In the season 3 opening episode, Jan shares the audio from the highly energetic and engaging speech at the Centre for Automotive Research conference, Management Briefing Sessions In Traverse City, Michigan.

We dive into authentic leadership and the behaviors that support and detract away from it and why authentic leadership is critical to our future and the way we lead.

The audio refers to slides in the presentation, click here to access the slide deck.

Click here for the full video of the speech

Engage with us for more tools to help you on your authentic leadership journey at www. gravitasdetroit.com

Enjoy!

[Transcript]

Hi everyone and welcome to break the mold. Are you ready to break the mold? You with me today? Yes, Carolyn Sauer, she's ready to break the mold. The fabric of normality has been ripped apart and we have been forever changed. We've been shaken to our core. And life, the way that we live, the way that we work will never be the same. Yes, that's right. life will never be the same stand up. Come on you've been sitting sitting all day, life will never be the same.

Okay, you can sit now. How do you feel you feel better? Do you feel the blood pumping through your veins, you feel alive. And that's what this industry and that's what leadership is all about. It's about feeling alive. And the pandemic has given us an opportunity. It's an opportunity to change, it's an opportunity to break the mold. It's the catalyst for change that we've been waiting for the transformation, the time for transformation is here. It's right now, and it is time to break the mold. But first, I'm going to share with you a little bit about my story about how I've broken the mold a couple of times in my lifetime. I'm Welsh. Those of you who know me will know not to say English I'm Welsh, no offense to any of the English people in the room. But the welsh are a fiery feisty, passionate kind of people. We have a dragon on our flag. Who does that? What does that tell you about Welsh people, right? I grew up on a small farm in South Wales. My parents were farmers. They knew nothing about the automotive industry, about business. They knew a lot about farming. But they they knew they came from a long line of farmers, right? Nobody ever broke that mold of the farming community. I spent my days riding around the farm on my little pony. And then as I got older, I went to the pub with my dad and his friends. That's actually where I learned my negotiating skills in the pub, talking about the price of tractor parts and the price of hay. And I was supposed to grow up and marry the farmer next door. That's actually my cousin, she looks a lot like me, it's really my cousin. And this was my life. This was the life that I was supposed to have. I was supposed to fit that mold. But I didn't want that. I wanted more. I wanted more for myself. I wanted to experience life, I wanted a career. And one day, I'm on a school trip in Paris. And I'm leaning against the car. Maybe this is where I started my my interest in the automotive industry, I don't know. But the typical teenage picture, you know, your teenage girl will see a fancy sports car right and take a selfie when no selfies in those days. And that actually was a brand new vehicle at the time. So that shows you how long ago that was. But I had this idea that I wanted so much more. You know, I could see then this this car in this life and I wanted it and then little automotive company, not so little actually called Borg Warner hired me in Wales. And that's when it all began. My love of the automotive industry started. I remember walking onto the shop floor and smell the coolant in the oil in the air and I just came alive. And I loved it. And remember, I didn't have anybody that could support me and tell me how to operate in this leadership model. In the automotive industry. I had no idea I had to learn the hard way. And so I did so I started working for Borg Warner in Wales and they quickly promoted me. They sent me to Muncie, Indiana, that was more of a shock for Muncie Indiana than it was for me. But they're still they're still recovering. They actually made me a citizen. They did. They made me a citizen of Muncie, Indiana, a decision they regret to this day. But I have the certificates. So off I went to Muncie, Indiana, and then like Korea, moved from there, I worked in a number of different tier one companies. I've worked in different functions. And I have loved every minute of my career. And then you know what, that dream became a reality. It did, I got that car. Finally. Now it took decades, but I did finally get the car. And I had the job, that I always wanted that C suite job that we all as many of us aspire to, right? And this is what that job looked like. And I thought, well, this is this is great, right? I have the job I've always wanted, I'm running a global supply chain function for a major to one company, I have this beautiful car, I have a beautiful home. You know, my daughter's in a private school life was great, right?

