Too many leaders are still trying to succeed by becoming someone they think they’re supposed to be—quieter, tougher, more polished, less human. And in the process, they’re leaving their greatest strengths at the door.
My guest believes that’s exactly backward. Today, we welcome back Claude Silver to discuss her latest book, Be Yourself at Work: The Groundbreaking Power of Showing Up, Standing Out, and Leading from the Heart.
We explore what authentic presence really looks like at work, and why pretending to be a different kind of leader rarely gets better results. Claude and I unpack why many leaders have accountability backwards, why the more power you gain, the less truth you often hear, and how being open and emotionally present doesn’t weaken communication but rather prevents under-communicating with your team. Finally, Claude offers us a simple, actionable practice you can use right away to take a small step and rebuild trust and connection where it matters most.
This is a conversation with one of my favorite humans on the planet about stopping the performance of leadership—and starting to lead from the strengths that made you worth hiring in the first place.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Listen in for…
- The importance of bringing your unique perspective, talents, and humanity to your team.
- What authentic presence looks like at work.
- Protecting healthy boundaries with courage and kindness while still connecting with others.
- Signs your culture is thriving and how to get there.
- Why is the room with everyone in it smarter than any one person in that room?
- The reason actions say more than words ever will.
- The dangerous byproduct of silence.
“When a person is real, they are not carrying the burden or the weight of any other facade.” — Claude Silver
About Claude Silver, Chief Heart Officer, VaynerX, and Author of Be Yourself at Work:
Claude Silver is on a mission to revolutionize leadership, talent, and workplace culture. She is the world’s first Chief Heart Officer at VaynerX, partnering with CEO Gary Vaynerchuk to drive their success. Silver has earned Campaign US’s Female Frontier Award and AdWeek’s Changing the Game Award, and she electrifies audiences at national and international conferences, as well as at organizations including Meta, Google, US Government agencies, and the US Armed Forces. She has been interviewed on dozens of podcasts and featured in The New York Times, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal. Silver lives in New Jersey with her wife and two young children. She is the author of Be Yourself at Work: The Groundbreaking Power of Showing Up, Standing Out, and Leading from the Heart.
Connect with Claude:
Website: claudesilver.com
VaynerX: beyourselfbook.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/casilver
Instagram: instagram.com/claudesilver
Connect with Maria:
Get Maria’s books: Red-Slice.com/books
Hire Maria to speak: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross
Take the LinkedIn Learning Courses! Leading with Empathy and Balancing Empathy, Accountability, and Results as a Leader
LinkedIn: Maria Ross
Instagram: @redslicemaria
Facebook: Red Slice
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Maria Ross 00:04
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. Too many leaders are still trying to succeed by becoming someone they think they’re supposed to be quieter, tougher, more polished, less human, and in the process, they’re leaving their greatest strengths at the door. My guest today believes that’s exactly backward. Claude Silver is the world’s first Chief Heart Officer at Vayner x, where she partners with CEO Gary Vaynerchuk to build cultures rooted in trust, accountability and performance by helping people across the globe bring more of who they actually are to work, not less. Claude has been recognized with campaign us’s Female frontier award and ad weeks changing the game Award. She speaks to organizations like meta, Google and US government agencies, and has been featured in The New York Times Forbes and the Wall Street Journal. She joins us for a second time to discuss her latest book, be yourself at work, the groundbreaking power of showing up, standing out and leading from the heart. And I’m telling you all this book is packed with the kind of insight you’ll want to underline dog ear and turn into post its all over your desk. Today, we talk about why you were hired in the first place, not to blend in, but to bring your unique perspective talents and humanity to the team. We explore what authentic presence really looks like at work, and why pretending to be a different kind of leader rarely gets better results. It just creates distance exhaustion and missed opportunity. Claude and I unpack why many leaders have accountability backwards, why the more power you gain, the less truth you often hear, and how being open and emotionally present doesn’t weaken communication, it prevents under communicating with your team. Claude shares how she protects her own boundaries with courage and kindness and why heart centered leadership isn’t a nice to have in the age of AI, it’s What Keeps Leaders relevant and connected. And Claude offers us a simple, actionable practice you can use right away to take a small step and rebuild trust and connection where it matters most. This is a conversation with one of my favorite humans on the planet about stopping the performance of leadership and starting to lead from the strengths that made you worth hiring in the first place. Take a listen. Welcome to the show. Claude Silver again. So excited to have you here on the
Claude Silver 03:21
empathy edge. Great to be here. So good to see you again. Thank you.
