Profit Follows People: Build Belonging, Competence, And Autonomy

Pressure keeps rising while teams feel less heard, less equipped, and less trusted. We tackle that gap head‑on by breaking down why “leadership development” can’t be a checkbox and how real behavior change, measured over months, transforms culture and profit at the same time.

Rhonda puts Katie in the hot seat to dig into the origin of Catalyst, the skills gap she saw across organizations, and the shift from promoting top performers into people leadership without training to building leaders who actually lead. We walk through research that grounds the work—Self‑Determination Theory—and translate it into daily practice: relatedness that fosters belonging, competence built through clear tools and processes, and autonomy that signals trust. You’ll hear why lunch‑and‑learns rarely move the needle, how to measure impact with confidence and self‑awareness, and what happens when executives chase profit instead of the culture that creates it.

We also open up the toolkit. Katie shares the structure of the Leaders Institute—Lead, Engage, Accept, Develop, Efficient, Resilient—plus the upcoming 52 Weeks of Leadership journal that turns learning into weekly habits with reflection, action, and stretch prompts. The stories are real: managers who lowered turnover and lifted engagement, leaders whose growth strengthened their marriages, and teams who finally got clarity after years of shifting priorities. We talk candidly about executive buy‑in, why cutting coaching backfires, and how to build advancement tracks for experts who don’t want to manage people.

If you’re ready to replace vague slogans with a concrete path—grounded in research, rich with tools, and proven in the field—this conversation is your starting point. Subscribe, share with a leader who needs it, and leave a review with the one behavior you’ll practice this week. Want to go deeper? Apply for the Kansas City cohort at katyervin.com/slash leaders and tell us what culture challenge you’re solving next.

Follow us on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/rhondajhale/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/katieervin/

www.jolyean.com

www.katieervin.com

Check out Rhonda's Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThingsForge

Order Dr. Katie's book: https://a.co/d/5Fv02dP

Learn more about Catalyst LEADERs Institute: www.katieervin.com/leaders

Theme music by Emma Jo https://emmajo.rocks/

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Rhonda’s New Venture
• 2:42 Dopamine Decor And Joy As Therapy
• 5:04 Setting The Stage: Today’s Focus
• 5:44 The Skills Gap And Catalyst’s Origin
• 8:35 Promotions Without Training Backfire
• 10:54 Beyond Lunch-And-Learns: Behavior Change
• 13:10 Motivation, Engagement, And Real Costs
• 16:40 Profit Follows Culture, Not The Reverse
• 19:37 Career Paths Beyond People Management
• 22:40 Measuring Impact: Turnover And Awareness
• 25:55 Self‑Determination Theory In Practice
• 28:36 Targeted Surveys And Culture Friction
• 30:38 The Book: A Fable With Real Tools
• 34:56 The Leaders Institute Structure
• 38:57 52 Weeks Of Leadership Journal
• 41:35 Life Change Beyond Work
• 44:36 Why Leadership Development Matters Now
• 48:42 What Leaders Can Control Today
• 51:37 Executive Buy‑In Or Don’t Bother

Transcript

Dr. Katie: 0:32

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Path to Leadership. I'm Dr. Katie Ervin.

Rhonda Jolyean: 0:36

And I'm Rhonda Jolene.

Dr. Katie: 0:38

And we are so thrilled to have you this week. Whether you're a new listener or a subscriber, we are thrilled to have you back. Absolutely. Well, and Rhonda, before we jump in, I'm excited, selfishly super excited about today's topic. I'm gonna let you introduce it. But we were chatting beforehand, and I want you to share this new venture that you have going on. My daughter won't, this podcast will come out later, but I just bought my daughter a gift for her birthday. So will you talk about it? Because I think it ties into so many things we talk about.

Rhonda Jolyean: 1:10

Right. Well, I have started a side adventure. I don't really like the word side hustle because I don't think anybody should hustle, but I have started a side adventure with my husband, and it is currently 3D printing to expand into more things. It's called Things Forged, and you can find us on Etsy and you can find our website, and it's not Forged uh, it's Forged. And I right we 3D print everything that is dopamine decor and some Lego-inspired things and everything that can bring little small pieces of joy to space and people's hearts and lives, especially during this time of darkness. It all started out honestly as an art installation project that I wanted to do. And my husband and I were talking to friends, and everybody wanted them as well, these Lego-inspired flower bouquets, and that's what you bought for your daughter. And we are just having the best time. My husband is heavy into IT. That's what he does for his job, and he also does process improvement. So we've already set all of that up, and I am the creative one, and that's we're having a blast, and we love customer service and working with folks. But as we're going to talk about next week on the podcast, with neuroaesthetics and my research in that, having tangible items that you can explore joy and put any of your emotions toward in a tangible form is a way to get out of things like depression and the darkness. And I know a lot of people are going through that right now, especially in our country. And so that's something that has been a great way for me to express my creative side and my artistic side. And I just so appreciate your support and everybody's support. So yeah, if you're interested, you can go to Etsy and thingsforge.com and follow me on all of the socials.

