Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Dr. Jesse henson and I'm inviting you to join me on lead with heart.
We explore how the mind, body, relationships and culture contribute to transformative leadership.
This is Lead with Heart on NOW Media Television.
Hello and welcome to Lead with Heart. I'm your host, Dr. Jesse Hanson and we're here in Costa Rica in Sacred Sound Studios. Coming as a new NOW Media production. It's a brand new show. I'm so excited to continue to deepen these discussions around leadership. And you're here on Lead with Heart, the show where we explore what it truly means to lead with emotional intelligence, presence and purpose.
Today we're very blessed to be joined by Tanya Visano. She's a powerhouse in commercial leadership, guiding world recognized organizations like Nickelodeon, mtv, Netflix and Moonbug. She specializes in helping companies accelerate growth without losing the human element at the core of leadership.
Today we're diving into a topic that affects leaders everywhere. Navigating rapid growth while trying to stay grounded in your own values and your own energy and most importantly, in your heart.
So, Tanya, welcome to the show. Let's start looking at this rapid growth. It's exciting on the outside, but many leaders experience it internally as overwhelmed, disconnection and pressure. The challenge is not the pace of growth, it's losing the emotional, relational, spiritual and mental qualities of our life. So I want to know when leaders start growing too fast, what are the first signs that you start to notice that they're getting pulled into and setting of leading with calmness, presence, groundedness and welcome so much to the show. Thanks for being here.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: Thank you, Jesse.
I'd say the first thing that we notice is there's a, there's a change in tempo and their energy starts to speed up in a way that doesn't communicate security, probably to their internal self, but most mostly to, you know, the external people that they're working with.
Even more telling is because they're on a, you know, push, push, push, go, go, go. Achieve, achieve, achieve.
They stop approaching their teams with curiosity and start approaching them with suspicion. What are you doing to forward the objectives? What have you accomplished? What bo can you tick so it shifts from what's getting in your way? How can I help you?
What are the obstacles this week? What barriers are we facing either individually or as a team to why aren't we getting, why aren't we going faster? Why isn't this getting done?
They there's really this mentality like what are people doing all day? It's a negative headspace. And that assumption that people that it becomes people are the problem. It's not the environment, not the direction. So their leadership becomes, they move into this carrot and stick mode. It's pressure driven. It's often coming from above because the senior executives want to see results and they want to see results now and they want to know what people are doing to drive that.
So it's really about, they're failing because their energy is so frenetic and they want to go, go, go. They want to achieve, they want to prove. And that really becomes ego driven.
And you know, it's this cascading panic throughout the organization.
And so they're speeding up, but they're not mapping out the route like they're, they're not saying these are the mountains that we're going to have to climb at these intervals, some possible obstacles, but here's how we're going to get through it. And we're going to run, the leadership team is going to run alongside you.
So as to, as opposed to saying, you know, we're going to make sure, you know, you get it done, it's, we're going to, we're going to be there to help you, you know, move the mountains that are in your way, climb over the ones that we know, we know you can scale.
And so you're really, you know, when they're not doing that, they're losing clarity, they're losing focus.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I love how you started that answer by saying you used the word tempo. And I was like, I was so curious, okay, where's she going with this? What do you mean by tempo? And what I was able to extract as I listened to you more was, yeah, just like the, the pace, the calm and presence has a more grounded or slower tempo as opposed to that, more pressurized. We need to just keep pushing, pushing. Pushing has sort of called maybe a faster tempo. So I thought that was a great way you described it and then you also went into the different elements of the systemic element of it, of the pressure is cascading down from the top.
And again, so it's one element on the highest level of corporate execs, down to the operating managers, down to the people that feel it.
And obviously I want to hold compassion as well. Of like, that is the point of businesses to create that financial success and abundance. And so that's, to me, that's not a wrong pursuit or a bad thing necessarily until it maybe crosses that line where we are putting more priority than that than we are on the human heart.
And that's a big part of what I want to continue to highlight in the show is the use of modern science to help our viewers understand that it's not just a mental thing, but when these pressures come in, usually from the top, but whatever direction they're coming, yes, we might notice we feel more stressed or anxious in our thoughts, but it's also, it wears on our bodies, you know, and so I thought that was nice when you said tempo. It made me kind of feel the sense of the way my body might feel if I'm under that pressure all the time.
So I'm curious. Yeah. Whether you want to speak to this answer from your own experience and you know, you are a leader in your own right as you help and support other leaders.
So it may be something from your own personal journey of moments of overwhelm or recognizing that imbalance. Or maybe it's people you worked with that you've witnessed. But just wondering if you could talk a little bit about that, deepen the tempo idea and go into maybe what you've noticed in the body.