Maria Ross 03:25
I know, as we were talking in our pre talk, prepping for this, I was telling you how much I really loved your new book, and how it’s kind of a Bible, and it’s kind of a guidebook for any leader right now. And the gems per paragraph worth their weight in gold. So thank you so much for writing this and getting it out into the world. So let’s start where we always start, because we’re going to talk about a variety of things, of being yourself at work and what, what the heck Authentic Leadership actually means in a practical sense. But before we go there, I would just love if you would share your story and how you got into this work, because it’s such a good story, and it has so much to do with
Claude Silver 04:06
why you wrote this book as well. It really does. Thank you so much. You know, when you were just asking me that question, all of a sudden, I went to being five, six and seven, really, right now, yeah, and I remember, I was such a tomboy, and I rebelled against my mom. I did not want to wear dresses at all, and so I didn’t really until, like, I graduated from high school or at someone’s wedding. When I look back on that, if we’re you know, the book is really about belonging and belonging to yourself, right, and being accepted by yourself. And I think back to those years, and I think I knew who I was. I knew that it made some people uncomfortable, and so I think about how that probably shaped my life in many ways of being extra aware. Aware of when someone is comfortable or when they’re not comfortable. And I bring all that up because it is what I do all day. It is we are in relationship and in connection and community with people all day. And so my story really is in many ways, I think I was an underdog for a long time. I didn’t know where I fit in. And my parents are highly educated. My brother, who’s 18 months younger than me, is highly educated, and school was really tough for me, really, really tough. Dyslexia. I’m not a good test taker, right? And I’m a Gen Xer, so like, we had to take those tests, yeah, yep. And I didn’t do well. And at school, that’s what you are graded on, how well you take a test, how well you write, how well you comprehend. And my gift has always been that of emotion and that of much more emotional intelligence and emotional fluency. And so finding my way through my life has been. It’s not been anything I really have talked about until much recently with the book and really sharing a lot of my story. And so, you know, to get really into the nitty gritty. When after my sophomore year of college, I left after, you know, uncomfortable things happen, bad decisions, Bad boys, bad drugs. And I was like, I need to get out of this place. And I went back home to Santa Fe, New Mexico where I grew up, and I told my parents I needed to find the longest outdoor adventure, outdoor education class I could find, to get my butt kicked. Literally, that’s what I said. I need to get my butt kicked, because I was going nowhere fast, and I knew that wasn’t the plan for plot internally. Be careful what you wish for or what you look for. Yeah, I found a 93 day Colorado Outward Bound wilderness Leadership Program. Tell you how out of shape I was. Tell you how not prepared I was so here I go, October. Go to Outward Bound. I’m the only young woman with nine young men, and I’m learning right then and there that, okay, there’s no toilet paper. You don’t get a shower or a hot meal until 18 days. You know, this is 1991 so it’s snail mail. There’s no cell phone. Sleep in tents. You sleep in tarps, and everyone is going to carry 80 to 85 pounds on their back. So by then I was five three, and now I’m five and a half on a good day. So it’s day one. It’s snowing. We’re 9000 10,000 feet up already. We need to climb another 1000 feet to get to wherever we’re going to get to. The guys just bolt up the mountain. And here I am, you know, taking a breath step, taking a breath step, and just hoping and praying and wishing. I twist my ankle, I break my leg, and I get to go home, wishing, hoping, praying, and God, it didn’t happen, right? Crying, and it’s just the worst. It’s the worst. I’m soaked. It’s the worst. And I had a female instructor for those first 18 days, and she comes all the way down the path, and she looks right at me, about a foot and a half away from me, and she just says, What is going on in your head? Well, I answered her. I said, Well, you know, I’m singing that song by Nine Inch Nails, you know, head like a hole. Black is your soul. I’d rather die than give you control without blinking. She says, You better get another song in your head. Love that story, and that was it like, yeah, not that my life changed, I mean, but that was the first time after going to therapy and after just, you know, feeling like I understood a little bit about life. That was the first time it clicked that only I could change this talk in my head. And I really think it’s because music was the origin of that, you know, not like, oh yeah, Claude, only you can change the thought in your head. Well, okay, but this was, like, a real song lyric that was not doing me Right, right? And you know, again, 1991 there was no Pharrell happy, you know, and I wasn’t happy, right? So the wonderful thing about that entire adventure is that, A, I stuck with it. B, I came out of it. 93 days, a very changed human being, a much stronger, much more confident human being. I understood teamwork. I understood what it took to survive with others, keep one another safe and healthy with others. You know, in the back country where there’s no no rescue, no one’s coming to get you, and so I started to understand the inner workings of teammanship and what I needed to do to show up, to be fully present as a member of that team, and not only the team, a leader, because that was the point, so that Thank goodness for out for that Outward Bound. I mean, it took me on a great adventure, and. I came out of it knowing immediately my purpose was to be not only of service, but to be of joyful service. And that hasn’t left me. And I was 19, and that’s, you know, and that’s where I am today,
Maria Ross 10:15
right, right? And you’re now, you know, your Chief Heart Officer at Vayner X, working with Gary Vaynerchuk and explain a little bit about that role, because I often describe your role, and this might be wrong, almost like you’re a coach within the organization, and people can come to you or get sent to you. You’re not HR, but it’s more about leadership capacity, about personal boundaries, you know, stretching people kind of being the coach that, like the leader that came up to you, of what is the song in your head? Yes, is that an accurate description that is
Claude Silver 10:53
Gary would describe it as I set the emotional framework for the company. I probably think I’m much more of the barometer, and that barometer goes up and down based on who am I speaking to the patterns I’m seeing or hearing. And also not just in America. I mean, it’s a whole other universe which has, you know, very different cultures than us. And so it’s, I would say it’s probably a high performance coach, quasi, a little bit of like psychology, although I’m not a therapist, but you know, enough to be able to spot someone’s imposter syndrome and then go there, right, right? Those questions that might be a little bit more therapy. And Gary would say, if he sat here right now, he would say, I want every single person to feel safe with Claude, and I want every person to feel trusted. And so, no, it’s a village, though, it takes a village to do this.
