Growing Past Skepticism
Episode Notes
In this episode of the "52 Humans" podcast hosted by Paul Wolfe, he interviews Sara Axelbaum, the Global Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at MIQ. They discuss the importance of human-first and empathetic leadership, with Sara sharing her personal experience of starting a women's employee resource group in her organization. Despite initial resistance and skepticism, Sara's vulnerability and the support of her boss led to the successful launch of the group, creating a sense of empowerment, networking, and opportunity for women in the company. The conversation highlights the significance of psychological safety and the transformative impact of embracing diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
-
0:17
Hello and welcome to another weekly episode of 52 humans, the vlog cast on stories of human first leadership.
0:24
I'm your host, Paul Wolf and I've created this show to inspire us all to transform our workplaces by returning to humanity that binds us today.
0:33
I'm looking forward to chatting with Sara Axel about human first and empathetic leadership.
0:38
Sara is the global head of diversity equity and inclusion at M I Q.
0:42
Sara, welcome to the show and thanks for joining us today.
0:45
Thank you so much.
0:46
I'm glad to be here and thank you for putting this together.
0:49
It's really inspiring to hear about all the human things that are happening.
0:52
I appreciate that there, there's, there's human stuff happening all the time.
0:55
We just need to, you know, raise it to the, to the surface.
0:58
I think a lot of it tell us a little bit about M I Q and kind of your role there and what you do.
1:04
Sure.
1:04
So M I Q is a programmatic advertising company and it's in the ad tech sector which is actually where most of my career resided.
1:12
I only in the last 4 to 5 years went into diversity equity and inclusion, knowing that the industry as a whole, definitely had room for improvement when it came to all of those topics.
1:24
But I am really fortunate in the fact that I get to lead a global organization who really believes in D E I as being something that is strategically important for the long term.
1:36
But also how do we make sure that we inspire the humans to inspire each other at the company?
1:43
On a personal level, I live in Westchester New York and I am the mom to two joyful little boys.
1:48
My pronouns are she and her and I love to crochet and go to Broadway Theater.
1:54
I love that.
1:55
I'm not a crochet.
1:56
I don't think I could, I don't think I would be good at it.
1:58
I'm not patient enough, Broadway, I'm there with you.
2:02
I, I love like your, your commentary about, you know, helping an industry and finding a company in an industry, especially in, in tech marketing that embraces diversity, inclusion, belonging, diversity, equity, inclusion, whatever, you know, initials we we want to use that are kind of getting to the same thing.
2:22
And I'm sure you've seen your share of maybe not human first leadership, but can you share kind of a story, something you've experienced or where you've displayed human first leadership with the viewers?
2:34
Yeah, absolutely.
2:35
I think that one of the things that I noticed about the industry is that if you were from any type of historically marginalized background, you did not necessarily see yourself in the leadership of the company.
2:49
And I had worked my way up through being an executive at a number of different companies on the corporate side.
2:56
And I'll never forget I was sitting in a room and at my first day at my first meeting, I was a senior vice president and I was introduced to the company to the room of other senior vice presidents.
3:09
And after the, after the meeting, the man next to me leaned over and said, oh, I'm so excited to have you as a senior vice president.
3:17
I figured you were a secretary here and it was such a moment of just, what decade am I living in?
3:23
So I went down to hr and I said, hi, I'd love to join your women's group.
3:29
I feel like I can have an impact.
3:31
I've been an executive sponsor of other women's employee resource groups and B R G s and I'd like to get involved.
3:38
And she said to me, oh, we don't do that sort of thing here.
3:43
And again, I was taken aback and I said, well, I do that sort of thing.
3:47
So I'm happy to start it.
3:48
How can I start?
3:49
And she basically said, don't ruffle any feathers, keep your head down, do great work.
3:54
You'll do great here.
3:55
Don't worry about the rest.
3:57
That's just not my style.
3:59
And I, as I talked to more and more women around the company, it felt like the support was needed.
4:05
So I went to my boss and talked about a human first leader.
4:08
He basically said, hey, you have my blessing, you have my encouragement.
4:11
I will make sure there is budget, gather up people and let's go.
4:16
And I started galvanizing support working within the corporate world.
4:21
And you know, this hr leader who I'd gone to basically said, oh, no one's gonna join your little group.
4:28
You know, so I wouldn't even bother.
4:30
And then 3000 members later, we had a launch party with 400 women across the company.
4:37
And it was an incredible experience to watch all these people come together who just never had an opportunity before to have a voice and to give a voice and give a group that really allowed support and networking and encouragement and opportunity.
4:53
It was the most motivating group of people I've ever had the pleasure of working with.
4:57
And I was so glad that I had a human first leader who enabled me to be a human, first leader.
5:04
I, I love that.
5:05
Like I, I, I have a lot of questions I'd like to ask, but I won't.
5:10
I, I mean, there are a couple of things to unpack there.
5:12
One, you had a human first leader who said, do it.
5:14
I got you, I'll figure out funding but you as a, an S V P in a company and this is some, some things I think executives forget is they've got to if people have to champion certain causes.
5:29
and, and not just executives, but I think executives have more of a spotlight on them and you were vulnerable.
5:34
because somebody in hr told you like, oh, this isn't gonna work and you shouldn't ruffle any feathers.