And if there are any accounts, whether yours or others, that where it's like, oh, this was how we helped to move through it. I'd be curious to hear about that.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Well, I think as an opener, I would have to say that while especially executives and senior leadership in large organizations. Well, I would say that the most of them have had exposure to some type of leadership courses that really reinforces the emotional intelligence aspect of it.
I would have to say that I have yet to work with an organization or many organizations where that becomes deeply ingrained in the DNA.
What I have seen in some organizations is that every now and then there is a, okay, we've got to remember that we should be doing this.
And you know, it's a, it's not a muscle that is continuously being flexed. It's. It's almost forced. Okay, we every now and then, whether it's, you know, we'll send people on another leadership course or learning social styles or you know, doing 360 reviews.
Those are not, it's not deeply embedded in the day to day life of the organization.
So absent of that, what happens is individual leaders have to take it upon themselves. Myself included. When I was in organizations where I had to make it a daily practice and we can talk a little bit about how I did that. But whether it was myself or working with a multitude of different executives and a variety of different industries and sizes of business, when the stakes are high, we put ourselves into higher gear.
And what suffers is the, we feel like we put These blinders on, we narrow our focus, we put our head down, we're working in emails. We've got to get this out, we got to get this out. We got to do, we're, you know, trying to churn out, churn out results. It feels like a, things are contracting. It's get, it's, it's.
Things are hardening inside. It's like you're flexing, you're flexing, you're flexing but you're not breathing.
And when you're not doing that and your own system is in, you know, it's probably, I'm not, I don't know. So you please correct me if I'm wrong. I feel like they're heightened states of like cortisol this. I feel like you're in a fight or flight. I gotta prove this. I've got, we've got to show the results.
And so if you, if you're in that state, number one, how you're showing up, that is, you have to set the tone. So if you're operating in that type of system, that's then going to, you're holding up that mirror to all the rest of your team to say that's what success should look like in this moment. And that's exactly what it does not look like, myself included.
When the stakes were high, pressure was on.
And to some of the leaders that I've spoken with, the thought of.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:21] Speaker B: Taking a moment, slowing it down, checking in with yourself and then your people and going for a walk. I tell, I tell. When I see that these leaders have their head down and they're just go, go, go.
And I say you've got to take a walk. If it's 20 minutes, if it's 30 minutes, you got to leave that desk, get out of the email.
Number one, it's going to serve you. Number two, when you are optimized, you are in a place to have a better impact on other people.
And then remember, business does not function without humans. We are not there yet that we are fully AI, fully machine controlled.
We are humans and we need to ensure that people are like, if the speedboat has taken off, your team is left behind.
Don't expect better productivity. I'm going to pause there in case we want to double click on some of those areas.
[00:11:25] Speaker A: Yeah, you just know I didn't want to interrupt you. It felt like you were in a channel of wisdom and so thank you for bringing that. I just, I could not resonate more with what everything you said and absolutely right from the neuroscientific perspective, cortisol fight, fight or flight, sympathetic nervous system activity.
And again, that has a time and a place. And for shorter spikes, let's call them for sure. That's amazing. That's called eustress. That's a healthy type of stress where we channel it for productivity. But once it gets past that line and it's different for each of us, though, there are generalizations of roughly around how many hours can someone stay in that state before the body starts to break down in some way?
That to me is as a somatic psychologist and love of neuroscience, that's the the fascinating part is there is actually a measurable way to see that. Now most of us don't have EEGs and EKGs in our home to like really track it. But like you said, just being able to and gain some, you know, it's another major theme of Lead With Heart that has been evolving so far is know thyself and Lead with Heart naturally. But taking the time and giving it value to actually know thyself is is a crucial next piece and we're going to go deeper into that when we come back from our break. So I want to thank you so much for bringing that wisdom and keep it right there at the surface. We'll be right back. And coming up, we're going to be exploring why leaders can sometimes think clearly but feel very little. So thanks for joining us here on Lead With Heart. I'm your host, Dr. Jesse Hanson. We'll be right back.
We'll be right back with more insights, stories and practices to help you lead from your whole self.
This is Lead with Heart on Now Media Television.
Hi, I'm Dr. Jesse Hanson and I'm inviting you to join me on Lead with Heart, a weekly show on NOW Media Television focused on awakening a new kind of leadership, one rooted in embodiment awareness and human connection.
Every episode of Lead with Heart goes beyond corporate models and surface metrics.
We explore how the mind, body, relationships and culture contribute to transformative leadership. If you're a leader, healer, entrepreneur or innovator who brings a story of personal evolution, team impact or leadership beyond the status quo, I'd love to feature you as a contributor.
Lead with Heart airs on NOW Media Television Networks, the first bilingual medial network network in the US and it's also available on Roku TV, Apple TV, iHeartRadio, Sirius XM and all major podcast platforms.
