Tag Archive for: authenticity

Leadership Spotlight: The Key To Performance is Executing

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We’re excited to announce that after appearing on Episode #31 of the Elevate Business Podcast, Jeff McCann has been selected for the Intuity Performance Leadership Spotlight series.

Jeff McCann, is shaking up the insurance tech industry, leading his team as CEO at APOLLO Insurance. Combining his experience in developing digital marketing solutions, and ten plus years in the industry, Jeff is shaping the future of how people buy insurance. He is also a professional travel writer and you can find his publications at the Vancouver Sun and National Post.

Here are the top 3 insights Jeff shared with the community.

1. What was it that turned you from corporate to starting your own business?

I think that it’s a product of the Vancouver ecosystem. You know, we’re very fortunate to have the HootSuite’s of the world that are leading the way and to be surrounded by entrepreneurs and people who have started businesses. There was a very marquee kind of moment with a mentor/adviser of ours. He had built a company over 13 years and ended up having a great business and I’m like, well, wait a minute, all these people are starting businesses in other areas of tech. We can go do that too.

I think the word entrepreneur is kind of a weird word. I think people use it in different ways, it surrounds these titans that people look up to like Elon Musk, but also, there’s a lot of everyday people that are building great businesses. So I think it really breaks that barrier when you’re surrounded by people that have done it, and that can help and advise you.

2. What does the word performance mean to you and what role has it played in your journey?

Performance is definitely an interesting word. I played sports while growing up and ended up playing football at University. I think performance was always something that was really a focus of mine. I think that kind of grit and work ethic goes a long way. I was never really the most talented athlete, just on a raw basis, but I was always able to work hard through that and sort of drive that performance. So I think for me, the word resonates around hard work preparation and then putting in the extra grind

I think you can translate that when you start a company, in terms of the extra hours you have to put in, because sometimes you have to overcompensate for the things you don’t know by learning, by reading, by talking to advisers. I think where we translate that word performance for me is in the word execute. The execution is something that is taken for granted. People think you go start a business and it’s all going to happen, but you have to be able to knock things off the list.

Your performance is measured by how much you can execute? Can you do what you say you’re going to do one month to the next, quarter over quarter? This is what gives your investors confidence. It gives your team and your employees confidence. So for me, performance is all about execution.

3. Stepping into this new role, shifting from the corporate environment to starting your own business, what have been some key learnings you’ve had as CEO and leading a team?

Yeah, that’s a great question, I think being a first-time CEO there is a lot to learn. For me, the path has been to choose authenticity. I think remaining authentic resonates with the team. It resonates with investors – being able to communicate what you don’t know, as much as demonstrate your expertise. I think that really gives people confidence that you’re not going to embellish, you’re not going to overreach on things. I think if you check your ego at the door, then it’s a lot easier to be a great teammate.

Being a CEO can put you in a vulnerable position, it can be lonely. If you can drop your ego and bring your collaborators in with you, and demonstrate that vulnerability, and be authentic, I think that goes a long way. You have to stay authentic and be that same person regardless of your accumulated success.

I think that’s been the biggest thing for me, and it’s played out well in terms of my relationships with the team, with investors, and all the way through, the bigger it gets, the more unreal everything gets. You check your bank account one day and you have 14 million bucks in it. You’re like, all right, and stay the course of being yourself and being authentic.

If you’re interested in hearing more from our Spotlight Leaders check out Todd Usen’s Leadership Spotlight on Building Team Trust.

Building a Learning Culture Within Organizations

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Hi, and a warm welcome to The Human Side of Business Podcast. I’m your host Ange MacCabe. I am pleased to introduce you to Ellen Bailey, VP of Diversity and Culture at Harvard Business Publishing.

In this episode, Ellen dives into the strategies behind establishing a learning culture within leadership and organizations and provides insight into how HBP champions this mindset change for their culture and people.

What Is a Learning Organization?

Ellen Bailey: Organizations, including our own, need to shift how we think about a learning organization. Let’s shift from having a checklist to having guidelines; let’s shift to being more transparent with our employees, so they know the thoughts behind our decision-making process and strategic goals. So that enables them to make smart decisions, and it allows them to take risks and innovate and change how we work and think beyond the moment in a way that supports our goals and strategy.