5:38
Like, don't, you know, don't upset the Apple Cart.
5:41
So you were v vulnerable in that sense and putting yourself out there because it, you know, the the opposite could have happened.
5:46
Thank God, it didn't.
5:47
But then just vulnerable in the sense of like, I'm gonna do this because it's important.
5:52
Probably a big part of the reason you went into diversity, equity inclusion.
5:57
But, you know, and then just rallying and then, you know, the other thing is just the probably the relief of other women in the organization that somebody took a chance and we all need, we were talking just before we got on camera about, you know, we all people need to take risks to, to facilitate change and change takes a long time.
6:16
But you can go back historically and look at, at people that took risks and some of them worked and some of them didn't.
6:22
Sadly, some of them have been assassinated.
6:24
You know, you can be a litany of things.
6:25
But like, that's such a, a powerful thing to be able to do in an organization.
6:32
, I, I guess, you know, I guess my, my, my question for you is, did you?
6:38
And I think I know the answer based on your comment.
6:40
Did you think about psychological safety?
6:43
Like, did you think about what would happen if this, my boss doesn't support me and you, maybe you would decide to go ahead and try and start grassroots on your own.
6:51
But did you, you think about psychological safety or any of those tho those thoughts flow through your mind before you said I'm gonna go do this.
6:59
I think when I put myself out there, I knew it was a risk, but I felt like it was a risk that I could take because I had the psychological safety of my boss that I had.
7:12
And so much of that was established in the trust and relationship that we had built up over years.
7:18
I was new to the job, but not new to the boss.
7:21
And you know, he knew that I would handle it in a way that he would handle it himself.
7:29
And I think that was the key part of it was that establishment of trust to say that we're in this together.
7:34
What can we do together to make this better?
7:37
And knowing that ruffling feathers is not always the worst thing.
7:41
I think when you're new to a company, it's you don't necessarily have some of the old relics that are, are such a part of how culture is established.
7:51
So, for us, we're like, oh, we can, we can ruffle some feathers, you know, let's, let's see what happens.
7:56
And by simply having that psychological safety that knew that I knew that if I jumped off this cliff that he wasn't going to be like, see you later, that I could actually do so much more, so much faster because I had that safety and trust built up with him.
8:11
Yeah, that, that's so great.
8:13
I, I, I, I assume that would be the answer, but it's also, it's also interesting that you don't necessarily need to have psychological safety at the organizational level.
8:19
Like it really is almost at the individual or team level with the boss.
8:23
And I love the fact that the boss was a guy.
8:25
And this was a woman's group, like more power, you know, good, good for him and, and recognizing that this is something that, you know, I trust this employee and this is probably something that we should be, should have done a long time ago.
8:38
But psychological safety is such, it's such an important part of it and the way, you know, it leaders can, can display that you created psychological safety for 3000 women by putting yourself out there being vulnerable.
8:51
So I, I that's a wonderful example of human first leadership.
8:54
Thank you.
8:54
So much for, for sharing it.
8:58
I don't think I have any other questions.
8:59
I, well, the one question I have is did the, did the hr person that told you not to do it?
9:05
And this may not be the fairest question ever like come and say, oh my God, I was wrong.
9:11
Yeah.
9:11
She joined the group.
9:13
She spoke, she was actually a huge proponent of it and she was very humble in the fact that she said, you know, I was wrong.
9:21
And I think that, you know, one thing I will say is that there's a privilege that I had to be able to take that risk by the position I had and the boss I had that other people didn't.
9:30
But as soon as I was, I used that privilege to do that thing.
9:34
All of a sudden it was all of us coming together to make it happen.
9:38
So while I could kind of push it over the edge, it was the, the camaraderie and the joining of all of us together that made it what it was.
9:47
And it was actually this hr leaders input that helped us get there.
9:51
So who was originally saying like, oh, that's not a good idea, became part of the catalyst to move it forward.
9:57
And that was just an incredible thing to and that's even a better story because what she was vulnerable and admitting she was wrong.
10:05
And like, how can I like then it turned into how can I help and you know, I don't know, but maybe she didn't have psychological safety from her leader to be able to do.
10:12
Like maybe this is something like, oh if this happens, I'm gonna get my hand slapped or something like that.
10:17
So we don't know.
10:17
But like that it's like, oh that's just a feel good.
10:20
Like that's, it's such a feel good, feel good story.
10:22
Thank you so much for sharing it and thank you so much for being on 52 humans.
10:27
Yeah, happy to be here.
10:28
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell that story.
10:30
It's one of my favorite.
10:31
Absolutely.
10:33
Thanks for joining us today on 52 Humans.
10:36
If you enjoyed this, please give me a follow to be kept notified of future episodes.
10:40
I really appreciate all of your support.
10:43
If you want to watch past episodes or you have a story of human first leadership that you'd like to share.
10:48
Please go to Paul Wolf dot com for four forward slash 52 humans.
10:53
Lastly, as I do each week, I'm gonna ask that each of you think of one way that you can bring greater empathy into your workplace.
11:00
It's these small acts of humanity and kindness that make for a better work culture and ultimately a better world.
11:06
I'm Paul Wolf and I'll see you next time on 52 humans.