And we're back. I'm Dr. Jesse Hansen, and you're watching Lead with Heart on Now Media Television. Let's continue Continue embracing leadership with presence and purpose.
Welcome back to Lead with Heart. You want more heart centered leadership conversations? Stay connected, stream Lead with Heart and all of your Now Media favorites live or on demand. Download the free Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS. Prefer podcasts. Listen anytime at www. NowMedia TV.
All right. Welcome back to Lead with Heart. I'm your host, Dr. Jesse Hansen.
Today we're here with Tanya Vasano diving deeper into the human side of leadership. In this next segment, we're going to be uncovering a subtle but powerful challenge when leaders think brilliantly but feel very little.
So often I've heard this too in my own work with people is that, you know, have all of this thinking and tons of left brain activity, but they're often missing the connection to heart, to feeling connected to themselves or to other.
So I'm just wondering as I welcome back Tanya from this episode. Thank you so much again for being here. Yeah, go ahead and speak to that again. Whether it's from your own inner role as a leader or whether it has to do with people you've supported. What have you seen with that sort of clear distinction where you can tell they're very intelligent and thinking clearly but maybe not feeling so much.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: Well, let's start with the work that we've done together.
I remember sitting and hearing the words that, you know, was very analytical and I, I felt like, ooh, that's great. That's, that's exactly where I want to be.
But that, that hyper analysis, logic driven was coming at a cost not only to myself and how I was making decisions, but how I was leading the business.
And because we're not taught, we're not encouraged in business to incorporate human emotion, it doesn't show up as a KPI, you're not going to get rewarded for it on a development review.
You don't value it in business.
And so we love logic because as you've helped me understand, it's controllable. I can sit neatly and comfortably in logic and hide behind my numbers and data while my team is out there suffering.
They, you know, they have throughout the how many years I've been a leader, we've gone through deaths in their family, miscarriages, marriages, divorces, all kinds of things that people show up with.
And if we were bots, you know, if we were AI showing up, this wouldn't matter.
But, and it doesn't mean to suggest that just because we show up with our human selves that we can't be productive. So I think a lot of Us as business leaders, until we really get into the rhythm of understanding the interconnectedness of logic and emotional intelligence equals exceptionally productive environments.
The thought of slowing down and spending time with each individual member on your team could be 10 minutes a day to check in and help them digest and not compartmentalize, as I was doing, because I would show up and everything else was gone. There was church and state, and they never mixed and they were not friends. And so how I showed up was this Tanya bot.
But going back to enabling your team to be able to digest what it is they're feeling and make it more harmonious, that it's comfortable, that even when they're going through difficult times, difficult times might not just mean personal problems. It might be they can't, you know, they can't land an account. They're having a hard time, and that is weighing on them.
They're fearful their job might be at risk. They're fearful that, you know, they're not competent being able to verbalize, vocalize, providing a safe and comfortable environment that we can talk through that, that then becomes cleared away and they show up at their desk and their productivity spikes.
[00:19:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: For so many different reasons, including their loyalty to an organization that is helping them on so many different levels and.
[00:19:14] Speaker A: Stopping the high turnover rate that often happens with burnout and, you know, dehumanization practices. So. Wow. Another. Another beautiful bringing of the wisdom there. Thank you so much. And I also love that. Yeah, thank you. You know, part of the Hope with Lead With Heart show here is to also allow us to practice vulnerability and lead by example. And so you mentioned the Tanya bot, and I just wonder if you'd be willing to talk more about that and anything that comes to you. But also just. Yeah, I guess specifically from my background in training, just. Yeah. I mean, what you can remember of what it was like living in that body as Tanya Bhat versus who you have earned now. And we're going to get into that in future segments about where Tanya is now and how you're living. But for now, take a few minutes on the old Tanya Bot and what you can remember about that, that whole version of reality.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: So I was priding myself on the fact that I showed up exceptionally polished and professional. And when I had feedback that on 360 reviews that that's how I showed up, the first instinct was, okay, that's great. I'm, I'm. I'm doing it.
But then when the second line was that people did not feel connected to me, that, you know, I did feel like A Tanya bot. I was.
It was. I was leaning more towards machine than human.
I remember sitting in the chair and confronting the fact that I showed up with so much armor on, that that in and of itself was weakness versus the warrior who shows up in the ring with the battle wounds and scars, and they're real people, can not only connect to that, but be inspired by that. But I didn't. I didn't.
I didn't feel that, especially as a woman, that there was a place for vulnerability.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: And I remember speaking to the CEO of Viacom at the time and saying. He said I had gone through. We were at a leadership session, and he said, what did you learn today? And I said, I've got to be more vulnerable.
