Atlanta Women Leaders Association Chapter Meeting: Resilience in Leadership
Chantal Dion of Boston Scientific discusses resilience in leadership at the Atlanta Women Leaders Association chapter meeting.
Transcript
Shantel, can you please say hello? Hi everyone and Ginger, thank you so much for a nice um introduction. I um wanted to just give you guys a little bit of background on myself and I won't read everything off the PowerPoint now or in the rest of my presentation, but I have been in the medical device industry for 24 years. Um it's an industry that is only still to this day 26% women u at most. And so I have been with Boston Scientific for about seven years. One of very few female leaders in my division of neurom modulation which is spinal cord surgery. I work with neurosurgeons and anesthesiologists. Manage a team in four states uh covering Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia.
And um prior to being with Boston Scientific, I had been at multiple startup companies. um one of the first 20 people hired at two companies that IPOed and uh started way back in Brooklyn back in 2000 um with an injectable oncology product. So um lots of experience in this industry. I don't have a lot of experience outside of medical device, but uh it's something I love. I love working in healthcare. I love working with uh my team and being a people leader. So, I picked the topic today and if you want to um go to the next slide, Ginger, um resilience and leadership and navigating challenges, inspiring growth for for a couple of reasons, right? 2024, uh has been quite the year just from a company perspective and a personal perspective.
Um and I realize how important it is to not just be resilient, but to inspire others throughout like hard times, personal times. We all have issues where we are trying to be our best professional self, but there's also the personal that, you know, of course affects our everyday lives. So, it's kind of why I chose this topic. Um, I lost my one of my parents this year, my father, and then we've acquired another company and then we're integrating that. So, there's just been so much change and where I've had to really lean on things that I think could benefit everyone um from talking about. So, I'm ready for the next slide. And if anyone has any questions or want to jump in at any point, please feel free to put them in the chat.
I'll keep looking over to the right and um happy to answer any questions and connect after this. So, what is resilience and leadership? Well, this is really the textbook definition, right? That if you pulled up Webster, this is what you're going to come up with, right? It's the ability to adapt and thrive in the face of adversity and change, right? We all know that we have to do that in our daily lives a lot and in our professional lives. the ability to bounce back from setbacks and maintain that mental and emotional well-being. So key. Um and then of course resiliency allows individuals to cope with the stress, overcome our obstacles, and rise above challenges leading to greater professional and personal success.
So that's the that's the definition, and we're just going to dive into ways throughout this um presentation on how we can do that. So next slide. So why does it matter right? Why does it really matter? Um if you guys are people leaders or are inspiring others um in some in some manner in your professions um being a resilient leader can help with team morale and productivity. Um it promotes long-term success and sustainability for your teams and it can impact your overall organizational performance and resilient organizations. So specifically I work for I told you Boston Scientific Brazilian organizations prosper in the face of change to tell you there's been a lot of changes in the last um seven years since I've I've been at Boston.
I uh we've acquired multiple companies and so with that we've acquired entire teams and the integrations. Um so it's it's super important that as a company we're resilient and and we're acknowledging the changes so we can prosper throughout them. Next slide please.
So, some key characteristics of resilient leaders, and feel free to add some in the chat. Um, these are some of the ones that I kind of went through and thought about. Um, but adaptability is a big one, right? Like there's people that we know if you've ever done one of those um DISC profiles, there's some people that just aren't geared towards being adaptable. And so maybe they're not the best at people leader, being a people leader or, you know, being a resilient leader, but you have to be able to pivot and you have to be able to adjust to the changes because it's the only constant in any of our lives, right? Is the changes that we're facing every day.
Having a high EQ or that emotional intelligence um super important, right? We're we're dealing with individuals and oftentimes um especially in what what I do, they're not necessarily just like me, right? I tend to be um more emotive. I tend to be more empathetic, definitely authentic. And so being able to go to a meeting and deal with different types of people. Um it it's it just helps me to continue to grow as a leader and help my team grow. Uh the ability to manage emotions and maintain composure under pressure. Guys, I can tell you that there are times when I have been excellent at this where I am like definitely that duck on the water with the feet paddling underneath.
And there are times where I have abymally failed at being able to manage emotions um and maintain my composure under pressure, right? And all of that, you know, I could take those times and just beat myself up for the times I wasn't as good of a leader as, you know, able to maintain my emotions and maintain composure um under pressure. But I'm able to instead look back because I am adaptable. look back and go, okay, what are takeaways here? Like in the future, what would I have done different? Right? And I'm just going to tell you a quick story of something that happened earlier this year. Um, I was at a national sales meeting. So, any of you that have been in a big industry may have national meetings and I was at one of them and it was right after my father had died.