And then let's put the cherry on the top. Automotive News says, Hey, we're gonna appoint you to the one of the top 100 leading women in the automotive industry. I felt on top of the world, I felt like I had it all. But look at that picture, that corporate picture. Does that look like to you like I fit that mold? does it look like I've fit I stand out a little bit, right? Just a little bit. Yeah. And when that picture was taken, I was told by the photographer to cross my hands and cross my ankles. I mean, you can see if you can't see it up here. But if you look at it closely, I'm visibly uncomfortable. It's like, I don't ever want to work for a company that tells me how to sit in a photograph ever again. But see, these are the kinds of things that we perpetuate in the automotive leadership model. This is the mold that we want people to fit in. Well, clearly, I didn't fit in that mold. And if you listen to Swami this morning, in his opening keynote, he talked about out of the box and out of the box thinking, you cannot take an out of the box thinker, or say with one breath you want out of the box thinking and then put them in a box and make them fit a mold. So be careful what you wish for. So okay. Life is life is great, but I felt my life force draining out of me. How many of you have sat in monthly meetings? Where it's the same PowerPoint as the month before somebody just tweaked a couple of numbers? Come on, be honest, be honest. Yeah. See, I know, I know. I know. So I could, you know, there's all this activity going on. And I could, this mold that I became I was really good at fitting this mold, right, I could assimilate into any culture of any tier one. And I could be whatever, they want me to be good at it. But I just had enough. And I just said, You know what, there's a better way to lead, I believe, to the core of my being in transforming the way that we work and breaking this mold of corporate leadership. Because if we want Gen Z, to move this automotive industry forward, and we want innovation, we are going to have to change and we are going to have to change right now. And so, I quit. I did what you're not supposed to do. We all work so hard to get these jobs and the title and the money and the trappings that go with it, right? And then we get it. And then we reach whether it's a number for retirement, or whether it's a pot of money in the bank, and we say okay, well, when I get to that point, then I'm going to retire and I'm going to go to Naples. No offense to anybody likes to go to Naples, but I'm going to go wherever you know, and then I'm going to retire. I refuse to fit that mold. Really, I gotta break another mold. Yep. So I quit, wasn't restructured out, there wasn't a problem. I quit my choice by design. And I took that very nice corporate paycheck to zero overnight by my choice. People thought I had lost my mind. They said what are you doing? What Why? Why would you do such a stupid thing? I said, Look, I believe that there is more to life than sitting in this conference room watching these PowerPoints go over and over and over again, watching these games being played. And I'm going to talk about those games in just a moment. They're gonna resonate with you, I know they will. This there's more, we need to do more.

I believe in authentic leadership. And I'll talk to you about exactly what that is. But a type of leadership where you're true to yourself, where you live life, and you lead in alignment with your values. And so I quit, and I started my own business, it's Gravitas, Detroit, and color this morning talked about glow, glow, and Gravitas are very closely aligned. It's Gravitas is that leader that you once once had, you'll know it. It's that boss that you once had, that you will do anything for the one that has your back, the one that challenges you, but also supports you, the one that helps you achieve your goals. The one that you trust, you trust that has your back. There's just something about them. That's Gravitas. And that is a person with the glow that Khalid talked about. It's very difficult to find to define, but you know it when you feel it. So okay, I started my business, and I'm on this mission to help companies develop a more authentic leadership model. That's great. But that wasn't enough. So January 2020, I launched the Finding Gravitas podcast. Now keep in mind, I am in my 50s. And I didn't know what was when I would say maybe about six months before we launched it. I really didn't know what it was right. So I, the mission of the podcast is simply this. I wanted to get great authentic leaders on this show, talking about the reality of being an authentic leader of leading in a more authentic way. But talking human to human, not corporate speak, not some sanitized version of what they think leadership is or should be. I asked them tough questions. Carla, knows she's been a victim. But we need to talk about the reality of these things. No more PowerPoints and bullet bullet points. And this is what it should be. Let's talk about the reality of human to human. How do we connect with people at a deeply human level, that's how we need to lead. And that's what Authentic Leadership feels like. It feels like that. It's inspiring, right? people thrive with authentic leadership. They're not, they're not afraid, you know, they're not into playing games, they just thrive in this leadership. So imagine if every single person on your team felt like that, imagine that. So let's see, what does that feel like? Come on, you know, I'm gonna ask you to do this. Come on, stand up with me. Let's do this. Come on. Come on. Authentic Leadership. What does it feel like? It feels like? Ready? Okay.

