Certainty used to be power and now clarity is

Welcome to the Built by People podcast where we highlight the stories and insights of the world's top HR leaders. Now let get started and welcome our next guest.

Well, I'm excited to welcome Aaron to the Built by People podcast. Aaron, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you. Excited to be here.

We're excited to have you. Well, I love to ask the first question, which is tell us a little bit about your career journey and how you got to where you are today.

Sure, of course. Happy to. So I've been at Oyster now for four years. I lead the people services team which is a mixture of senior global HRVPs benefits and operations. And, and my career has very much been squiggly line. So I started in university doing criminology and human rights. I knew I wanted to do something with people, but I didn't really know what that was. Sort of moved my way through various roles, whether it was on sort of the nonprofit side, working with women and girls that were criminalized and marginalized and then pivoted into sort of exec support. And quickly discovered through that that, you know, the projects that I was working on were very focused on people, people and culture. And had a really, really great CEO at the time who started around the same time I did, who said, what do you want to be when you grow up and how are we going to do that together? And you know, what sort of company do you want to work for? So we started working really closely on people stuff and that really sort of pushed me down that path of going into the people career that I'm in now. And again have, you know, sort of varied career across sectors, across industries, across countries. And what has always sort of kept me in sort of a people seat is culture and people and change and you know, all the weird and wonderful that comes with working with people.

Absolutely. Well, and, and that's where I'm excited to have this conversation with you because, you know, first topic we want to kind of hit on is leadership today. Right. And what's fundamentally changed about effective leadership in kind of a constant uncertain world right now.

I think from my perspective, I think what has really, really changed is certainty used to be power and now clarity is. And I think leaders don't win because they know the answer. I think they win because they can create direction maybe when that answer isn't super obvious. And I think, you know, teams are global, information moves fast, change is constant. And I think people aren't always asking, are you right? Can I trust you when things get messy? So I think the best managers today are translators. They turn that ambiguity into priorities offs next steps. And I think that's the bigger leadership picture.

I like that. Yeah, well, you kind of bring up the next point, which is, you know, we've kind of heard this, this term the chameleon leader. Right. Where you are having to adapt, you're having to change, and you're really like that interpreting for the teams. Right. So there's clarity. So for you like as that, as that leader, how are you balancing, you know, proactive planning with reactive agility and maybe spotting early signals that it's time to pivot?

Yeah. So I think if there's one thing I want leaders to know is your plan will break. And I think leadership is how fast you adjust. So markets change, regulations change, customers change, teams change. I think adaptability really is. It's not a personality trait anymore. It's that fundamental operating requirement. And it's really, really important to be able to pivot with ease. So equally, it's important that as a leader, you make sure that you balance change not just well for yourself, but well for the team. So it's not a siloed individual skill to be adaptable, but rather really important to also be balanced sort of in how you adapt and how you bring your team along on that journey.

That when. So I'm curious, when you're looking at like certain maybe signals or, or times you're like, we actually probably need to pivot, are there anything, is there any singular, you know, signs that you've seen that are pretty consistent in that organization or within any organization. Right. That you've worked in, that you're like, oh, that's kind of a telltale.

I think energy shifts before metrics do. So I think meetings get quieter, ownership gets fuzzy, decisions slow down. I think by the time performance drops, you're already too late. So great leaders, I think really need to watch behaviors and not just dashboards. Definitely. I'm a data driven person, but I think you can really see when there's a shift, when there's that energy change, that behavior change within teams.

I think that is incredibly insightful. I think the energy change is probably that biggest piece. Right. Because we've all been in an organization where you felt that change and obviously it just is like a domino effect in a lot of cases and it

typically will have that knock on. So I think it's that awareness and that, that sort of alert in the back of your head that you know what the pulse of the team is, you know what the pulse of the culture is. And when you see that starting to shift, that's usually a pretty good signal that not everybody's, you know, on the same board.

Yeah. Okay, so now that brings to the next part of empowerment versus macro management. Right. How do you know, you know when to step in versus maybe step back? What are some common mistakes that you see first time managers make when, when that starts to happen or that shift happens?

Yeah, I think, think stepping back feels risky and uncomfortable and I, I think everybody, myself included, is, is guilty of this. I think a lot of folks that go into leadership roles were promoted as really, really strong individual contributors. So now you have to watch somebody do it differently, maybe do it a little more slowly than you would. And I think it's really sort of emotionally uncomfortable. And I think it is really hard to find that right balance. And I think there's, there's that really tricky line of a manager feeling like somebody is empowered versus feeling micromanaged. And for me, I'm. I like to step back and reflect and think about like, you know, what does that look like? Decisions getting rechecked, work comes back heavily edited. People wait for approval when, you know, they really didn't need it. I think if initiative drops, autonomy probably doesn't feel real. And I think as a, as a manager, you have to really balance that line of just letting people go and do. And you being that support structure in the background versus I'm going to take all of this on myself and do it.

