. And we haven't created that capability. Like, you know, you mentioned athletes, like you know, they go through that mindset and that kind of training that prepare star athletes to actually perform in those moments where we then you know stick glued and we watch and we expect them to deliver because that's what they consistently keep doing, right? So I agree with you what you're saying and what you're seeing, because a lot of organizations are seeing that, some are agreeing to it, some are not basically you know saying, okay, I choose not to see that, right? But so you have shared something with me that really stayed with me the other day we were talking, and you shared that in your current organization, you were able to reduce turnover from 20% to 4%. I mean, that's significant. So, what changed? Like, were there assumptions that turned to out to be wrong? What are some of the strategies you did? Like, how did you do that?

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Well, it's a bunch of little things, I think. Yes. Like, you know, I've analyzed that and thought about the approach. You never know for sure if your approach is going to be successful. And there are externalities that you can't control that also play a role in favor and against what you're trying to do, right? That's for right now. When it comes to turnover, it's important to acknowledge the labor market is very, very cute. So, you know, job hooking is a cute phrase people are using. But so, you know, I would it's always important to acknowledge that. But this was sort of already in that period of time. So I think it's not like a new context that this change happened within. But it was first, of course, talking to people and listening to what their issues were, trying to really prioritize and look at that as a systemic painting, you know, painting a picture, as well as you know, sort of uh what I always say is like search and destroy, search and destroy like bugs in software. You know, you want to find these issues that people are experiencing and see how many can I annihilate, regardless like I think of it that way. It's like, I don't know, I come from video games, so maybe that's my mindset. Like, how can I like find and destroy these little problems that people are having? I think that makes a big difference when you're listening, when you're understanding how a small frustration impacts someone's experience and can be very meaningful for them and taking it seriously. And then looking at the whole, what is the system that we've created for people to exist in here at the studio? And it includes things like the benefits, the you know, programs that we have for them. We did overhaul with the support of our wonderful CEO, Paul earlier, established a number of new programs to be more supportive to people. We already had some good stuff in here, they had a learning stipend. We had a wellness stipend. We expanded those programs. We also added in a number of other programs. And for a time, we're very fortunate to be able to offer three mental health care about a year and a half to the staff with licensed licensed uh mental health workers. So that was really awesome as well. Even just knowing that it was there gave people comfort with a lot of participation. I think you made an earlier point about logging participation programs. It is a way to certainly measure how initiatives are you know are going, whether they're being used or not, is certainly relevant. But it's tough to really quantify again, like coming back to the studio of what are the KPIs of this? It's tough to really quantify whether these programs are operating. But in my head, I still think of if you pull back to the community lens, you pull even farther back to the national stage lens of GDP and these their measures. Yeah, how productive are we as a society, as a nation, if everyone's operating it a little bit less? That's a great point. Yeah, so it's a little bit of a bigger picture mindset that I take to this as well. But yes, going back to this little statistic of turnover, it's relevant. It certainly was very noticeable. We're very proud of that. It was something we specifically wanted to improve. Very, very happy with the that's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

That's really incredible because I think a lot of us stay in those engagement surveys and things, and then the real metrics, people don't look at that. If they look at it, they are not able to make those real pivots happen. So congratulations because that's really amazing that you know you were actually able to achieve sustainable results through those pivots that you made. So yeah. And the other thing that you spoke, which I definitely wanted to share here, because I think that's a great perspective for other HR leaders and CEOs and COOs who are out there, because I feel sometimes there is this conflict. So I'll share with you, like, you know, some of the programs that I've done for the organizations. The CPO really wanted to bring that program to their organization and were very invested. But then oftentimes, either the CFO or the COO were more about the short term. Okay, why and I think it's the wiring that they've been doing these same stuff for 20 years and they are not pausing to understand, well, that's not working. You're already spending so much time and resources into that. It's worth trying something new and see what happens because that, anyways, is not working, right? What we're learning in the conflict management training or project management training or something like that, right? Or effective decision making. Are we really applying that in real situations? And how many of us are doing that? So it's not. We got to move past the check the box exercise that we are offering trainings, but actually investing our money and potential into things that actually matter. Kind of, you know, how you did in the turnover experience, right? You actually found out what is really creating this and try to solve that rather than just keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result. So this example that you shared with me really was brilliant when you talked about this Venn diagram. And I think you can see it because you have both sides and you're doing the people aspect, and then you're very mindful and conscious of the operational impact and the business outcome. So it probably came naturally to you, but I think it's a great perspective. So would you mind sharing and explaining to our listeners what that Venn diagram that you and I were talking about and how you see that and why both pieces are so important?