Dr. Katie: 3:28

Yeah, I'm so excited for it. And you're so right. I mean, it just even seeing it brings me so much joy. So I can't wait to be holding it. And we'll put everything in the show notes so people can find it. But when I was going on to buy my daughter stuff, like you just keep putting new stuff on there, and it's like, oh, that's cool. Oh, now now that's cool.

Rhonda Jolyean: 3:46

So yay. Well, thank you for the shout-out. I really, I really appreciate it. Yeah, just I I encourage people to find ways to like RuPaul says, I keep quoting this you can look at the darkness, there's always going to be darkness, but you can't stare. You must create, you must dance, you must sing, because we are here to produce joy. And that's what we need to do. So yeah.

Dr. Katie: 4:10

Oh, I love it. I that is bye, everyone. Bye. Oh, I love RuPaul, but that's such a good quote. So, well, good. Well, I encourage people to check it out and continue to follow that journey that you're on. And yeah, so I'm gonna hand this over to you. You're gonna, you're gonna run the show and I'm gonna just answer your questions.

Rhonda Jolyean: 4:31

Yeah, we are switching it up. And in the words of Rue Paul, I am taking this stage, baby, and I am gonna be, I'm gonna be in charge. I had suggested to Katie that I wanted to learn more about leadership development. And since she is the absolute queen, like Rue Paul, she is the absolute queen of leadership development. I wanted to interview her. And then next week we're gonna switch roles again, and then we're gonna dive deeper into what I'm researching and what I speak about, which is neuroaesthetic principles and how we can use that to better our lives. But today I want to focus on why leadership development matters and more importantly, how leaders are actually developed. And when I started thinking about this, I think back to my past and past companies and how leadership development is talked about a lot. And it often feels very vague. Companies do a lot of talking. I think they think they're doing a lot of investment in it, and yet a lot of times, leaders we feel as if we're not supported or we there is just a lot of talk and we don't get the right resources, the right support. And I want to know, Katie, why you feel so deeply about this and maybe what you've seen and how you help other people with helping leadership development not to feel so big.

Dr. Katie: 6:12

Yeah, yeah. And it's it's so interesting because, you know, as we were talking about this this episode, and as you were just talking, it it's just taking me through like really why I started catalyst development, like why I did the work. I've always been interested in leadership, even before I really knew the term leadership or the action behind leadership. I just always been interested in it. But but it's really interesting because I started catalyst development, it'll be four years in April, which is crazy to think. But I was sitting on so many committees and work projects and task force in Kansas City with really amazing organizations, phenomenal organizations that do really great work. And we kept talking about skills gap in Kansas City. And there was a point where I'm like, we've been talking about this for at least 19 years that I've been involved, but nobody's doing anything about it. And and that's where I started really doing this this deeper work that had already been tied to the HR work that I did, which is why aren't we doing something about it? Why are we how much longer are we gonna talk about the skills instead of actually teaching it? And I think, you know, leadership isn't intuitive for everybody. It's not something that we're gonna fumble ourselves into. It takes real intentional work. And some people maybe are a little more natural at it, but I firmly believe that everyone can be a strong leader, no matter the title, no matter your background, no matter the mistakes that you've made. Everybody can can be put in the right spot. But we promote people because they're good at their current job. You are a fantastic. When I started it, you're a fantastic server, or you're a fantastic room attendant, or you're a fantastic valet, and then we promote you to then supervise people and they fail. And then we get mad at them because they fail. And it's like you can't go to sleep at night and wake up tomorrow with all these magical powers that you didn't have the day before. And so to me, I found that there's such a cost to not developing leaders, and there's such a gap between what we say we want to do and what we we actually do. So often in organizations, we check boxes, we bring people in who are lovely. There's great people out there doing great work, but there's also people out there that will come in and do a lunch and learn and leave and think behavior changes. And I tell people, like, yes, I can come in and do a lunch and learn. That's going to, it's gonna be lovely. People are gonna enjoy the breakaway from their desk, but to really change behaviors, like most organizations that work with me work with me limited six months at least, but some are a year to two years to three years because we're changing behaviors, we're not just learning skills. So yeah, it's just uh it's not enough to say we do leadership development, we have to actually behave it.