Yeah, I think that's a good call out. I think a lot of people put so much pressure on themselves to be that framework. Right. I want to help generate the framework and then put the people in charge that should be in charge of those. But know that they can come back to this. You know, to me, if they need to, to try to help facilitate some of that.

Absolutely. Yeah. And I think it's really important as a leader in my team, I always say I'm the team's biggest cheerleader and the team's biggest bodyguard. I'm not there to execute, I'm there to support their execution. And I think that this really, it's a really difficult balance to get and I don't always get it right. Most leaders don't always get it right, but it's, it's trying to find that sort of sweet spot for, for you and for the team because you also want the team to have autonomy and feel empowered. And every time you maybe step in, it does degrade that a little bit.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, now, now looking through obviously the lens of maybe somebody below. Right. You in that case, like nonverbal leadership. Right. What have you kind of seen from either action? Right. Obviously actions speak louder than words in a lot of cases, but how do you typically do that? How do you try to bring in that non verbal leadership into everything you're doing to help guide? Right. A lot of the other use cases.

Yeah, I think non verbal is really important. And I think like I work in a fully remote, globally distributed organization, so we're not seeing each other physically in an office. We're not engaging in a meeting room. We are on zoom calls or it's async communication. And I think when you're fully remote, there also has to be more sort of intentional approach to things. And what I, what I've seen in leaders that I've worked with and what I'm trying to demonstrate with my team is setting an example where they're watching what I'm doing. So, you know, my calendar, my reactions, who gets praised, what gets ignored. I think those are culture. And I think we talk a lot in the team of being values driven and how our values define sort of how we work, how we operate, how we service our customers and what we do. And I think it's really important that leaders really model values. Shout out. When values are demonstrated in the team and by others in the company, people really believe behavior. So I think it's really up to you as a leader to demonstrate that and to live that.

I love it. Well, okay, looking at practical takeaways, ways. Right. Like what is one leadership behavior to either start or stop this week?

Yeah, so I, I think one of the things that a lot of people struggle with is this hero leadership. And I have this complex sometimes as well where it's like, you know, sometimes it's just easy to jump in, jump in, save the day, solve the problem, move on. And often somebody who's fixing everything all the time, it's perceived as impressive. It's great. But actually that creates dependency versus capability and what feels like high performance in the short term actually quietly builds a fragile team. And I think there's a pretty tricky balance of knowing when to jump in and when to jump out or ultimately this isn't our problem, sometimes it's not your problem as a team to solve. And I think that does, does happen sometimes. When you see folks across the business that are just doing stuff and getting stuff done, it's a difficult one because you do have to strike that balance. You do have to strike the opportunity for somebody to also step in and take something on. I think in terms of what they should maybe take on is admit a mistake in real time. Like, I think vulnerability is really important in leadership and I think it's difficult to be vulnerable and I think it's really difficult to be like, yeah, I messed that up. And I think doing it in real time, not in like the super polished retro, not in six months as like a keynote. Here's what I learned. But I pushed us in the wrong direction here. Thank you for catching it. Here's what we're going to do next. And I think that's all really, really important because it also demonstrates it's safe to speak up, it's safe to be wrong. And I think vulnerability from the top creates oxygen for the whole team. So I think that's really key. And this I will give one more one is close the loop. And I hate the phrase close the loop or whatever, but when someone raises an issue, come back and say what happened? Even if it's, we're not going to change it. Like, that builds credibility and it's, it really instills that sense of ownership within the team and I think silence really destroys that.

Yeah, no, I honestly, I really like the vulnerability part. I think it's hard. Right. For everybody. It doesn't matter if it's in work or just your general life. Right. Vulnerability is hard. And so I think specifically within leadership.

Yeah.

When you can address it quickly, like you said, not in a keynote six months down the road. That's super polished.

Yeah. We all make mistakes. It's owning up to it. And I'm thinking there's a piece here as well around, you know, asking better questions to give faster answers. So swap, you know, here's what we should do for what options are we missing? So that puts some ownership back to the team. What would you recommend if I wasn't here? So again, it goes back to the team. Like if, if you didn't have the opportunity to come to me to ask, what would you do?

Yeah.

And what risk worries you the most? So if we're dealing with a people situation, what are you most concerned about? And is that a. I'm concerned about it or is it a real risk? Like is there something fundamental you need to address. And I think great leaders really create thinkers and not followers. And I think we really need to find a way to empower and encourage and step away.

Yeah. I love it all. This has been so helpful. Aaron. This has been awesome. Thank you so much for joining us on the Built by People podcast today. It's. It has honestly been a pleasure and we're I'm excited to pass this out to everybody else.

Amazing. No, it was fantastic to be here. So thank you so much. And yeah, love talking about this. So happy happy I was able to be here today.

Well, I'm sure we're going to have you back on for other dialogue to go through this, so I appreciate it.

Amazing. Thank you so much.