Maria Ross 11:50
And obviously, you know what I love about the company investing in that is they’re clearly seeing how that ties to results. Yes. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Claude Silver 12:00
Yes. So I’m glad we bring that up, because a lot of times people will push back immediately and say, well, what’s the ROI? Well, can you quantify the ROI? Okay, yes. Low attrition, high retention, word of mouth, referrals. We just had an incredible win at the Super Bowl with one of our ads. So what’s not the ROI of being good to your people? What’s not the ROI of taking care of your people? I just don’t know everything is. And so when we look at the growth from good to great and then great to exceptional, how do we get a steady performer to a high potential and then get a high potential to a top talent that’s all income, that’s all about retaining, and that’s all about, you know, all of us touching that person, whether or not that person needs to develop more client facing skills, maybe that person needs more attention to detail. Maybe that person’s doing great and they’re going to be the next CEO, who knows? So it’s a lot of obviously caring for people holding space, for people creating space, but not jumping in on their stuff. I’m not interested in doing that. Yeah, there’s a very clear divide, at least energetically with me on like where I begin and end, and where they begin and end, even though I don’t have a desk in this room, I don’t want a desk. I’ve never wanted a separation between me and anyone else. I’m very aware of an invisible boundary that I have to have if I’m going to do this work every day, right? If I’m going to have all of these conversations or listen, you know, is a lot to take in, right?
Maria Ross 13:41
Well, and I think that’s the challenge for a lot of people is, you know, and that’s why in my most recent book, I talked about not only people in performance, but personal boundaries as well. Yeah. And so before we dive into so much about the book that I have questions and I would love to discuss with you, can you talk about, what are the strategies you use to set that boundary, because I think that’s a really important point for people of and also why they shy away from empathetic and authentic leadership is because they’re afraid they’re going to lose themselves. They’re afraid they’re going to be too vulnerable. They’re afraid they’re going to get caught up in someone else’s drama. So what has worked for you? Because you’re having these conversations all day long. And if anyone can master it, it would be you. So what are some tips you have for people?
Claude Silver 14:26
Yeah, I do a lot of energy work. And okay, that sounds all you know, woo and nebulous. I do energy separations with every single person that I am with. Physically energetic separations have nothing to do with the person’s personality or anything like that. It is literally. This person has straight hair. I have curly ish hair. This person doesn’t wear glasses. I wear glasses. This person had on black pants. Today I have on red pants. This and I say, the person. Was, you know, this person had, this person lives in Brooklyn. I live in New Jersey. This person is in this department. I’m in this department. They are all very normalized, equalized. They’re not charged. And then I like, just go like that. And I, I, you know, fortunately, I have the Hudson River right here, so I throw it outside to the river on energetic separations for a very long time. Also, I am a recovering codependent, and I know how important it is to have boundaries, because I’m an empath and because I have had that tendency to get immersed, it’s not healthy for me, and it certainly isn’t healthy for the other person. So I know that there is somewhat of a ring fence here, although no one would ever know. And also keep the meetings to 15 minutes, in minutes, and so that, in itself, not only allows me to talk to and listen to a lot of people, but there’s a beginning, middle and end. I know the course of this. I know that at It’ll be over soon. I just couldn’t feel, yeah, yeah. I’m just very I know what I’m here to do. I’m not to get saturated in someone else’s web and they are not here to get webby with my right? I don’t want that,
Maria Ross 16:17
right, right? I remember interviewing a C cmo for the book, who talked a lot about her team, was very connected to her. She’s the person they come to. They, you know, even when she doesn’t ask they, she just has that manner about her. And I asked her the same question, and she said, Well, I’m very, very clear that about my reason that I’m here, and she’s like, and I always stay focused on that. I want to support my team. I want to be there if someone needs to talk. I have a box of tissues in my office at all times, right? But she goes, I also know I’m here to drive growth. Yes, I am not here for you to lay on my couch and tell me about your you know, boundary issues with your mother in law, I think, is what she said. They don’t pay me for that, right? So she had a very clear sense of still remaining present, but keeping that purpose in mind, keeping that North Star in mind, of like, if this is getting to a point where it’s bleeding into therapy, it’s bleeding into I’m starting to get impacted. Now I need to look at the resources we have available to refer this person out or to, you know, provides that support. But it’s almost like it’s that meta skill, right? Of being able to almost watch yourself in the situation and see like, Oh, you’re slipping, you’re slipping, you know, and be able to be present for the other person without getting caught up in the fear of, Oh, I hope this doesn’t go there. I hope this doesn’t go there, because that could be the inner monolog we’re having as well, right? And then that just takes you out of the conversation. Exactly, exactly,
Claude Silver 17:47
yeah, no, I think that is exactly right. This is a business. I have a job to do. At the end of the day. We are here to put out a product into the world and increase our P and L, like, right? It’s pretty black and white, right? There’s a lot of other stuff that goes on in that minestrone soup, but I noticed, I know
Maria Ross 18:08
my pains, yes, exactly, and I talk about this all the time, that both and leadership, you can be there for all of those things and still lead with heart and lead with humanity. It’s not either or
Claude Silver 18:20
1,000% Yeah, 1,000% that’s 1%
Maria Ross 18:26
okay, so let’s go to some of these questions. How do you know when your culture is thriving? What are some signs like, if you are working on it and you’re like, Yeah, we want to have a thriving culture. What’s that?
