Today’s leaders are under pressure to drive performance while creating workplaces where people actually want to be. But none of that happens without strong communication. When communication falters, everything else unravels — team morale, engagement and even business results.
That’s why, on this episode of Life + Leadership, I’m excited to be joined by Jen Benz, Senior Vice President and Communications Leader at Segal Benz. Jen is passionate about the role communication plays in building thriving workplaces and high-performing teams. She’s here to share practical, actionable advice on how leaders can close perception gaps, manage stress and create workplaces rooted in kindness.
Jen wholeheartedly believes that when communication is intentional, empathetic and flexible, it can transform not just your business but also your people.
In this conversation, Jen dives into her journey of leadership, how to manage ambiguity with grace, and the power of cultivating a workplace that thrives on trust and human kindness. Listen in as we explore the layers of leadership that go beyond strategy and into the heart of human interactions.
Recognizing Perception Gaps in Leadership
Jen brings to light an often-overlooked aspect of leadership: the perception gap between leaders and their teams. As a leader, your access to broader information shapes your view of opportunities and risks, but this can create a disconnect between how you see the business and how your team experiences it. “My comfort with ambiguity is really high,” she says. “Most people’s comfort with ambiguity is not very high.” Jen stresses the importance of being aware of this difference in how you communicate.
One way to bridge this gap is through consistent feedback channels. Jen highlights the necessity of building an environment where people feel safe to offer honest feedback, even to leadership. It’s not just about providing information but creating an open dialogue where employees feel empowered to share their thoughts.
“I certainly was not as self-aware early on,” Jen says, “and a part of what has made me successful as a leader is [that] I had people on my team that were willing to say, ‘Jen, this is where you need to do better, or this is where things aren’t clear or this is where you have unrealistic expectations.’” She emphasizes that true leadership means ensuring communication is a two-way street, allowing for a richer understanding of the team’s perceptions.
Mastering Emotional Control for Stronger Leadership
Emotional regulation is a critical skill for effective leadership, but it isn’t easy. Jen is candid about the challenges leaders face in managing stress while maintaining composure for their teams. She acknowledges that stress is unavoidable, but how a leader handles it can either strengthen or weaken team dynamics.
“It’s not realistic to not be stressed as a leader, or just in our normal lives. Life is stressful and it’s not realistic to not have bad days,” she says. “But the expectations for being in a leadership role are so much higher than for everybody else, and you have to really understand that your actions have an amplified impact on people.” Jen reflects on her own journey, particularly early in her career when she found herself pushing her team too hard, driven by her own work ethic. Over time, she realized that if she didn’t learn to manage her own stress, she risked burning out her team and damaging relationships.
One pivotal moment came when she snapped at a team member during a meeting. Realizing her mistake, Jen immediately apologized, admitting that her exhaustion had affected her behavior. This kind of humility and accountability, she believes, is critical for leaders who want to build trust. Being open about stress and owning mistakes helps model healthy emotional regulation, which ultimately leads to a more resilient and supportive workplace.
Thriving Workplaces Are Built on Trust, Flexibility and Kindness
Jen is deeply passionate about creating workplaces where people can thrive. At the core of her approach is a belief that flexibility and kindness aren’t just nice-to-haves but essential to business success. For Jen, kindness goes beyond surface-level niceties — it’s about offering clarity and setting clear expectations. Drawing on advice from her sister, a former teacher, Jen believes “Clarity is kindness.” When leaders provide clear communication about roles, deadlines and feedback, it helps reduce anxiety and sets everyone up for success.
Flexibility is another cornerstone of a thriving workplace. Jen’s experience starting her company taught her that letting people have the freedom to balance their personal and work lives makes them more engaged and productive. Early on, her business offered part-time roles to accommodate employees with unique needs, such as new parents, and that flexibility became a defining aspect of the company’s culture. “If you create a workplace that’s flexible enough for parents with young kids to be able to juggle everything,” Jen says, “it’s going to be flexible enough for everybody’s life situations.”
Jen believes that when leaders build workplaces rooted in trust, kindness and flexibility, they not only create happier teams but also stronger business outcomes.