And I don't know what I was thinking. I don't know if anyone's had any kind of grief or loss. um take time for yourself afterwards but I really didn't and my mother was also going through cancer treatments and she had had a mistctomy two days before this meeting right so within a six week span lost my father and wasn't sure if my mother was going to be alive in a few months um and I went to this meeting and the first day was fine and I was like Johnny on the spot able to talk to all the leaders got up did presentations uh engaged in the whole room had a couple things happen within my team one of my team members didn't show up for a surgery.
So, it was just like a lot of pressure. And then the next day, I I couldn't I couldn't get out of my room. I couldn't come down from my hotel room to the presentation I was supposed to be giving. And fortunately for me, I have built um built a a network of female, you know, mostly female, right? Uh leaders that support me. And I was able to reach out to one and then speak to another and then you know engage my local community at my company to say I really I shouldn't be at this meeting. I shouldn't come to this meeting. And um being able to maintain composure under pressure while I wasn't able to come down and present.
I was able to reach out to my network and get home, take care of myself, take some time off, regroup. And so far I'm leading my team to exceptional growth this year. Um, but I look at that experience and that story is something that it's like I've been a leader for 24 years. Well, I've been a leader for most of my 24 years. Like four years that I became a manager and I learned from that, right? And I hope that it inspired my team members and the people that report to me that when they're having a hard time in life to identify it, raise their hand, say, you know what, I'm not okay and it's okay to not be okay.
Um, and so I I share that story just letting you know there's, like I said, there's times where I've been exceptional at it. And there's times where really I was not able to be, but you're going to be put into um situations where where you've never experienced the stressors in your life that are there. And it's it's important to have, you know, those those networks. Um, cultural competency. I agree that's super important. Um, and I'd love to expand on that and I don't have that anywhere in my slides and I feel like that's a big miss. But, um, you know, I'm I'm very aware of the male female ratio in my industry, but cultural compos competency would also be important.
So, um, moving on to like visionary thinking, you have to be able to think outside the box as a resilient leader. There's going to be changes that come down and you essentially become the umbrella, right? For, you know, especially people leaders like we have to become the umbrella. So our team gets the information they need, but not so much information that is overwhelming for them, right? Because there's things that are coming that I know about acquisitions in the future that would take their eye off the prize of what they have to do now. And so you have to be able to to really think outside the box and seeing the opportunities and the challenge, right? There's always challenges.
We're always going through things in our professional and our personal lives and we should be able to um see the opportunities in that. And then being inspiring to others. I think this is so important. Um I think about the people that inspire me, leaders that I have worked with that have inspired me and the leaders that have completely like shut me down. And and I don't mean they've shut me down, but like I shut down around them because they're not inspiring, right? They're they're dominant. They don't listen. They don't hear. They have no empathy. And when I'm not sure what to do in a situation, I really look towards what would the people that have inspired me as a leader do?
Um or even sometimes like what exactly would be the opposite of what some of my the worst leaders I worked with would have done. So moving on to the next slide. So some of the ways that we could build resiliency in leadership are self-reflection and assessments, right? like being able to be self-aware, understanding your personal strengths and areas for growth, right? I experienced that like I just in that story I told you in just this year like things that I can grow, knowing when when enough is enough, knowing when I need to take a break, step back. Um, developing strong relationships. This has helped me so much in my career. Uh I have I have mentors from gosh 15 years ago that I still speak to regularly.
Um having those mentors is so super important. So if you don't have any mentors or people that um you have strong relationships with in your workspace, I encourage you to to really start working on that because it helps to help you become more resil resilient. Um and then continuous self-directed learning. You know, I think most of us have time, whether it's the commute to work, commute to our accounts, commute to what we're doing, picking up our kids, you know, whatever it is, there's a podcast for almost anything you want to learn about. And so, you don't necessarily have to be signing up for courses, but at Boston, they they do pay for us to take classes.
If we want to take classes, if you have those opportunities, that's fantastic. But there's no reason in today's day and age not to be continuously, you know, trying to learn more about how you can grow and be better and be the best version of yourself. So, and that last that last bullet point, embracing a growth mindset. Um, some of the best leaders that I've seen are so open to the changes that are coming, right? Um, and the ones that aren't, um, I could give an example of just this past year again with someone else. um he's a leader and he's just doesn't understand social media and doesn't want to understand and doesn't want to communicate that way and he sends emails to his team.
Well, most of my team members are under 35 years old. In fact, more than half of my team is sub 30. And so I don't send emails unless I have to. Most of my communication is done through text or video. video talks, FaceTime, recording a quick video, sending it out. So, the world is changing. The world I've been operating in for 24 years has drastically changed. And the way I have to communicate with my team also has had to change. So, I think that's super important to have a growth mindset in whatever area that you all are in. Um, make sure you're open to the world that's changing around you. So, next slide, please.
