TLDR;
Hello there!
I’m Michael Hunter, founder of Uncommon Teams, and I’m so glad you found this episode of the Uncommon Leadership Podcast.
I started this series because I constantly meet leaders battling burnout and searching for deeper impact. While I may not have all the answers you’re looking for, I truly believe that professional and personal success hinges on aligning personal fulfillment with business objectives.
And today, my extraordinary guest, Romie Montpeirous from Leadership from the Heart, talks about the role of adaptability and empathy in leadership.
Uncommon leaders embrace adaptability—shifting their approach to meet their team’s needs. They’re present, self-aware, and help their team find resilience in the face of chaos.
Our conversation then deepens into the surprising link between a leader’s vulnerability and a team’s loyalty. We explore how to find your own version of work-life balance and why “ready” is always a decision, not a feeling.
Join us, and you just might find the key to a better way of leading, in work and life.
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Key takeaways from this podcast:
- The most effective leaders move between different styles, adjusting their approach based on the team’s needs.
- Trust is earned, not demanded. Authentic team loyalty is a result of a leader’s care and empathy, not authority.
- A leader who is present and transparent builds a culture of psychological safety, allowing the team to show up as their full selves.
- Help your team overcome fear and uncertainty by walking them through their “worst-case scenario” to show they are resilient.
- Equilibrium is personal. The goal isn’t a rigid work-life balance, but helping each team member find their own unique sense of harmony.
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About the Speakers
Romie Montpeirous
Leadership Mentor | Founder & Lead Coach @Leadership From the Heart | Change Management Leader | Expert at Transforming Cultures |
As the founder of Leadership from the Heart, Romie Montpeirous is dedicated to cultivating authentic and empathetic leaders. Romie’s philosophy centers on the idea that true excellence emerges when leaders bring their whole selves to their teams.
Specializing in empowering operations leaders, Romie helps clients overcome internal conflicts, boost collaboration, and build resilient, high-performing cultures. Holding an MBA and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Romie is an expert at merging emotional intelligence with data-driven strategies to achieve tangible business results.
Michael Hunter
Founder @Uncommon Change | Interlocutor / Curious Host @UncommonLeadership Interview Series | Author | Change & Innovation Partner
I’m Michael Hunter, the founder of Uncommon Teams. All my work is driven by a single mission: to help leaders, CXOs, and founders build uncommon teams.
These are the teams where every person feels valued, psychologically safe, and confident to bring their authentic selves to work.
Drawing from my experience with leaders across six continents, I’ve developed a battle-tested framework that is always precisely customized for you, helping you greet change like an old friend.
My deepest satisfaction comes from helping leaders not just envision their legacy, but truly inhabit it. By integrating your whole self into everything you do, you can discover ease, freedom, and a resilient leadership journey that creates a safe organizational culture for everyone.
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Presented By: UncommonChange
Transcript:
Michael Hunter
Whether you want more innovation, more easily, you’re feeling burnt out or overwhelmed, or you simply know that something isn’t quite the way you know it can be. You are not alone. I hear the same from leaders every day. On Uncommon Leadership, we explore aligning personal fulfillment with business success, creating authentic teams, cultivating the resilience, adaptability, and ease necessary to move beyond simply surviving today’s challenges into thriving. I’m Michael Hunter with Uncommon Teams, and today we’ll uncover fresh insights of what it means to lead today. Joining me is Romie Montpeirous. Romie is the founder of Leadership from the Heart, which empowers you to lead authentically with purpose and empathy.
Tapping into your true potential and fostering meaningful connections with your teams. Welcome, Romie. Thanks, Michael. Thank you for having me. You’re welcome. And I think I missed accented your last name.
Romie Montpeirous
You did great. No, I was like, yes.
Michael
When did you first recognize that integrating your whole self and bringing that into everything that you do might be a valuable approach?
Romie
I would say that I first recognized that it wasn’t within myself. It was a mentor that I had who was also my leader at the time, and I watched Jack come into this new organization and not having known anybody and what I saw him do was really special.
And I kind of changed the trajectory of my life, if I’m being honest. I saw a leader, care about his team. Give back to the team, like without any emotions, just that was just who he was. And so there’s a pivotal point in this story where he needed us to do something and we didn’t know how we were gonna do it.