And no offense to him, but he didn't. Like, he didn't. He didn't value that piece. He didn't think that there was. There was a need for vulnerability.
And it wasn't until I could become vulnerable that I became the inspirational leader that I always wanted to be, was approachable.
I.
I didn't just lead and be controlled by logic. And it wasn't weakness that was the most important thing that I needed to learn. It wasn't weakness.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I got to jump in on this one really quick. Just to hear your own words back. That was so beautiful, what you just said. I. You know, it wasn't until I became vulnerable that I bec the caliber and quality of leader that I really wanted to be. And that's just. Yeah, that feels like a definite wisdom nugget that you're bringing, you know, for myself and anyone that's listening. And that's been something, though this show has just started. That's been. One of the main themes, is daring to believe that vulnerability is actually a superpower, a strength, and that learning how to wield it, learning how it's not just to be a crying mess all the time. That's not really what vulnerable means. Vulnerable means to be authentic, to be able to be real with what's happening. So often all of us do this, but I think often, especially leaders do this where, you know, I'm not going to give you the real answer, because I'm fine.
Freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional, but there's all this stuff going on, but for the most people, they might not be able to tell everything, but they know, hey, wait, no, something's not fine there. So by not being authentic, we create a whole different culture than the vulnerability you're talking about. So I just. Yeah, I really appreciate you, you know, bring in everything you've brought in and, and I wonder here, before we get to our next break for the next segment, which is actually perfect, we're going to talk about when leaders become more on autopilot. So this is a perfect build into that. But is that. Yeah, just if you could speak for a couple minutes about what you can remember like sort of living in your body, like, like tension pattern like things you witness in yourself, you know and just kind of. Yeah. If you're open to that. I don't know. Like. Yeah.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: Well, I think I, I think the, the pre vulnerability self is there's no reward and well, there is. I mean there's financial reward, there's recognition within the organization, but there's no egoic rewards.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: There's ego.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: Just saying, yeah, we, we, you know, we grew the 10% that we were supposed to grow. Yeah, there is an unbelievable reward and pride connection fam. Like you, you, you, you build familial bonds with your team when you together have overcome difficult periods whether it was, you know, your business se year over year in declines and you know, could be really facing the threat of restructure or personal issues. You build these unbelievable bonds when you can help people achieve things and grow and you yourself grow. My, my evolution as a leader. This is a, you know, 13 plus year and continues, you know, journey.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:14] Speaker B: So yeah, it's the, it's the, there's, there's.
I can barely express it because I can only feel it. I can't even put it into words. But there is. I've never felt more proud than in my career than when I have led with inspiration versus business logic.
[00:25:41] Speaker A: Leading with your heart instead of your mind. Correct. And now it's beautiful that even it was hard to find words there because you're right, it's a felt sense.
That's why I kept leaning in towards the body. Question is it's like a feeling of just maybe even self love or appreciating myself rather than feeling like a robot feeling like I'm just always on. Right. So now you've spoken so beautifully in this segment and also you're so humble but worked with some amazing huge companies and names and so, you know, your reputation is incredible. To hear all this coming from someone that has made that imprint of success in all the realms is amazing. So I want to make sure that our listeners can keep in touch with you. So how can they find you if they want to learn more about what you're doing now? And we're going to get into that in the following segment. But just in terms of how can they reach you?
[00:26:29] Speaker B: Sure. Well, thank you.
Two spots that they can go to. One is www.visanomanagement.com Visano management.com or find me on LinkedIn. Tanya T a N Y A Visano V I S A N O on LinkedIn and happy to connect.
[00:26:51] Speaker A: Beautiful. Thanks again so much for being here today.
And as we wrap up this segment, want to invite you guys back to join us. Soon we're going to go into the construct of when leaders are successful but on autopilot, much like Tanya already talked about. So stay tuned. We'll be right back with more Lead with Heart on NOW Media Television.
We'll be right back with more insights, stories and practices to help you lead from your whole self. This is Lead with Heart on Now Media Television.
Hi, I'm Dr. Jesse Hanson and I'm inviting you to join me on Lead with Heart, a weekly show on NOW Media Television focused on awakening a new kind of leadership, one rooted in embodiment awareness and human connection.
Every episode of Lead with Heart goes beyond corporate models and surface metrics. We explore how the mind, body, relationships and culture contribute to transformative leadership. If you're a leader, healer, entrepreneur or innovator who brings a story of personal evolution, team impact, or leadership beyond the status quo, I'd love to feature you as a contributor.
Lead with Heart airs on NOW Media Television Networks, the first bilingual media network in the US and it's also available on Roku TV, Apple TV, iHeartRadio, Sirius XM, and all major podcast platforms.