So, some strategies for enhancing u resilience and things that I've done personally um practice such as mindfulness and meditation. I'm really lucky to work for Boston. We have a whole mindfulness tab on our homepages. We um offer meditation. We offer yoga classes. If you're in corporate, you could take them. But um during COVID times like we were all working from home all the time and I was asked to lead meditations. I got a certification in meditation. I got a certification in yoga like all the things to help with like stress management. Um if you can do those things I do find them super helpful. Effective communication skill learnings. Everyone on my team is different. each person needs to be communicated to in a different and individual way and it's important to be able to adapt to that um and being clear and transparent with those communications.
Um I have to trust my team because most of my employees are remote. I don't work with them every day. I don't go into an office. I work from home. Um and I do go into the field and have meetings with them. But covering four states and you know 14 representatives, it's really hard to be in the field with them all the time. So hire right and empower those people with the tasks that you've hired them for and delegate when you can. Right? This is how you're going to be able to not burn out, but also you're going to build up the people that are reporting to you. So trusting those team members and distributing those responsibilities.
Um, I had a conversation with one of my direct reports today and it was one of the conversations we had like he's like what can I do to be better and we launched into a whole like what kind of courses he wants to take and you know things that I've observed in the fields and it was a fantastic conversation. So um don't burn yourself out as a leader. It's important that you're resilient but that resiliency includes mindfulness and making sure that you're taking care of yourself and filling your cup first.
So, did I ever use FaceTime for a client meeting? Um, yes, all the time. So, we I mean we'll do Teams, right, or Zoom. So, that's often. And that started happening a lot during uh COVID. So, I could dive more into that at the end. I'll just like power through this PowerPoint and we can talk more about that. But I find it's, you know, the whole world is used to communicating now this way, right? Where we're not in person, but we're all going to be communicating with each other in some fashion. Um, so yeah, I've done FaceTime with clients. I've done Zooms, um, Teams, meetings, uh, any way that you can connect and see them so they can read your body language.
I talk with my hands a lot. Um, if they know me, they know that. So, it's it's better than being over the phone. Um, and because I have a four-state area, it's it's really a lot easier to jump on some kind of uh tool where we're using, you know, face-to-face communication than it is to just be over the phone. So, next slide, please, Ginger. I hope that answered your your question, Racha. So, practical applications um implementing resilience into your leadership style. It can promote an encouraging culture where challenges are viewed as opportunities. Um, right now one of our competitors is acquiring companies. I'm watching it happen. And they're not a direct competitor yet, but they're about to be.
And I know this just by who they're hiring, what they're acquiring, and just like word on the street, right? Does the bigger corporate culture know yet what's coming? They have an idea. They know that this is happening, but um, you know, my team is ready. like we are fully prepared. We know we know what those teams are about. We have personal relationships with our accounts, with our physicians. Um, and so as much as it's causing a little bit of stress in other areas, I know in my team we're ready for it. We're ready to compete against what's happening in the market and what's coming in the next two years. Um, encouraging open dialogues in a safe space to share ideas.
So, as a leader, I think one of the things I do really well is I listen. And um it's important that you listen and keep things as a safe space, right? I don't feel like I should have to say this part, but like there's nothing worse than a leader that talks to their subordinates or their direct reports and then shares that personal information with another direct report, right? That that should never happen. um or leaders that talk poorly of other people at the company and other leaders. Uh it just makes you look bad when you when you talk about others. It says more about you than it does about yourself, you know, about those people. So, I make sure that there's a safe space.
And when I tell you that I've heard all manners of things from I think my wife is cheating on me to um I had too much to drink and I, you know, made a bad decision and drove and you know was struggling with that. I've had all kinds of conversations with my direct reports and it stays in a safe space. Um, and hopefully it makes them better, but I know that my team, the team that I have right now, there's so much trust and there's so much support and everyone's willing to help each other. Um, we're not I'm not just a resilient leader, but I have built a resilient team that I could I was able to step back for six weeks, take some time for myself, and know that they were able to self-manage and and handle what was happening without me being the leader at the time.
Um, and it's really a great thing to see. Um, that's a great question. I'm going to come back to that in a second. Let me just finish up these little bullet points. Um, celebrate efforts and learnings, even those that come from failure, right? Uh I' I've been very candid with my team about my need to step back back in uh March and the why and you know the learnings I got from that but some of their my own failures in like numbers or you know things I could have done better they all know like I know that I'm always working on my strengths and weaknesses and so they do as well and so sometimes they'll just share something like they went into an account they tried to have this conversation with a neurosurgeon and they were shut down and we do that on a Zoom call with you know all 15 of us and no one feels like like um you know like a loser.