People in this Episode
Jen Benz: LinkedIn
Transcript
Jen Benz:
Tegan Trovato:
Hey there. Welcome to the Life + Leadership podcast. I’m your host, Tegan Trovato, founder and CEO of Bright Arrow Coaching. In this show, we dive deep into how leaders like you can turn business challenges into personal growth opportunities. Whether you’re a seasoned executive or an aspiring leader, this podcast is your go-to resource for unlocking your full potential in both your professional and personal life. Join me as we hear from executives, experts and innovators about their leadership journeys and learn how to develop better strategies and activate them for success. So if you’re ready to fuel your journey to becoming an extraordinary leader who makes a lasting impact, you’re in the right place. Let’s dive in.
In this episode, we’re taking a closer look at the power of communication in driving engagement and business success. I’m thrilled to have Jen Benz with me today. She was previously the founder and CEO of a flourishing consulting firm. She merged her firm with another to form Segal Benz. She’s now the senior vice president of Segal Benz, where she leads their communications practice.
Jen has spent her career helping organizations connect with their people in ways that truly matter, turning communication into a tool for growth and innovation. We chat about how the right communication strategies can transform a company, the valuable lessons Jen has picked up on her unique leadership journey and why creating a workplace rooted in trust, flexibility and kindness is so essential.
Jen also shares her experiences from leading through some pretty complex challenges, including how she successfully integrated her own business into a larger firm. She also shares some practical advice for leaders aiming to build thriving teams. Throughout our conversation, we touch on the key elements of effective leadership and how to improve communication efforts in any organization. Whether you are looking to sharpen your leadership skills or find fresh ways to engage your team, Jen’s insights are sure to offer something valuable for your journey.
Jen, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me.
Jen Benz:
Thanks, Tegan. I’m very excited to be here with you.
Tegan Trovato:
Will you tell our listeners a little bit about your career journey and leadership journey? Weave in whatever personal components you want to. I just want them to understand what the wisdom’s rooted in today that you’re going to share with us.
Jen Benz:
Sure, I’d be happy to. I’ve had a really interesting career journey and I’m super, super grateful for the opportunities I’ve had along the way. So I started my career doing employee benefits communication and HR communication at a big consulting firm. Fell into that right after college and was really lucky to be hired by a firm that put a ton of energy into training entry-level people. And I remember getting exposure to the senior level partners on day one, and people bringing me into conference rooms and teaching me everything they knew. So it was an awesome place to start my career.
And in 2006, I thought I was ready for another job opportunity, and I thought I had another full-time job lined up and I quit. And that job that I thought I was going to fell through. And before I could even really panic about that fully, a client, an old colleague of mine said, “Oh, I have a project for you.” And then an old client said, “I have a project for you.” And pretty soon another former client said, “I want to work with you and let’s make that happen.” And so I ended up starting my own professional services business, somewhat not knowingly, when I was very young and was very lucky to partner with a fantastic woman named Isabel very early on. And we grew that business together to about 30 people. And then we sold the business in 2019 and joined Segal where I am now.
And Segal’s an HR consulting firm. It actually is a lot like the firm that I joined when I was right out of college. We’re about 1100 people. We’re privately held. We’re really focused on our people and on doing great work for clients. And so it’s been a good spot. So we joined, as I said, in 2019. It’s been about five and a half years now, and we successfully integrated our team into the communications practice there, grew that team and it’s actually worked. A lot of acquisitions don’t work, but this has really worked and I’ve been really lucky to be able to lead that team, hand off the leadership roles there to two fabulous women. And now I’m working on some firm-wide projects and I’ve also been on Segal’s board the last several years. So it’s been a really amazing journey. As I said, I feel really grateful for the opportunities I’ve had along the way.
Tegan Trovato:
Yes. I just read the other day that 70% of acquisitions are a disappointment or failure. So to be in that rare 30%, shout it from the rooftops because we all need to remember that they do go well sometimes. So okay. Yeah.
Jen Benz:
Sometimes. Yeah. Not easy. I don’t think that acquisitions are ever easy.
And we certainly, in hindsight, could have done things better and relearn some of the lessons we already knew along the way. But it worked and our team is happy and the reasons that we went into the acquisition in terms of really being able to take care of our team and take care of our clients, that has really come true to fruition. So it’s worked, as I said.
Tegan Trovato:
Awesome.
Jen Benz:
Yeah.
Tegan Trovato:
And then in addition to your work at Segal Benz, you also are on other boards, I believe. You mentor women founders and businesses. Is there anything else you might want to say about those two things and anything I’m missing?