[00:28:19] Speaker B: Foreign.
[00:28:25] Speaker A: And we're back. I'm Dr. Jesse Hansen, and you're watching Lead with Heart on Now Media Television. Let's continue embracing leadership with presence and purpose.
Hello, welcome back to Lead with Heart. I'm your host, Dr. Jesse Hanson. And in this segment, we're going to be exploring something many executives struggle with. It's this feeling of being very highly successful but feeling like they're on autopilot. And already in the last segment, Tanya was able to open up vulnerably about her own experiences as Tanya bot her version of autopilot. So we're going to continue that discussion here and we're so excited to work with Tanya, who's helped out countless leaders in this exact space. And we're going to continue to unpack from her plethora of knowledge that she's bringing and wisdom. So welcome back. Tanya, thanks again for being here. And around this topic of leaders, you know, being successful but feeling like Autopilot, I feel like you've already done a great job of introducing into that. I would just take a few moments to just acknowledge too from the scientific. And what we understand now from modern science is that, you know, you're absolutely right in what you said before, though it does create a lot of success. It comes at the price of hypersympathetic nervous system activity, AKA cortisol overrun the nervous system, heart rates are high, overall pressure in the body is high.
And so, and again, if it was, I love. Also, you've made a few half joke, half serious remarks so far about AI and we can't ignore it. We have to acknowledge it's here. And yes, it's the temptation because AI is the employee who you can yell at and it doesn't hurt their feelings, you know, is the employee who can hopefully in theory stay working 24 7. So of course I get the temptation of it. And yet, yeah, if we are to give up fully all heart in business, I don't even want to know what that looks like. So we're not there yet, as you said, and hopefully we'll never be there. That we fully eliminate humans from everything.
And so in the spirit of knowing we are still in a world where there's lots of humanity left in business and there's still probably in the first episode I talked about the Edelman Trust Barometer, if you're familiar with that study, 25 years now it's been going and it's powerful. Looking at the overall trust relations between government leaders, political leaders, media and journalist leaders, and corporate leaders.
And you know, there was a time not too long ago that the corporate leader trust was going up. But now in 2025, general trust, belief that leaders are lying to us.
Fear, fear for the future generations. It's at like literally at global all time highs right now. So if ever there was a time on the planet, if you're listening to Tanya and I today, like hear this call from, from the whole planet, you know, we, we need to step up as leaders. We need to. The things that Tanya has been saying today around having the courage to see vulnerability as strength and to ultimately break that autopilot program and the loss of humanness in there. So coming back to you, Tanya, I would love for you to just continue on with where you were in terms of again from your own experience, from what you've witnessed.
How does someone break autopilot? Both from the basic simple of things, anything deeper, let us know what you're thinking and feeling about that.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: The one thing I do want to say about AI and then I'll segue back into that autopilot is that even if you, if you're interacting with AI, AI is programmed with emotion because that's what people respond to.
So even, you know, machine generated responses bring people in through that emotional response.
So, you know, there we, you can't escape it.
So when I would argue that when people are on autopilot, they, the business is running smoothly and they are, they're not in that, you know, high cortisol, high stress, high pressure environment.
It's things are performing well. And so they're just rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. And so the machine is running, the results are there, but the flame is not on.
And so there's no and what that means when I tie it straight back to performance within the organization is there's no energy spike.
You're not being rewarded, you're not being fulfilled. Your cup is probably half empty because it's boring. Yeah.
And there's no creative resonance. Innovation will fall. It's muted.
And you know, I think a lot of executives say I'm fine, the business is good, but when your leadership energy falls flat, your vision goes with it.
Innovation is out the window.
And I think physically it shows up as that emotional numbness. It's not dramatic burnout, but it's detachment.
And so I think that threat becomes more and more real the longer you've been in a role.
So you set up your operational systems and it seems to be working and people aren't. There's no uprising internally because guess you're coasting but you're not investing. So you're not doing the business any good.
If you haven't on a daily or weekly or even monthly basis, if you haven't done anything that makes you feel proud, challenged, moved, uncomfortable, there's nothing to celebrate because you're drifting. And that's not what it means to be a leader.
And then you can imagine what effect that is having on all of the other people within the organization.
Your leadership role probably has much more flexibility to do things that can feed your excitement. A lot of people within organizations have very repetitive tasks or they're doing things like outreach to customers or interacting with customers who's not always pleasant, they need their cups filled. And so in order for them to continuously show up and feel supercharged, we need to, we need to have it in ourselves first and foremost. And then we need to create those environments. And oftentimes what I found, these are the things that I implement. Town halls, let's let's talk, let's get excited.
[00:35:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: Let's show them the course, where we've been, who contributed to that and where we're going.