Rhonda Jolyean: 9:20

Oh my gosh. I should have put this together and never did, but as a behavior change strategist, I these go hand in hand. And whereas we would get so frustrated in helping our organizations through two to three years of behavior change, whether it be culture change, tech change, any type of transformation, uh and knowing that it takes two to three years, it's the exact same thing. Building up capabilities, building up competencies isn't a lunch and learn one and done. And the cost, that gap that you talk about, the cost of that is huge. The gap in those skills. Oh my gosh, I guess, wow, that's yeah. I'm having a huge aha moment, as Oprah would say. Yeah.

Dr. Katie: 10:10

And I did it a long time ago. And you know, it's interesting because my doctoral research, now it's been almost eight, nine years ago, but was workplace motivation, employee satisfaction. Right. And that that is anchored in leadership development because I created this whole catalyst workplace model around it. But what my research showed was when people were not did not feel comfortable in their organization, if they didn't feel like they belonged, if they didn't feel like they had the skills or training or the autonomy, then they were going to be disengaged and unhappy. And the cost of disengagement is outrageous. I mean, it is just so we think about from organizations why we can't be profitable, and it's well, your people aren't happy, all of that. And that's all tied to having strong leaders.

Rhonda Jolyean: 11:00

Absolutely. And yet, engagement, disengagement is so vague, it is not easily quantifiable, and that is difficult, and people don't really like to focus on difficult things. Yeah, yeah. And people we hear that leadership matters all the time, but what is missing from that message?

Dr. Katie: 11:22

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. There's so much is missing. It's it's funny because um I have clients that put me on retainer, and I have this one client that put me on retainer after I went and did a strategy session with them. And at the beginning, like day one of strategy, it was like, okay, what have you done in the past? And what do you, you know, what do you want to do? And it's like, well, we need to raise profit and we profit and we need to work on eBay, and all it was all profit, profit, profit. And by the end of day two, it was switched. It was, how do we improve the environment for our people, whether it be through clarity of process, whether it be through effective communication, whether it be through training and development, how do we create a better culture that then raises profit, that then makes us, you know, more successful, quote unquote, successful from the bottom line. And I find that so often when I work with companies, they're focused on the wrong things. They're focused on the outcome of a healthy culture as opposed to what creates a healthy, healthy, healthy culture. And what we think is well, we're just going to push it out, push it out, push it out, and people are going to work harder. People are not going to be motivated because you're putting your foot on their on their throats. They're going to be motivated by having strong leaders that understand them, that are empathetic, that are supportive, right, that are able to be clear. And in so there's so much wrapped around that, but we we just don't have the skills. We don't have the people and positions to really do that. And the other problem we have is we create environments at work, and we've talked about this in the previous podcast of this traditional, like, in order to be successful in an organization, you have to, you have to grow, you have to become a people leader. Not everyone wants to be a people leader. Yeah. And so, no matter how much training and development and you know improvement that you do with them, they're doing it for the money and for the title, and they're not doing it for the right reasons. And so we're setting them up for failure, we're setting the organization up for failure, and that costs the organization turnover, broken culture, you know, burnout, disengagement. I mean, all of those things that there's a million articles about today all comes from not promoting the right people or not training the people when we promote them. And the people that don't want to lead and don't want to have that title of people leaders, there's great work that we can reward them with that we can still give them more money and more influence and more impact.

Rhonda Jolyean: 14:11

Yes, we're just not doing it. Yeah, as the sole contributor. Hello, me. Yeah, I totally under, I absolutely get that. I absolutely believe in that. I also to go back to what you were saying about you were talking about how there are oh, and of course, I knew I was gonna forget. You said there was just so much in there that it was so good. I needed to write that down as it, but I was too intent on listening. You were talking about how we you know what it'll come to me later. It'll come to me later. What I want to also focus on is I love one of the things I love the most about you is you even when I first met you, I knew that you were different from most people when you talk about leadership. You from the get-go would say, you know, in my research, in my research, and I am also a research-based person. Now, I can't eloquently always, and our listeners will know this when I, you know, last podcast, I said eight Enneagram instead of nine Enneagram. And I know that assessment back and back and forth, but I can't always eloquently state research and statistics, but you constantly are bringing in research into everything that you do. And I know that your clients really appreciate that because, oh, and this kind of goes into what I was going to talk about. We we as people who study people and people behaviors, I kind of almost blame us a little bit for not being able to uh quantify the uh the intrinsic and the extrinsic outcomes of what we do, because old school business is very used to ROI, percentage profits, all of these things. And if we can't change that verbiage and change that culture, we can change hearts and minds. But you are very much able to speak to the leaders who, like you said, that first day wanted more profits, better ROI. And then the next day they wanted culture and clarity and all these words that we know get to the heart of what matters. Talk to me more about what your research revealed about what people actually need at work.