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Of course. So it's something that I've had in my brain, sort of in my head as a mental model for a long time. And it's just this concept that, of course, we recognize there is a friction between labor and capital fundamentally. This is something that if you've done social science research or even dabbled in it, is undeniable. It's why we had all the labor controversies and union controversies in the you know early turn of the century, last century. And as I watched point out to HR folks coming up under me and my teams, people literally fought and died for the 40-hour work week, which becomes a really important turning point in history and it really highlights the now. There is so much mutual goal, mutual objectives that both paper and capital have because they can't succeed with each other. They can't survive, let alone succeed. And that's really important. That it's really important for a workforce to understand that without the business, they do need the business. There are lots of people out there, all my folks on Reddit, I hear you. And yet also here is a reality that you know, not every single person in the US to be an entrepreneur. And I know that's a big topic right now. So we need businesses as people who want to work for them, and we need them to be healthy businesses, we need them to be businesses where they can be profitable, that profit is not inherently evil. And so that's one side, and then the other side you have businesses, that a capitalist side, and that's where it's easy to start thinking that all that capital needs and wants and thinks about is and sometimes it doesn't I will never deny that. And yet also capital has to recognize, and it often does recognize that without the humans, without the people, they can't move forward. Now, obviously, people are gonna raise their hand and say, What about AI? AI is coming for all our jobs. I think there's a lot of disagreement about that, first of all. And it's very intelligent people pointing out that is not where we are right now. I can't vouch for tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow, but not today. Today that's not where we are. There are a lot of companies that are saying that AI is the reason they're doing the AI or whatever. They're not worried about doing a workforce. That is still a very, very small percentage. Go look at the numbers, it's a pretty small percentage of companies, and that's important too. So I'm just talking about the reality of right now and the reality that we've seen for a very, very long time. I'm not saying that can't change, but I don't think it's right in front of us, even. I think it's you know, that type of experience would be far much farther in the future, in my opinion. And that is something I stand by for this context of this discussion. In that Venn diagram, you have this overlap. The business and the people, you know, we really need good economies, healthy economies. And together is the only way that we can create that. The business needs to have its ability to make profit or if a nonprofit ability to make impact in the way that it's affected to. And the humans need to have an environment, a community, a business environment in which they can thrive. But you can't deny that any more than you can deny that that the friction doesn't exist. And so I really try to find that overlap. That is what my goal is every day, is to find that overlap and keep people focused on that because I think that's where the most opportunity is, and the most not just for economies, but for communities.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Yeah, I absolutely love that. And I think that is the right approach. And that's why, like, you know, I love your depiction of that physical kind of diagram because sometimes people don't understand that. It's so obvious to some, but it's not obvious to some, right? And we need leaders like you more and more in the day-to-day and in the future, who actually understand that and who can be very intentional and strategic about making sure that they are operating in that overlap where it's working for both sides. Because, right, what happens when companies optimize only one for one, you know, only for one side? The system doesn't work. At the end of the day, kind of what you said, right? It you need the both. So I really like that. And can you share with us an example, which I'm sure you have many, but if you can share one where you made that decision that strengthened culture, you know, employee performance while also improving business outcomes?