Jen Benz:
Yeah. Along the way, I’ve done a lot of nonprofit board work and nonprofit pro bono work. Actually, very early in my career, I got connected to Aaron Hurst who started the Taproot Foundation, and he built a whole model around professionals being able to do pro bono work for nonprofits. And that was so valuable for me, especially early in my career. It created good leadership opportunities for me, and I encourage everybody to get involved in that type of nonprofit work. I was able to join the board of a women’s health organization in Guatemala for several years, which was a great experience. And now I’m on the board of a foundation that also focuses on women’s health and reproductive rights, and all of that’s been a nice compliment to my day job.
Tegan Trovato:
Amazing. Thank you.
Jen Benz:
Yeah.
Tegan Trovato:
Well, for our listeners to know, Jen and I were chatting in anticipation of the podcast, and I said, “Where do you think you want to go, Jen? There’s so much in your career you could share as lessons learned or advice.” And she immediately was like, “Here’s five things.” And I went, “Oh my God.” Each one of those could be a podcast. I live for a good leadership lesson, as you know, Jen. So we’re going to do our best today to get into a little bit of each one of those things because they’re so rich. And wherever you’re inclined, Jen, feel free to color it with a story. You know me, I’m going to ask questions to unpack it a little bit, but let’s start with the value of perception in leadership and really keeping perception in mind. What would you tell our listeners about that?
Jen Benz:
Yeah, this is one of the things that initially came to mind when we started talking about the podcast, and something that I learned fairly early on, but then I think I relearn it and relearn it all the time. And that’s just that as a leader, you have such completely different perceptions about the company, about the opportunities, about the risks, than your team does. And you have to really understand that your view onto things is so different than the folks that you’re working with. And for myself, one area that I’ve become very aware of is that my comfort with ambiguity is really high. Most people’s comfort with ambiguity is not very high.
Tegan Trovato:
That’s right.
Jen Benz:
And so being really conscious of that and then understanding how that plays into the way I communicate, the way we set expectations and so forth, and making sure that doesn’t become a blind spot for me. And especially the comfort with ambiguity and then the perception of risk. I think that’s another area where leaders have such different insights into the business, and you have to be really self-aware that the folks that you’re working with don’t have the same perceptions of risk, and they might actually see risk in completely different areas than you do. And, of course, they don’t have the same access to information as you do. So I think being really self-aware of those things and knowing where your personal point of view, your personal perceptions fit relative to the folks you’re working with is so important.
Tegan Trovato:
Yeah. How do you make sure you aren’t losing sight of the other perceptions in the business for perhaps non-leaders or other employees?
Jen Benz:
I think you have to have really clear feedback channels. And this is something that we talk about with our clients when we’re working with really large Fortune 500 organizations, really large, higher ed institutions and so forth. You need a lot of feedback channels because people are going to have very different ways that they want to share information with you.
So at a company level, you need to have a lot of feedback channels. But then I think within a team and within smaller internal teams, or if you have a small company like I did for many years, you have to figure out how to create an environment where people don’t fear giving feedback. And I certainly was not as self-aware early on and a part of what has made me successful as a leader, is I had people on my team that were willing to say, “Jen, this is where you need to do better,” “Or this is where things aren’t clear,” or, “This is where you have unrealistic expectations.” And that’s been really crucial for me as a leader to have people surrounding me that are actually honest about that. But it’s really hard.
You can’t expect most people to be willing to tell their boss where they can improve. That’s just not a typical cultural expectation. Even if you ask for feedback, even if you ask for feedback in a formal process like a 360, a lot of people are not going to feel comfortable being open and honest. So you have to create the channels and create the environment that allows it.
Tegan Trovato:
Great. I will just echo that we see this with our senior leaders in the coaching where sometimes employees will finally share in a 360 the things they haven’t felt comfortable saying because it’s anonymous, but there’s so much risk to senior leaders when they don’t seek that out. And we had an experience recently with a leader who was super beloved in their organization, and his behavior had changed lately, and he was blindsided by some really high risk feedback that if he had regular 360s every year, he may have been able to get in front of that before it became high risk to his career. So as much as this is about also caring for our employees, it’s sort of an act of care for ourselves as leaders in a way, to make sure we’re understanding the perceptions because we care, so we can course correct if we need to.
Jen Benz:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That’s spot on.
Tegan Trovato:
How about the need for stress and emotional management? And get as real and specific as you can with us, because I think this is one of those talk tracks we always hear in the executive space, like manage your stress, make sure you’re taking care of yourself, self-care, wellness. And the eye rolls are big when we talk about these things because it feels really unattainable. So what are your thoughts on this when it comes to what we should be thinking about as leaders?