They feel like okay if I share this then someone else isn't going to do it or maybe they're going to give me some feedback on how I can do it better next time or what they've done to be more successful. So, you know, celebrate those efforts, right? The wins and and and the the misses, right? Because um those are ways that we're going to grow. And like like I said, I I've shared my own setbacks with them um as opportunities for growth moments and throughout my career. So, being relatable, being authentic is um I think it's paramount to being a good leader, but also to being a resilient leader. So in the chat there's a question that says how much should you share with co-workers if you're struggling.
I think that this is an individual right case by case. I I didn't share broadly what was happening like people had known my father had passed away right because um because they did I had to take a couple days off and then um when my mom was going through her surgery everyone knew my mom was going through cancer treatments because I was flying down to take her to chemo appointments but um you know I kind of kept it tight like I didn't go to like leadership and tell them I spoke to my peers and my peer people uh that I trusted and to HR. So HR knew what was happening which that morning when I realized I couldn't get up and speak in front of you know so many people because at that moment at the national meeting I really just didn't care.
I knew I wasn't going to be able to get up and talk about our newest programming for spinal cord stimulators because my heart wasn't in it. My head wasn't in it. It didn't matter to me at that point. Right. what mattered to me was my family and the loss. And so I spoke to someone that I really trusted and um we went right to HR and it was taken care of and it was you know it was kind of kept tight like everyone knew I was going through stuff but um I would say that's an individual thing what you want to share with your co-workers. I wouldn't overshare right especially if you don't have a good relationship.
this is someone that I've worked with now for six plus years and um I knew I could trust her. Um and then for my direct reports, they all knew what was happening because because I you know I talk to them all the time. But I think it's important you know that you know who you can trust and you know who you're talking to. Um and just you know make sure you're taking care of yourself, guys, because it's it's hard out there. there's just so many changes and you know what's going on out in the world and everyone is being affected differently by a multitude of things. So um no next slide please Ginger I hope that answers your question as well.
So in conclusion um resilient leaders are better equipped to navigate uncertainty. I really believe in that. Right? If you if you know you can overcome anything that it doesn't matter what's thrown at you. you just do the right thing and the right outcomes are going to are going to happen. Um, foster that mindset that views challenges as opportunities for innovation. Like I said, like me changing to a social media type of platform to talk to my team while there's other leaders that are like absolutely not. Well, how's that email working for you? Because I don't think people are opening it. Um, instill confidence and a sense of stability within your teams. Um, we often are better at managing stress and our composure.
Like I said, I' I've done all the things. I have all the trainings and I still fell apart. Rightfully so, right? Like those are if anyone that has experienced like like I said that kind of loss and grief. Um until you experience it, you don't know how to handle it. But I will know how to handle it in the future and have since had direct reports that have had great loss. Um and I'm much better at supporting them, right? like I am the person now that like anyone could come to with grief and I am like send them my way. So um and the last bit is we're better at building trust and loyalty, right? So resilient leaders are better at doing that.
Um authentic leadership, I think there's going to be a whole presentation on that. I think that's they're they're they're neck and neck. They're so tied together. Um and yeah, so that's those are like the the key points and um we could go to the next slide for Q&A, but I just wanted to say thank you guys for taking the time to join and listen. Um there's in the chat um there's employee assistant professional and I coach employees and leaderships not to disclose very personal issues such as cheating spouses or substance abuse issues. Okay. Um to who? I mean, I I guess as a manager, these are things that if it's affecting performance and especially in sales, like if it's something that's affecting my sales team, I need to know about it so that I can help navigate it.
So, I'm going to give you an example of someone on my team that uh had disclosed a bit of a drinking problem. And that's an issue, right? Because we're out entertaining and we're taking physicians out. And so like we had agreed to like limit his drinking and how he was going to drive and things of that nature. Um basically we did an intervention. So um I think it's important that they do disclose those things. And again this is just me as a people leader. I'm not an EAP program. But I guess it would really depend on too who the manager is that you're reporting to because some managers might use it against you. I guess um I certainly wouldn't and I actually did refer um him to the EAP program in our company for help for counseling.
We have so many offerings. I think Boston Scientific is a phenomenal company to work for. There are so many benefits to working here. Um but it was important that he disclosed those things because had he not I couldn't have helped him, right? And he may not have realized the resources were there. So, um, okay, thank you. I am going to investigate that. So, if anyone has any questions, um, feel free to put them in the chat. But again, I just wanted to thank you all for taking the time to join today and to listen to me talk about this. Um, and I hope to connect with you all uh through LinkedIn or if you're, you know, we do anything in person in the greater Atlanta area, I would love to be there.