Dr. Katie: 16:41

Yeah. Yeah. And it's fascinating because, you know, the the years that I sat in the HR chair, you know, it's that's kind of this cliche at this point that HR and accounting don't get along. And what I found was I was constantly having to prove to accounting, like, hey, we need to close down the facility for a day and do do development and to do training. And it's like, yeah, we're not doing it. And it's like, well, let's let's talk about the cost of that if we don't. And so I would, when I was an HR professional, I would have in my phone up to the minute turnover cost, cost to fill, you know, all of those things. So I was constantly able to have those conversations with leadership about those tangible costs. What is it costing us when people leave because of bad managers? What does it cost us when people don't want to work for us because our turnover is 170%? Like all of those things. But it got to a point when you're sitting in the HR executive chair, right? Uh, you're having to have these battles. And that's when I decided to go back and get my doctorate because I never wanted to speak from hyperbole. I never wanted to speak from a Google search. I wanted to speak from my own experience, I wanted to speak from my own research. I think it gives me a leverage that I'm very proud of. And I tell people, and not to be disrespectful to other people, but I didn't sleep at a holiday in last night. Like I have now, as we go into a new year, I have 27 years of experience. Yeah. I have done the research, I have taken the classes, I refuse to do any sessions or training or development on anything that I haven't researched for at least two years. So I'm not going to throw something into Google or Chat GPT and then go and do a lunch and learn for the exact reasons you talk about, because it's hard to measure confidence in leadership development. It's hard to measure, have a quantifiable number to that. And and I've done that. So I measure confidence level, but I also measure people's increase in self-awareness. And so I get really excited when someone comes through my program and from their pre-assessment, their confidence in a skill actually goes down, but their self-awareness goes through the roof because they they come in with this like, I got this, I know empathy, I'm good. And then when they graduate from my program, it's like, oh wait, I don't really have a handle on empathy, but my self-awareness is through the through the roof. And so that's really exciting. And what I'm able to then go to a client and say, look, here's the impact that I had. And I don't want people to refer me just because they think my name is fun or they've seen me speak. I want people to refer me because I came in and lowered their turnover, I raised their profits, I improved their culture. And I actually had a client, they were an electrical contractor, and during their employee engagement survey, after a they had a group of six individuals who went through my program, the next quarterly engagement survey, their people that worked for them actually referenced their managers' improvements and that they saw. The growth. And so to me, that's what's important. Yeah. And sorry, people, I can talk about this for like 18 days straight. I love it. But it's all tied to my doctoral research, and everything's tied to self-determination theory. And I'll just nerd out for just one quick second. What I love about self-determination theory, when you're doing your doctoral work, you research everything that might possibly could have touched the topic that you might be talking about in your research. Yeah. So I researched every motivation theory and I chose self-determination theory because it's a continuum, as opposed to are you motivated or not? It's how motivated are you or how demotivated are you? And what I found in my research, it roots to self-determination theory is people want relatedness. They want to feel connected. They want to feel like they belong as their authentic true self. They're not having to fake it. They want confidence, which is they want to know that they know how to do their job. They want to know that the policies and procedures are set up to help them be successful in their job. They want the basic tools to do their job. Do they have a functioning keyboard? Do they have access to what they need? And then the third prong is autonomy. Am I trusted to do my job? And when you think about leadership development, that comes into play in every aspect of that. And when you have, you have to have all three to be more motivated. And if you don't, then then you're going to be demotivated, you're going to be disengaged, you're going to leave. So it takes so much work to do it. And that's really why I created the catalyst workplace model. That's why I created all the programs that I have. I'm currently, I just launched a survey that I do. Like I love these lovely engagement surveys, but what do they tell us? And so I actually launched a survey that organizations can do. So the quote unquote leadership takes a survey, and then the employees take the survey. And then we find where are they lacking? Is it competence? Is it relatedness? Is it autonomy? Or is it just overall culture fraction? And so we're able to really go in and do targeted work. And that all is rooted from my research.

Rhonda Jolyean: 22:55

I love that. And not only have you done all of that, you wrote an amazing book. I love your book. Do you want to talk about your book a little bit and especially focus on something that I used to complain about so much in Corporate America and still complain about with Goliath and really push is making things tactile enough that people understand and have steps to go towards, not just theory, not just theorizing things.