You get my point. Together. Authentic Leadership is a feeling imagine, you could feel a blood rushing through your veins right now, right? Imagine if you go to work every day. And you were able to inspire a team to feel that way every single day. I did something in my last corporate job again, they thought I was completely insane. And I went to a Tony Robbins conference. And I you know, I got into this whole thing about dancing in corporate events. And I thought, you know what, that'd be kind of cool to do in my, in my staff meetings, so imagine a conservative Tier 1 office. Okay, you can ask anybody that worked for me. It's absolutely true. And we will start our staff meetings on a Tuesday at 9am. And the poor guys, the guys in Germany and in other countries, they're on the zoom call, right? And I would start it with a blast of music and make people dance. Now, you know, The environment I'm talking about, they thought I had lost my mind. But it did so many things. This of all, it signified change. It stops people from they would walk into these meetings because they've been on a call with China or Europe or somewhere. And they come into the meeting and they all frazzled. You know, you've been in these meetings, right? And they come in and they sit down, they're like, yeah, okay, what, what, what, what, what, what? What, oh, yeah, aha, and then they know, whoa, whoa, slow down, we're gonna have a staff meeting, we're gonna have a staff meeting, it's gonna be meaningful, and all you people are gonna pay attention. So what it does is it raises the energy level. And there's, there's a whole physiological change that takes place. And their minds were much more open and receptive to accepting what we were about to discuss in the staff meeting. And I know, you know, I would love it, if every single one of you went back to your organization's and launched your staff meetings, with music, I feel like I'd really had an impact. But really, so but it's about changing the mindset, you use music to do what you can use whatever you need to do, but you have to signify a change. Let's take a look at the data. Because I know you know, I love being up here and dancing and all that stuff, right? But every once in a while, I do actually like to check the data. And do you know how many people actually feel this way feel this engaged at work. This is a recent Gallup poll, only one in three people. And I'm going to guess that in the automotive industry, it's less actually feel this way. One in three companies where people feel this way where employees are fully engaged, experience, an 81% reduction in absenteeism, a 43% reduction in turnover, and a 23% increase in productivity. Now, those are some powerful numbers. And Gallup as you know, is a well known organization, I trust their data. I like the numbers, I can see where it comes from, but one in three and you know it, you know what, your teams aren't feeling fully authentic and thriving, and fun, inspiring right now, right? So let's take a look at authentic leadership. Let's take a look at leadership and authentic leadership through the lens of the automotive industry.

Shocking graphic, right? This depicts the culture in the automotive industry. At this point in time you either love me or hate me, and it's okay. Either one is fine. I got it. And I know we think that we've moved on. And in many cases we have there are companies that have made improvements, I'm not going to dispute that. But there are many that have not. There are people that feel like this every day at work in the automotive industry that they're trying to out, run the sharks, and thinking they're in a cardboard box, and they're thinking Do you then is that is the total opposite of the slide the picture I just showed you. But it still exists. If you are wasting time and effort, worrying about the sharks that are coming after you, then you're not, you don't feel safe, you don't feel comfortable. You don't feel like you're thriving in this environment. And you're not moving the agenda forward. And look at those sharks when those things start circling. You know it right? How many people have ever felt like that? No, oh, wait a minute mind. Nobody's gonna admit to that in this room. Forget that. And you got to watch the sharks because imagine the sharks, they could be different silos in a company. So let's say for example, as a tier one, let's say you quoted a piece of business and you didn't get you didn't get the business. What happens sometimes? Well, a lot of times, sales says it was my fault. Purchasing cost was too high. Really, the purchasing guys says it was'nt my fault. The engineering guys fault, because he designed it and the cost of the product is built into the design stage so it was'nt my fault. How many of you have maybe touched a discussion like that? Yeah, right. Why? It's not a blame game. It's not about blame. It's about working together to move the agenda forward and achieve the mission. I you know, we hear a lot about mission a company mission. I didn't really understand mission until I interviewed two navy seals on the podcast. They get it, they are laser focused on their mission, and they support each other to achieve that mission. So this protecting your turf and all this aggression and game playing and all the bullshit that we have that contributes to this toxic culture, we have to stop it. And you know what, sometimes it's not as obvious it's not as in your faces that picture is, sometimes it's the little stuff. It's that email that somebody once sent, that comes across your desk, perhaps you're copied on it as a senior leader. And it's the guy or gal that is trying to show you how right they are. And they're saying, you know what, you're wrong. You're an idiot. And I'm right. And here's why. And here's the data to support it. And I'm copying 15 people, just to show how right I am. How many people have seen an email like that? Yeah, right, right, of course. Now, as a leader, do you grab a hold of that behavior? Do you reach out to that person? Do you bring them in? And do you say, you know what, this kind of behavior is not in line with our culture and the way that we like to lead in this organization, you probably don't. And I am not going to blame you, because I understand the pressures of leadership. But it's these little things that form the culture, that determine the health of the organization. And it's just like having a child, if the behavior continues, and you ignore it, then that's acceptance. So toxic culture, my friends is out. What's in? Let's talk about supporting each other.

