The Ultimate Expression of Vulnerability
Episode Notes
In this inspiring episode of 52 Humans, Paul interviews Stephanie Battalingo, a trailblazing transgender leader and advocate for LGBTQ rights in the workplace. Stephanie shares a powerful story of vulnerability and human-first leadership from her own experience, discussing how embracing vulnerability can lead to growth, empathy, and understanding. She emphasizes the importance of education, understanding, and acceptance in supporting transgender coworkers and fostering inclusive work environments. Don't miss this insightful conversation that explores the value of curiosity, allyship, and the ongoing evolution of corporate culture.
About the Guest
Stephanie Battalingo
Founder, Follow Your Heart, LLC
As the founder and owner of Follow Your Heart, LLC Stephanie is an internationally recognized transgender motivational speaker, workshop presenter, trainer, workplace diversity and inclusion consultant.
A major voice in the LGBTQ workplace equality movement focusing specifically on transgender and gender non-conforming individuals, Stephanie casts a bright light on all of the pertinent Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) issues that companies and organizations must face to successfully transform their workplaces into a truly welcoming environment for all of their employees. Stephanie’s warm and personal style has engaged and enlightened her audiences wherever she speaks.
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0:03
Hello and welcome to another weekly episode of 52 humans, the vlogs on stories of human first leadership.
0:16
I'm your host, Paul Wolf.
0:17
And I created this show to inspire us all to transform our workplaces by returning to the humanity that binds us today.
0:24
I'm so honored and I'm so looking forward to speaking to Stephanie Bain about her first, her human first and empathetic leadership experience.
0:32
Stephanie is the author of Reflections from both side of sides of the glass ceiling, a speaker and a leadership expert for LGBT Q Plus inclusion and an amazing human being who I know through my husband, Stephanie.
0:44
Welcome to the show.
0:45
Thanks for having me.
0:47
It's great to be here.
0:48
So exciting.
0:49
It's so good to see you.
0:50
We were just, we were catching up like years ago, talk to us a little bit about the book.
0:54
And because it came out during the pandemic, it did.
0:57
Yes.
0:58
Yes.
0:58
It was published and I wrote it during lockdown the summer of 2020.
1:02
The manuscript really, it, it's been a labor of love since before the pulse shooting right after the pulse shootings.
1:10
That's when I really started writing the book, but I was working full time at the time, I was a corporate vice president at New York Life.
1:16
And, and it was really kind of like my side also.
1:20
So I had to put it aside for a while and then when I decided to leave corporate, going on on four years ago now, that's when I started to rethink how do I want to approach this book?
1:31
So, the book that wound up getting published in, in the spring of 2021 while we were still kind of in that pandemic mode, clearly.
1:41
It is very different than the book that I started out writing.
1:44
And it's really, as the title implies, it's not only my origin story, but it's also about how I kind of navigated the culture that is and was New York life at the time when I came out, I came out in 2005.
2:01
I mean, yes, with each passing year, Paul, it gets further in the rearview mirror.
2:05
But it wasn't that long ago, but back in 2005, as some of the viewers know, and as you know, you could be, I could have been fired for just coming out.
2:18
I mean, it was very different.
2:19
I mean, there were companies that were on board, but that was a small number relative to where, where it is today.
2:25
And so it was really kind of out of that whole experience that I said, well, I know I'm not going to be the, I might have been the first trans person to come out on the job in the history of the company.
2:39
How they knew that at the time.
2:40
Paul, I don't know, I don't know if there was a secret file in hr, somewhere, you know.
2:44
It's like, oh, yeah, somebody came out, you know.
2:46
But, but what I said to everyone, you know, n hr when I was coming out was I may be the first, but I won't be the last.
2:55
So for me, it's always been about paying it forward, you know, I stood on the shoulders of people that came out, trans people that came out before me.
3:05
So the least that I can do is set my shoulders for those that come after me.
3:09
And, and I think the book is a lot about that.