Dr. Katie: 23:30

Yeah, yeah, I appreciate it. And it's interesting because when I was writing the book, I kept hitting a roadblock because I found I was doing doctoral writing. So I kept writing about theory. And I was like, okay, this is not the book I want to read or write. And so I wrote my book. It is called You Might Be an Asshole, but it might not be your fault. For those of you seeing the clips of the video, here it is. Not even shameless plug, just flat out plug. It's available on Amazon. But I wrote the book and I wrote it in a style that I would want to read. So it's written in a fable format. John Gordon, Patrick Lincioni, so many write in in that format. And it tells the story of a character. His name is Mike. And what we find through the story is he is he is a product of how he grew up. He is a product of the bad bosses that he's had. He's picked up all of these habits. And so people think he's a jerk. And through going through my program, the leader's program is featured in the book. We find out he's really not a jerk. He didn't know what he didn't know. And he was put in a position and set up to fail because he wasn't trained correctly. He wasn't given the proper clarity around his role and what he's supposed to do. And then, quite frankly, no one had a really kind conversation with him to say, you know, you're kind of a jerk. Um and what I found with people in my in my career is so often people don't know. We just assume that people know that they're a jerk. And it's they come from their common sense, their history, their background, and they don't realize their behavior, what they're doing is not serving them well. And so we avoid having the conversation because we just assume that they they know. So this book is true stories. My husband likes to say, Yep, I know the names behind every every one of those. There are mistakes I've made in my career, there are mistakes that other people made in their career. But at the end of each chapter, I really wanted the I always tell people there's a little S on the end of everything I do. So what are you gonna do about it? So what are you gonna do? You listen to those podcasts, now what? You go to a conference, now what? You do a leadership leadership development program now. So you're reading a book. So what are you gonna do? So at the end of each chapter, there's this reflection. How are you, Mike? How have you shown up as Mike? And what can you do to change it? And and I think that's kind of the the ground of everything that I do with leadership development. So what are you gonna do? How are you gonna change?

Rhonda Jolyean: 26:09

Yes, and that's what I appreciate about it. The book is that it's not just here's all these theories, here's all this jargon, here's all of these, uh, all of my research. And listen, I love a good reference. I am huge on that because I want you to back up what you're saying. However, to have something that I can go back to and say, oh, I'm struggling with this piece, and I can go back and reflect on, and it's almost a journal. I don't want to say it's a journal, it's not, but it's almost that with those prompts. I really appreciate that. And so if you for people who are looking for something that's not very personal self-improvement in that genre, but it's very, I mean, it is very business book, but with empathy, I would say that's something that I really appreciate about your book. And for those of us that haven't, you know, I've never been through Catalyst, tell us a little bit more about this incredible program that I I know people that have been through Catalyst and just rave about it. That's how, you know, Mark, who introduced us, thank you, Mark, we always thank you. He was the one that told me about it first and then introduced us. So, and he's been through it. Tell me, tell us listeners a little bit more about your program.

Dr. Katie: 27:34

Yeah, so the kind of cornerstone of Catalyst is the Leaders Institute. And I'm just looking off to the side because it's funny you mentioned the the book in a in a journal, and and I do have a companion guide for the book, so people can have that refillable PDF. But I created the Leaders program actually 17, almost 18 years ago when I was the HR director at the hotel Phillips.

Rhonda Jolyean: 28:02

Oh my god.

Dr. Katie: 28:04

Yeah. And what I found was because I would promote people, you're a great server, now you're in charge of people, and then they would fail, and and we would all get mad at them and we would fire them. And what I found was because then I started doing research, right? Like, why aren't people successful? Why can't what do we need to do? And well, they didn't have the skills to be successful. So I actually created a a program. It was not called leaders back then, but it was it was it was kind of a manager's 101 and it was a year-long program. People who were leading people were in it, but then others could opt in and say, Oh, hey, I wanna, I wanna learn that. And it was beautiful because we then had this pipeline to supervisors, like they had gone through the program. And so as I had gone through and grown in my HR career, I just kept growing this program. Uh and then about eight years ago, I created a half day program. Um, and it was, oh gosh, I forget the it was like your leadership journey or something like that. It was a half day program, and I had speakers come in and we talked about these skill developments, and at the end of the half day, people wouldn't leave. And the feedback I got was this was great, it's not long enough. And so then next year I did a year or a day-long session, and people again, this is fantastic, it's not long enough. And so then I was working for a university at the time and I created what was going to be the Insert Organization Business Leadership Institute. So March 17th of 2020, or maybe it was March 14th of 2020. Oh, I was right, right? You know where this is going. I was hosting this big event to introduce this year-long leadership program that was rooted in all it's such a gift. It is such a gift because it was I had people excited, like writing a check that day, like sign us up, we're ready. And then, of course, later that day, the world shut down. And so we sent the email out and said, Hey, we're putting a pen in this, we'll revisit it in six months. Well, six months later, the organization that I was working for said, This is lovely, we're not interested in it. And I said, Cool, I am, and people are, and so that's when I rebranded it. That's when I started really doing the the deep work to create the leaders institute. And so it's it's six months, three hours a month. There's pre-work and there's homework, and so it's lead. Who are you as a leader? And then it's engage. So, how do we effectively engage with each other? Acceptance, how do we create an environment of acceptance? Develop, how do we develop strong teams and strong relationships to work more effectively? And then efficient, how do we get things done? So, goal setting, all of those good things. And then the R is resilience. So, what do we do when things don't work out? And then there's a little S. So what? So in the Leaders Institute, it works at all levels. I've done it at college level to see sueters. We just talk about the skills different under each letter. So lead, there's six to seven different skills underneath it that tie to lead and then engage and then to accept. And I had toolkits. So at the end of each session, they would get a toolkit, and that was their homework. They're so wet. However, coming in 2026, I am actually launching, just got the trademark and the copyright. 52 weeks of leadership. It's actually a leadership journal.