As I said, navy seals, they understand this better than most, it's all about helping each other to the top, all about helping each other to accomplish the mission. It's about going up to somebody instead of being the shark. And you know, when somebody is failing, and then there's that sort of inner group of people that like to jump on, and you know, they there's sort of blood in the water, and they're like, oh, that person's an idiot. And then they all pile on, right? That No, no, no, no, that's toxic culture. We don't want that. What if instead of piling on the person that was failing, you went and you said, Hi, what can I do to help you? Is there anything I can see that you're having trouble with this design with this customer with this supplier? What can I do to help you even if it's outside of your job, or the little box? somebody puts you in? What about that? That's a way that we can drive Authentic Leadership forward. When I did that, a couple of times in my career, people would say to me, I remember we were running short of money. And I was working with accounts payable, and people said, Why are you helping accounts payable. Really, we're in this together people. This is about driving the mission, driving the business and driving the industry forward. It is not about protecting our turf, it is about supporting each other. So supporting each other is in when we support each other, we feel safe, safer. This, when we talk about safety, I don't mean safety at work. As in, you know, we can have hand sanitizer on masks and equipment on the shop floor. We're talking about that safety. What I'm talking about is psychological safety. psychological safety is when you can feel like you can be heard you can put your voice forward, you can say something, you're not going to get your head taken off, you're not going to be fired. It's the complete opposite of a fear based culture. So when you have psychological safety, people can thrive and don't take my word for it. This isn't some something that I you know, read on LinkedIn. And I put a cute slide together Oh, no, no, no, no. Google project Aristotle, they studied studied over 180 teams, because they wanted to know the secret sauce behind a high performance team. And he drove him crazy because they couldn't find the pattern. And you can you can Google it, you know, project Aristotle. And you know what they found the number one factor to a high performance team is psychological safety. It wasn't all the educational background and experience. They looked for everything. The number one factor was psychological safety. When a leader can connect people at a very deep level and allow them to feel safe, people thrive. It's amazing what can happen and that starts well I don't think I have to tell you where is safety, safety is in psychological safety is in good, okay? That takes us into this idea of trust. I love this picture. Remember, when you were a kid, you would jump off a rock or a swing or something into your parents arms. Remember that feeling? Did you ever doubt the fact that they wouldn't catch you? You never doubted it, right? This is trust. And we need more of it in the workplace. And trust cannot be well defined. If you're looking for a formula, or a structure or something that I can give you that says, this is how you get trust. Now, it's not too easy, because trust is a feeling. You know it when you meet somebody that you trust, when somebody's got your back, right? You just know it, you sense it. And that's why I like this picture. Because you can feel it, you can feel the trust that the child has, as he's, you know, going into his father's arms leaping off a rock. That's the kind of trust that leaders need to develop for their teams. And it's not just their teams. There's trust with other stakeholders, whether those stakeholders are customers or suppliers. I heard Ford this morning talking about we want to be the trusted vehicle provider trusted vehicle supplier, all about trusted must be trusted, trusted, trusted? Well, it starts with you as a leader. And it starts with the leadership model individually for each company, before we can move the industry forward and become the trusted partner that we all want to be. So trust. What do you think trust is - In

