Stacie Baird, Chief People Officer at Community Medical Services, offers insights on the intersection of self-care, resilience, and ethical AI to elevate the human experience.

She shares her professional journey to discovering her leadership purpose in addressing the opioid epidemic. She also shares the power of adversity in our personal lives to unlock our super powers and focus our contributions where it matter most.

Get practical tips for how you can self-regulate or co-regulate anytime, anywhere in the face of adversity. Lastly, explore simple ways you can begin to use AI for your own self-care as well as apply it ethically to enhance your team's resilience and impact.

Additional Resources:

Connect with Lee on LinkedIn
Learn more about Unleashing Leaders
Follow PeopleForward Network on LinkedIn
Learn more about PeopleForward Network
Connect with Stacie Baird on LinkedIn
HX in an AI World series
HX Podcast with Stacie Baird

Key Takeaways:

• Adversity is often the source of our strengths.
• Resilience is navigating the long-term journey; not a quick "bounce-back."
• Your career is a portfolio; curate it wisely.
• Self-care includes pausing, speaking to yourself with love, and asking, "What do I need?"
• Co-regulation with others is what makes us human.

Andrew Adeniyi, founder of AAA Solutions, shares how to create a team environment with psychological safety by identifying and celebrating personal values that are unique yet complementary to company values.

He shares his personal journey of experiencing both positive and negative workplace cultures and how it shaped his approach to leadership.

Adeniyi emphasizes the need for leaders to be self-aware of their own values and to understand the unique values of their team members. He also provides steps for how you as a leader can change a dysfunctional culture that maybe you inherited.

Adeniyi is the author of two books inspired by his journey. 'The Circle of Leadership' and 'The Building Blocks of Belonging' provide further insights and strategies for creating and leveraging culture in the workplace and advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Additional Resources:
Connect with Lee on LinkedIn
Learn more about Unleashing Leaders
Follow PeopleForward Network on LinkedIn
Learn more about PeopleForward Network
Connect with Andrew Adeniyi on LinkedIn
Buy a Book or Schedule a Consult with Andrew Adeniyi

Key Takeaways:

• Accessing both shared Company values and unique Personal values are important for creating a positive workplace culture.
• Leaders should be self-aware of their own values and authentic about current organizational realities.
• Changing a dysfunctional culture starts with understanding the purpose and vision of the organization.
• Honesty, vulnerability, and consistency are crucial in aligning actions with stated values.

Managing a distributed team sounds tough—until you hear how Matt Tait turned it into a competitive advantage for his business.

In this episode Lee sits down with Matt, CEO of Decimal—a fast-growing bookkeeping and accounting firm that’s taking “boring” and turning it into brilliance.

Matt’s journey is anything but ordinary: from a failed restaurant tech startup to scaling Decimal from a two-person operation to a team of 80 across four countries, he's learned firsthand how to lead with vulnerability, humility, and a dash of humor.

Learn what it really means to “fail forward,” and how that mindset can help to navigate a remote-first, people-first business.

Additional Resources:

Connect with Lee on LinkedIn
Learn more about Unleashing Leaders
Follow PeopleForward Network on LinkedIn
Matt Tait on LinkedIn
After the First Million podcast
Learn more about PeopleForward Network
Listen to the original episode on Unlocked podcast

Key Takeaways:

• Embrace Vulnerability and Failure: Matt highlights the importance of “failing forward” and embracing vulnerability to grow as a leader.
• Building Remote Culture: Creating intentional connection points and valuing transparency is crucial to success in a remote workforce.
• Scaling with a People-First Approach: Matt emphasizes that business success stems from building a team that genuinely cares about each other.