Claude Silver 18:38
I love that question because I just took a video of it at lunchtime. I walked through the kitchen here in New York office, and it was so loud. Every single seat was taken. People were eating with each other. It was so loud I took a video and literally sent it to the leadership team. I was like, This is what it’s like on a Tuesday. Here. Huge part watching people, you know, Knick Knack chat, chat in the hallways, because that’s where culture is made, right? It’s in the little moments. You know, watching people go into their meeting rooms and seeing, you know, are there smiles on their face? Are they just is everyone looking at their phone? I mean, right? That kind of stuff. I listen for sound. I listen for laughter, I listen for noise, I listen for chatter. See when I walk around, people out of their chairs, looking at someone else’s laptop, those are the types of things that I see, which means, okay, there’s collaboration going on, right? Utopia, it’s not utopia. I can’t see all the shadows, right? It’s human behavior, right? But literally, I base it on I also, I guess I base it on noise and and camaraderie, but I base it on output of work, yeah, and we have a certain measurement in terms of the product we put out that Gary has asked us to subscribe to. And I can also tell. All, if we are hitting our marks, that also means, okay, well, we’re successful, yeah, science thing, we’re successful, right? We’ll add to the whole pot of, you know, we like it here. We’re challenged.
Maria Ross 20:13
It’s a vibe too. And it’s also, you know, there’s not, it’s not a one to one. Causation of like this led to this amount of revenue. I like to think of it as a recipe. Yeah, and it’s the spices, it’s the salt, like it’s going to make it better? Yes? So empathy, or thriving culture, or whatever you call it within your organization, that’s not necessarily the end metric. You don’t want to measure that for that sake. It’s what is it contributing to? And if I didn’t, you know, Can I do a pre and post? Can I do a here’s what it was like before we focused on this. Oh my god, here’s what we’ve been able to achieve after. And that’s like, I said, that’s like adding the salt to the recipe.
Claude Silver 20:53
It’s so funny. You say that because I talk about it as a minestrone soup. If the oregano isn’t in there, it’s not a minestrone soup, and we’re missing that, or the bay leaf. And that’s why we need all of these people and all this diversity. And, you know, we are a microcosm of the macrocosm,
Maria Ross 21:11
and so well, and the bay leaf doesn’t generate the revenue. The bay leaf doesn’t make the soup, no, adds to it, and it kind of supercharges it, you know, additive.
Claude Silver 21:20
Yeah, additive. And I think the other thing that I’m very vocal about, but I’m also looking for, is no one here is smarter than anyone other. No one here. Everyone brings something curiosity. I’m educated in here, a different culture, a different language, and so it’s something I say a lot, who’s the smartest person in the room? Everyone’s looking around. Oh, is it David? Is it whatever? And I’m like, it’s the room. It’s the room. And then they just take a breath. Oh, great. It’s not okay. Thank you. Normalizes things,
Maria Ross 21:55
yeah, yeah. So when we, you know, and we talk about authentic leadership a lot, but I I really like the very practical way that you look at it. And it’s that, and I would love for you to describe it when you think about being an authentic leader. What does that mean?
Claude Silver 22:12
If you are a giraffe, stay a giraffe, do not become a zebra. There is no reason, no need for you to be a zebra. Authentic Leadership, to me is that you are guided by what you know to be best, because you are educated, you have done it, you’ve lived by example, and it’s who you are. I’m not trying to put on I don’t put on Gary’s baseball hat every day and say, I work at VaynerMedia and I’m second in command to Gary Vaynerchuk. Don’t I look like him? No, in fact, what do you think people say to me all the time? You and Gary work so closely together, he’s so loud. So for me, when a person is real, they are not carrying the burden or the weight of any other facade. They are not they haven’t walked in the building at nine o’clock or turned on their laptop and been okay. I have to put all of Claude away, and now I have to speak like I really know what I’m talking about. My work voice, yeah. And that the cost to me, that the cost is an extreme cost, and I don’t have enough cash to pay for that anymore. I have tried to do that. People try to do that, and they leave. They try to do it, and it’s not working. They try to do it. Their performance tanks. They try to do it. They have Sunday scaries. They miss the mark. And so to show up as you are, we’ve already spent three months looking for you. We’ve already interviewed you seven times. That’s who we want. Mm, hmm, not the all of a sudden that you come in in a suit and tie because you’ve had a hoodie on all these times. Please don’t do that right yourself, because that’s who we hired. Yeah, that’s what we want. We want your curiosity. We want your your introversion, extroversion. I don’t really care, but we want you. So the idea here is you do not need to give up yourself or your soul be yourself. And by no means am I subscribing to go and into the deep end and do a cannonball. No, right? I’m saying put a foot in, put another foot in, then put your knee in. That might be all you do this year, right? You share that much. This is up to you. Please know that when you don’t share yourself, it just stunts everything. Everything gets backlogged because we’re not getting from you what it is we thought or, you know, maybe we haven’t created enough psychological safety or a space where you feel like you really belong and fit in, then that’s on us.
Maria Ross 24:52
So I have a curveball question for you, because I get this one is, what if who you are, and I kind. Know the answer, but I want to hear it from you. What if who you are is not a very nice person, or what if who you are is very dictatorial? Yeah, is that really who you are, or those behaviors you’ve hidden behind? Yeah?