So, thank you. Ginger, that's concludes my slide presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You guys are great. Well, Shantel, thank you so much for your time to present to us today. Thank you.
And um prior to being with Boston Scientific, I had been at multiple startup companies. um one of the first 20 people hired at two companies that IPOed and uh started way back in Brooklyn back in 2000 um with an injectable oncology product. So um lots of experience in this industry. I don't have a lot of experience outside of medical device, but uh it's something I love. I love working in healthcare. I love working with uh my team and being a people leader. So, I picked the topic today and if you want to um go to the next slide, Ginger, um resilience and leadership and navigating challenges, inspiring growth for for a couple of reasons, right? 2024, uh has been quite the year just from a company perspective and a personal perspective.
Um and I realize how important it is to not just be resilient, but to inspire others throughout like hard times, personal times. We all have issues where we are trying to be our best professional self, but there's also the personal that, you know, of course affects our everyday lives. So, it's kind of why I chose this topic. Um, I lost my one of my parents this year, my father, and then we've acquired another company and then we're integrating that. So, there's just been so much change and where I've had to really lean on things that I think could benefit everyone um from talking about. So, I'm ready for the next slide. And if anyone has any questions or want to jump in at any point, please feel free to put them in the chat.
I'll keep looking over to the right and um happy to answer any questions and connect after this. So, what is resilience and leadership? Well, this is really the textbook definition, right? That if you pulled up Webster, this is what you're going to come up with, right? It's the ability to adapt and thrive in the face of adversity and change, right? We all know that we have to do that in our daily lives a lot and in our professional lives. the ability to bounce back from setbacks and maintain that mental and emotional well-being. So key. Um and then of course resiliency allows individuals to cope with the stress, overcome our obstacles, and rise above challenges leading to greater professional and personal success.
So that's the that's the definition, and we're just going to dive into ways throughout this um presentation on how we can do that. So next slide. So why does it matter right? Why does it really matter? Um if you guys are people leaders or are inspiring others um in some in some manner in your professions um being a resilient leader can help with team morale and productivity. Um it promotes long-term success and sustainability for your teams and it can impact your overall organizational performance and resilient organizations. So specifically I work for I told you Boston Scientific Brazilian organizations prosper in the face of change to tell you there's been a lot of changes in the last um seven years since I've I've been at Boston.
I uh we've acquired multiple companies and so with that we've acquired entire teams and the integrations. Um so it's it's super important that as a company we're resilient and and we're acknowledging the changes so we can prosper throughout them. Next slide please.
So, some key characteristics of resilient leaders, and feel free to add some in the chat. Um, these are some of the ones that I kind of went through and thought about. Um, but adaptability is a big one, right? Like there's people that we know if you've ever done one of those um DISC profiles, there's some people that just aren't geared towards being adaptable. And so maybe they're not the best at people leader, being a people leader or, you know, being a resilient leader, but you have to be able to pivot and you have to be able to adjust to the changes because it's the only constant in any of our lives, right? Is the changes that we're facing every day.
Having a high EQ or that emotional intelligence um super important, right? We're we're dealing with individuals and oftentimes um especially in what what I do, they're not necessarily just like me, right? I tend to be um more emotive. I tend to be more empathetic, definitely authentic. And so being able to go to a meeting and deal with different types of people. Um it it's it just helps me to continue to grow as a leader and help my team grow. Uh the ability to manage emotions and maintain composure under pressure. Guys, I can tell you that there are times when I have been excellent at this where I am like definitely that duck on the water with the feet paddling underneath.
And there are times where I have abymally failed at being able to manage emotions um and maintain my composure under pressure, right? And all of that, you know, I could take those times and just beat myself up for the times I wasn't as good of a leader as, you know, able to maintain my emotions and maintain composure um under pressure. But I'm able to instead look back because I am adaptable. look back and go, okay, what are takeaways here? Like in the future, what would I have done different? Right? And I'm just going to tell you a quick story of something that happened earlier this year. Um, I was at a national sales meeting. So, any of you that have been in a big industry may have national meetings and I was at one of them and it was right after my father had died.
And I don't know what I was thinking. I don't know if anyone's had any kind of grief or loss. um take time for yourself afterwards but I really didn't and my mother was also going through cancer treatments and she had had a mistctomy two days before this meeting right so within a six week span lost my father and wasn't sure if my mother was going to be alive in a few months um and I went to this meeting and the first day was fine and I was like Johnny on the spot able to talk to all the leaders got up did presentations uh engaged in the whole room had a couple things happen within my team one of my team members didn't show up for a surgery.