The output was like double the production of what we were used to doing. And he and I were brainstorming ’cause he did see something in me. He’s you could be a leader. And I, really didn’t know what that meant. And so he and I were brainstorming and I said, let me take it to the team and let’s see what they come up with.
We’re just two people. So I brought it to the team and immediately they were like, well let’s just come in earlier. And I was just like, you guys, how much earlier? This is double the output. And easily they were just like, we’ll just start coming in at midnight. This is. Eight hours before a regular shift.
And I was just like, who does that? Right? Who, would, volunteer for that? And sure enough, the entire team came together. The, people who chose to come in, it was like six of us at midnight. Had a discussion with the other people. Yeah, the other people that came in at eight. I also carried the weight of keeping production where it was.
Yeah, because you’re not allowed to, you know , to slow down production because half the crew is missing. And at that point I was like, oh crap, Jack is doing something really special here. For hourly employees who have never seen corral together to make something special happened. They came up with it on their own.
They did,
Michael
yes.
Romie
They executed. Sure. I was part of the team. ’cause I was the lead that came in at 12. But you know, Jack showed up at 4:00 AM with Red Bulls and donuts and whatever he could find at the gas station, to help. And I thought that was such a cool concept and it really did invigorate us.
And of course we were successful because when you have a team like that, how can you not be? And we accomplished a goal. And that was where I saw that caring for people. And actually giving like your whole self and being vulnerable and like saying, I don’t know how we’re gonna do this. I didn’t know all these terms back then, but I just, I saw the behavior and I was just like, that’s the kind of leader I wanna be.
I want people who are gonna go to war for me without me even having to like say it. I just wanna ask and they’re gonna go do it. And that was, how I saw if you brought your whole self and you were just honest and, really cared about people, that people would in turn. Care about you and make sure that you were successful.
Michael
What was it specifically that Jack did that inspired such loyalty?
Romie
You know I think he brought something different to the table. He was, he was extremely smart, right? So he, that was one thing where he took what we would take as hard labor and he immediately started to ask us. How can we do this better?
And that was something we’d never been asked before, right? Nobody actually took the time to sit with us and say, okay, this is really a cumbersome process. Is there a way we can do it better? And so I think asking us for our input and actually implementing the things that. We said were important to us, were the first couple of little nuggets, low hanging fruit that we could tell that, oh, this is gonna be different.
Another thing he did was celebrate us a lot and you know another time where we were having, it was like a one of those Labor Day, Memorial Day. Holidays coming up, and it was like the week before, and we’re off that Monday, so we’ve gotta kind of make sure that everybody’s satisfied and taken care of.
And he posed a question like, Hey, can we do a barbecue on Friday? and I was like, yeah, of course. Like people love free food. Of course we can do a barbecue. And he was just like, yeah, I’ll cook you guys, da And let’s just shut the plant down at 11. Let’s, have fun.
And then we’ll all leave at one or two o’clock and everybody gets paid for the whole day. And I’m like, what? that doesn’t exist. And he’s can you make it happen with the contractors, like the people who like our, customers? And I said, I’m, pretty sure I can make it work. So, of course, went to the team, Hey, this is what we wanna do.
we brought the music, brought the dominos, brought the whole thing, and sure enough, we scheduled our contractors around our fun, which was very different, right? To, make fun the priority, and then to ask us to reverse engineer. Satisfying the customers was also something that was flipped on its head for us.
And we were like, if this is what we can do. On a holiday week, what can we do every other week? and it got us thinking not to burn out, but just to know there’s still gas in the tank. And so I would say caring about us and implementation plus him being smart was, just a cherry on top for sure.
Michael
But. Do you know how he sold this to his management?
Romie
Yeah, you know I didn’t know how he did that. We never even asked like he was the boss, so we didn’t even ask him how. But having learned that from him, I, of course now in turn do these things because I, see the value in them and the way that I sell it is, know it is, I call them deposits, right?
These are deposits that we’re making into our employees’ lives, and although they seem. Significant to our bottom line ’cause of the hours and all this stuff, the impact and the amount of deposits being made when we prioritize fun on any given day. We’ll pay back tenfold when you need to make a withdrawal in the tough times, and that’s just proven to be true day after day, week after week.
Year after year, as we’ve encountered really tough times and some people are going through tough times right now and they’re trying to make a withdrawal and there’s nothing in the bank, and that’s because we didn’t prioritize first, making deposits into what they, what those people find valuable.