Building Trust Into Workplace Culture

Ellen Bailey: There’s a little bit of learning and development that goes into enabling an organization to be a trusting organization because you have to change some processes to allow people to do that. It’s not just about folks’ good intent. And we can do training and development and learning to help with behaviours, but you also have to have the processes in the mechanisms that support that.

Leaders Don’t Have to Have All The Answers

Ellen Bailey: We fear that if we don’t have the answers, people will question our ability. We are not comfortable with demonstrating authenticity and vulnerability due to that. And so, back to the Fearless Organization article. I will quote Amy Edmondson one more time when she says that in situations we haven’t faced before, it is simply not possible to have all the answers. And so that’s what I continue to express to our team. So we continue to grow and innovate and go and go beyond where we have been. So what got us here will not get us there. And so as we continue to try to advance the thought leadership to impact the world globally, to improve the practice of management, then we aren’t going to have all those answers. And so we need to demonstrate that vulnerability internally, especially with our teams.

Leaders Should Facilitate Individual and Team Elevation

Ellen Bailey: We all have opportunities to facilitate someone’s best, especially as leaders. And so, how do we do that so they can continue to excel? I find so many gaps in that because leaders often feel they need all the answers. We have leaders that are afraid people will run past them, and it’s like, no, no, everybody wins when you facilitate your team best, and you can identify with them on a human level to help them be most productive. It’s fun and awesome to see people you work with continue to excel and do great things.

For more leadership insights check out my blog: 3 Ways to Develop an Intentional Approach to Leadership

Link to full podcast episode

How to Effectively Lead Your People While Scaling

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Hi, and a warm welcome to The Human Side of Business Podcast. I’m your host Ange MacCabe. I am pleased to introduce you to Ryan Benn, CEO and Group Publisher at

Alive Publishing Group Inc.

In this episode, Ryan dives into the strategies behind establishing effective workplace relationships and how that translates to scaling business.

Building Effective Teams

Ryan Benn: So then it’s a way that makes sense for me because I think many of us would default to going out and being like, I’m going to hire the best person for that job. And then you go separately, two months later, I’m going to hire the best person for that job. I’m going to hire the best IT manager. I’m going to hire the best HR manager. I’m going to hire the best accountant that you can find. Kind of logical. It’s kind of how the process is built. It’s expected, right? You end up with the best in everything, and you go, none of these people want to work together. None of them are collaborative. They all have different interests. And this whole thing is breaking down.

Culture Misalignment

Ange MacCabe: What drives me crazy is when people in positions of power talk about their employees, like their family, to create that psychological contract, but they don’t treat them like family. Right. What you’re subscribing to, or what I’m hearing from you, is that you have a community, and it feels family-orientated. Like there is authenticity in what you’re saying, Ryan, which is absolutely amazing, the other piece that comes up for me is often, team members come into the workplace that they’re not going to be like, I’m going to do a shit job for Ryan today. They’re going to be like, I want to do the best job ever, and I don’t know how to do it. So I’m going to stress myself out until I get there. As leaders, the onus is on us to be able to help mentor, not manage the work-life integration pieces. And so that when you really know your people and what motivates them. For some people, they really do need that black and white.

Work is work. Personal is personal, and I need that divide, or I can’t shut off, and it stresses me out. If that’s their persona, then it’s leaning into them to help mentor so that it fits from a culture or company perspective.

Not Subscribing to Old School Leadership Styles

Ryan Benn: When you’re aware of your blind spots and accept them or work to change them. It really helps because these are such buzzwords when I say things like transparency and authenticity. But I really believe in them from a leadership perspective. I think it’s the modern world; I don’t think leaders should be viewed as infallible and more knowledgeable than everybody else. I think it’s such an old-school approach to leadership.

Relentlessly Self Aware

Ange MacCabe: Stepping back a little bit. You had identified early on that you were able to really go inward and identify your strengths and areas of growth, and therefore, you were able to hire for your weaknesses, and you were vulnerable about the same. That takes a bit of self-reflection and cause and effect. Ryan in the sense of being able to do this in a two-pronged step. So, one, what’s going on with me internally? And then two, how do I communicate that and exhibit that to my team members so that there’s actual validity behind what I’m saying versus discredit? What was your approach to that? How did you go about it?

