E79: Breaking the Stigma of HR: The Importance of Leadership and Investing in People

Veronica Larkin, Director of Human Resources at Lux Machina Consulting, discusses the importance of breaking the stigma associated with HR and embracing servant leadership. She emphasizes the need for leaders to focus on developing their people, nurturing their talents, and building strong relationships. Veronica also highlights the significance of providing support and guidance to new hires, including investing in training, resources, mentorship, and bridging the gap between academia and the professional world. Additionally, she emphasizes the importance of building confidence and overcoming fear for career development.

Breaking the Stigma of HR: The Importance of Leadership and Investing in People

• Leaders in HR must embrace servant leadership and be empathetic to foster a positive work environment.
• Leadership training and coaching are crucial for leaders to effectively manage their teams and prioritize people over revenue.
• Consistently nurturing your team is essential for preventing stagnation and maintaining productivity.
• Having a mentor provides a non-biased opinion and helps guide personal and professional development.
• Honesty and transparency create a trust-based environment and foster employee engagement.
• Confidence plays a significant role in career development and should be nurtured in employees.
• Embracing the possibility of rejection and maintaining a positive mindset is key to pursuing career goals.

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• 15:09 – For me, I think it’s important to always have a mentor throughout your career. Whether that’s someone within your business or someone externally that you can, you know, bounce your frustration sometimes your ideas, and you know, kind of like a check-in as well. Like, Hey, am I, am I on the right track or am I crazy here? Someone that can give you a non-biased opinion and be real with you.
• 12:58 – One analogy that I like to tell my managers when I’m training them is my car analogy. Like when you wake up in the morning or when you go to shopping or wherever you’re expecting that vehicle or that mode of transportation to work. Yeah. And in order for that vehicle to work, you have to maintain it, you have to add fuel, you have to check the engine. And in a business, your people are your engine. So if you’re not taking it into routine maintenance, if you’re not giving it the fuel that it needs to actually like spark up, it’s going to go stagnant, and you’re going to stall at some point your team’s going to stall.
• 29:04 – I spent some time as an adjunct professor at a, a college, and you know, here’s me coming in with my, my career experience to teach them and just the anxiety that these students have because they are not prepared. They’re prepared in terms of knowledge about their, their subject area, but that’s about it. And so I made sure that the entire class is like, you are going to use this for your career. This is, everything has a purpose. And it was just really eyeopening to see how they responded and, and, and said like, wow, you know, like, all of my classes should have this kind of information in it.
• 04:52 – And something I’ve, I’ve noticed about leadership structure is it’s usually, you know, kind of a race to the top when people can be developed by, you know, not promoting them upward, but you know, you can promote them laterally or give them professional development that is, you know, 10 times more effective than having a manager title. There’s just so many different ways to develop people and I think that’s, you know, where, you know, leaders like you come in and use creativity and look at everyone’s unique contributions.
• 02:35 – Lindsay: And I know that leadership training and coaching is really, really one of your big passions. So, can you explain why that’s so important to you?.. Veronica: Absolutely. So leaders nowadays, I feel like sometimes get placed into their roles because they are subject-matter experts. Yes. Because they understand the industry really well, but they lack that finesse when it comes to dealing with the people. And when you lack that finesse, you know, you really are doing a disservice to your people because you’re not nurturing, you’re not pouring into them, and you’re only focused on, on, you know, the end goal, which is like, let’s bring more revenue into the business.