BLOC Podcast

46: Women in L&D Leadership with Alexandra Smith

March 22, 2022 Episode 46
BLOC Podcast
46: Women in L&D Leadership with Alexandra Smith
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode, I celebrate International Women's History Month with Alexandra Smith, CPTM. We chat about what it's like being a woman leader in L&D and what you can do to learn and grow as a leader! 

Alexandra Smith, CPTM, is a leading learner who leads leaders! She brings to her team her empathetic leadership approach. They get high-level projects across the finish line. Alexandra is a highly skilled, creative and experienced learning leader with a strong background in communications. She thrives on the process of training, motivating and directing employees in order to optimize workplace productivity and promote professional growth. Adept at addressing the needs of a wide variety of employees and customers, Alexandra's experience in past positions impacts others worldwide.

Alexandra's suggestions for women leaders in L&D

Connect with Heidi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidiekirby/ or on my website: www.heidikirby.com

Thanks for listening to the BLOC!

Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidiekirby/

Or check out what I'm working on over at https://www.getusefulstuff.com/

Alexandra Smith:

As a leader, I lead myself in ways that like if I don't do it, I know I'm gonna fail my team

Heidi Kirby:

Hello friends and welcome to the block the building learning and organizational culture podcast. I'm your host Heidi Kirby. And on today's episode, we're celebrating International Women's History Month with my new friend Alexandra Smith, talking all about what it's like to be a woman leader in l&d. Hey, Alexandra, how are you?

Alexandra Smith:

Hey, honey, I'm great. Thank you so much for having me.

Heidi Kirby:

Thanks for being on the podcast. I'm so excited to talk to you today. So let's just jump right in. I'll just start by asking you to tell me a little bit about your career path and how you ended up where you are today.

Alexandra Smith:

Sure, I am so excited. Thank you for having me on the block. I'm pumped to be here. I guess let's get into it my origin story, if you will. So I started my career in at basically as an admin at ABC Company, about, Gosh, I graduated college in 2011. From Youtube, he immediately got that job saw that there was an l&d department, it was like, wow, what do they do, and I was the admin, you know, bringing coffee bringing snacks and I was like, I want to be in this more, really pave my own way and just started doing more and more and more as an admin and actually moved into they opened a role for me in in l&d in construction. And I ended up being the one interrupt designer, if you will, for that whole team. And it was a global, like, reach globally. So it was super awesome. And my material reached different places like in Africa and Australia. So it's pretty awesome. And then shortly after that, well, like about five years into that I really, you know, my knowledge grew, my skill set grew. And I got an opportunity to work at a company called asset security. And it changed my life, I found that I was really good with tech, not technologically savvy people in the technology space, and learning development and meshing those together. And understanding the human aspect behind like the tech space is something that is my jam. And I got into shortly after we got acquired by EY. And so now I have that good, cool stamp of Hey, before, so that's on my resume. And then we are now here at Deep watch where I work now. And I was sawed off by one of our awesome recruiters. Kristen, who's amazing. And when I saw the role, I was like, holy moly, this is for me. It's everything. I love to do everything I wanted to do. And now I am the manager here at Deep watch. It's amazing.

Heidi Kirby:

I Awesome. Well, the reason I asked you here today was specifically to talk about women leadership and l&d based on a couple of different people requesting more of this topic, given the fact that this will launch in March, which is Women's History Month, right?

Alexandra Smith:

Yeah, I'm so honored.

Heidi Kirby:

Thank you, Girl Power Girl. So I want to ask you a super broad question. And just ask, what has it been like being a woman leader in l&d?

Alexandra Smith:

So I would say being a woman in LNT is super awesome. Education, I feel is one of the few industries where women are really better represented in leadership position roles. It can't happen alone. I didn't do this alone. I'm very blessed to have an awesome boss slash mentor, Jeff Swenson. She's our CTO here at Deep watch. And without her guidance, I would really be nowhere. Not that she is an l&d expert, but she is an expert at leadership. And it helps me to lead my team and lead my function to the highest priorities that I do, just like she does for the business. And so I aligned that way. And I feel that that has been my success is caring about my l&d function and my team just as much as you know, the high of leadership team cares about the entire company. Because if I don't align with what my company does, then what am I doing? So Right? It's important and the fact that my boss you know, has my back is 100% Like, you know, you think Oh, that's, that's um, so easy, but we don't have it so easy all the time. And we don't have great direction and I'm very, very blessed to have good direction and hey, you know, your stuff like okay, I trust you do it. In addition to that she And another great woman at my work, Carolyn, they launched a women's group at our work. And it's yeah, it's awesome. And so it was our first affinity group. And it's really championed, you know, by our leadership team, by managers. So everybody, you know, joined understands that it's a place that you can feel valued, you know, if you're a woman or identify as a woman, and it's an awesome place to connect, and that in the tech space, it's so important, because, you know, women are lack. And yeah, it's just great that they care so much about this, because it aligned to what I want. And I wouldn't say that to anybody, like, wherever you choose to work, or if you know, your core values don't align with your company's core values, then you need to move on, and hear my core values aligned with the company I work for. And so it's just like a perfect, you know, recipe for success.

Heidi Kirby:

Yeah, no, I think that's great. Because one of the things you can do as a job seeker is, you know, most like, I would say, like, has to be like 90% of organizations have some sort of leadership page where they have names and photos, and sometimes even LinkedIn profiles of all their kind of VP to C suite level leaders, you can really easily just look at the organization you're interviewing for, and like, see, like, are females represented in the top levels of this org? Or not? And do you want to be part of, you know, paving the way and trying to be one of those leaders? Or would you rather be surrounded by other, you know, powerful females to help kind of like, build you up in your role? So I mean, that's more of a personal decision. But you know, I think it's, as a job seeker, it's really important to find those types of things out if that's what you care about. Yes. 100%,

Alexandra Smith:

it's, it's so important to me, like realizing, as I grow in my career, that who can who will champion you and who you will champion back to create that like perfect relationship. And to cut those out, if it doesn't align with your vision for your career, or the vision of whatever company you're working at. It's

Heidi Kirby:

yeah, absolutely. And I, I had a very similar experience to you my first corporate ID job, I had a wonderful manager, and we're still friends today, shout out to Latoya if she's listening to this. And she was just so you know, supportive and helpful. And like, like, I just feel like she's the type of person that just has like. So the quote that's coming to my mind is from the cake, song, short skirt, long jacket, she uses a machete to cut through red tape. Like, that's all only thing I could think of. So, um, but yeah, like, she just like, remove obstacles, right. And that was like her biggest thing as a team team member. And the other thing is, like, she hated when I would like, say she was my boss, or, you know, something like that. Or like, if I would like, jokingly call her like, Okay, boss, or whatever, you know, she would be like, I'm not your boss. I'm your teammate, like, she very much wanted to not focus on like, the hierarchy. So. And then after that, I had another amazing boss, Jen, who really helped me and both of them have been on the podcast, who, by the way, and she really helped me and like, when I came in, she was like, you know, my goal is for you to someday take my job when I move up. And like, just to have that be the conversation from the very beginning is so encouraging, you know,

Alexandra Smith:

it really is, and I'll say, you know, so when you think about the student teacher dynamic, and what we were taught about leadership, it's I'm the teacher, you do the assignment, and the student would say, but why and the teacher because I said, So, this is a mindset that a lot of workforce has when they come on board, to a new company, but I will say that it's really changed where I work from, you know, my boss shout out to Jen, is she really takes his people first approach. And that's how the culture is that you know, my job, and I feel that that is so important, because if we can't, you know, set the expectations up for the culture of, you know, my of the company, then how can I set it up for my department?

Heidi Kirby:

Yes, yes. I love that. I think that's so important. So then that's a good segue to how, how is leading remotely as a female l&d leader.

Alexandra Smith:

It's awesome. I will say, you know, a high functioning learning culture and leadership We really can't thrive in a management culture, which is why like, Great segue, it's a leadership culture, you know, people first and a learning culture, like how do we lead? How do we ask like all these things, you know, that we can read in like books or theories or articles, most of this stuff was published pre pandemic. And so it is not the same as, you know, our world now. You know, like, do any of these best quote practices, you know, out there, deal with our, like, today's modern workforce, in that, quote, pandemic climbing, if you will, they really don't. I think leadership is a lot simpler than just, you know, modules, theories, or progress ups. It's reinforcement for is my big thing, like the silent art. l&d I guess is, you know, as a learning leader, like studying human behavior, learning trends and generational learning scopes, and you know, getting ready, because, you know, I'm a, let's say, vintage millennial, if you will. And so, you know, we're all hitting the leadership roles now in our career. And, you know, jokes aside, like, it's how, you know, do we prepare ourselves and the naff generations for these leadership roles, if we ourselves are not leading for the modern workforce, you know, in a world in this remote world, you know, yeah, we're remote. You know, I like to say, I have the street cred of being remote before it was cool. But still, you know, it's very fresh to a lot, you know, we run an amazing new hire rotation here. And I asked in every new hire orientation in the beginning, when I set up my netiquette, which is zoom etiquette. It's Who here has worked remote pre pandemic, and I wait to see, you know, who will raise their hand. And Heidi, it's not many. And so I believe we're all in this together.

Heidi Kirby:

It's not many. Yeah, yeah. No, I think that's really good. And I don't want to jump too far down, like a specific rabbit hole of onboarding. But like, seriously, as an l&d leadership, like leash like an l&d leader, we should be pretty together when it comes to onboarding, right? Like, we should be not only having an awesome plan for our organization, but like for our teams, right. And so I think realizing that and knowing that, like not, not everyone has worked remotely. And you know, a lot of what I've seen in kind of like the back and forth about should remote stick around, or should it go away. It's like this idea that the people who want to go back into the office do so because they don't trust that people are working when they're remote. And so I think trust is going to it's already become such an important modern leadership competency. I think that like grows exponentially when you're talking working remotely, because you can't walk into somebody's cubicle and watch what they're doing over their shoulder anymore. And I think that that's wonderful. I really do.

Alexandra Smith:

We're cutting out the what is that? The micromanage?

Heidi Kirby:

Yes, yes. And yeah, yeah, like micro learning No, to micro. Yes, absolutely. And I feel like the micro managers are going to start to kind of, you know, either just not be successful or just fine. Find other areas to work in because it's really not, like you can't, you can't live that life and be a remote meter. You know,

Alexandra Smith:

it's you really can't and you know, I feel that because I've done both, you know, been 100% in office and then 100% remote, and I I get a lot more ton you know, at work and I feel I will you know, overwork sometimes because it's just here you know, but also as a leader I lead myself in ways that like if I don't do it, I know I'm gonna fail my team. Yeah, me like having that desire in me to hit my you know, hit hit what I'm supposed to hit and knock everything out of the park. Like if I don't do it, it's obvious you know, like if you're now office you can be out who knows? I don't know face place all day, or nobody would know but like in your remote like people know if you're not doing anything because say, Okay, well, like where's

Heidi Kirby:

you have nothing new produce? Like, exactly, yeah. And it kind of

Alexandra Smith:

you know about onboarding is so so, so important. And so back in early in my career, I when I was napping, they know that it was not a great onboarding versus you know, here's your desk, here's your papers. Here's somebody you can talk to if you have questions, and here's sticky notes, right? And so I quickly develop this onboarding, quote, Buddy Program. And so it was one The admins came on, they would have somebody to look to as a peer, you know, for guidance if they needed anything. And when I came to deep watch, I really thought back to that project. And I was like, if I was very new at a remote company, first day logging on my computer, how would I want to be treated? I think of this as if we were and I take like myself out of my house. And I'm like, if we were in a hotel ballroom like all meeting together, you know, what, for a two day meeting, like how much effort would I put into that, until I put the same amount of effort into our online, you know, onboarding? I kid you not, I have people that have worked at Big floors, other big cyber and tech companies, and you know, people that are have very high level titles that Alex, I have never had an onboarding like that in my life. Like, it's amazing. Because what I do is I know our business. So I tie in the business of deep watch our core values, what we do to get everybody excited, because I'm the first. We're the first team people see, like when they onboard after recruiters. And so it's important that we literally roll out the red carpet and greet people, because I know for me, you know, I don't want to be somewhere where I'm not appreciated, and, you know, showing appreciation for people when they onboard and start and taking the time with them to just even chat and learn about the company get to know each other, we wouldn't be doing that if we were in an office together, having coffee having chit chat. And so I just really try to mirror like that experience, being in person and being remote and try to mirror it as best I can. And like, successful.