Rhonda Jolyean: 31:45

So is this what we've talked about before?

Dr. Katie: 31:50

It is so exciting. It's in the final editing stages, but so anyone who comes through my leaders institute will get access to 52 weeks of leadership. Anyone who doesn't come through can then buy access to it. They can buy the journal. And each week there's like a seven-minute recording, audio recording of me introducing the skill for the week. And then they go into the journal. And so it's really fun because it's like so week 30 is introvert or extrovert, and it's understanding our differences. So there's a reflect section where you're reflecting, there's an act section where you start practicing the skill, and then there's a stretch section where it's how do you take it further? And so it allows you to spend a year really developing your skills, but that's really what leaders is. Leaders is really how do we change behaviors that we've known our whole life, right?

Rhonda Jolyean: 32:54

And and so that's everything I do. I love this for so many reasons. One, I feel like for people who do go through the program, it could be ongoing support, but also uh, well, for people in and out of the program, it could be almost a book club or an accountability club. And another thing I'll just say personally, uh, well, something that I really love about you, and you even said something before we started uh podcasting today. You, and for those of you that don't know, Katie is the type of person that, yes, uh your program is an investment and it should be an investment. And uh even when people can't access it, you I know you always hold space for you know people who uh, you know, might need a scholarship and things like that. But not only that, you are constantly coming up with uh resources, these plethora. You just have a plethora, an ecosystem. You're building an ecosystem so that people can at various times in their life pick and choose what fits best for them financially, mentally. And that for me just speaks to how you really want to help folks and just get your message out there and how you truly want to leave people better than they found than you found them. It's not just, oh, I have this investment program or program to invest in, and that's it. It's okay, you know, maybe this is it for you right now. Here's my book, or here's this amazing journal, or here's even just some auto recordings, or your website is incredible and they can learn so many, or your newsletter gives so many great resources for free. And I think that speaks to who you are as a leader, what you want to do for people. And I just want to say, yeah, that speaks to your character and you should be really proud of that.

Dr. Katie: 34:54

I appreciate it. I appreciate it. And you know, it it's really it's really cool to get to do this work. And first of all, my website and newsletter shout out Emma Kaufman. She is fantastic, she does all of that for me. I always tell people if I'm on brand, it's Emma, if I'm off brand, it's me. So she takes she takes what I'm thinking and then she like puts it in just this beautiful package. But you know, it's really oh, okay. I'm I might cry, but that's okay because that's who I am. It's really cool when someone comes to one of my talks or goes through one of my programs and it it hits them. You know, I just I'm thinking of two instances. There was a time that I talked at a chamber lunch and I was talking about kind of this how do we the importance of saying no and putting up boundaries? And you know, I stood on stage and I talked about, you know, spinning plates and how we're all spinning plates and what plate drops and when we're doing too much, you know, is it our is it our family? Is it our friends? Is it our work? Like what is it our health, or do all of them fall? And this woman comes rushing up to me and she says, afterwards, she said, I just have to tell you that as I was leaving the house this morning and telling my six-year-old that I was going to work, she broke down in tears and said, You're always working, mama. You're never home. And as you're sitting here talking, I'm just thinking, is that the legacy I want to leave for my daughter? And I thought, oh my gosh. I said, It is a gorgeous day. Take that baby to the playground, like get outside. So there's moments like that when I can talk about my failures as a mother when my kids were young and where I worked too much. But then when people graduate, I've now had three people as as recent as beginning of January, I had a group graduate, come through my leaders' institute. The one in January was really cool because my daughter was sitting in the room. But people who have told me, like, this hasn't just changed their work life, their behaviors have changed their home life. And so I've had three people tell me that they the work that they have done has saved their marriage. Okay, changed their conversations in counseling. I had one person say, we had reached out to a divorce attorney and we're in talks to divorcing. I had another one whose wife came to the graduation and came up to me afterwards and said, He's never going to tell you this. But we were going through counseling, and it was after the third session, which was acceptance, where I talk about listening versus hearing and empathy and safety and all those things, that he came into counseling three days later and said, I'm part of the problem. She said, for 17 years, this man could not really see he was part of the problem. And he did all of the work. I just gave him the access to do that hard work. And the beauty is I don't let him off easy. Like I don't let I work a lot in male-dominated industries. So I have truck drivers and forklift drivers and you know, warehouse managers that are talking about their feelings, and I don't let them off easy because we all have them. We're just sometimes told to mass them. But that's what's damaging them as leaders and quite frankly, us as humans, like in our relationships. So yeah, I mean, it's great, and I and I do want to have money to pay my bills, but on the months that it's hard, knowing that I'm changing people's whole life when they really lean into the programs, it takes doesn't matter. Yeah.