And then the other massive thing that is our real development plans that go beyond. We're going to develop you to be the best version of Employee X to perform this role. I always say to the team, after we work together in this development plan, this is going to open up a whole myriad of opportunities, whether in this organization or elsewhere, because we're going to develop muscles and skills and superpowers that you're not currently exercising.
[00:36:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful. And I feel like in those answers you've given our viewers a lot of ideas of sort of what I would call almost like the macro view of how at a leadership level, a broader stroke across.
I'm wondering if you're open to sharing more. Just about. Yeah. Your own reprogramming of Tanya Bot. I'm also, you know, blessed to know well enough that you're also a relatively new mother. Not fresh. But that's also a huge, beautiful thing to celebrate. And even if you're open to sharing about how the journey of motherhood has impacted your own growth and leadership style.
[00:36:41] Speaker B: Yeah, that's been very eye opening for a few reasons. But I would say that I hit an autopilot mode when I really felt like I had developed people on the team to and put in systems so that we would operate at high capacity from an emotional intelligence point of view. We had implemented these weekly meditation sessions that, you know, people from across the world jumped onto Zooms. This was pre Covid. This is when Zoom wasn't such a thing.
And we meditated together.
We set out these vision boards of what we wanted to develop as a team across borders from Mexico to London to other parts of Latin America. And there were so many things that were in place and were starting to work really well and the business was running and I felt like I then was starting to just let it run and let it. And that's that you need to continuously be looking at. I had, I had paused, I put on pause my own growth and development and where I wanted to go as a leader, as an individual contributor and as a leader and where what I wanted to see in the next five to ten years for myself and for my team, it wasn't until I had to dig deep and realize I've got to now set up other systems. And that's when programs like peer to peer feedback, peer to peer mentorship and leadership for people who had Never led another human before in the workplace. Yeah, we were going to, we were going to fake it a bit so that they could learn those skills before, you know, the stakes were even higher where, you know, people were directly reporting to them. And so I had to, had to be imaginative and creative and think about other programs and systems that I would put in place to put my energy into a space which I had a ton of passion.
The bridge between that and motherhood.
Well, I spent, I was, I spent a few years on a plane almost, you know, every week.
And that took me to, directly to my teams to sit with them, talk with them, explore with them, develop.
And I had teams that were largely all female and a lot of them were going through pregnancy, motherhood, maternity leaves, and was celebrating that and hoping that was setting up systems and environments that would set them up for success. And now that I'm a consultant and running a boutique agency, I really want to put mothers first on the team because I can only see it through. My perspective is it's a very tough juggling act. And when you're working with organizations who do not have the flexibility that allow you to and trust you to leave work when you need to leave work for the sick child, pick them up, drop them off, you are creating again this environment that feels policed if I'm not there at my desk at 5 o', clock, therefore I'm not working, therefore I'm not producing results.
And really what it's done, Jesse, is made me scratch my head and look back at the last 15 years.
Did I set up those systems properly for not just mothers, but all parents in the organization to thrive at parenthood and being an employee?
[00:40:49] Speaker A: And there it is, right? The parenthood employee balance is the mind and heart balance. And the show is called Lead with Heart. Not to say don't lead with mind, please keep leading with mind. It's just that most of us are leading only with mind or with, with 90% mind and 10% heart. So I appreciate so much you bringing up the motherhood piece. I mean, obviously as a father of quite a few little ones, I love that and have so much respect for everything that mothers bring.
And yet I know it's difficult to balance all that. So thank you so much for opening all this. I want to keep it going. We'll be back very soon and when we get back, we are going to be looking deeper into coming back on when company values are just words, not actions. And this has to do with integrity and the embodiment, the follow through of how Our beliefs and our core values can ripple into our practices in business and our home life. So stay tuned. We'll be right back with more here on Lead with Heart on NOW Media Television.
We'll be right back with more insights, stories and practices to help you lead from your whole self. This is Lead with Heart on Now Media Television.
Hi, I'm Dr. Jesse Henson, and I'm inviting you to join me on Lead with Heart, a weekly show on NOW Media Television focused on awakening a new kind of leadership, one rooted in embodiment awareness and human connection.
Every episode of Lead with Heart goes beyond corporate models and surface metrics. We explore how the mind, body, relationships and culture contribute to transformative leadership. If you're a leader, healer, entrepreneur or innovator who brings a story of personal evolution, team impact, or leadership beyond the status quo, I'd love to feature you as a contributor.
Lead with Heart airs on NOW Media Television Networks, the first bilingual medial network in the US and it's also available on Roku TV, Apple TV, iHeartRadio, Sirius XM, and all major podcast platforms.
And we're back. I'm Dr. Jesse Hansen, and you're watching Lead with Heart on Now Media Television. Let's continue embracing leadership with presence and purpose.