SPEAKER_01 27:31

Yeah, I will give you one of the toughest ones because it's happened more than once in my career, which is people are going to see all have strong feelings about this one. I understand. It's the removal of performance-related talent uh detractors from the business. So folks who are having performance issues, making the tough decision to really identify those, to pursue course correction. And then if we're not able to make that course correction, to go ahead and remove those folks from the business. The worst part of the work that we do. The worst. And also incredibly critical to support the people who are there, they are bringing their best work and doing what they can to keep the business moving forward and for the business to continue moving forward. It's just not possible to not make those tough decisions and for communities to succeed, which is a huge statement to make. But I do stand by it. I know that's a bit hard necessarily to hear for some folks, but those have been the moments that have been the toughest where the rubber meets the road on these kinds of things is a perfect example. And I've spoken with more than one CEO who is troubled by the decision, and others less so. Others are on the opposite of the scene, you know, and then you have to kind of balance that out. But on the side of as well, hiring managers who have trouble making that decision, super, super common. And I always feel it's very important to point out to them and help them to really see the importance of protecting the people that people are in their roles properly and doing their best work. You're really harming them, you are harming them by having them pick up the slack from other people, duly from having them working with folks who they don't feel great to be sitting next to, it really, really hurts them, and that's not a nice thing that you're doing. So that's a tough example. I give it because it's so difficult, but it's it happens.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

It makes sense, and I think kind of what you said, it's kind of the other side of it. How is it creating accountability and on on both sides, right? And for the people who are actually doing great work, right? It's these moments also showcase that you're not sending those mixed signals, which I talk a lot about here also with that misalignment, right? Because sometimes we say people are not taking ownership or not, they're not taking accountability for some things, but that often sometimes also happens because of these conflicting messages that they get from their leadership. Like, what is it that actually matters here? So I think, right? So I hear you, and I think that is such a good point, and definitely harder to do those things, but sometimes you gotta do what's the right thing to do. So I know you're also very passionate about, and we've touched on that a little bit, about mental health and human sustainability. And I know how much you were raving about your own current company who is and your CEO, who is very, very supportive of those efforts and see the value in that. So, what does that actually look like in the day-to-day leadership, not just in statements, but in operating decisions?

SPEAKER_01 30:40

I guess I think, of course, you have to make an effort to understand people's context, you know, related to our question that you just asked and my answer about, you know, removing talent who's not able to keep up. The other side of that coin is, you know, is really important to have you do you really understand people's context? Do you really understand what they're dealing with? Things like loss of a family member, things like serious illnesses. It's really important to understand the extent that people are comfortable disclosing, and hopefully you've created an environment where they feel safe doing that, what those things are that they're going through, if they are there, so that you can calibrate and provide a compassionate atmosphere for those issues when it makes sense to do so.

SPEAKER_03 31:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

This can get really complicated. So you know, it does get really complicated. People go, especially as you know, your workforce grows with you, and hopefully you folks have a tenure where they've gone through different stages in life with you. But things are gonna happen. People go through different phases in life, changes, divorces, these various moments. And it's super important, I think it is for us and for my CEO to really understand the context that people are dealing with, even when performance is great, whatever's going on. It's not you know, it's not only about that, it's about caring about your workforce genuinely. Now we're a very small company, we can have a lot more touch points with people, we can have a bit more sort of uh friendly, sort of just everybody knows everybody atmosphere than a 10,000-person company can, of course, I understand it. And also we have a lot less room for Slack because we already operate with extremely limited resources. You know, we don't have redundancies built in on everything when you're a tiny company to do that. So, yes, no matter where you sit in the size of company type of remit, there's pros and there's challenges and there's easy parts to this for you. But I don't think it makes it any less worth working towards understanding what people are dealing with and having a reasonable amount of support and compression for them. Reasonable, not unreasonable, reasonable amount of support and compression.

