Navigating today’s workforce challenges can require the courage to adopt new leadership styles.
That concept was discussed during a breakout session at BizTimes Media’s annual Women in Business Symposium last month. The event, which was held Aug. 21 at the Brookfield Conference Center, brought together hundreds of women to exchange leadership tips and experiences.
The breakout session “Courage to Lead Differently: Redefining Leadership for a New Era” featured panelists Sarah Maio, who most recently served as vice president of marketing and communications for the Wisconsin Center District; Lori Richards, CEO of Milwaukee-based Mueller Communications; and Lacey Sadoff, president of Fond du Lac-based Badger Liquor.
Beth Ridley, founder and CEO of Ridley Consulting Group, moderated the panel.
For Maio, empathy is key to her leadership style.
“To me, being empathetic means giving yourself the opportunity to build a different kind of relationship and a different kind of bridge, not only with the staff, with your colleagues, with the board, with your family, with your friends, and ultimately – the lesson I started to learn the hard way was – even with yourself,” Maio said.
While Maio would tell others to give themselves grace, it took some time for her to realize she needed to take her own advice.
In the workplace, being empathetic and vulnerable with others can build trust, which will spur team members to perform at their highest level and have greater confidence, she said.
“Being empathetic is not a synonym for being a pushover,” Maio said. “I think that empathy is developed by having lived your own life, and having had so much life experience that you really can put yourself into someone else’s shoes and understand what it’s like with whatever chaos that they are dealing with in their personal lives at that moment.”
Maio ensures her team knows they “are in a space of emotional safety when (they) are with me, because I’m leading through empathy,” she said.
Leading from a place of positive intent has helped Richards to motivate and validate staff at Mueller Communications, where she has worked for 25 years after starting out as an intern. Positive intent is rooted in “flipping the script” from the idea that people will only do as little work as possible to get paid.
“People just want to make you happy,” Richards said. “If you hire the right people, they want to give you their best. They want to do great work. And ultimately, they feel successful when the others around them are successful.”
Sadoff’s leadership style is rooted in curiosity, which is a quality she has developed over time since becoming a part of her family’s company.
Sadoff is the fourth-generation owner of Badger Liquor. When she joined the family business in 2008 – which was not part of her plan – she was apprehensive about how much she had to learn. She was also the first female manager in the company, surrounded by the male-dominated liquor and wine industry.
“Although I was curious, I felt like I had more to prove than the luxury of being able to ask the questions,” Sadoff said. “I felt like if I asked too many questions, it would expose me.”
Sadoff said she felt like an imposter who needed to prove herself and thought she had limited opportunities to be curious along the way.
Today, her curiosity helps her understand the business, decision-making, the historical context of the business, as well as insight into the people she is trying to lead.
“How do you inspire them, engage them, develop them?” Sadoff said. “What pieces of their decision trees or critical thinking, what foundational opportunities do you have to meet them where they’re at and build them up and help them understand the way you think, the way you approach your business or the areas that you’re managing?”
As a leader, it comes down to how you want to make people feel, Sadoff said.
The leaders of her business 20 years ago were aggressive in how they treated team members. Sadoff knew she wanted to change that.
“It’s just one by one, being patient and curious and leading by example, and the success comes,” Sadoff said.
Ridley identified the leadership qualities Maio, Richards and Sadoff discussed as “human-centric” skills that involve making genuine connections with people so they can rise to their potential.
“There’s not any one way to do that,” Ridley said. “You’re all leaning into that a little bit differently, from positive intent to empathy and curiosity.”