Jen Benz:
Yeah. I think this topic is so interesting because I think it’s not realistic to not be stressed as a leader, or just in our normal lives. Life is stressful and it’s not realistic to not have bad days, but the expectations for being in a leadership role are so much higher than for everybody else. And you have to really understand that your actions have an amplified impact on people. And as I mentioned in the intro, I was very young when we started the business. I was 29. I did not have a lot of leadership experience. I knew how to work my butt off. I knew how to work really hard. And a lot of our success in those early years was because I was willing to put in as many hours as it took no matter what to get the job done. Well, you can’t have that expectation of everybody else, and you can’t have the expectation that everyone is going to do things exactly the way that you do.
So a lot of what I had to learn early on in growing the business was that I had to take care of myself. I had to manage my own stress and make my own expectations realistic. Otherwise, I was going to burn out the team and also nobody was going to want to work with me. I was going to be miserable to work with. So you have to really figure that out. And if you’re having a bad day, you have to be aware of it. I remember one time that I was in a meeting and I was just exhausted that day, and I totally snapped at one of the guys on our team who’s been on our team for a long time. And I caught myself in that moment like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I did not mean to come across that way. I’m having a really crappy day. I’m exhausted. I did not mean to say that.”
And to have that self-awareness as a leader is so important because a little bit of a snappy comment, or a little bit of a exhausted remark or any of those kind of normal human emotions, the team is going to perceive them so differently. And you don’t want to set the wrong expectations just because you’re having a bad day. And this is one of the things that I worked on the most with an amazing coach that I got connected to pretty early in growing the company, was just that kind of emotional regulation, self-care, managing stress, managing my own emotions and also not getting so weighted down by other people’s stress because it’s very easy as a leader to take on everyone else’s anxieties, and that’s not healthy either. So you have to really figure out that balance of really deeply caring for your team and caring for your people and wanting to do the right thing by them, but not taking on all of their emotional burdens. Otherwise, you’re going to burn out.
Tegan Trovato:
Yeah. What I appreciate about your story there is that it models humility and humanness because we are going to misstep. It is impossible not to. I’ve got my handful of stories where I’ve had to apologize for snapping or just not being as loving or kind as I’d like to be. And what I want our listeners to remember is that when you have positional power, which Jen does and did then, people make up stories that are fear-based about why you snapped at them. It literally destabilizes their sense of security for themselves, and sometimes, their families. And we don’t think about that because to us, we’re like, “Ah, somebody had a bad day.”
Jen Benz:
Yeah.
Tegan Trovato:
But for someone that reports to us, they have to make up a story in order to cope with why that just happened.
Jen Benz:
Right. And even simple things like putting a check-in on someone’s calendar can create fear for them.
Tegan Trovato:
Yes.
Jen Benz:
And I know this. I know I should never put a check-in on someone’s calendar unless they explicitly know why that is. Or I say something like, “Quick check-in; good news. Do you have a minute to talk? I have some good news.” You don’t want people to have a fearful response to you reaching out to them, but it’s human nature. And just a few months ago, I was talking with one of the senior women on my team, and she told me that she got anxious when I put a check-in on her calendar. And I thought, “Oh my gosh. We’ve worked together for so long. I’m so sorry. I would have never thought that you’d have any worry about that.” And she said, “I know. It’s crazy, but that’s where my brain went was, ‘Uh-oh, what am I in trouble for?’” So even when you’ve worked with people for years and years, you can’t get away from sometimes that human, fearful or anxious response to things. So you got to just work really hard to get that out of the way.
Tegan Trovato:
Yeah. Because it is so natural. That’s the other thing we need to normalize. It is natural that this is how people react.
Jen Benz:
Absolutely.
Tegan Trovato:
And so I love the kindness that you even bookend your meeting requests with because it really probably goes a long way. So I’ve heard from you on this topic when it comes to stress and emotional management, having self-awareness, setting real expectations for yourself about what your team can and can’t do so you don’t burn them out. And you mentioned your own stress management practice. I’m curious, might you share some of those things with our listeners? If you’re like me, that’s changed over time, and has to change and ebb and flow with what’s going on in my life. How about for you?
Jen Benz:
I meditate for 20 minutes, and then I have a cup of warm tea and I do some sort of great practice, but that’s not really the case. But what I do know is I have to prioritize exercise and movement. Otherwise, I am not a happy person. Ideally that happens before work hours because by the end of the day, I am tired and I don’t want to go to the gym or go do more physical activity. Having coaches and support for when things get really stressful, whether that’s people internally to talk about, to talk things through with, having an outside coach has been really valuable and then taking the right amount of time off.