Michael
I like that analogy. It gives a way to frame all this squishy people stuff that can be hard to reason about sometimes in terms of investments, which. Exactly. Every good business person will understand and that gives everyone involved in a way they talk about it in terms of not well fund is important because we’re gonna feel better and people who feel better are gonna work better.
It can for help us see those squishy investments in terms of more concrete. This is what we’re getting from revenue. This is what we’re seeing back from customer satisfaction. This is what we’re seeing in terms of whatever the metrics are that we care about in this business and in that. Exactly. That makes this way easier to prioritize and justify.
Romie
Right. Exactly. I like that. I like the squishy part of it.
Michael
I don’t remember where I first turned that I’ve used it ever since. It’s like people are so squishy in so many ways. Yeah. But the physical, emotional, intellectual, it’s all squishy. Nothing about people is hard and firm and, objectives.
Romie
Yeah, I like squishy instead of soft. ’cause we usually call ’em like the soft part of the business.
’cause like you said, it’s people. But yeah, I like it a lot. I’m definitely gonna steal it.
Michael
And soft implies oftentimes in American culture anyway and business culture. Yeah. Preach where squishy
Romie
Yeah.
Michael
Has less of that connotation.
And we all know how much the, those stress people like that.
You squeeze ’em and they pop out in the different directions. For some people those are super helpful and it’s a great. I get an analogy of how squeezing on one thing causes other things to blow out, and we’re the same way. We’re just like we’re, like those stress balls and stress people that, yep. I like that.
To really work well, we have to be balanced and we can move out of balance in certain directions for extended periods of time. Sometimes if we have to. We can’t be out of balance in every direction. Or we’re just
flat. Yeah. Yeah. Balance for me is just taking what you need at the moment. You know, there’s no telling what it means.
We, I think we grew up thinking it was 50 50, but there’s no way, right. Work is gonna sometimes require 70% of you, and sometimes home is gonna require 70% of you, and you just have to be able to identify that and, just take what you need so that you can find that equilibrium again.
Yes. And what EQU equilibrium means is different from person to person.
A hundred percent. For some people having a very strict, I show up at eight, I leave at four or six or 10. Right. Or whatever it is. Yeah. And they don’t do anything with business. Outside of that is Yeah, exactly what equilibrium needs where for other people. Exactly. Like myself. And it sounds like you, Floyd will in a moment, what feels right.
Is way more comfortable, right? Yeah. And it’s not that one’s better than the other, it’s what’s works best for you. And how do you adjust that into the context that you’re working in right now so that you can exactly continue moving, growing, and working and having fun. Yep. while still helping everyone else involved do the same for them.
And everyone finds the best overall balance. At the same time that we’re trying to find our same internal equilibrium.
Romie
Yeah, very well put. Very well put.
Michael
So what we’re talking about here is building cultures for people feel safe and empowered to bring their unique talents and everything that they do. What is it that you do specifically and uniquely to help people build these cultures?
Romie
Yeah. So I would say that, my style is, different in that I am a high collaborator.
So, something that I value and that I think works because it works for me, is that I, I make, everyone that is on my team feel like they belong on the team, right? You are, you’re not excluded from a meeting, obviously, if you’re not needed for the meeting. Nobody wants to waste any time, but you’re not excluded from a meeting just because you don’t add value.
And this is a, something that I see a lot in corporate culture is if I don’t think this person’s gonna add value, not because they,don’t add value because they don’t know what we’re talking about. But if I don’t think they’re gonna add value because I think they’re dumb, or, they’re not good at their job or whatever, I’m gonna exclude them from the meeting, which is gonna isolate them.
And then we’re just gonna continue talking sort of around them and above them. And, that’s something that I saw in my career coming up and I literally just despise it. I think it’s one of the worst culture killers to have and I think it stems back to having tough conversations, right?
So if you don’t think this person is smart or you don’t think they are good at their job, or you don’t think that they should be on your team, then we have a whole other issue, right? We should be having those conversations so that, the person knows exactly where they stand and where they need to go or the expectations so that they can add value and that they can show up the way they need to show up and who knows what they’re gonna bring to the meeting that can could come out of left field and solve a huge problem that we don’t even.