And yes, you guys are getting good at this game. They'll tell you this game. Okay. Okay, so let's see, moving on from trust. Moving on from trust. Q guy with slides. Thank you. flexibility. I love what Swami said this morning. You know, he said something. He said, we need to ask better questions. And I love that. Because when I think about flexibility, I think about you know, we're all asking ourselves this question. With the hybrid work model. How many days should we back in the office? I can't even tell you how many people have called me and said, What are the people doing? How many days? Should we be back in the office? Should it be five? Should it be one? Where what what should it be? It is not a matter of policy? It is a matter of culture? The question is, what are we going to do to engage and inspire our people? That's the question. So ask a better question. Flexibility work flexibility. I got to admit, I laughed at the beginning of the pandemic, when we all had to work from home, all those micro managers out there, right, that lost their minds, because their teams working from home when they were going, Oh my god, they might not be working, they might not be working, they might be watching TV, or they you know, the type, right? They had to get over it fast, right? And they're out there. I know some of them. And it's I had a conversation with a senior level leader just the other day, and I thought we were pretty much aligned in our thinking and I was dead wrong. And he said, Jan, I think people you know, we need to get people back to the office. We came back five days a week. And I said, Why? He said, You know what? People are going jogging at three o'clock in the afternoon. They're going to Home Depot at 10am. Really? Oh my god, the automotive industry is going to fall apart. Because somebody went jogging at three o'clock and went to Home Depot 10am. Really? Come on people. flexibility. Does it matter? Have we not learned that during this pandemic, doing this work from home experience? Should we work from home full time? Personally, no. I like to work from home. I like the flexibility but I also like to be in the office and I believe that there is a time for collaboration. And I believe it is up to each leader to be very, very intentional. So none of this, oh let's let's let's cut teambuilding out of the budget because you know it's tight. It's a cash flow issue. And that's soft stuff. Soft skills. We don't need to be doing any of that. No, no, no, no, no, that's gonna require a complete mindset shift. If we're gonna make this hybrid team thing work, we're gonna have to be very intentional about time to gather, because we know we sacrifice when you work from home, right? It's that water cooler talk. That's very important. It's those in between moments, because that's when trust is built in relationships. And that's how we move the business agenda forward. You might not agree with that, but it's true. So we've lost some of that, right? So that means that you have to be very intentional about bringing it back. So you have to be intentional about having a team lunch, having a team session, doing something together as a team. I am not going to tell you that there's a cookie cutter approach or an answer to this, there isn't and most of us will get it wrong. And it's okay. Authentic Leadership is about being transparent. It's about being vulnerable. It's about saying to your team, you know what, I don't know that we're gonna get this right, right out of the gate. But let's start with you know, two days or let's start with this setup or this team meeting. And then let's see how it goes. And then let's do a little pulse check, right? maybe six weeks eight weeks in and then let's see where we need to go from that and you know what most your teams would probably go Okay, cool, you know, we added you know, we're all working through this together, right. As opposed to the team that will sit the leadership team that will sit in a conference room and come out with the policy and not communicate to everybody and try to get it right first time and then dig their heels in and then not want to change because they don't want to show that they might have made a mistake. It's okay to make a mistake. So flexibility What do you think flexibility is flexibility is in