And I think that’s not always easy as leaders to take those breaks and to really separate from work, but it’s so important. And as I mentioned early on, a lot of why our business was successful was because I worked all the time. And if it was an opportunity, I went after it. Early on, especially when we were trying to create credibility, anywhere that I could go speak at a conference, any opportunity to go meet with a client, I was on a plane. And that’s not a sustainable way to work. So I had to get boundaries in place to contain work into the hours that I could actually take care of myself too, and to have that separation.
And so I generally don’t work on the weekends. A lot of people let work spill completely into the weekends. Now I’ve stepped into a new role this year. I have been working a lot more on the weekends this year than I have for a long time because I want that space to actually think. But having those boundaries is really important.
And then taking real time off, actually taking time away from work, not having your cell phone or your email with you is so important. And last year, when my husband and I went on our very delayed honeymoon, that we were supposed to do it originally in 2020, I took all of my work access off of my mobile phone, said, “If you need me, text me. I’ll be around, but I’m not going to look at anything.” And it was amazing. And actually, that was the first time that I now have two devices. So I actually have a personal phone and a work phone, which I’d never ever had before. And even that just little bit of additional physical separation has been really good for me to have enough of that space that I can actually then go back to work and be really focused.
Tegan Trovato:
What an interesting idea. That’s great. Yeah, because a collection of minutes in a day, if you have that separate phone, gives you a sliver of a life back if we think about it like that.
Jen Benz:
Yeah, it’s interesting. There’s something interesting too, just about the phone, because of course, the phone that I’d look at when I first wake up, because of course, all of us look at the phone when we first wake up. That just has my personal life on it. I have to walk across the apartment to get to the one that has my work life on it.
So to me, that little bit of separation has been really helpful. It wouldn’t have mattered 10 years ago because I would have just had the work device right next to me on the bed anyway. But for where I am right now, that little bit of extra separation has been valuable just to let me have the real focus. And I think that our jobs require so much day-to-day in the weeds work and decision-making, but also you really need that time to be able to think and be strategic, and that’s really hard when you’re getting pinged by a ton of messages throughout the day. So figuring out how to carve that out is really valuable.
Tegan Trovato:
Beautiful. Well, since you used the phrase decision-making just now. I’m going to move us into our next topic, and the word ambiguity has probably been said seven or eight times already. So talk about the ability to make decisions in ambiguity. In a time where that has amplified, especially since COVID, it is breathtaking the amount of decisions that have to be made. Tell us about your experience with that and what leaders might think when it comes to making these decisions without a lot of information.
Jen Benz:
Yeah. Well, I think it’s important to remember that as a leader, your primary job is to make decisions. That is the duty that has been put on your plate, and you have to be willing to make them even when you don’t have all of the information. And I’m very intuitive and I can make decisions. I can see the right path even when there’s only a little bit of data available. Other people are going to want all of the data and all of the information in front of them. But you can’t let the data or the lack of data paralyze you or prevent you from making a decision because that’s what your team expects of you. And one of my mentors said, “Your number one job as a leader is to make decisions. They don’t always have to be the right decisions, but you need to make decisions and you need to actually move things forward by helping your team make decisions.”
So I think that’s so important and one of the most important pieces of that is they don’t always have to be right, but once you know they’re not right, then you need to make a decision to change it. And I think that’s where a lot of organizations go wrong, and a lot of people dig in. They feel that their ego is at stake, or their reputation is at stake to say, “This decision that we made is not the right one. Now we need to change course.” But that’s what business right now requires. You have to be willing to pivot and you have to be willing to say, “We thought we had all of the information and that this was the right path to go down. Now we’ve learned that it’s not and we’re going to change course and do something different.”
You’re going to get more respect from your team to be real with that because everyone knows that the path is the wrong course. Once you start going down that and it’s not working, everybody knows. But it’s your job as the leader to then make the decision to say, “Okay. We all know now this isn’t the right next step. We’re going to go in a different direction.” So I think that’s so important.
Tegan Trovato:
It is. Do you have any tips on perception and reputation management? Because it is a real thing when we have gone down the wrong path, especially if we spend a lot of money doing it, a lot of resources. What are your thoughts on how we recover with our stakeholders when it comes to course correcting?