No, we had, or that we’ve been searching for. And so I think belonging is one thing that I definitely do. And asking people for their input or bouncing ideas off of them, just because I found so much success in my story with Jack of asking the team and allowing other people to be the smart ones in the room, because over time I’ve realized that it’s not me, right?
I, work better off of people coming up with my ideas and I can picture the process and I can ask better questions, but it’s all their idea, right? It’s all their manifestation of what should happen. And so even when we have issues, right? I bring whoever has conflict to the table and we just talk about it.
And anywhere I go at first, it’s very uncomfortable because people aren’t comfortable with confronting each other. But over time they’re gonna see that. We’re just gonna confront each other in a kind, courteous, professional manner, and we’re gonna get through it. And people think conflict is bad, but I’m.
I’m quite the opposite, where I think conflict is necessary for us to work through these like small fractures that we have to repair. And so those two things of belonging and approaching conflict from a very holistic and loving standpoint, build the cultures that I wanna be part of, which is open and honest.
I want to be able to tell someone I, don’t really like the way that felt and this is why, and allow them to explain themselves because. What we find most of the time, Michael , is that there’s just miscommunication, right? The way you took it was not my intention, and so now I can explain my intention and then you can disarm yourself and you can receive.
That my intention was different than your perspective and vice versa. And then we find a better place because even in relationship, in all relationships, right, once you can get past the conflict, you realize that you’re better for it. And so those two big things, I think belonging, conflict resolution immediately, are what bring my cultures to the surface of how I want to be.
Appreciated in the environment that I wanna be in besides the fun. ’cause fun has to happen. I’m not going to work to be miserable, so we’re going to have fun. Even in the tough times, we’re gonna laugh about things. When people make mistakes, it’s okay. What did we learn from it? How are we moving forward?
Let’s not dwell on it. Everything can be fixed except for, obviously a loss of life and stuff like that, but everything in the workplace can be fixed. And so I try to make people feel very at ease. In my industry we’re a distributor and so we’re not solving the world’s problems. You know we’re kind of just distributing what we distribute, which is beverages.
And so I try to remind the team as well. the patient will live and, we’re not curing cancer and so just take a deep breath and everything’s gonna be fine, and so I’d say, an environment of ease also helps bring out the belonging and the conflict resolution for sure.
Michael
So what do you find to be the business value of creating these cultures?
Romie
I’d say that when someone can come to work, including myself, and just be themselves, you find these really unique gifts that everybody has. And once you can find the gifts that everybody has, usually you’ll find that everything that needs to be taken care of is covered by somebody’s gift, by somebody’s strength.
You know as a leader, I, Thought that I needed to be good at all the things. And once I realized that, no, actually somebody else on your team is better at that than you, and actually likes to do it. Why don’t you give that away? I was, it was a paradigm shift. I was shocked. And I think when people can come to work again, be themselves, show their gifts, showcase their gifts.
Express them and the leader can delegate based off of gifts. There’s always gonna be stuff that nobody wants to do, which is fine, but when we can play off of each other’s strengths. My God, the things that can happen on the team is it’s, extremely special. And I think that’s one of the big things that I saw in my shift when I started to just say out loud, I’m not good at this.
Is anybody good at this? And actually likes to do it and people raise their hands and I was just like, oh, great. Okay. Well I’m good at that. So I’ll take that from you and you could take this from me. And now we’re all like vibing. Now everybody’s in a better place and I think that, it unfolds. You started, but then it starts to like just trickle down and people all of a sudden, I’ll walk into the office and I hear, oh, you’re doing that now.
Oh, that’s great. because they just realized I actually like to do that. can I take that over? And you could take this over. And it’s just so cool to watch and be part of for me,
Michael
Hundred Percent. I was on a team once where. Manager was supposed to send out a newsletter every month to the internal customers explaining all the new features and functionality they built.
And so the new cool things that your internal customers could do. First six months I was on that team. I saw one newsletter.
And then we did, strengths Finders and found out that there was a person on the team who. With communicator. This means that they’re great at pulling out and telling the story of Right. Whatever they’re focusing on. Right. The whole team looks at this person said, would you like to do newsletter? And they’re practically jumping up and down.
And they’re chair. yeah. After that, the newsletter went out not just every month, but every week. And it. Was pretty with fonts and colors and all the things, and not in a 2-year-old kind of way where it’s all glaring and right. The worst kind of the internet flashing in your face, but the most beautiful art kind of color and, pretty right.