Okay, moving on. You got it that time Okay. Oh, I love this slide. Look at that command and control. And don't don't we love that sometimes. Right? I am the boss and I'm in charge right and I'm gonna show you I'm in charge and I want everybody to do to fit the mold. So you know this guy apparently he didn't he didn't read the all the what's going on with diversity and inclusion. Okay. But that's that's all right. So he didn't he didn't get that memo. So we want but it's the picture gives you the sense of what I'm trying to portray here. Right? It's this idea that somebody is in control really is the puppet master and wants everybody to behave the same way. And this guy, I'm going to guess he's obsessed with metrics micromanagement and minutia. metrics, micromanagement and minutia. There's a lot of them out there in automotive, of course, there would be none in this room today. Because you are all enlightened, and forward thinking and there's no way that you would fit that command and control puppet master type mentality, I know it, but it does exist. And so it is time to cut the cord, it is time to focus on a more proactive supportive collaborative type of leadership model, it is time to cut the cord on command and control. And so command and control my friends is yes, gone dead and gone. Now some of you are going to jump down my throat and say, oh, but what about when you know there's a problem in the plant and there's a crisis, you have to go to command and control. Okay, you got a point I get it. I know that you can't totally eliminate command and control. But what I'm saying is that it cannot be your go to model of leadership. There is a time for it. But you cannot cannot operate as a leader in this manner, every single day. Because if you do again, you will not attract Gen Z. They will not come anywhere near you. You will not retain employees employees. Have you talked to talk about the great resignation. You've I'm sure you've you've read a lot about that. I don't know that it's going to be as bad as everybody thinks it is. But it's certainly happening. And people have started to reevaluate their values, right and what life is all about the same way that I did when I left my corporate job. And if you're not providing the right environment in the right leadership model, they're going to leave So it's about attraction. It's about retention. And I think that you know, this, this whole idea of obsessing over the metrics, and this, this micromanagement is well and truly done, it is gone, it is over. And people will tell me, they will say, Oh, yeah, we don't operate like that in this company. And then when I get into the company, and I figure out, it's everywhere, it's like that in total denial, because they don't see it. So self awareness is also a big part of authentic leadership, understanding who you are and how you lead. Authentic Leadership is our future. There is no question about it. We need to feel like this as leaders, we need to inspire other leaders, and great leaders, leaders with Gravitas leaders that that allow people to glow in their job are forces of nature. And you all have that ability, you are those leaders, now is our time. And authentic leadership, my friends is it is very much in. So you have a choice. You can bury your head in the sand. And you can say, You know what? The leadership model that got me here today works just fine. We're making money. It's all good, right? So why would you change? Why would you change? Well, there's a little company that thought that way. And they scoffed and laughed at this new startup company called Netflix. Because they didn't feel the need to change. They said all these guys, they don't know what they're talking about. Much the same as we scoffed at Tesla in the early days.

Remember that? We did. We said, Oh, they'll never make it in the electronics company in California. They just want to, like play foosball and sit on beanbags and play with electronics. They don't know how to make a car. Only we know how to make a car because we're the automotive industry. I have no idea what they're doing. Not laughing now. All we know, you see the profit numbers? Yeah. So do not go the same way as blockbuster? No, no, no, no, no. It's all about mindset. You either see right now and feel it that we are on the precipice of massive transformation in this industry, not only from a product and mobility standpoint, but also in the way that we work and the culture that we operate, and we perpetuate in this industry, it is up to us. We can do this, it starts with every single leader in this room. So you get to decide. Do you really see that? Do you see this as an opportunity for change? Or not? There's no right or wrong answer. Only time will tell many, many questions. Remember what Swami said this morning, ask better questions, asked questions about employee engagement. And don't do one of those employee engagement studies that nobody ever wants to do when it takes four months for the people to put the data together. Right? Don't do one of those two little ones, two little pulse checks. And you know, one thing I found is that, as you re as you work up your way through the corporate ladder, you think you have the answers right, and you go into a leadership team meeting, and yet don't, because things get filtered all the way through the organization until they get up to you. And sometimes you don't have the right information you think you do but sometimes you don't. That's why I'm a huge supporter of these little pulse check surveys. Where you you go out into the organization, you asked us a couple of questions, get a pulse, check, know what's going on with people, engage with people, engage their hearts and their minds, be vulnerable, be human, don't fit a mold, don't fit a mold that is dead and buried. And so I am going to ask you right now. Are you ready to break the mold with me to transform the work experience, to embrace authentic leadership and to break this mold that we have had in this industry for way too long and really move it to the next level? Are you ready? Yes. Are you ready? Come on, stand up. Let's stand up. I want to know I want to hear you say Are you ready? Yes, we're gonna break the mold, right? Okay, now before you sit down, I feel I mean I feel unstoppable right now. I do feel unstoppable. Do you feel the energy? Yes, you feel the energy. Nobody said this better than Freddie Mercury.

You everyone. It's been a pleasure.