Rhonda Jolyean: 38:40

Oh yeah. The the legacy part and the empathy part is definitely, definitely you. I love that. Um yeah. Well, I think you've spoken to this a little bit today, but why is this conversation especially important right now?

Dr. Katie: 38:58

Yeah. Well, and I think you know, kind of goes back to what you started talking about with your your new company, your new venture. And, you know, it's such a hard hard world right now. There's so much going on. The complexity of just our lives, of you know, all the change going on. You know, we're we're so far removed from COVID, and now we're trying to go back to what was normal before COVID, where people are like, no, thank you. Didn't work for me before COVID, definitely not going to work for me now. So we have all of that complexity, we have the stress of just everyday life, you know, that trying to keep our lights on and the heat on and the bills and and all of that. We have what I love to talk about the most multi-generational workforce. We have four to five generations in our buildings, in our workforce doing the work, and the the distance between the generations is more than it's ever been. You know, we have these Gen Zers that frustrate everyone that I just love. I think is the next greatest generation. If we would just mold them, I think they're the greatest. They're getting fired at the fastest rate of any generation because we just have no patience for them. And quite frankly, we forgot when we were young and dumb.

Rhonda Jolyean: 40:24

I'm not kidding. Empathy, come on, just right, yeah.

Dr. Katie: 40:29

So we have all of that going on, we have technology. In AI. We have managers that are carrying their own weight and stress. I worked with an organization that when I was working with them, the the middle manager said priorities change every day. So we don't even know what we're supposed to be leading people to do because we're constantly like every day tiptoeing in, not wanting to open emails because how is it how is it going to change? So there's all of that. And and we're seeing that anything that's not a money maker, because budgets are so tight, we're cutting. It's not something cutesy to do. It is actually a retention strategy, it is a culture strategy. It actually will make you more profitable. But because we're in such this tight, struggling world right now, it's so easy to cut anything that we don't understand. I just learned about a pretty major employer in the United States that employs people all over the country. They just cut their coaching program. And they are like, well, the you know, the executives don't see any benefits in it. And it's like, oh my goodness, you know, they just want production. They are they're in food food production. And so they just make the food, make the food, make the food. And so they're cutting all of this, not realizing that as they're cutting these programs, people are getting more and more disengaged. The the manager that reached out to me was furious because he wants the development. He knows he's not a strong leader, and so he's not only working to get better, he's actually working to leave the company. And so it just they they made it worse. They made it worse, and companies don't get it.

Rhonda Jolyean: 42:29

Yes, yes, understatement. And I think to your point of people don't want to fix what they can't understand or work on what they don't understand. There's so much happening as leaders. We have more to juggle than we ever have before. So if if there are leaders listening to this podcast, we've talked about so much today, but if if you were going to tell a leader who's sitting here thinking, absolutely, I just got three new projects, but I want to, I agree with everything that Katie's saying. And yet if I went to even my CEO to suggest leadership development, I know it would not, I would be shot down because of AI or other competing priorities, or you know, maybe just words. They would say words, but not do any real action. What would you want leaders to hear? What is the one most important thing to take away from today?

Dr. Katie: 43:36

Yeah, I think the most important thing is you're not alone. A lot of people are feeling this. I think that is kind of like flag in the flag in the ground, like you're not alone. And and I talk to leaders all the time, like focus on what you can control because you're not going to change somebody else's behavior. You can change your behavior, you can change the work you're doing on yourself. And we're never going to be perfect. We're never going to be great all the time. I always tell people, like one of the first in leaders in my supervisor 101 program in the leadership journal, one of the first steps is to have people create a leadership philosophy. And I tell people, this is who you're on your best day, and this is who you're you're striving to be on the days that you struggle. You're going, you're going to struggle. There's going to be bad days, you're going to revert to bad habits. Just keep practicing. It's about progress, not perfection. Don't give up if you don't master it right away. And I mean, truly, there are great organizations out there that do value and do understand leadership development. Quite frankly, I won't work with organizations. I made this mistake early in Catalyst. I won't ask the executives what they're doing. They don't have to go through my programs, but they have to believe in leadership development. Because I had a company say, they said, Well, we just need you to work on them. We're fine. And then I went in, I know, and I was young in my company. And so I went in on the first session of leaders, and the the middle managers in the room were like, Are they going through this? Because quite frankly, they're the problem. And what I had to do was go back to the to the executive team and say, the feedback I'm receiving is they want you to go through leadership development. Doesn't have to be with me, but through someone. And they said, We're not interested. And so to hand back a $20,000 check to your company and say, Can't do it, can't do it.