Welcome back to Lead with Heart. Don't miss any future episodes. Stream all Now Media TV programming on Roku or iOS for podcast listeners. Catch every episode at www. Now Media TV.
All right, we're back with Tanya Vasano. Our final segment of today, and we're going to be looking deeper into when how much do our actions and words line up? When companies words and slogans don't necessarily match their actions? And so as we look deeper into that, I want to know from you, Tanya, what have you noticed? Is there any, let's call them, warning signs or things that maybe you've noticed as you either brought in or helping startup, whatever it's been, and you start to notice maybe yellow flags or little things where it's like, oh, these are in their core values and ethics. But I'm seeing, yeah, I saw your eyebrows go, so you're ready?
Go ahead.
[00:44:09] Speaker B: Well, I think companies have to be very careful that these values are real and not branding moments.
And the best test comes when the pressure is high. Are these values visible? Are they doubling down?
Because when it's messy, it's easy for people to go into that frenetic mode and the drive business results and let everything kind of slide by the wayside. Yeah, but those are the moments when if you want to achieve Unbelievable things.
You need people to be working at, you know, optimized efficiency. And optimized efficiency only happens when people feel connected, people are engaged, people are supported.
So, yeah, I think it's, you know, it's those moments where you need to double down and be more than just.
While we are diversity driven, we've got a policy on it.
We do value people. We give them Friday half days in the summer.
Those aren't enough to make people feel valued and supported. And, you know, again, those might feel like soft, soft characteristics, but they're incredibly important even to, you know, to draw, not just to make people feel good. That's great. We want that. But people feeling good means that they're producing at an unbelievably higher level.
[00:45:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I think hearing you say that makes me think about from the. A neuroscientific place that we often say that, you know, embodied knowledge is wisdom. And in this sense, if. If our slogans and our core values don't match up with our actions, it would be like, hey, there's this great little piece of knowledge or branding ip. The embodied wisdom part of it has to do with do we really practice what we preach? And while I agree with you that, you know, maybe Fridays off in the summers is. Is probably not enough, I would say it's. It's less about a certain quantity of like, you must spend 500,000 a year on the soft stuff. It's more about how it is presented and how it's held. If each of those half Fridays is also coupled with an option to do a, you know, an embodiment meditation or a family picnic or whatever it is, you know, I think it's. I like that idea of what you're saying and offer kind of that balance of. It's not as much about the quantity, but the quality and how, how the leaders communicate that and hopefully, you know, walk that talk. Right.
[00:46:58] Speaker B: That's right. Yeah. I mean, you talked about trust.
And my first ever Leadership 360 review.
I had solicited input from people that not only were going to be my champions and cheerleaders, but people I had friction with because I really, really wanted to grow and identify where the pain points were, what I needed to work on.
But the first thing that came back, it was brutal. It was a very brutal, brutal 360. But I did grow from it. However, the first thing that came back was that people trusted me and I thought as long as they trust me, we can work on everything else. It didn't, you know, I Didn't mean to like throw everything else out the window and celebrate the trust factor.
But it's if you lack a foundation of trust and you will lose that trust very quickly if you don't embrace, embody the values you know and that are on your mission statement that are you, you have to walk the walk.
And you need to know if, you know, Friday, half days, if that's what's motivating and allowing your team to recharge so they come back. Because what happens when you instill all of these things within an organization?
Your equity with individuals rises and people's loyalty and commitment rises because you've given to them, you've invested in them.
So get the feedback. Get honest, hard hitting feedback from your teams, from people within the organization and then do something with it.
Don't just, you know, crumple it up in a ball and say, damn it, you know, we missed that mark. Yeah, do something about it and show them that. Listen, it was uncomfortable for us to hear that all the things we thought we were doing well, we were landing flat. Yeah, here's what we're going to do is we're going to, we're going to admit, you know, hey, they didn't work. We tried, they didn't work. And we're going to work with you to put something else in place. I think it's that when you, when you show. Go back to the vulnerability piece. Yeah, we tried and we, you know, we didn't hit the mark, but here's what we're going to do. And we solicited your feedback.
I'll stop there.
[00:49:36] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's perfect. Again, thank you so much wisdom. And you're also speaking to one of the other little touch points I was hoping to hit in the segment, which is called emotional intelligence, in this case, relational emotional intelligence, which is the things of, you know, one example is if I'm, if I'm leading in a way that others can't really follow me, even if it's a great thing I'm doing, but I'm doing in a way that my team can't stay in that rhythm or it's too fast or too slow or whatever, that's an example of sort of where the relational intelligence comes in and being able to, you know, attune is the, is the clinical word we would use to say, how's your attunement skills? And if we are left brain junkies and always operating in the mind as opposed to the heart, guess what? Our attunement skills are usually Pretty low because we're living in a story, a perception of either, you know, future projection, usually of what, what we are imagining about this person. Whereas if we learn how to embody all of this, which takes the personal work, which I know that that's how you've earned the new wonderful, much more embodied person. No, no longer Tanya bot. And I think it's also beautiful to, if you could speak to this for our viewers to hear that, you know, matching your words and your actions.
