Teresa Roche
CHRO
City of Fort Collins
Episode 291
The Inner Game of Leadership: Self-Insight Transforms Your Impact
Current chapter: Covering monthly expenses is the number one concern for employees in 2024
Built By PeopleFebruary 21, 2025 · 17:28
Thesis
“Self-insight and self-acceptance are foundational for leading one's life and others, enabling leaders to serve authentically and foster positive culture regardless of their position or the work environment.”
Show notes
Teresa Roche has a simple but disquieting question she asks HR leaders: What percentage of your reactions today were actually responses to what was happening, versus replays of old patterns? Most people, she says, can't answer it. And that gap — between self-awareness and self-knowledge — is where leadership goes wrong.
Teresa's career has spanned Hewlett Packard, Agilent, and now the City of Fort Collins, where she serves as CHRO. Across those settings, one conviction has stayed constant: self-insight is the foundational competency for effective leadership — not strategy, not communication frameworks, not execution discipline. Self-insight first. Everything else flows from it. She reframes leadership not as a position or a performance, but as a continuous practice — something you do for life, not something you achieve. "Being foundational for leading one's life is a teaching point of view," she says — meaning you can't fully lead others until you've begun to lead yourself.
Teresa also challenges the assumption that meaningful human connection requires physical proximity. Leading a global virtual team, she developed practices for authentic connection across time zones and geographies — because belonging isn't a feature of a building, it's a product of intentionality. She also offers a sharp concept about the leverage of HR leadership: every signal a leader sends — every question asked, every reaction given, every silence maintained — radiates outward and shapes the culture around them. HR leaders are, in her framing, signal generators. The question is whether the signals you're sending are the ones you intend.
- Self-insight as the foundation of leadership effectiveness — why self-knowledge precedes every other leadership competency
- Leadership as practice, not position — what it means to approach work and life as a continuous developmental discipline
- Self-acceptance and authenticity in HR — leading as your full self, including in difficult or uncomfortable moments
- Building genuine connection in global virtual teams — belonging is intentional, not incidental to physical presence
- HR leaders as signal generators — how every action, question, and response shapes organizational culture
- The future of HR with AI — what human-centric leadership looks like as technology scales administrative work
Built by People is sponsored by Previ, the private pricing network that saves employees an average of $2,200/year on essentials like cell phone and auto insurance — free for companies to launch and maintain.
What you'll take away
- 1Self-insight is crucial for effective leadership, enabling better coaching, mentoring, and openness to feedback.
- 2View leadership as a continuous practice and an approach to life, rather than a performance or a rigid position.
- 3Authentic connection and 'love' are possible in any work format, including global virtual teams, through intentional communication and adaptive planning.
- 4Leaders act as 'signal generators' whose actions, questions, and responses profoundly shape organizational culture and employee perception.
- 5Anticipate and prepare for AI as a future colleague, understanding its implications for team dynamics, organizational culture, and new ways of working.
What most organizations get wrong
- •Leadership is an approach to one's life, not merely a position held, emphasizing personal ethos over hierarchical status.
- •Leaders should reallocate energy spent on worrying about external perception ('how we're performing, how we look') towards more valuable endeavors, promoting authenticity over performance anxiety.
In Teresa's words
“Self-insight Being foundational for leading one's life is a teaching point of view.”
This quote encapsulates her core philosophy on leadership, emphasizing inner understanding.
“I think of leadership as an approach to one's life, not a position you hold.”
She challenges traditional views of leadership, decoupling it from a job title.
“I do think that those of us that are privileged and blessed to lead others I hold us to a higher standard because who we are can either cast a ray of sunshine or a dark cloud over the people that we're accountable for or those that we serve.”
This highlights the profound impact leaders have on their teams and the responsibility that comes with leadership.
“Love is possible no matter what the format.”
This speaks to the human element of leadership and its adaptability to virtual environments.
“The possibility that AI will be a colleague of ours is going to bring a whole new way of working.”
This forward-looking statement sets the stage for a significant future shift in HR and organizational structure.
“Be who you are and be that perfectly well.”
This personal mantra emphasizes authenticity and self-acceptance as key to professional and personal fulfillment.
The problems this episode addresses
- •Employees' primary concern in 2024 is covering monthly expenses, indicating a need for financial well-being support (as per sponsor).
- •Challenges of establishing deep team community and effective communication in global, virtual, and asynchronous work environments, particularly when early technology limits rich interaction.
- •Leaders expending excessive energy on managing external perceptions rather than focusing on impactful work.
- •Navigating rapid technological changes, specifically the integration of AI into the workforce and its implications for team dynamics and organizational culture.
- •The ongoing need for leaders to cultivate self-insight and adaptive practices to remain effective and agile.
In this episode
Covering monthly expenses is the number one concern for employees in 2024
Built by People
Deep, first I just have to thank you for inviting me to be on your podcast
In the Elevator With Dave Silver
Fort Collins says knowing who you are is foundational to leadership
Leadership as a Practice, Not a Subject
David Frum: I think AI will be a colleague of ours
In the Elevator With Dave Goldberg
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
Full transcript
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