SPEAKER_02 33:05

That's great. That's great. Well, that's good to hear. And as you were talking about, you know, the context of understanding where people were actually coming from, one example just came to my mind, and I would love to share it here. So I was working with the group of managers and directors in one of the organizations I was working in, they all agreed that communication was a challenge, okay, within their team. And initially everyone thought the issue was these meetings and the processes that were going through. But once we started looking deeper, what literally emerged was that communication wasn't the root issue. It was often what people brought into those moments under pressure, right? People were entering conversations already overloaded or having personal situations or making assumptions, they were reacting defensively or avoiding difficult conversations, or the leaders were rushing decisions, right? Because they wanted to get it over with. So we worked on helping them recognize those moments in real time. So, kind of what you said, rubber hits the road, right? In those real moments, what's really happening, not in theory, and build those intentional ways of responding. So I remember one leader shared that instead of escalating a conflict and losing weeks of productivity after that and momentum, they approach the conversation differently and resolved it in one meeting. And that's the beauty of when leadership actually understands and gets the context of why something is happening the way it's happening, and also understand their own emotions and how they are perceiving the certain situation. It's incredible, right? And that's when it struck me that it wasn't that people learned something new. It was just the external conditions didn't change, but the quality of how people showed up for one another that changed the outcome, right? So yeah. And when you think about culture and performance in your own organization, do you see this internal capacity as something that can actually be developed? Or, you know, is it still largely being treated as personality?

SPEAKER_01 35:01

Yeah, I think it varies by organization for sure. And yes, and it can be even specific to the group, to the team, you know, to the leadership team at the time. There's so many different things that go into how that is sort of calibrated or and perceived by everyone. But I think something that's really important about what you said, and that's sort of the background and also the foreground of everything that we've discussed today, is the idea of emotional intelligence and emotional regulation. And what I did my master's, it was on the topic of the importance of long-term mindset in business leadership, which you had mentioned earlier, why you know the short-termness, myopic mindset. And I'm with you 100% on how damaging that is to communities and economies. But I think it's very, very connected to everything having to do with motion regulation that you just said on a day-to-day level and emotional intelligence. And a lot of the work that I studied, I was at the new school for my master's and worked under Dr. Lapa Punamali, who I adore, highly recommend her research if anyone's looking for more on this topic. That was a lot of what it came down to when we're talking about long-term mindset versus short-term mindset, the ability to navigate day-to-day situations, even that are, you know, can either spin into our business's complete inability to coordinate itself, or that can just simply be, you know, part of the day-to-day. We know how to navigate it. We know how to sort of acknowledge and manage our emotional response to these things and work together to solutions with the minimum amount of drama. Yeah. It's actually all quite connected.

SPEAKER_02 36:45

Yeah. And that's why I mean, we say when we say that, you know, people don't lose or leave organizations, they leave managers because they are the ones they're having these daily interactions. That's the feeling you get of going to work. How do I feel sitting in that or interacting with my team? It's the day-to-day. And even you mentioned like the turnover thing. It was the what people were feeling in the day-to-day moments. Like those little things because they happen repeatedly, and those are things that we experience in our day-to-day life, and they stack up of creating that experience. So I think that all makes sense. So bringing it back to you, because you have a great role that you play here. And when you think about your own ability to lead under pressure, what practices help you stay, you know, intentional instead of reactive and actually intentionally lead others around you?

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Right. So a literal practice that will maybe will not surprise you, you've probably run into others before who cited that is meditation. The practice I have a meditation practice. My meditation practice is not perfect like many, but it is there for me. And it's been extremely valuable to me in times of stress, ups and downs through life. And it's just really important to me to have a moment that I take at least at least once a week where I can give my brain some space and research time. I think it was really interesting in your ATM framework, which if people aren't familiar with it, is all of these kind of talk, which you should definitely go check out. Um there's this idea of the you know, sort of like a mental research. If you're withdrawing something, you have to put something in kind of in the way that I interpret it from you. And I for me, that's something that meditation does. It actually puts something something back, something positive, something uh energizing and simultaneously relaxing and rejuvenating into my brain process. So I do recommend if anyone out there has been curious about meditation, you don't have to buy a fancy app to do it. Um, Dr. Pun Pun Malugo mentioned that's a website, there's free stuff there. There's free stuff all over the internet that's very, very good. And at the end of the day, meditation is simply sitting quietly, so it shouldn't cost you anything, right?