So, it was just like a lot of pressure. And then the next day, I I couldn't I couldn't get out of my room. I couldn't come down from my hotel room to the presentation I was supposed to be giving. And fortunately for me, I have built um built a a network of female, you know, mostly female, right? Uh leaders that support me. And I was able to reach out to one and then speak to another and then you know engage my local community at my company to say I really I shouldn't be at this meeting. I shouldn't come to this meeting. And um being able to maintain composure under pressure while I wasn't able to come down and present.
I was able to reach out to my network and get home, take care of myself, take some time off, regroup. And so far I'm leading my team to exceptional growth this year. Um, but I look at that experience and that story is something that it's like I've been a leader for 24 years. Well, I've been a leader for most of my 24 years. Like four years that I became a manager and I learned from that, right? And I hope that it inspired my team members and the people that report to me that when they're having a hard time in life to identify it, raise their hand, say, you know what, I'm not okay and it's okay to not be okay.
Um, and so I I share that story just letting you know there's, like I said, there's times where I've been exceptional at it. And there's times where really I was not able to be, but you're going to be put into um situations where where you've never experienced the stressors in your life that are there. And it's it's important to have, you know, those those networks. Um, cultural competency. I agree that's super important. Um, and I'd love to expand on that and I don't have that anywhere in my slides and I feel like that's a big miss. But, um, you know, I'm I'm very aware of the male female ratio in my industry, but cultural compos competency would also be important.
So, um, moving on to like visionary thinking, you have to be able to think outside the box as a resilient leader. There's going to be changes that come down and you essentially become the umbrella, right? For, you know, especially people leaders like we have to become the umbrella. So our team gets the information they need, but not so much information that is overwhelming for them, right? Because there's things that are coming that I know about acquisitions in the future that would take their eye off the prize of what they have to do now. And so you have to be able to to really think outside the box and seeing the opportunities and the challenge, right? There's always challenges.
We're always going through things in our professional and our personal lives and we should be able to um see the opportunities in that. And then being inspiring to others. I think this is so important. Um I think about the people that inspire me, leaders that I have worked with that have inspired me and the leaders that have completely like shut me down. And and I don't mean they've shut me down, but like I shut down around them because they're not inspiring, right? They're they're dominant. They don't listen. They don't hear. They have no empathy. And when I'm not sure what to do in a situation, I really look towards what would the people that have inspired me as a leader do?
Um or even sometimes like what exactly would be the opposite of what some of my the worst leaders I worked with would have done. So moving on to the next slide. So some of the ways that we could build resiliency in leadership are self-reflection and assessments, right? like being able to be self-aware, understanding your personal strengths and areas for growth, right? I experienced that like I just in that story I told you in just this year like things that I can grow, knowing when when enough is enough, knowing when I need to take a break, step back. Um, developing strong relationships. This has helped me so much in my career. Uh I have I have mentors from gosh 15 years ago that I still speak to regularly.
Um having those mentors is so super important. So if you don't have any mentors or people that um you have strong relationships with in your workspace, I encourage you to to really start working on that because it helps to help you become more resil resilient. Um and then continuous self-directed learning. You know, I think most of us have time, whether it's the commute to work, commute to our accounts, commute to what we're doing, picking up our kids, you know, whatever it is, there's a podcast for almost anything you want to learn about. And so, you don't necessarily have to be signing up for courses, but at Boston, they they do pay for us to take classes.
If we want to take classes, if you have those opportunities, that's fantastic. But there's no reason in today's day and age not to be continuously, you know, trying to learn more about how you can grow and be better and be the best version of yourself. So, and that last that last bullet point, embracing a growth mindset. Um, some of the best leaders that I've seen are so open to the changes that are coming, right? Um, and the ones that aren't, um, I could give an example of just this past year again with someone else. um he's a leader and he's just doesn't understand social media and doesn't want to understand and doesn't want to communicate that way and he sends emails to his team.
Well, most of my team members are under 35 years old. In fact, more than half of my team is sub 30. And so I don't send emails unless I have to. Most of my communication is done through text or video. video talks, FaceTime, recording a quick video, sending it out. So, the world is changing. The world I've been operating in for 24 years has drastically changed. And the way I have to communicate with my team also has had to change. So, I think that's super important to have a growth mindset in whatever area that you all are in. Um, make sure you're open to the world that's changing around you. So, next slide, please.