And it made such a difference not just to the team and not just to the manager. Knowing that the story was being told out in such a beautiful way also for the customers. ’cause they started paying attention to the newsletter and which meant they were paying attention to all the functionality that was being provided and so they could do their job much more easily, which led everyone that they provide delivered to do their jobs much more easily.
Easily. It kept coming out from such a simple change, from such a simple change. I love that. And even in cases where externally maybe manager was still supposed to be the one sending the newsletter, that just means it has to come from their email. It doesn’t mean they have to be the one to put it together.
Exactly. I see this all the time with status reports. Manager often has to be, the ones supposed to send the status report out. They don’t have to be the one to put it together. Yeah, a hundred percent.
Romie
Yeah. And that also gives leaders like a different viewpoint when they’re hiring, right? Because once you understand that people have gifts that you don’t have and that you see what the team is missing, right?
Then when you go to hire someone, you no longer hire for a strength that you already have necessarily. Right. You kind of look for the missing piece, and I think that’s such an important piece of hiring is that we usually just hire for the role instead of the specific missing piece. if you’re missing a piece of data because you, you know nobody on your team enjoys putting the data together for the stati, for the statistic report that needs to go out.
Then even though you’re hiring for this coordinator role that may not have anything necessarily to do with that, you can find someone who has a strength in that to bring the team together and now we can all move forward collectively. You know, so there’s so many great things that come from a strength finder, and teams working on in their strength for sure.
Michael
There is, and for all of those things that no one wants to do, almost always, there’s a way to engage someone’s strength in that task, even though it may not be obvious. Correct. So if someone loves fixing things, then, and every task done, there’s something. There’s some way to frame that in terms of here’s how we’re making things better.
This is why we’re doing this. This is to fix something that’s broken somehow, and then they may not, still not be super excited about doing it. They’re more interested and there’s at least some part of them engaged instead of just being forced to do it under punishment. Oath. Boredoms,
Romie
Right? Obligation.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
Michael
How do you help people find their way through all the change, uncertainty, and overwhelm that seems to be ever increasing?
Romie
Yes. I mean, so of course depending on the change, right? I think, the way that I like to show up. In uncertain times is one showing up, right? It’s it. This is not the time to retreat.
This is the time to, be present way more than you ever have been because people are looking for you, right? They’re looking at your demeanor, they’re looking at your facial expressions, they’re looking at your stress level, and they’re gauging their livelihood, their survival, in uncertain times if it, especially if it’s, Potential job loss or, you know a downward turn in business, which is usually the uncertainty that we find, even in getting a new leader, right? They’re looking to you to gauge, is this a good person? Is this a bad person? Should we be worried? so the first thing is, definitely showing up more, being way more present than you have been.
And you, people tend to think that you have to be present. For a long period of time, but it’s not necessarily true. You just have to show up right now, and it may last a month, it may last two months. But showing up will bring you, will bring your team comfort, right? ’cause they’re used to you as the leader.
And then when you’re there, of course being present, like actually asking them questions. How do you feel today? What is going on? What’s the temperature in the room? And also being as transparent as possible. Because there are things you cannot say if but you can let them know that no matter what, they’re gonna be fine.
I remember the first time I was part of a big layoff. I was a leader at the time, a very young leader, and I was terrified for them. I could not hide my emotions. I was like crying and I let me, I cry every time There’s layoffs. I still cry every time there’s layoffs, because my heart hurts, right?
It’s a. It’s a change that’s necessary, but it’s painful for, to watch. People have to go through this and, I, did not know that people would be okay. Right. I was, again, a very young leader and, I had someone tell me like, Hey, people are resilient. They’re gonna figure it out now. I was just like.
I guess, but I just don’t know how they’re gonna figure it out. And that was my limiting belief of their potential and their strength, right? But people are extremely resilient, and although this looks tough or this looks grim, I think just reminding them that, Hey, no matter what, everything’s gonna be fine.