3:12
It's, it's about what happened and how I navigated the culture because I kind of found myself at the intersection of gender identity as I was living into myself as a, as a woman in the workplace and gender inequity because I was embraced by my cis female cis gender, female colleagues.
3:34
And I immediately was enlisted in the fight for their equality.
3:39
They kind of welcomed me into the foxhole poll and was like, oh yeah, we, we, we can tell you all about the way it was, you know, and So what that's led to and, and I talk a bit about it in the book and it might very well be the next book or perhaps an afterward is this whole notion of privilege and how that plays in because I had male privilege.
3:59
I was a straight white guy for 25 years in my career prior to coming out.
4:06
And so I, I, I walked through my corporate career, went up the corporate ladder with this thing with this thing called privilege that I didn't even think twice.
4:15
But then once I came out, I felt that I really felt it's loss.
4:21
People were reacting to me differently.
4:23
So I, I talked a bit about that and and that really kind of leads to a lot of other, I think deeper conversations about how we need to continue to shape our cultures and evolve our cultures because, you know, we, we don't, we don't do our work in a vacuum.
4:43
And, you know, there, there's changing societal, you know, societal trends as well as what's happening in, in, in the corporate space.
4:53
So I think that's why that's important.
4:54
So I kind of cover a lot of that the pre the pre the actual transition piece the day I came out and then the post transition piece as well, which is an ongoing story, quite frankly, I'm sure it is.
5:05
And so basically, the book is a must read.
5:08
I think it is.
5:09
Thank you.
5:09
I'm gonna order it and read it.
5:12
So I'm sure you've got a ton of stories.
5:16
It's probably some, not, not examples of good human or first leadership, some of good first human leadership.
5:21
Can you tell us one, give us one example of how you either experience it or you displayed human first leadership, whether it's during your transition, you're coming out whatever the case may be.
5:32
Sure.
5:33
One comes to my right way, which I think is really apt for kind of kind of what we're talking about today.
5:41
And this was after I transitioned because it was funny, Paul, it was like after I came out, a lot of things started to happen, like suddenly our E E O policy and our nondiscrimination policy had protections for gender identity.
5:56
It's like, oh, gee, I wonder why that show, you know, and and then shortly thereafter come to find out there were a number of other individuals, a Mary band, there was like six of us, I think six or seven of us that wanted to start the first employee resource group for LGBT Q employees.
6:17
So I was one of the co-founders of, of that.
6:20
And as we kind of got our sea legs and was, and were moving forward, we had a, we came upon a place where we needed to change out our executive sponsor and I'll never forget the meeting we, we, we're sitting in this conference room, just a leadership team.
6:38
And the gentleman who raised his hand and said, I want to lead, I want to be the executive sponsor was straight white guy, probably the number 45 guy in the entire company.
6:52
And he walks into the, into the room and he, and he basically says, I mean, verbatim, he goes, look, I'm a straight white guy.
7:01
I don't know anything about your issues in your community or, or, or what, what's happening now.
7:11
But I want to learn, I want to learn so that I can be an ally and an advocate for not only for you and what you want to do with the G but also just more broadly in the, in the community.
7:24
And yeah, I, I, I recently Paul, I've been talking a lot about vulnerability and been asking the question.
7:30
So what's your relationship with vulnerability?
7:33
And it really starts to get people to think, I think especially in the corporate space because vulnerability for a lot of people equals weakness.
7:40
And it's not vulnerability is, is, it's, it's, it's sow the seeds of growth, it sows the seeds of growth.
7:49
And what happened there.
7:51
And I often talk about that and tell that story is that is the ultimate expression of vulnerability.
7:58
And I think in the process being empathetic as well and because he was opening up himself to say, hey, look, I, you know, I don't know if he thought of it in those terms, but it certainly landed that way for me and for all of my other colleagues that were there.
8:12
And I just think, you know, if we could do just a little bit more of that every single day, what a different world we would be living in.
8:20
Don't you think?
8:21
I, I, so I love the example and you're right, vulnerability and I talk about it in my book as well because I, I think you're absolutely right.
8:29
It is not a weakness.