So, some strategies for enhancing u resilience and things that I've done personally um practice such as mindfulness and meditation. I'm really lucky to work for Boston. We have a whole mindfulness tab on our homepages. We um offer meditation. We offer yoga classes. If you're in corporate, you could take them. But um during COVID times like we were all working from home all the time and I was asked to lead meditations. I got a certification in meditation. I got a certification in yoga like all the things to help with like stress management. Um if you can do those things I do find them super helpful. Effective communication skill learnings. Everyone on my team is different. each person needs to be communicated to in a different and individual way and it's important to be able to adapt to that um and being clear and transparent with those communications.
Um I have to trust my team because most of my employees are remote. I don't work with them every day. I don't go into an office. I work from home. Um and I do go into the field and have meetings with them. But covering four states and you know 14 representatives, it's really hard to be in the field with them all the time. So hire right and empower those people with the tasks that you've hired them for and delegate when you can. Right? This is how you're going to be able to not burn out, but also you're going to build up the people that are reporting to you. So trusting those team members and distributing those responsibilities.
Um, I had a conversation with one of my direct reports today and it was one of the conversations we had like he's like what can I do to be better and we launched into a whole like what kind of courses he wants to take and you know things that I've observed in the fields and it was a fantastic conversation. So um don't burn yourself out as a leader. It's important that you're resilient but that resiliency includes mindfulness and making sure that you're taking care of yourself and filling your cup first.
So, did I ever use FaceTime for a client meeting? Um, yes, all the time. So, we I mean we'll do Teams, right, or Zoom. So, that's often. And that started happening a lot during uh COVID. So, I could dive more into that at the end. I'll just like power through this PowerPoint and we can talk more about that. But I find it's, you know, the whole world is used to communicating now this way, right? Where we're not in person, but we're all going to be communicating with each other in some fashion. Um, so yeah, I've done FaceTime with clients. I've done Zooms, um, Teams, meetings, uh, any way that you can connect and see them so they can read your body language.
I talk with my hands a lot. Um, if they know me, they know that. So, it's it's better than being over the phone. Um, and because I have a four-state area, it's it's really a lot easier to jump on some kind of uh tool where we're using, you know, face-to-face communication than it is to just be over the phone. So, next slide, please, Ginger. I hope that answered your your question, Racha. So, practical applications um implementing resilience into your leadership style. It can promote an encouraging culture where challenges are viewed as opportunities. Um, right now one of our competitors is acquiring companies. I'm watching it happen. And they're not a direct competitor yet, but they're about to be.
And I know this just by who they're hiring, what they're acquiring, and just like word on the street, right? Does the bigger corporate culture know yet what's coming? They have an idea. They know that this is happening, but um, you know, my team is ready. like we are fully prepared. We know we know what those teams are about. We have personal relationships with our accounts, with our physicians. Um, and so as much as it's causing a little bit of stress in other areas, I know in my team we're ready for it. We're ready to compete against what's happening in the market and what's coming in the next two years. Um, encouraging open dialogues in a safe space to share ideas.
So, as a leader, I think one of the things I do really well is I listen. And um it's important that you listen and keep things as a safe space, right? I don't feel like I should have to say this part, but like there's nothing worse than a leader that talks to their subordinates or their direct reports and then shares that personal information with another direct report, right? That that should never happen. um or leaders that talk poorly of other people at the company and other leaders. Uh it just makes you look bad when you when you talk about others. It says more about you than it does about yourself, you know, about those people. So, I make sure that there's a safe space.
And when I tell you that I've heard all manners of things from I think my wife is cheating on me to um I had too much to drink and I, you know, made a bad decision and drove and you know was struggling with that. I've had all kinds of conversations with my direct reports and it stays in a safe space. Um, and hopefully it makes them better, but I know that my team, the team that I have right now, there's so much trust and there's so much support and everyone's willing to help each other. Um, we're not I'm not just a resilient leader, but I have built a resilient team that I could I was able to step back for six weeks, take some time for myself, and know that they were able to self-manage and and handle what was happening without me being the leader at the time.
Um, and it's really a great thing to see. Um, that's a great question. I'm going to come back to that in a second. Let me just finish up these little bullet points. Um, celebrate efforts and learnings, even those that come from failure, right? Uh I' I've been very candid with my team about my need to step back back in uh March and the why and you know the learnings I got from that but some of their my own failures in like numbers or you know things I could have done better they all know like I know that I'm always working on my strengths and weaknesses and so they do as well and so sometimes they'll just share something like they went into an account they tried to have this conversation with a neurosurgeon and they were shut down and we do that on a Zoom call with you know all 15 of us and no one feels like like um you know like a loser.