And not from a surface level. Like legitimately, everything’s gonna be fine. I was talking to someone. And, they were telling me why they were in an uncertain time and they were telling me. their fear of it. And I started with, everything’s gonna work out. And they’re like, yeah, And I’m like, no, no, no You don’t understand. Let’s talk through this. Right? So, what’s the worst that can happen if you say how you feel? Oh, my leader can get mad. Okay. What’s the worst that can happen if the leader gets mad? Oh, he starts to report bad things about me. Okay. What’s the worst thing that can happen? If he starts to report bad things about me, then I, might lose my job.
What’s the worst thing that can happen if you lose your job? Then I have to look for another job. What’s the worst thing that can happen? If you start to look for another job? I might find another job. Oh, shit. Right? You have to go through the whole thing for people to realize that at the end of all these bad moments, you’re gonna find a new job.
You’re gonna be okay. You’re not gonna die. You’re going to live, right? But immediately we stop at. If I tell my lead, my leader, how I actually feel they’re gonna fire me. Yeah, those two things may be true, but what can happen after you get fired? You can also find another job. And that just revolutionized like the conversation one, but two, her belief in herself and, and, the fact that yeah, like almost f these people.
Yeah, I should say what I feel in a very polite and professional manner. But I think people often stop at, you know, the darkest point. And so when we’re going through change, I just like to talk through, I like to talk through it with people on an individual basis, but sometimes in a group setting, if the whole group.
It’s temperature feels bad. Let’s just walk through all of that together and I’ll do the exercise, right? I’ll say the things because obviously this is a big group, but that usually gives 80% of the room relief. Because we forget that the same way you found this job is the same way you’ll find the next one, and that there is life after this and it doesn’t end here.
And oftentimes we think it does. So transparency showing up and walking through all the darkest parts until we find the light.
Michael
How do you support people as they’re going through this shift from. I can’t do anything I want because of outcomes too. Oh, those are just near term outcomes that a little bit farther than that are. Oh my gosh. Amazing.
Romie
Yeah. I like to tell people, or I like to ask them to, okay, we can’t say, ’cause their belief is they can’t say all the things.
Okay, what can we say? What’s the next small step we can actually take? Right? Because again, I think that we go from zero to 100 really quickly, right? Anytime we’re, thinking about doing something and fear kicks in, the fear is, I’m gonna die always, right? I can’t get up and publicly speak because I’m gonna die, or I’m gonna throw up on the floor.
You’ve never thrown up on the floor before. Why would you have that thought? And so I always ask them, okay, so if we can’t say all the things, can we say one thing? yeah, I could definitely say one thing. Okay, let’s say one thing, right? And then let’s, observe, all the emotion that comes up with that and, let’s honor those emotions and those feelings.
And then let’s realize that we did not in fact die. And then now we can, now we have the courage to go to the next step, right? And it’s all about building courage. But building courage from zero to 100 feels very far away. It doesn’t seem realistic, but if you can do it little by little, like when you go to the gym, if you go to the gym and you try to lift a hundred pounds and you haven’t been to the gym before, you’re likely gonna hurt yourself.
And then you’re going to think it’s because I went to the gym. No, it’s because you tried to lift a hundred pounds on day one. But if you start with five pounds, you know and you let your body, you know, become conducive to that and what’s the word I’m looking for? Condition into the five pounds.
And then you move to seven and a half or 10, and then you kept going up to a hundred pounds. Then when you got to a hundred, you would realize that yeah, it’s a journey for sure. but I got here, so little by little. And I try to help them take the least scariest step forward.
Michael
And there’s always a smaller sip we can take and we can keep shaking that down until we find one that’s not scary,
Romie
like micro, right?
Michael
One of the things I love about the metric system is they have words for. Almost infinite amounts of smaller, and smaller So if, a meter’s too big a step, we can do a centimeter and then a millimeter.
Yeah. Eventually down to like pico meters. We can get to something that’s small enough to feel safe. We can do something.
Romie
We can always do something.
Michael
We could, we can always do something. I like that.
What is the best way for people to find you if they’d like to learn more about how to lead the way that you’ve been talking about today?
Romie
Yeah. So Instagram and LinkedIn. You can find me both at my first and last name, Romie Montpeirous, ma Perus. and everywhere else TikTok. Yes, I’m on TikTok. That’s where people are.
So TikTok, Facebook, even LinkedIn, I do have a page for Leadership from the Heart. And you’ll typically see like my face, on the, profile picture or whatever. But you can find me there. I also have my own podcast that Michael will be on, coming in the Future, which is Leadership From the Heart.