8:31
It is to me like one of the most powerful things you can use to create a relationship, change a relationship or deepen a relationship and the fact that you look, you're a life insurance company.
8:42
So I'm gonna be stereotypical for general for, for a minute in my head.
8:48
I have an idea of what that corporate culture might be like, especially in 2005.
8:53
Oh, yeah.
8:54
You know that.
8:56
Yeah.
8:57
And so to have a straight white male executive at a company like that come in and say, I don't know, but I want to learn like that.
9:07
That's a lot.
9:08
And you, you, my guess is, and I don't know, it'd be interesting to ask him this question.
9:12
Like maybe it didn't run through his mind and he just was being honest.
9:15
But like that is to me the, the truest form of kind of like bearing your soul.
9:22
And I think you're right.
9:23
I think for a long time, leaders have taught to be impostors because we've been taught to have all the answers.
9:31
Never let them see.
9:31
You sweat, like, control, like, know everything and like, we don't, like, you know, we're like everybody else.
9:37
Like I, I would say that to my team all the time.
9:39
Like, I have no idea how we're gonna solve this problem.
9:41
But like, let's, you know, let's kind of like spitball and see what we're gonna come up with, right?
9:46
And, you know, when I was coming up through the ranks, because I had worked, I had worked for a decade at AT&T prior to joining New York life in 2000.
9:57
So I went through all the long distance wars and all that kind of stuff back in the nineties and, you know, and a lot of the buzzwords at that time and it's still today, you know, this whole notion of servant leadership and, and, you know, I get that, but like, in practice, what does that look like?
10:17
You know, because I was, you know, in any management training program that I was ever a part of in my career, it was always about you are there to support the people that they're not there to support you, you are there to support them and, and, and, and, and, and, and thereby be, embrace that notion of servant leadership.
10:39
And I really tried to do that in my career.
10:41
And I sometimes think that I was looked at as a straight white guy.
10:47
This is prior to my transitioning as perhaps not the strongest leader because I chose that leadership style because I believed in it.
10:58
So, and I just think we've, we've kind of lost some of that.
11:02
So I like, again, I tell that story a lot because I just think it's emblematic of kind of where I'd like to see us be because we, we need to continue the evolution of our cultures.
11:18
You know, I've talked a lot Paul about you know, moving from policy to practice is, is kind of the the the little term I coined for I I need to trade Margaret one of these days perhaps.
11:30
But but you know, relative to LGBT Q and specifically trans inclusion in the workplace, the policy piece was easy, right?
11:39
I mean, you know that yourself, you know, we change a few words on the E D L policy and the nondiscrimination policy and we post it on the internet, done and dusted it.
11:47
Well, what are you doing to imbue the principle those principles into your culture every single day?
11:55
I said that 10 years ago and you still need to say it today because it's an ongoing process, you know, I mean, cultures evolve, you know, the the space within which we do our work evolves, that's the culture and to the extent that we, and we need to be cognizant of what it looks like so that we can continue quite honestly to push the envelope.
12:19
You know, because there's always another place, in my opinion, you can get to in terms of inclusiveness and, and belonging and, and, and all the, whatever the buzzwords of the day are now.
12:33
But, you know, but they're not just buzzwords because a lot of those buzzwords outside of the corporate space are under attack and that's a whole another conversation.
12:46
You know what I mean?
12:47
I know what I mean.
12:49
I think I, I, I think you're right.
12:51
I also think, I think about the word comfort a lot, which goes, you know, belonging, you got, you know, diversity, inclusion, belonging and those are all good.
12:58
But like you want somebody to be comfortable just being who they are and we, you know, impostor syndrome is out there and like, I don't want to have to show up differently in this meeting versus that meeting.
13:08
11 follow up, which is one question for you on the, your example is, did, what was that experience like for the leader after he said that?
13:20
Did, did he, do you think he embraced it and learned?
13:25
And was he a good executive sponsor, I guess is the question I'm asking?
13:29
I think the answer is yes to all that.
13:31
And I think that it was his way, at least the way it landed for me then.