Heidi Kirby:

Nice, that's awesome. So kind of on that note, because I think that, you know, in l&d, we have this unique, you know, position where we can actually influence the culture of our organization, through learning or through whatever. But I want to read you a fun statistic today and get your thoughts on it. It says in fact, as of 2018, over half of the United States is female, with women earning 57% of undergrad degrees and 59% of master's degrees. But yet women hold less than half the leadership positions in the United States. And among the world's largest 500 companies, only 10% of senior executives are women. Interesting. So more highly educated, but less than half of the leadership positions. That said, what are some ways that you feel l&d And specifically female leaders within l&d can kind of set the pace or influence the learning culture or the organizational culture towards more female leaders?

Alexandra Smith:

Yeah, so that's a really good one. So this actually brings me to the silent be in l&d, which is belonging. It's so important, I really say to like l&d, your culture centers, you know, you set the stage. It's really going above and beyond my task role, I will say to be successful in that way. And it takes a lot of effort. We do lunch and learns, or we do a coffee chat, fun Breakout game sometimes. And if I we don't make the effort, you know, to do that, then it wouldn't get done. And I'm so proud that I'm backed by leadership that allowed my female amazing boss that that backs me to do this awesome stuff. Because without her leadership and guidance, I would be nowhere. It's important. You know, I wouldn't be successful if top management didn't trust and believe in me,

Heidi Kirby:

for sure, and then l&d has uniquely allowed you a place in your organization to be like a spokesperson, right? Like you're the first person people meet, and you're doing these lunch and learns, and you're facilitating these different things as the representative woman leader from l&d, right, so that's awesome.

Alexandra Smith:

is awesome. And thank you.

Heidi Kirby:

One other thing I would definitely wanted to talk about, that we had kind of chatted about before we did this recording, was the fact that I'm pursuing my PhD now, when I started my PhD in Instructional Design and Technology. I was not planning to be in leadership, I was just a PhD was a personal goal of mine and I thought that if I was going to move into IDX, that that was somewhere that I wanted to focus my energy, but then pretty quickly once I decided I wanted to become A leader in this space, I felt obligated as a woman to have that credential so that people couldn't question my kind of credibility, right?

Alexandra Smith:

Yeah, we call it street cred. It's so you don't get a certification or a, you know, higher level degree. If you don't personally believe that it would benefit you. You know, like, don't, don't do it. Like I would give this advice. Like, don't do it. If you think it is what people want you do it if you think it'll help you get to the next level of your goals. For me, like certifications I did, along the lines in 2019, I got my like, I shuffled designer, cert just because like, hey, I want to get better at it. And I was already in the mix. And then, you know, as a leader, I went and got my CP TM, I'm like, Well, I'm a leader, but I don't know everything I can keep learning. So you know, I got my CP TM, and it's that oh, my gosh, has catapulted me so much. I would give advice if you can, you know, go get your CP TM, or, you know, the ATD start, there's the knowledge there is so, so, so critical. It's not even about having letters behind my name. It's about everything I learned. So it's like, what do you think you will get out of it? In order to, you know, best move your career to the next level, because there's so much to learn development you can do in leadership. And, you know, when you get to leadership roles, it's important, you know, we understand the scope of l&d. I think that as a woman in leadership and those wanting to be in leadership, you have got to stand out for yourself and not clump yourself in with everybody else out there. I see this on LinkedIn. And you know, people will clump themselves in and it's messy. And it's not great for, you know, people in the future people do look up your LinkedIn, they do look up stuff for you, and I'll stay to stay on course, is just to really stay true to your goals and stay true to who you are as a leader and use that as your compass.

Heidi Kirby:

For sure. And in a in a industry. l&d Specifically, I found an article and I know you found a similar one that says, with entry level positions and l&d 67% of those roles are female. At that level. We're a female dominated industry, right. I mean, think about the other ideas. And you know, l&d people, you know, like, the vast majority of them are women, right. But at the leadership level, the ratio entirely flips and 69% of leaders leaders in l&d are male.