Claude Silver 25:12
I mean, that’s fear. It’s complete fear and insecurity of being found out. You want to micromanage and control everything, because you know you’re going to be looked at at the end of the day, it’s your project. Well, not really. It’s a whole universe that comes together and works on something. You’re not an independent control contributor here, right? You’re not on an island. And so when people have that facade of being mean, nasty, cynical, well, there’s something under it. So now we need to go figure out what. You know, I had someone in here earlier today, very, very seasoned and senior person who has been here for a year and has not been vocal enough with the powers that be. And we, as large as we are at 2000 people, we are a very small place, and so it’s very important to make yourself known to Gary, to make yourself known to whomever Claude other people. And the question was, because it’s been a year, and I knew this person has not reached out to Gary, what do you think is holding you back? I hear it all the time. He doesn’t have time. He’s so busy, you know? Yeah. So we all are busy. None of us have time, so forth and so on. But here you are where you know your CEO wants to hear from you. What is it that’s holding you back? You think he’s going to go into that text message and just like, pop it open. No, he’s going to say, Great. How many, how much engagement did you get on that post? How’s the team post, Super Bowl? How’s the, how’s the, you know, the environment, the vibe, like he’s a person. So I go into that in a hey, this will become a vulnerability for you here, because it’s actually something that is required at your level. It’s required. So either let’s do it today, or let’s talk about why you’re not going to do it today, but you’re not going to leave this room until you and I agree, yeah, to do something,
Maria Ross 27:20
yeah, well, and that’s the clarity piece. That’s the like we need to understand how things are done around here, and not just assume everyone knows. And that’s where we give people the opportunity, and where I, you know, when I’m coaching folks, it’s, it’s, oh, this is happening. Okay, well, have the expectations been made clear? That’s kind of always the first question is, let’s assume positive intent, and let’s assume maybe the person doesn’t know that’s allowed or that’s expected or whatever it is. And we could be talking about anything. We could be talking about unsaid rules, unwritten rules, and I’m using air quotes here for people that can’t see me, which should be written down or at least discussed right in a meeting. We always challenge a person if they have an idea, yes. Are we writing that down, or are we springing that on somebody their first meeting in our organization? Right? So all of these things that are that are unsaids, yeah. Can we make them sense? Can we make them so it’s very crystal clear to people, and also from the hiring to your point, so they know what they’re getting into, and then they can have agency to say that might not be the right fit for me.
Claude Silver 28:26
That’s right. That’s right. If I’m supposed to commit, I’m an introvert, and if I’m supposed to communicate on text to whomever once a week, I don’t I don’t know if I can do that. It might be out of my realm, and that’s okay. But I love what you said, because this is the other is the other way this this happens. Congratulations, Maria, you’re a manager. You got $10,000 rage and now a raise, and now it’s a senior manager on your title. Bye, yeah, we’ll see ya. And you’re like, what does a manager do? Right? And so you go off and you try to figure it out based on other managers you’ve had, yeah, or the old paradigms, yeah paradigms. And then soon enough, two of the people you manage come in, and I hear from them, and, you know, a couple different week separation, I say, Oh, how’s it going? You know, has your manager talk to you about, you know your the roles and expectations. No, I haven’t met with my manager yet. Oh, okay, interesting. Or have you had a one on one with your manager? What did you talk about? Oh, we just talked about football, so you know that. Yeah, those are those questions I love. It’s like, okay, we have work to do.
Maria Ross 29:41
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, okay. You mentioned a situation in the book where you talk about that we have accountability backwards. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Claude Silver 29:55
Yeah, the first thing I’m going to say is. So accountability for us is one of our core competencies, and that means, no matter where you are, what role you’re in, it is still a core competency. You might be learning to be the bigger person in situations, or if you’re an executive, you are the bigger person in every situation, you point thumbs first instead of fingers. What did I do? We are so used to blaming other people because we are so used to victimizing ourselves, generalization, right? Generalization, I didn’t get a promotion because maybe your manager didn’t sit down with you, but I need to know that a lot earlier. But I’m going to also imagine that you didn’t you didn’t hit the marks. What did you do? Did you ever take work home? Did you ever study? Did you practice AI like we’ve talked about every day here? What are you like? Look at yourself first before. Blame other people. And I think leadership, if, if one doesn’t do that, then they’ve completely devalued their entire team. If, if a leader comes in and says, immediately, what’d you do wrong? This is all wrong, you know. I mean, how do you feel?
Maria Ross 31:16
Yeah, that doesn’t get us anywhere. Shame and blame is not going to improve the person’s performance, yeah,
Claude Silver 31:22
not at all that person will be crying in the corner. And then we have a whole another deal on our hands. So I find that there’s a a lot of unlearning that needs to happen, myself included, on a daily basis, but especially if you come from the old school, if especially you’re like, clients always right. Clients always right. And you’re working with Gary Vaynerchuk, and he’s like, whatever. Like client I’m more interested in, in the consumer who’s picking up that, you know, the milk shake. I don’t try it. These are all things that we need to take into account when we think about accountability. Agency. I have agency over the choices I make. It doesn’t. You don’t have agency over Claude. You have agency over you. And that’s like even in the book the first chapters, you are the CEO of you. But let’s get grounded. And it’s going back to, you know, Claude. You better change the song in your head. Only I can do that right, right, but I have to feel like I have skin in the game, accountability, agency, and that there’s something at the end of there’s a responsibility, and at some point I will have a check in somewhere, yeah, and I will be told how I’m doing. You know, someone else will be accountable for my growth, as well as me. So I think about, I think about how we have accountability backwards a lot, especially when it comes to creating spaces where people want to belong. And I think we all think it’s very easy to create that space
Maria Ross 33:01
by just saying it’s safe, yeah, like it’s What are you talking about? Well, I told you it was a safe space, right? I didn’t show you with any of my actions or any of our practices, but I’m telling you it’s a safe space. I’m telling you you
Claude Silver 33:13
belong, even though you’re the only person that didn’t dress up like we all did today, because we agreed to, you know, dress up as clowns, whatever it is, right? There’s like this. It’s a it’s a hole, it’s a big hole that need to fill in. What you just said is what I love with action, with specific actions, show me how, show me what is expected of me. If you tell me, maybe I’m, maybe I’m a visual learner, maybe, right now. So, yeah, there’s a whole it’s all again. It’s a whole other strongy soup. Yeah, but how wonderful does it feel when you actually can take accountability for your actions, even if you have to say, You know what? That’s on me. That was my bad.