Ryan Benn: Yeah. Super interesting. It’s not easy, and for me, it probably came easier. I don’t know why, nature vs. nurture, I’m not sure. But for certain, I think the skill is, I would say, relentlessly self-aware.

I like to be able to think that I can walk out of here and say, listen, you might not like it, I might not like it, but I’m this, then I can at least say, well, I want to change that, or I don’t want to change that, but at least knowing that it’s actually there. I think blind spots in leadership are one of the hardest things, which is not being able to step back and say, how are others viewing me?

You Can’t Fake Experience

Ryan Benn: From a leadership perspective. One of the things I’ve realized is that in one of my coin lines, you can’t fake experience. So when I was first jumping into the role, I could have energy, I could have vitality, I could have leadership skills, but I’d never been through a recession, I’d never led change, I never acquired a company, I’d never done any of these things. So first acknowledging that was a big point of personal growth for me was accepting the fact that I didn’t bring that experience. How was I going to surround myself and gain that experience with having peers and leadership around me and, at the same time, just being comfortable with the fact that I could ask questions and say, I’ve never done this before?

For more leadership insights check out my blog: Fostering Community

Link to full podcast episode

Leadership Spotlight: Building Transparency and Trust in Leadership

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Hi, and a warm welcome to The Human Side of Business Podcast. I’m your host Ange MacCabe. I have the pleasure of introducing you to Jeff Kelly, CEO of The Flower Cart Group, about Transparency and Trust in leadership.

Jeff dives into the challenges of leading a firmly established team and how he took a people-centric approach to leadership when integrating with his team as their new leader.

Building Trust Through Team Collaboration

Jeff Kelly: Full transparency. We know each other, so, you know, I’m not a very confrontational person and certainly not intimidating as a boss.. So I think that’s one of the things I learned. I don’t see that as a weakness. I see that as a strength. If you play it as a strength.

Ange MacCabe: Very much so, because I hear you in the sense that you’re utilizing that from a place of authenticity. Like you’re using that from a place of what I call positive vulnerability. Right. So you’re saying, hey, I have a thought that I really want to put out here. You’re my subject matter expertise. Let’s solve this problem. This together, essentially, is what I’m hearing. And based on that transparency and that continued effort that you put in over time, Jeff, what I’m hearing is you build strong trust across the team, especially your management group.

Learning How to Be Vulnerable As a Leader

Jeff Kelly: When I took over here, I was in my early forties and it was my first overall senior leadership role. I had leadership positions in other organizations, but I as the director at the time needed to do a check on my own energy and enthusiasm, which is crucial, but at the same time, that ability to understand when it’s appropriate to overshare or when you do overshare – maybe that was not such a great idea. Right?

Looking to Your Team for Their Expertise

Jeff Kelly: Early days, an opportunity came up with a local business not too far from us. And I wanted to work towards training, experiences being compensated, participants to be compensated. And I basically said, Guys, we’re going to do this. We’re going to do this. Let’s make it happen. Let’s put ideas out on the table. And to the credit of my team at the time, I think it was well understood that this was a line in the sand for me. I wasn’t going to back down from this.. But at the same time, I was looking at them saying, you guys are the experts in delivering this, how we can make this work. And they rose to the occasion.

Staying People-centered With an Open Door Policy

Ange MacCabe: There’s a lot that you’ve said that is piquing my interest. So I really like your approach to getting to know me. Integration. So there’s still boundaries, right? Because oftentimes what you hear from leaders is, yes, I always have an open door policy. And that can be disheartening to some employees when they see that your door is closed half the time. Right. Because the realistic approach of things is that you do have to close your door sometimes to have confidential conversations, just to have some space to focus as well as continue to lead the organization. So really appreciating your thought process. Hey, when my door is open, please come in. Get to know me, interrupt me. That is an authentic approach to transparency, which I’m sure helped you along the way with trust.

What is Transparency?

Jeff Kelly: Being transparent means you have to come from a place of vulnerability. Because for me, being transparent means being open to hear both support and criticism. I’m talking about it in the context of new ideas and new directions and change essentially in a change management environment which I still find myself in.

For more leadership insights check out my blog: 5 Questions to Ask Yourself to Become a Better Leader

Link to full podcast episode