13:36
And still is today when I think, think it, you know, rugby tell the story is that was his way of meeting the moment.
13:45
That was his way of creating connection.
13:49
That was, you know, that was his way of kind of establishing that beachhead if you will with us.
13:56
And so that we could do the work that we wanted to do to move forward as a, as a group within the culture of, of the couple.
14:05
That's so wonderful.
14:06
I love that story.
14:07
I'm gonna ask you, you get a, you get a bonus question because of who you are.
14:12
For anybody listening watching, that's a leader.
14:15
That's an employer.
14:16
That's a coworker of a transgender person.
14:20
A couple easy is not a great word.
14:24
A few things they can do to make the experience of their transgender coworker or employee better, how we can best support transgender people.
14:33
I, I think for me and it's been the bedrock literally paul of all the work that I've ever done in this space as a speaker and an author now and a consultant and, and what have you it all begins and ends with education.
14:51
It does because, and, and even more so in today's environment because there is so much misinformation and disinformation out there that's being promulgated by all sorts of individuals.
15:06
And I'm, I'm not gonna get political here, but we all know where they're coming from.
15:11
That is just not true about trans people, trans kids, transgender, the transgender community writ large.
15:20
So educate yourself.
15:21
There's, you know, I've been on the board of an amazing organization called P Flag for the last eight years.
15:28
I'll be rolling off in the fall.
15:30
A wonderful organization.
15:32
P do you want from you?
15:34
You want to learn how to, because, because what it boils down to Paul is that question is answered by another question.
15:40
How do you, how do you want to be, how do I become an ally to the trans community?
15:46
Well, it, it's all kind of part and parcel, right?
15:49
They're all intertwined and, but it begins and ends with education because this is the three tier model that I've always kind of used.
15:57
in, in anything that I've ever done in this space, it's a, you know, it's a three tier model that starts with education and the idea is that hopefully education will then lead to some level, greater level of understanding and then understanding, then sows the seeds of acceptance and that, that's really it, that's really, I mean, it's not, you know, we're, it's not rocket science, but it's again, being vulnerable.
16:25
Let's talk about that again, just briefly to say, I don't know anything about this.
16:30
I don't, I've never met a trans person in my life before.
16:35
So, but I need to understand more about what their experience is.
16:39
There are plenty of resources out here to do that.
16:42
And I think that's a great, a great, great place to start to be a better ally.
16:47
One wonderful answer to my bonus question.
16:49
And I, I think I like to, I like the education, education, understanding, acceptance.
16:55
because if we spent more time just asking questions and seeking to understand versus judging, there's a, there's a quote I love that has been attributed to Walt Whitman, but it's really, we don't know who said it.
17:07
It's be curious, not judgmental.
17:09
So ask question, don't just assume, like ask and ask in a respectful way.
17:15
But I think it's approaching like, I don't know, like your executive, your, your executive sponsor, I don't know anything about your needs, your community, but I want to help.
17:23
So how do I like?
17:24
I think layering it, laying it bare like that is, is a, is a way to do that and kind of, you know, put the defenses aside to, to get into a conversation, to educate yourself and to learn more about it.
17:36
Stephanie, thank you for your example.
17:38
Thank you for being pleasure.
17:40
I thank you in full.
17:42
And thank you for being on 52 humans today.
17:45
Thanks so much for having me.
17:46
It's been a real, it's been a real, real pleasure.
17:48
Thank you.
17:49
Thanks for joining us on 52 Humans.
17:51
If you enjoyed this episode, please give me a follow to be notified of future episodes.
17:55
I so appreciate all of your support if you want to watch past episodes or you want to rewatch this episode or you have a story of human first leadership that you'd like to share.
18:03
Please go to Paul Wolf dot com forward slash 52 humans.
18:07
And lastly as I do, each and every week, please reflect on one way that you can bring greater empathy into your workplace.
18:13
It's these small acts of kindness and humanity that make for a better work culture and ultimately a better world.
18:19
I'm Paul Wolf and I'll see you next time on 52 humans.