They feel like okay if I share this then someone else isn't going to do it or maybe they're going to give me some feedback on how I can do it better next time or what they've done to be more successful. So, you know, celebrate those efforts, right? The wins and and and the the misses, right? Because um those are ways that we're going to grow. And like like I said, I I've shared my own setbacks with them um as opportunities for growth moments and throughout my career. So, being relatable, being authentic is um I think it's paramount to being a good leader, but also to being a resilient leader. So in the chat there's a question that says how much should you share with co-workers if you're struggling.
I think that this is an individual right case by case. I I didn't share broadly what was happening like people had known my father had passed away right because um because they did I had to take a couple days off and then um when my mom was going through her surgery everyone knew my mom was going through cancer treatments because I was flying down to take her to chemo appointments but um you know I kind of kept it tight like I didn't go to like leadership and tell them I spoke to my peers and my peer people uh that I trusted and to HR. So HR knew what was happening which that morning when I realized I couldn't get up and speak in front of you know so many people because at that moment at the national meeting I really just didn't care.
I knew I wasn't going to be able to get up and talk about our newest programming for spinal cord stimulators because my heart wasn't in it. My head wasn't in it. It didn't matter to me at that point. Right. what mattered to me was my family and the loss. And so I spoke to someone that I really trusted and um we went right to HR and it was taken care of and it was you know it was kind of kept tight like everyone knew I was going through stuff but um I would say that's an individual thing what you want to share with your co-workers. I wouldn't overshare right especially if you don't have a good relationship.
this is someone that I've worked with now for six plus years and um I knew I could trust her. Um and then for my direct reports, they all knew what was happening because because I you know I talk to them all the time. But I think it's important you know that you know who you can trust and you know who you're talking to. Um and just you know make sure you're taking care of yourself, guys, because it's it's hard out there. there's just so many changes and you know what's going on out in the world and everyone is being affected differently by a multitude of things. So um no next slide please Ginger I hope that answers your question as well.
So in conclusion um resilient leaders are better equipped to navigate uncertainty. I really believe in that. Right? If you if you know you can overcome anything that it doesn't matter what's thrown at you. you just do the right thing and the right outcomes are going to are going to happen. Um, foster that mindset that views challenges as opportunities for innovation. Like I said, like me changing to a social media type of platform to talk to my team while there's other leaders that are like absolutely not. Well, how's that email working for you? Because I don't think people are opening it. Um, instill confidence and a sense of stability within your teams. Um, we often are better at managing stress and our composure.
Like I said, I' I've done all the things. I have all the trainings and I still fell apart. Rightfully so, right? Like those are if anyone that has experienced like like I said that kind of loss and grief. Um until you experience it, you don't know how to handle it. But I will know how to handle it in the future and have since had direct reports that have had great loss. Um and I'm much better at supporting them, right? like I am the person now that like anyone could come to with grief and I am like send them my way. So um and the last bit is we're better at building trust and loyalty, right? So resilient leaders are better at doing that.
Um authentic leadership, I think there's going to be a whole presentation on that. I think that's they're they're they're neck and neck. They're so tied together. Um and yeah, so that's those are like the the key points and um we could go to the next slide for Q&A, but I just wanted to say thank you guys for taking the time to join and listen. Um there's in the chat um there's employee assistant professional and I coach employees and leaderships not to disclose very personal issues such as cheating spouses or substance abuse issues. Okay. Um to who? I mean, I I guess as a manager, these are things that if it's affecting performance and especially in sales, like if it's something that's affecting my sales team, I need to know about it so that I can help navigate it.
So, I'm going to give you an example of someone on my team that uh had disclosed a bit of a drinking problem. And that's an issue, right? Because we're out entertaining and we're taking physicians out. And so like we had agreed to like limit his drinking and how he was going to drive and things of that nature. Um basically we did an intervention. So um I think it's important that they do disclose those things. And again this is just me as a people leader. I'm not an EAP program. But I guess it would really depend on too who the manager is that you're reporting to because some managers might use it against you. I guess um I certainly wouldn't and I actually did refer um him to the EAP program in our company for help for counseling.
We have so many offerings. I think Boston Scientific is a phenomenal company to work for. There are so many benefits to working here. Um but it was important that he disclosed those things because had he not I couldn't have helped him, right? And he may not have realized the resources were there. So, um, okay, thank you. I am going to investigate that. So, if anyone has any questions, um, feel free to put them in the chat. But again, I just wanted to thank you all for taking the time to join today and to listen to me talk about this. Um, and I hope to connect with you all uh through LinkedIn or if you're, you know, we do anything in person in the greater Atlanta area, I would love to be there.
So, thank you. Ginger, that's concludes my slide presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You guys are great. Well, Shantel, thank you so much for your time to present to us today. Thank you.