Rhonda Jolyean: 45:35

Yeah.

Dr. Katie: 45:36

Because at the end of it all, I work on referrals and I work on impact. And if I can't have impact, I'm not going to check a box for any company. It's just there are people out there that will take your check, cash it, check your box, and not care. I care. I care too much.

Rhonda Jolyean: 45:55

Yes. 100%. And going back to the leadership development is a behavior change. The number one I am just at a loss for words today, but the number one aspect of behavior change that is needed in an organization is leadership sponsorship. If you don't have that, it truly cascades from the top. And I can absolutely see how that organization would not would not make it with that behavior change if they didn't get that leadership sponsorship. So yeah.

Dr. Katie: 46:30

Well, and I think, and and I'll end here because I could go on a soapbox for this, but I think it pisses people off more when you have a like middle manager leadership development program and the executives are bad leaders. Or when you do an engagement survey and then they tell you what's wrong and you don't do anything. It's truly better if you're not willing to really do the work, don't ask their feedback and don't implement, you know, check-in-the-box training. It will make people more mad than if you did nothing at all.

Rhonda Jolyean: 47:02

Right. Integrity speaks volumes. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Um, do you want to tell? Well, first of all, thank you so much. I learn so much from you. And I can't wait to see the new journal and to hear about how the Leadership Institute goes this year and how just everything that you continue to do. You are a true catalyst of leadership development. And but it's true. And I just am amazed at everything you do, but not surprised by anything that you do. And do you want to set up what we're going to do for next week? Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Katie: 47:44

Well, I appreciate it. I appreciate spending the time to do this. I love this. I always tell people, I'm really good at this because I've done the work. I cannot balance your checkbook for for those younger listening to this checkbooks of what we used to do when we wrote checks. Google what a check is, you'll figure it out. There's a lot of things I'm really not good at. But this is this is something that that I really love to do. And I'm really, I'm boldly, I'm very, very good at it. So um love that we could love we could talk about it. But I'm really excited for next week because just as much as you love to learn from me and my leadership development, I love spending time with you and learning about the work you're doing. So next week we're going to talk about creativity, neuroscience, and really how people actually change. And from the first day we met, we met at, you know, that coffee shop. Gosh, I want to shout them out. And I cannot even think of the name of them. I can think of the location. Thou mayest. Yep. Yeah. From the moment we met, I have learned so much from you. And I'm excited for you to share your work, your research, and your stories of how you how you got to where you are.

Rhonda Jolyean: 48:58

Yeah, me too. Well, I'm yeah, I love to, even though again, this is why we do this podcast because we know each other so well and yet continue to learn to continue to have that growth mindset or growth mindset. And hope that everyone listening also learned a lot. I know that I did so. I imagine that they did too. And if people have any questions, please don't hesitate to write it in the comments on any reviews, DM Katie directly. And yeah, I a huge advocate of Katie's. Please reach out to either of us with questions and I'll get you to Katie. And we just appreciate everyone listening and shout out to Germany.

Dr. Katie: 49:44

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, around the world listeners. I love it. Well, and I will tell you, I'm enrolling now. My Leaders Institute begins in April. If you're in Kansas City, sorry if you're not in Kansas City, I don't have it in other locations. If you want me to come to your city, I'm happy to do that. But if you go to katyervin.com/slash leaders, you can go in and apply for the program. So yeah. Well, we thank everyone for being with us today. I thank everyone for for listening to my soapbox that I can be on forever. I love this work. I'm so fortunate to do it. As always, we ask people to share the podcast if it would be meaningful for someone else. Rate the podcast on the the platform that you listen to it on. Comments always help us. We're just so thankful for all of that. We're going to put everything in the show notes, including Ronda's new venture, so you can see all the goodies that they're doing. It's remind us of the website. I don't want to say it wrong.

Rhonda Jolyean: 50:42

Oh, you can go to Etsy and it's the things for well, things forge, Things Forge shop on Etsy. And also make sure that you include the link to your book on Amazon because I think people will get a kick out of that. I will. I will. Absolutely.

Dr. Katie: 50:59

Awesome. Well, thank you everyone for joining us this week. And we will talk to you next week on the path to leadership.