Yeah. Who are you now and what do you, you know, the difference of Tanya Bhat And I'm pretty sure it's fair to say you still have the best of Tanya Bhat within you. You're still highly functional, you're still doing amazing things in the world, yet you are so much more connected to your heart. So I wonder if we could just get a few minutes on that before we bring this all to a close today. I would love to Azada to be a closing share from you.
[00:51:11] Speaker B: I will say that especially people who lead with their left brain, the people who, that's their safety, that's their comfort zone.
You, you still, you still will catch yourself defaulting there.
Especially like I keep going back to when the stakes are high, you go back to what feels safe.
It's a continuous evolution and commitment to, to impact people in a positive way.
It's communicating clearly and effectively to every single person on the team, not just the people who are your direct reports, the most junior people, they don't understand all the strategies. That's okay. They feel important being part of the process.
It's then mapping out what you do is incredibly important, you know, to the overall mission.
So I've really worked very hard on communicating, being transparent.
I was, you know, in that early day360 feedback ultimately to call it down, it was, I was on a speedboat racing away and I left the whole team behind. And when, when the person who was helping me walk through my, my, my review used that analogy, I started to cry and I realized my impact did not match my intent. There is no way that is not me. That's not what I plan to do. It's not how I wanted to lead. And that image I keep coming back to all the time.
Everybody on the boat, it's not me doing the work, it's they're doing the work.
I'm supporting them.
And it's communication, it's feedback, it's you.
[00:53:22] Speaker A: You also took the time to slow down and know thyself deeper and that helped you gain more attunement skills to be able to then drive the speedboat at a pace that everyone could enjoy the ride.
[00:53:36] Speaker B: Exactly. Now we're all on the boat and we're having fun on the boat.
[00:53:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:39] Speaker B: But I had to. Do you know that in the earliest days of my leadership, I would get in the office and race to my desk, pull off my coat, coffee in hand, and get on the computer. I didn't even spend time going around the room and talking to people or just saying good morning. I thought that was a time waster.
And I'm shameful. I'm ashamed to say that because people wanted just a hello. And when you show up as a leader in an ambiguous state, everybody goes left.
[00:54:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:54:13] Speaker B: What did I do? Why didn't she say hi? She just walked by me.
[00:54:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:54:17] Speaker B: Well, it's not, yeah. It's not about me and what's going on in me. It's about I've got to show up. And so this is, I, you know, through work with, with, you know, that we've done.
It's a constant practice. I have to give myself my own feedback.
[00:54:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Wow.
[00:54:35] Speaker B: Go back to it.
[00:54:37] Speaker A: Oh, I'm so sorry to jump in. It's such beautiful shares you're bringing. We're going to come to our next break here, but it's to say that. Yeah, thank you. And that's a great example of where you knowing thyself deeper helps your attunement skills increase to be able to recognize. Wow. Yeah. That that human element actually does have value. And though it's not immediate direct into a profit or sale, it helps cultivate the environment in which that can happen at such a better level. So I cannot thank you enough for joining us today on Lead with Heart. Tanya. And yeah, I want to make sure our viewers know how to keep in touch with you. So one more time, if you could just let them know how to find you. What's the easiest way and anything else you want to say as closing thoughts or wisdom.
[00:55:15] Speaker B: Well, I would love to say thank you, Jesse. The work we've done together has shaped me as a leader and that allows me to show up every day with a pride.
And I've, you know, translated that into motherhood.
So I, I, I really do appreciate all of that. That is priceless and invaluable.
[00:55:38] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:55:39] Speaker B: And so if anyone wants to work with us, I'm. I can be reached through LinkedIn. Tanya Visano V I S A N O and our website, vanomanagement.com. thank you so much for this opportunity. Jesse, it's been amazing.
[00:55:54] Speaker A: Such a blessing. Thank you as well. Very, very lovely having you here. And we'll be keeping in touch. Thank you, Tanya.
All right, everyone.
Well, that brings us to a wrap of this episode on LEAD with Heart. Thank you so much. And I encourage you to keep reflecting on today's themes around alignment of action in words, connection of the mind and the heart connection of yourself to others, and continue to explore really what is the unseen value of leading with heart. So please stay tuned for more on NOW Media Television. This has been Lead with Heart with your host, Dr. Jesse Hansen.
