"Businesses need to fundamentally shift what they view as priorities to truly thrive and be competitive in the talent war in 2022."
Alexis Zahner’s mission is to inspire Leaders to become the best versions of themselves bringing empathy, self-awareness, and mindfulness to their organizations, creating a culture of inclusivity, understanding and presentism.
Her experience spans local government, marketing, media consultancy right through to Management at global brand Patagonia, working and living in multiple countries around the world. It’s through her experience of management; the good, the bad and the ugly, that her passion to bring a more conscious, mindful, and human-centric approach to leadership was born.
She understands the complexity of Leading well and leading as your authentic self; as Leader at Patagonia, she learnt many Leadership lessons the hard way, this spurred my desire to dive deeper into what makes an effective and human-centered Leader, and work on evolving herself to be that person.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Alexis Zahner: I’m Alexis, Founder of Human Leaders a peer to peer learning community for leadership at all levels. It’s my personal mission to make business better for human beings, and through Human Leaders I’m able to make Leadership development accessible and democratised to Leaders at all levels around the globe.
Our community focuses on a peer to peer learning and support model, bringing the most pertinent experts to our space to provide learning opportunity for our leaders, whilst also offering the peer and emotional support all leaders need, but don’t often get, in their own organisations.
2020 and 2021 threw a lot of curve balls into business on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past couple years, how can businesses thrive in 2022? What lessons have you learned?
Alexis Zahner: Businesses need to fundamentally shift what they view as priorities to truly thrive and be competitive in the talent war in 2022.
In recent years, despite the global pandemic, we’ve seen many business profits continue to soar, but employee happiness and wellbeing plummet and burnout and work life balance plague us as COVID forced radical and swift shifts in the way we work.
It’s time organisations recalibrate and rethink their prioritises around how and when we work, placing their human beings and their needs and primary drivers are the forefront of consideration.
The pandemic seems to keep on disrupting the economy, what should businesses focus on in 2022? What advice would you share?
Alexis Zahner: VUCA is no longer something that happens from time to time, we’re in a constantly volatile, unpredictable and tumultuous world, rather than plan to mitigate change as it comes up and as it affects our business, Leaders and organisations need get comfortable with change being absolutely constant, and stop clinging to old ways of operating, particularly around culture and innovation.
Integrating flexibility, agility and inclusivity at all levels of policy and culture will be critical to survive the ‘new normal’ in business.
How has the pandemic changed your industry and how have you adapted?
Alexis Zahner: The pandemic was in many ways a welcome shift in the Leadership Development and Management Consultancy industry, as it was a catalyst in many organisations becoming comfortable in virtual and online delivery methods, making access clients globally increasingly simple.
With that said, human connection is critical in this industry and forms a fundamental component of what I work with organisations to foster, so developing this connection in a virtual space as created new and novel challenges to navigate both in my business, and to the organisations and Leaders I help.
Remaining constantly open and willing to adapt and shift contextually will be critical to my success in this new hybrid environment, and to the leaders and organisations I serve – we’re learning together!
What advice do you wish you received when the pandemic started and what do you intend on improving in 2022?
Alexis Zahner: Don’t wait or wish for things to return to ‘normal’. Many presumed, myself included, that COVID would hit and be over within the year allowing for a minor delay and break from work as we know it. However COVID’s prolonged effect, followed by the continued tumultuous political environment we live in has been a stark lesson in adapting for what is directly ahead of you with the assumption that more adaption, rather than a return to normal, will be required.
Online business surged higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for 2022?
Alexis Zahner: I expect these trends will continue to soar, with variations as we return to in person work, events and travel globally. I suspect in my industry in particular technology will continue to be a major part, however we will shift to find a true hybrid working model where technology enhances and supports rather than dominates how we work.
How many hours a day do you spend in front of a screen?
Alexis Zahner: My work is mostly in front of a screen, including when I’m delivering live training and workshop session which means anywhere between 4 to 12 hours a day depending on client needs and bookings.
The majority of executives use stories to persuade and communicate in the workplace. Can you share with our readers examples of how you implement that in your business to communicate effectively with your team?
Alexis Zahner: In my line of work, personal anecdotal experience coupled with empirical and well researched data makes for the most compelling stories and drivers for organisational change. My work focuses on deeply cultivating more human at work and in how we lead, making personal story telling not just a compelling persuader, but a fundamental and critical component of why we do this work.
As leaders creating a psychological safe space to share our personal stories helps build trust, connection and true compassionate empathy in our teams.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as the real challenge right now?
Alexis Zahner: The real challenge I see for many organisations and Leaders right now is balancing their triple bottom line more effectively to cater to their humans as equally importantly as their profits. This includes managing stakeholder and investors expectations whilst simultaneously meeting the most basic of human needs in the workplace such as belonging, higher purpose and values and being truly challenged and engaged in work.
In 2022, what are you most interested in learning about? Crypto, NFTs, online marketing, or any other skill sets? Please share your motivations.
Alexis Zahner: In 2022 I am most motivated to learn and develop more of my knowledge around the neuroscience of how we learn to continue adapting and building truly impactful programs for organisations to change they way they lead.
A record 4.4 million Americans left their jobs in September in 2021, accelerating a trend that has become known as the Great Resignation. 47% of people plan to leave their job during 2022. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued and misunderstood in the workplace. Do you think leaders see the data and think “that’s not me – I’m not that boss they don’t want to work for? What changes do you think need to happen?
Alexis Zahner: Absolutely many Leaders see this data and lack the awareness and knowledge to understand what part they play in the dysfunction driving attrition in their company. At the most fundamental level, to address retention in every company Leadership must take radical responsibility for themselves and own their accountability in the part they play in driving retention.
To true overcome high employee attrition, organisations must be willing to go deep, not just strategically, but behavioural into how leadership directly impacts every single organisational factor that plays into culture. Boosting employee engagement and ultimately retaining your top talent begins with how we lead the resulting culture, it’s an inside out, top down job.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Alexis Zahner: For me, the business superpower I most admire is the ability to couple strong strategic business objectives together with strong leadership acumen and behaviour – being both able to steer strategic objectives and lead authentically and effectively. If every Leader, including myself, were able to do this effectively I wouldn’t need to be in this line of work!
What does “success” in 2022 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Alexis Zahner: Success to me means being impactful and aligned at a soul level in why and how I do business. It’s no longer good enough for me to make money if it doesn’t FEEL good whilst doing so. I believe as younger generations enter the workforce and move into leadership roles we’ll continue to see alignment with true purpose and how we run businesses – exciting!
Jerome Knyszewski, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Alexis Zahner for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Alexis Zahner or her company, you can do it through her – Linkedin Page
Disclaimer: The ValiantCEO Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.