Alexandra Smith:

It does, I also believe that says women need to advocate for ourselves a lot more in the leadership space. And if you don't, who's going to do it for you? Even I'll say with my boss, she cannot read my mind. And so if I want something, I we discussed it and we talk about it, I will say being forthright is like, and having those difficult conversations, if you know, they can be difficult for some is so so so important to get over to bump yourself up into leadership, because if you can't have those and do that, then you've already failed. And it's so so so important to not just advocate for yourself and to say what you want, and not clump yourself in and see those roles out there and say, Oh, well, I'm not gonna apply because I don't have 100% of everything, no, go for it. You know, and this was my first, you know, leadership position here. And it just aligned with where I was and aligned with what they needed other time, and it worked out. And so I would say just, you know, I don't know just, just don't, don't, don't self reject is like my biggest advice is not to solve, reject. And if you want to be in leadership, advocate for it, and say it because people will not know unless you say it, and we're not gonna know how awesome you are unless you tell

Heidi Kirby:

us. That's so true. I feel like my career really took a great turn. When I started being super honest, like in the interview phase, even though I was applying for an ID job. I was like, someday I want to lead an l&d function like that's where I see myself. And when I started doing that, the positions that I ended up in were so much better and actually led me to that, as opposed to like the other things where I was like, Well, I'll tell him once I start, which then becomes Well, I'll tell them once we make the professional development plan, and then no PD Plans made, and then it's like, well, I, well, oh, look, this positions open on the team, let me apply for it. And they're like, why are you applying for this? You never told us you wanted to be a leader. And now that chance is gone. Right. And I think that it's, I think, a lot of times, it's easier said than done to learn how to have those difficult conversations and advocate for yourself and be assertive. Because, you know, either it's because women have a way smaller margin to fail in the workplace said men do you know, or that, you know, you're gonna get called four letter words, if you are assertive when this happened with men, right? And so one thing that really kind of like, changed my attitude was a tick tock video, of course, because because that's where I live, right? Like, yeah, and I have a vintage millennial who loves Tik Tok. So, but it was this gal who is like, listen, start living your life under the pretense that no one has a problem with you, unless they tell you. And like that really hit home for me, because I'm always anticipating that people are going to feel some type of way about what I say or what I do. And I'm always like, trying to pre plan everything I say and do based on that. And then it's like, Well, if that you know, or this person seems upset or angry or acts at me, right, like, stop assuming that people feel some type of way about you unless they tell you.

Alexandra Smith:

Yes. And that I will say also, is advice I've gotten from senior leadership. And it's so so so important, you know, to not worry about the small stuff, or if you think somebody is, I don't know, in one way, like, be honest, you know, and it is change. It took me 39 years to get here to be to tell, you know, and be forthright. And it is, has opened my career up just because I asked for what I want. And it's important that we do.

Heidi Kirby:

Totally. So I have one last question for you. And it's the same question I asked all my guests. What is one resource that you would suggest women in l&d or women who aspire to be or already are leaders in l&d consume and why

Alexandra Smith:

great resources that I use it I would suggest for anybody, a couple of people I personally follow on LinkedIn is Cassie Laborie. Elliot may see you of course. I would say also that if you can't to really start researching l&d conferences, when I the first year I went to DevLearn oh my gosh, Heidi like that is when my career I feel took off because I was in a room learning leaders and like, you know, people that have the same mind frame as you and people that loved l&d and it was so overwhelmingly awesome and if you can make it to that go and there it's finally back in person this year so

Heidi Kirby:

yay you in Vegas

Alexandra Smith:

I would also I really love the training institute they're an awesome awesome awesome organization and they post really amazing articles and webs and posts and courses you can you know pay for I have my CPT I'm through them. I would also advise for any woman leader to write for them because you can start getting your you know start getting published I did and I just on a whim you know, I'd like I said earlier don't self reject just do it. You know I would also say you know attending you know conferences like Tice i which is part of the training institutes it's one of their conferences and really put out there your words and put out their you know your articles don't just read them like be one that's gonna get tricky like yeah if you want to we're gonna get read and you know don't tell rejected do it I was shocked when I got you know, picked and you know, anyways, but and it's important to to stay on top of industry trends and connect to these learning leaders, read their posts, go through job racks, I would say and like look at them and see, you know, What job do I want? What is important? What skill set do I need for you know, whatever company is just look through them and see and read and, and really stay true to you your core values and everything that aligns with yours and align everything that I just said it but you know, with what you do.

Heidi Kirby:

I love it. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it.

Alexandra Smith:

No, the pleasure is all mine. You're amazing. Happy Women's month

Heidi Kirby:

I'm thanks again for joining me on the blog if you enjoyed this episode please share it with friends and review us on your favorite podcast platform I hope you'll tune in again soon