Summary:

Dr. Jim interviews Regina Ross, Chief People and Culture Officer at Khan Academy, about getting people ready to lead. Regina shares her non-traditional HR background and how it shaped her people strategy. She emphasizes the importance of investing time in developing and coaching new leaders, even in a fast-paced business environment. Practical tips include establishing ground rules, having regular one-on-ones, and creating individual development plans. Regina also encourages individual contributors to drive their own development by setting the agenda and discussing their aspirations with their managers. Tune in for valuable insights on leadership readiness.

Key Takeaways:

• New leaders should invest time upfront in developing their teams to avoid setbacks later.
• Understanding and being upfront about personal strengths and weaknesses is key to authentic leadership.
• Regular one-on-ones with direct reports should emphasize both business outcomes and personal development.
• Individual contributors should proactively manage their development by setting agendas for one-on-ones and seeking competency assessments.
• Leaders should create a company culture that encourages vulnerability and openness about areas requiring support.

Chapters:

0:00:00

Introduction to the topic of getting people ready to lead

0:00:28

Regina Ross shares her background and experience in HR

0:01:31

How Regina's experience at Target shaped her people strategy

0:02:32

Overcoming the obstacle of limited time for people development

0:03:41

Best practices for leaders to prepare individuals for leadership

0:05:02

Practical ways senior leaders can create space for development

0:06:46

Encouraging transparency and addressing weaknesses as a leader

0:07:53

How individual contributors can bring up their development aspirations

0:08:49

Tactical approaches for individual contributor development

0:09:58

Importance of driving your own development as an individual contributor

Connect with Dr. Jim: linkedin.com/in/drjimk

Connect with CT: linkedin.com/in/cheetung

Connect with Regina Ross: linkedin.com/in/reginaross

Music Credit: Shake it Up - Fesliyanstudios.com - David Renda



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[00:00:27] Regina Ross: Thank you for having me, Jim.

[00:00:44] Regina Ross: Yeah, absolutely. So I am not your traditional HR leader. I started my career in engineering and then spent some time in operations, logistics and was tapped on the shoulder actually when I worked at Target and asked to step into an HR role. I say that I crossed over to the dark side and I've [00:01:00] never looked back.

What I love about my background and me bringing this to HR is that I understand the business. And so I try to make sure that the HR strategy. Is connected to the business outcomes and drives and enables the business success.

[00:01:31] Regina Ross: Yeah, one of the things I loved about Target is that they believe as a people leader One of your most important aspects of your job is leading your team So when I became an operation your operations leader at Target one of my new hire Onboarding sessions was thinking like an HR manager They wanted us as operations leaders as executives to understand the people impact and make sure that we leaned into developing our people, managing our people, taking care of our people.

[00:02:02] Dr. Jim: So I really like what you said there in terms of the mindset that operational leaders need to have in terms of all of the stuff that's related with people development and across the entire employee life cycle.

Here's the argument that will often get brought up by business leaders, which is, Oh, we're running so lean. We have so many things to get done. We don't have time for any of this stuff. We have this never ending list of tasks that need to get accomplished. How do you respond to that and overcome that obstacle that gets thrown in front of you from the business?

I'm also an executive coach and so one of the things that we do as a coach is teach managers coaching skills to bring out the best and bring out the brilliance in their [00:03:00] teams so that they don't have to be there all the time to solve the problems, to answer the issues. Coach and develop your team, raise them to a higher level so that you can operate at the right level.

Instead of you being down in the weeds, managing the day to day when you don't have to be.

And especially when you look at the day to day of a manager, one of the big challenges that happens in a lot of organizations is that managers, whether they're new or not, always have to fight this temptation of getting back into the trenches. So I want to tie that back in to the core concept of the show or core conversation that we're having, which is getting people ready to lead.

Tell us a little bit more about some of those best practices that leaders within organizations should be doing, should be embedding in their organizations that get their individual contributors or managers or executives better equipped to lead.

And so one of the things that I think is important as a new leader, or if you want to grow in your leader, it's understanding yourself, understand your strengths, understand your weaknesses, understand your trigger points so that you can surround yourself hopefully by others who have strengths in areas where you don't.

And also how do you show up authentically to express value and your team in your business? Once you have the understanding of yourself, then you can lean in and be more effective in leading your team and then leading the business ultimately.

So let's bring it, let's make it real.

[00:04:43] Dr. Jim: So in today's world of work where everybody's stretched thin, What are some practical things that senior leaders should be doing to create the space for that among their director ranks, among their manager ranks, and even cultivating that [00:05:00] capability out of their individual contributor ranks.

one thing in particular, so just brass tactics is there is a establishing ground rules with your boss toolkit or a template where if you're coming into a new role as a leader, have that conversation with your direct reports. Here are my expectations of what success looks like. Here's how I like to give and receive feedback.

Here's my my cadence on one on ones, etc. Make sure you establish those ground rules early on, so that there's not a confusion on down the road about giving feedback or what success looks like. So that's one tactic. The other thing, too, that I would say is making sure as a leader for me, I just promoted someone to a manager role.

And then how can you soar with your strengths? I love to say how can you live and lean into your zone of genius and spend most of your time there? So those are just some practical things to help leaders like lead with confidence in the areas where they're strong and then Acknowledge and recognize where they have some weaknesses and don't try to cover it up because if you don't address it or if you don't Mitigate those risks then it could cause you know, just be detrimental to your impact

I think one of the things that I would expect to encounter when we're thinking about new managers or emerging leaders is the fear of exposing those weaknesses. So what's your advice when it comes to creating the habit of being transparent at that level so that you can lead more effectively?

Here's my communication style and then that creates a space in the psychological safety for the rest of the team to open up as well and say, Hey, here's where I need help. Another thing that you can do as a leader and this is what I do. We have a Monday stand up. What are your big rocks? What are your priorities?

What are your concerns? And then what help and support do you need? And I lead with that. Hey, here's what I'm working on. Here are my concerns, and here's the support I need. And then my team follows suit.

Let's look at that individual contributor that might have potential. Yes. How do they, how did they address these concerns and bring that to the surface? Yes. of their managers or their skip level so that they're on the radar for future development opportunities and being prepared intentionally for leadership.

Part of your one on one should not just be talking about the business, but talking about your developmental aspirations, and then making sure that you have a very direct and candid conversation with your manager about where they see you and what their assessment is. I recommend that people use competency assessments so that you can see, hey, what are the competencies needed for this next role?

Where am I short? Where am I strong? And how do I close the gap? And then develop a individual development plan that helps you to shore up those gaps. And so those are very tactical things. And then, we're having quarterly reviews or quarterly check ins, instead of waiting once a year to have a performance review.

[00:09:04] Dr. Jim: Awesome stuff, Regina. I know we're just scratching the surface in this conversation. If people want to continue the discussion, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

com. And this is where I support people that I work with. I'm not able to work with on a day to day basis on my job. So you can find me there as well.

Yes, you should not. It's in the reason why it resonated with me is that this is one of those things that I did as an individual contributor. And I also told all of my reports when they were coming up through the ranks, You need to set the agenda and drive that and create a collaborative environment with your leader or leaders to get you to the next level of the conversation.

So for those of you who have listened to this discussion, we appreciate you hanging out. If you'd like to chat, leave us a review. If you haven't already done so join the HR impact community, and you can find that at www. Engage rocket dot CEO slash HR impact and tune in next time where we'll have another great leader like Regina Sharing with us the game changing insights that help them build high performing teams.