Maria Ross 34:01
Yeah, and I also have this twist on this, because we always think of accountability in terms of when someone messes up, but we also have accountability for the good stuff too. We have accountability for the energy we bring into the room. It’s almost like accountability is not just blame when stuff goes wrong. Accountability is also me knowing that I am responsible for bringing this to the table in a positive way. And this kind of goes back to your point earlier, about if you know yourself, if you’ve got your own house in order, you understand what you bring to the party. Yes, you have accountability for bringing that to the party. If you said you were going to bring the potato chips. That’s why we hired you. That’s why we asked you, you better bring the potato chips. Yeah, the mashed potatoes are already taking we got that right. I needed that. You shared such a great story The last time we spoke, and I, you know, to full credit to you, I use it all the time where you talked about people in your organization, because Gary is such a such a figure. He’s such. An icon, bringing people in who tried to kill themselves, keeping up with his pace, or being exactly like Gary. And I love this thing you said, where you said, we already got a Gary. We hired you for you, yeah, not because we needed another Gary. Yeah.
Claude Silver 35:16
So don’t try to change. Yeah. Like true belonging means being who you are, not changing who you are, because you think you need to emulate that person, like right? And I remember the story I told you, because this was years ago, when I said to him, I think you need to stop using the word hustle, because mostly young men are coming in here and they’re saying, I can’t hustle as hard as Gary V it’s like, what? Sure you can’t like, he’s one on one. He chooses to work 18 hours a day. You don’t have to that right choice. You’re going to find your own rhythm. And he didn’t, he hasn’t. I really don’t think he’s used hustle since then. Yeah, really don’t. Yeah, you know, I talk a lot about labels in the book, labels are for soup cans. And there are, you know, labels just get us into a mess, like, oh yeah, he’s a hustler. Yeah. Hustles hard. Well, she does her job, yeah, okay, well, she does her job. Okay, good. Well, she does her job. He hustles hard. What did you just tell me? I don’t know if he does his job or if he’s just a hust. Is he just right?
Maria Ross 36:26
There’s a lot of activity going on over there. Clarity, yes, yes, yes. I love this. Okay, you wrote in the book something I thought was really profound, because we talk about how empathy softens, I guess what’s the word I’m looking for, fades a little bit the higher up in the organization you get, because you’re you’re protected, you’re surrounded by, yes, people. So the higher up you go. There’s been studies that show that you kind of lose touch with your empathy of the people on the ground or even the customers or the clients, but you also wrote, the more power you have, the less truth you have, the less truth you hear. That’s what you wrote. The more power you have, the less truth you hear. Yeah. Can you explain that and talk about what the antidote to that is, especially to leaders that are listening, yeah.
Claude Silver 37:21
So I you know you actually opened it up with you get yes a lot, or you get the rose colored glasses. Everything’s fine. Nothing to see here. Yeah. And it’s like, Is everyone fine? Because I did hear that that person was crying today. So what happened there? Or, yeah, that person’s mom is in the hospital. Well, that’s something I’d like to know leader, right? Yeah? Like, know that. And so, yeah, people want to, they don’t want to take up your time. So they don’t want to get into the Misha gos of it all, or the mishigos is something I want to get into. And they’re like, I gotta go. Everything’s fine. Yes, you don’t get the data, and you don’t really get the context, how things, how the sausage was made. The other thing I think happens is, as we get higher in the organization, we forget what it was like when now I work in an agency, in an agency there, sorry, there is natural growth. You go from this role to this role, to this role to this role. All I’ve been at an agency for many, many, many years. I am a Chief Heart Officer, but before that, I was on the path of a strategist up the wrong once I became a VP of strategy, I had to remember what it was like to be a first or second year strategist. You have to, you have to figure that out. So. But back to the antidote. The antidote is literally, I think, a couple of things. One, letting people know that you need to have context. So maybe they need to write you a weekly email in summary, what the aches and pains are, what the client is saying, and how we how we deliver, make it up right? Three things that from all of your direct reports, if you are a leader, you need to know and you need to be able to then ask questions, not because anything’s wrong, necessarily, but like, you need a why. As a leader, you need to know why this happened, or why we’re going to do that right, why we’re going to go this route. I told you maybe try this route. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers. Great. So you want that route, what happened? And so we need to be, I think not only asking questions, we need to be given context. Yeah, information, and if it’s a healthy culture, hopefully you know that it comes in peace. No one’s here to attack you with that information. Yeah, people are moving fast. We just need to know or tech. Just like I was just saying to that person, the phone and text your CEO and let him know about the meeting you had today with your clients. Give him a little piece of information, otherwise he’s not going to know. And what ends up happening is we only remember our last interaction with that person? Well, the last interaction was, I didn’t have an interaction. Where’s the person? Yeah. Last interaction was amazing. We had a great client dinner. And, you know, now we are, we have a project based on that client dinner. Yeah? So there’s, there’s, it’s a two way street, is what I’m trying to say. Yeah, as leaders, we need to set expectations, because people can’t read our minds. Have to remember we couldn’t read our leaders minds either.