And my website is also Leadership From the Heart. But it’s dot co. so.co instead of.com.
Michael
And do you have a quiz for people to take to learn a little more about themselves?
Romie
I do, on our website, you’ll find a leadership archetype. And that’s just an introduction into finding out what kind of leader you are, because I find that understanding who you are as a leader will help you become the leader that you’ve always wanted to be.
I think a lot of us see successful people and we think we need to be more like them. When in fact your strength lies in who you are. So, I’m a big advocate for, personality quizzes and, archetypes and all the things to help you uncover, your strengths and who you are and who, more being, more of who you’d like to be.
So the first small step is to, take the leadership archetype, quiz to see if you’re transformational, or servant, or adaptable, all the things.
Michael
What’s your leadership architect?
Romie
I am a transformative leader, so I, which is two things, right? Like I love to help people transform, which is why I’m a coach. But I also, I also am, which would kind of be adaptable, but, I adapt my style, based on what, what’s needed at the moment.
Michael
I hear archetypes similar to strength finders where everyone has all of them, and it’s just what their relative ratios is that they’re showing up for you. Exactly
Romie
Exactly, Like how do you respond to this? If this was gonna happen, how would you, and there are a lot of servant leaders, and that was a big buzzword a couple years ago, right? Where, you know, I want to ok show up kind of how like how Jack did when he did the barbecue, right? That’s very servant leadership.
I wanna give back to you by giving up myself, ok and I think that’s very important. And although there are types, I don’t think you’re one. I think for me, again, being transformational, very key. being adaptive is, really the key. If you have to be agile. So there is a time for you to show up and to be a servant leader, but there’s also a time for you to show up and be a different type of leader.
And so this is just the very first step. I don’t like for people to get hung up on these things. Because I do feel like people, ok like you and I are very fluid. And I like for people to be able to, adjust based on what the team needs. Right now. Sometimes I have to be the bearer of bad news, and that’s okay.
Right. That’s part of the job.
Michael
The, as the context shifts, the best way to help everyone move forward shifts and, yes. We don’t need to be skilled in all the archetypes, knowing. How to access them enable, gives us, enables us to shift into there even the tiniest bit when that’s what really helps. So having a little bit of adaptability with transformative sometimes can make all a difference where just being adaptable or just transforming would everything would explode.
Romie
Yeah. And I see leaders who are transformational and they get really hung up in being transformational, and they think that they can save everyone. And it’s a really sad place when they realize that they can’t, because you put all your eggs in, that basket. And so, the, again, I, love for people to know, yes, I am more like this.
That’s the whole point of it. I am more like this and. I can’t be this for everyone is really important too. So basically what you said, right, the context,
Michael
And this also brings us back to what we were talking about earlier, that if I know I’m super transformational, what we need today is adaptability and I can’t get into however much adaptability I have today, then I can go to.
Other people on my team who I know are strong and adaptable. That’s base. Exactly. Or who they’re able to accent that today is I need a he bill you fully please help me out. ’cause I am not adapting today. Yeah,
Romie
Exactly. I couldn’t have said it better myself. there are branches to this tree and everyone.
Right. Everyone has a peace and I, I think Brene Brown says it like her and her husband do this whole thing where I’m at a 10. And the other partner says, I’m at a 50, so I guess I’ll take it. You know what I mean? And that’s, that is key. that’s in partnership. Yes.
Romantic, but that also works at work. I can walk into the office and just say, I’m definitely not feeling it today guys, so whatever. And, the team will literally say, we got it. Don’t even worry about it. Just, we’re just glad you’re here. How powerful is that? You know, until I can feel better or until they feel better.
And to be vulnerable in that is beautiful.
Michael
It is, and so has been our conversation today.
Romie
Yes, agreed.
Michael
What would you leave, what would you like to leave our audience with today? Romie?
Romie
I would say this, if you’re in the room, it’s because you deserve to be there. Don’t second guess it. Don’t count yourself out and understand that ready is more of a decision than it is a feeling.
And so just be ready.
Michael
Thank you.
Romie
Thank you for our, conversation
Michael
Today, Romie.
Romie
Yes. I appreciate it very much. Thank you for having me.
Michael
You’re welcome. Thank you audience for joining us today, Romie and I would love to know what are you ready for? Thanks and have a great day.