SPEAKER_02 39:11

No, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

I'm kind of joking, but you know, it's really important to uh democratize it and help people access it.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

It does because it actually creates that pause that we talk about, right? So I've been meditating for a very long time, and I'm my husband jokes about it. It's been eight, nine years, and my husband jokes about it. Like, she can miss anything, but she can't miss her meditation practice. I'm like, yes, I can't. I love it. Yes, happy, then let me go do that. Tell you what, it's really something. Yes, it is, and I think it's creating that ritual, whatever grounds you, whatever brings you back to your normal state, because in our normal states, all of us are amazing human beings. We all want to do good, be on, you know, it's just at the end of the day, everybody wants to feel loved, everybody wants to feel fulfilled and connected, and you know, all that. And it's a way of coming back to that reality, to that center. So I 100% agree with you. And I have had the same experience that it really grounds you, it really brings you back to what is it that truly matters to you? Because it creates that space, right? Um reacting to life that's happening in front of us, and we're just in that moment. And we get lost because we are in this overstimulated world today where you know you open social media, and you know, there's just so many things that just are thrown at you, and that's the whole like that's how they're designed, right? That's how it is. But it's important to just step back for a few minutes and definitely ground yourself. So thank you for that quick, you know, sharing of your own thing that it works for you, and that's something. And what's one capability? This is my last question to you. What's one capability leaders will need more of over the next five years that than they do today?

SPEAKER_01 41:03

Yeah, I think I think it really does come down to how our conversation started the ability to help others build their own resilience. It's funny. I was at a conference earlier this week, and someone made a comment like, oh, I shouldn't say resilience, it's such an overused word. So I suppose it's becoming like a buzzword to people, which is regrettable. Happens the branding is a whole thing, the marketing funny different phrase. But if you can sort of remove the overuse of it and really understand what that word means to someone who has been through even in your own life, I'm sure a lot of folks out there religion is they've been through a death in the family, they've been through, you know, different crises in life, different, you know, economic collapses, layoffs, you know, really tough things. And building the belief that you will be okay, it does translate to these crazy things we experience at work in business. It really is a valuable skill to build. And it is a buildable skill, it's not something you're born with or you're not. And I think yeah, and I think leadership has to be a leader, you need to be able to help people find that in themselves. There's nothing buzzwardy about that. It's a very real human need to be able to move forward in the face of serious adversity. I think there will be no shortage of adversity coming up in the next one. Yes, absolutely. No, I love that. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:36

Well, thank you. Thank you so much. It was such a wonderful conversation, and I want to give you a moment to also tell our listeners how the what is the best way they can reach you.

SPEAKER_01 42:45

Oh, wonderful. So I am on LinkedIn, of course. I'm you know, I'm there, Julia Dupree. It's like in slash Julia Dupre, whatever. Um, yeah, we'll have her in the show notes. Perfect, perfect. And we're um we're at I'm at Julia Dupree on Twitter though, or X, yes, so behind the times, but I'm not often there because I'm not a huge social media person. And that is also reflective of my resilience beliefs and how or unhelpful that world is.

SPEAKER_02 43:15

Exactly. Well, thank you so much. What stood out to me today is that in a world where uncertainty, pressure, and change aren't going away, our ability to perform isn't just about what we know. It's about how we show up in the moments that matter the most. Because leadership isn't tested in theory, it's tested in conversation, in everyday decisions, setbacks, competing priorities, and the moments where we choose how we respond. So I just want to thank you again, Juliet, for sharing your insights and giving us a deeper look into what it really means to build organizations where people and performance can actually thrive together and a more intentional way of thinking that both are sides of the same coin. So I just want to thank you again. Thank you everyone for listening. And until next time, keep leading from within.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

So that's it for today's episode of her boss brain podcast. Head on over to Apple Podcasts iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week that posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will win a chance in a grand prize drawing to win a twenty-five thousand dollar private VIP day with Pollovy herself. Be sure to head on over to her bossbrainpodcast.com and pick up a free copy of Pelovi's Gift and join us next time.