Maria Ross 40:49
Right, right? One of the most powerful exercises I’ve ever done at a workshop is we had a mixed group. Sometimes I’m talking to just leaders, sometimes I’m talking to across levels. And it was an accidental thing that happened, and I totally trying to replicate it wherever else I go. So I have this role play where it’s a it’s a manager giving a difficult performance review to an employee, and it’s like a murder mystery. They have their back stories that I give them, yeah. And the goal is to see how many of them suss it out, right? How many of them go there versus, like, one of them where they’re like, the result was he quit. That’s like, okay, that’s not the result we want. But one of these where we were mixed levels, we happened to have a very senior executive with a brand new manager, but they didn’t know what parts they were getting, because it was just part A and part B, yeah, so the younger person ended up with the role of the person giving the review, and the senior exec was the one getting the difficult performance review, and what came out of it was the younger person said, I didn’t realize how hard it is to give difficult feedback to somebody. The more senior exec said, I had forgotten what it was like to get a performance review and feel like I was in, you know, in my principal’s office right now, you could talk about a whole other thing, of, why aren’t the senior executives getting performance reviews? That was a different question, but it was just that exercise of that was empathy right there, of, oh my gosh, I’m sitting in your shoes now, which I don’t like saying that phrase, but I’m seeing things from your perspective. Yeah, now that I’d for him that I had forgotten about and for her, of like, oh, wow, now I have empathy for my boss, yes, which I didn’t think I was supposed to have. And I’m like, No, it’s supposed to flow both ways.
Claude Silver 42:39
It is. It is an ecosystem.
Maria Ross 42:41
Yes, exactly, exactly. So this is a great time to segue into this idea of psychological safety, because, to your point, it gets harder to get that information if people don’t feel psychologically safe, or that their career or their, you know, livelihoods are not in danger if they tell the truth. So you talked in the book about the dangerous byproduct of silence, and how psychological safety is the antidote to that. So can you talk a little bit about cultures of silence? Yeah, and how they even start and what, how can you break out of it without scaring everybody of like, all of a sudden, we’re going to talk about everything, right?
Claude Silver 43:21
God. You really need to. You need disruption in order to do that. You know, I always say, I don’t want anyone here suffering in silence. That is what I will say. And why do people suffer in silence or choose silence because they’re afraid to get found out imposter syndrome. They’re afraid that they’re not smart enough. They’re afraid that, you know, whatever else, they’re not the coolest person, they’re not the coolest cat. And also, they might sound funny, or, you know, you don’t have any time for me, or, you know, I’m just, I just get triggered when people interrupt me. There’s so many excuses for silence. There’s so many excuses, but the culture becomes secretive, the culture becomes political, the culture becomes clicky, and that’s when any one of us, myself included, be like, I don’t want to be involved in that zip, and I just stopped contributing, right? I don’t want to be or I’m not. I don’t get invited to those dinners. Well, then I start to move myself outside, and I become a bit of an outsider with a company. And I’m not going to a feel safe, feel like I belong, but I will definitely not tell you what’s on my right, you know, or all painted, and everything’s everything’s good, everything’s good, you know, every now and then I will ask someone point blank, are you a flight risk? I will come out and ask that if I’m feeling it, I will ask, especially if we don’t want that person to leave. And it’s amazing when people actually. To tell me the truth, and I’m so happy when they do, because it’s like, okay, well, then I can do something about it, you know, or not, right? Not up to me, but cultures that have higher, such a hierarchy and such a we’ll just call it maybe an old boys club culture of holier than thou. I’m the smartest person you are not. So you shush, right? Someone’s going to shush, right? Do that, right? The antidote to that is again, creating a space where people can speak what they normally are afraid to speak. They can speak their mind. They can say, I have an idea, Maria. They can say, I’d love to talk to you offline about this. Whatever is comfortable for them on a zoom the introvert might say something, might raise their hand, might put an emoji up things that we have to be watching for right. Listen with both of our our our ears and our eyes and our entire body, right? Someone is exhaling, or if
Maria Ross 46:08
they’re exhaling, right? I was just in a in a leadership coaching session before our call, and we were talking about, you know, what what you tolerate becomes culture, what you what you ignore, or what you’re silent about, compounds. And you think no one knows, but they do. They sense it, and it just becomes this bigger thing than sometimes it even needs to be, right? It could just be a quick conversation to clear the air and but you spend months, you know,
Claude Silver 46:38
ruining it, ruminating, yes, and what we do that all the time as humans being, you know we we instead of saying what’s on our mind in relationship or boss or to whomever we’re like, no they can read our minds. They know no one can read your mind. No one can read your mind. I wish I could. I can’t, right? Actually, don’t wish I could all the time, but Right? Had an incident once upon a time, and I had to go to Gary and say, You know what, I really think this person thinks I’m dumb. Now that’s claude’s past limiting belief. And he said, well, then you need to go clear it up with him. And I went and took the person to lunch, and I, once we were settled, I said, You know what? I have this feeling every time I say something, you just look at me like you are dumb. And he was like, Oh, my God, the opposite. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about this, this and this, and it’s like, Oh, I’ve been carrying that for three years,
Maria Ross 47:41
and I’ve been a seasoned leader, yeah, yeah. I have been convinced my whole career, through change management, through marketing, through all the work I do now, 90% of our issues at work are because of miscommunication. It’s like, I call it the Threes Company moment, where you you make assumptions, or you think you overheard something, or you think you saw something, and you know, hilarity ensues, but sometimes it’s not hilarious, right? Yeah.
Claude Silver 48:05
I mean, I could have left over that, yeah, exactly. And people do leave when things are unresolved, right? It’s not so hard right to talk about the empathy. I’m sorry. It’s not so hard to talk about the elephant in the room, if you have coaching around that, right, right?
Maria Ross 48:22
And, and this is, this is kind of related, but I have to point this out before we wrap you. Mentioned in the book, this part about not conflating emotions with communication God, and it spoke to me because it was about people who say, I don’t want to get overly emotional at work. And I’m like, That’s not emotion. You’re just not saying what’s on your mind. That’s a different thing. So can you explain that to us?
Claude Silver 48:49
So you’re just hiding. You’re just saying, Don’t come near me. I don’t want you close to me. And do not come near me, because we are not going to get close. And so that’s what that person is in highly protective mode because they think again, whatever they think from their childhood, whatever their trauma is, right? We all bring that in and so they don’t want to get emotional. Well, we are emotional creatures. We don’t have a choice, right? We don’t you can shut that off for as long as you can, until you have a heart attack. You can shut that off for as long as you can. But here in this culture, we want to get to know you. We want you to dip your toe into the swimming pool and then dip it, that’s all. And in order to do that, you need to be met in the same way. Yes. So either a leader starts that conversation is like, you know, remember, in covid, I would get on the phone on Mondays, and I’d be like, Okay, how many different ways did you make chicken this weekend? Like, we’re all experiencing it. Yeah, it’s a joy. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a shared reality. Yes, or, you know, you hear that someone’s dog is sick. Oh, my dog, you know? Like, yeah. Come on, we’re human. And it’s, it’s, I think it’s highly impossible to not share emotions for an extended period of
Maria Ross 50:07
time well, and to not be scared to share them, when that’s actually a method of connecting. It’s a method of communication. And again, I always tell my people, you don’t have to be crying on the floor to be an empathetic leader, like you can embrace empathy from whatever, from wherever you are, from wherever you’re comfortable, and that includes people are neurodiverse. People have different backgrounds that, like you said, they have different histories, yeah, whatever you’re comfortable with, but that we’re together more than with the people we work with. Then sometimes we are with our own families. And you know, we can have a whole other conversation on whether that’s good or bad, but it’s reality, and so why not make it a place where we can see here and value each other as human beings? And by the way, with AI coming, this is the whole thing I’m talking about, with empathetic leadership, helping to navigate the change the people who are shutting off that skill set for themselves as leaders like no, I’m you mentioned it earlier. The person that just is a great doer, and they get thrown in the leadership role, and they’re like, I just am doing more like, what, you know, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. The ones that are hiding behind the tasks and the doing because they don’t want to have the difficult conversations, they don’t want to get to know their team, they don’t want to appear vulnerable. They’ve got all the stuff. They’re going to have nowhere to hide. That’s right when, when we’ve got aI handling the tasks for you, what’s left? It’s connection, it’s mentoring, it’s supporting, it’s collaborating, it’s all the human stuff. It’s creating a psychologically safe place so we can innovate. Right?
Claude Silver 51:39
Yes, yes. It’s all of that. It’s not ghosting people like, yes, all the above. And we need people to bring their humanity into the workplace more than ever right now, absolutely.
Maria Ross 51:56
So what’s I mean, there’s so much in this book, and I want to encourage everyone to go out and buy it, be yourself at work the groundbreaking power of showing up, standing out and leading from the heart. What’s a final gem you can leave us with before I read for everyone this wonderful passage from your book that I just can’t resist reading to everyone. But what’s a final gem or word of encouragement you have for folks,
Claude Silver 52:21
I would say, as a leader, what I would encourage everyone to do after listening to this podcast is either go on Slack or go through their contacts and find three people that you haven’t connected with in a while. Hey, I’m thinking about your hope you’re well, love to get some coffee soon. How’s it going? I know you and your family moved. How you doing? Just reach out for no reason other than you can, and it takes less than 30 seconds to do that. That’s what I would say. And I would say on the on the for all of us, really is to remember the cost to ourselves, the depletion we feel when we try to be someone else. We deserve better.
Maria Ross 53:09
It stifles so much innovation and so much collaboration and happiness and happiness and joy, right? Like joy is my fifth pillar of being an empathetic and effective leader. Yeah, okay, so I’m going to read this because I just love this. This was closer to the beginning of the book, I believe, but I just, I think it’s a great encapsulation of everything you’re saying. So while I refuse to accept environments that demand silence and conformity, I also know that pushing for change looks different for everyone. Not everyone can or should bear the weight of fixing a broken system, but for those of us who can speak up, who have even a bit of security to challenge the status quo, we must do so, not just for ourselves, but for those who can’t. No one should have to sacrifice their humanity for the sake of professionalism. No one should have to choose between belonging and survival. We can build workplaces that honor the fullness of who we are, but that requires us to see, to listen and to make space for those who have long been
Claude Silver 54:09
told they don’t belong.
Maria Ross 54:13
So good, so good. I am warning everyone, when they read this book that you’re going to have a million post it notes of quotes up around your computer. Yes, Claude, this has been amazing. Thank you for going a little bit longer with us and sharing the wisdom. Like I said, everyone will check out the book, and we’ll have all your links in the show notes. But for anyone that’s on the go, taking care of themselves, exercising right now, where’s the one best place they can find out more? You know what?
Claude Silver 54:38
Go to Claude, silver.com, my website has it all. And then you can go to LinkedIn, where I’m pretty active, but like, check it out. Write me, challenge me. I’m into it. I love it.
Maria Ross 54:50 Thank you so much. Thank you very much, and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate review and. Share it with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge calm there. You can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