Jen Benz:
I think what’s really important is to get everyone aligned to start about why you’re doing something. So not just the what but the why, and get a broader group involved in helping inform or make the decisions and not try to do things on your own as a leader. And this is something that I have definitely fallen into, and a pattern that I had to break from my own personal background is, when things got really tough, I always felt like I was by myself. That, okay, now it’s the most stressful and I’m all alone. When really it’s like it’s the most stressful and you have this whole team around you. So I think leaders have to be collaborative, have to pull in the support and the guidance and the advice of others around them. Be willing to disagree, be willing to have a good conversation about it. And then together, move forward.
So then when you need to course correct, you course correct together. None of us are leading on our own. That’s impossible. And so really getting that environment where everyone feels like they can be part of the decision making and then be part of informing whether or not that decision is working is really valuable.
Tegan Trovato:
Yeah, wonderful. Thank you for that. I know you’re really passionate about creating thriving workplaces, and you’ve alluded to some of your personal experience earlier in your career and continuing on with where you are now, where it is of focus to care for the people who support the business. Tell us about your passion there and what leaders need to know about what it really takes to create a thriving workplace.
Jen Benz:
Yeah. I think this topic is so important and we could talk about it for hours. We have to have human, flexible, kind, open, resilient workplaces. It’s the only way for humans to operate and to do good work, and it’s not that hard. It kills me, the headlines that you see and all of the work memes of just horribly toxic places that people are experiencing day in and day out. It’s not that hard to create a workplace where you’re giving people trust and flexibility and so forth. And Segal being a place that’s really focused on employees and really focused on people having long careers here is part of the reason that we felt comfortable bringing our team. And that was something that really early on in starting the business, we built in, not necessarily strategically but out of necessity.
So when I was first getting things going, one of the people who was so key in the business early on was a woman who had just had a baby. She wanted to work part-time, and that’s what we needed at the moment. We didn’t need a full-time person. We needed a part-time role to plug into some key areas. And then another woman came on board, similarly with incredible expertise because she couldn’t go back to work part-time after having a baby, but we could create a part-time role for her. So right from the beginning, we had this baked into how we worked, of the flexibility and the part-time schedules and so forth. And as we grew, we tried to create that same type of flexibility for everybody, and that’s been really critical to helping keep our key people and doing the work that we do.
Our work is creating really compelling employee communication materials. So there’s a lot of technical work that goes into that. There’s a lot of creative work that goes into that. People need to be able to be present and focused and creative, and you can’t do that if you’re stressed and anxious. So having that flexibility built in is really key. And I think if you create a workplace that’s flexible enough for parents with young kids to be able to juggle everything, it’s going to be flexible enough for everybody’s life situations to be juggled, whether that’s taking care of older parents, or taking care of your own personal health need, or needing to do something for your own well-being like take a yoga class in the middle of the afternoon. We’re all so unique and we need work to make sense in the way it fits into people’s lives. And so building in that flexibility, the trust, the kindness is really important.
Tegan Trovato:
Love that. I was just talking with someone the other day about how I have not heard that… I’d be curious your take on this given what you all do. I have not heard that most companies have increased their PTO policy or their sick time policy since COVID, and COVID is still, as someone who just had it last month, put me out for almost two weeks. I was not very useful for quite a while. And I think about people who have multiple children, who they’re all going to be sick for quite a while and miss school and they’re going to need a parent to be home with them. The parent themselves are going to be sick. We think about the amount of sick time that a human needs access to now it’s ample, it’s substantial compared to what’s traditional. Have you seen the needle moving there? And it comes to organizations who are taking good care of their people.
Jen Benz:
I would not say that we’ve seen organizations increase their PTO or their paid time off. And part of that is the technical reason that when you have a lot of paid time off on the books, it becomes a liability on the balance sheet. A lot of organizations have moved to unlimited time off or non-accrued time off and not really tracking PTO. And in some cases, that works really well and it gives people a ton of flexibility. In other cases, people take off less time because it’s not clear what the expectations are. And a lot of that comes down to the company culture. So I think that many organizations feel they’ve created more flexibility and more of a, if you’re sick, actually stay home, actually take care of yourself kind of mindset. But the policies and the benefits may not have actually changed. Hopefully, just the practices have.
Tegan Trovato:
Got it.
Jen Benz:
But you’re right. It’s so easy to burn through all of your sick time or all of your time off without much of significance happening.
Tegan Trovato:
Right.
Jen Benz:
And so there are, for people who are sick for a very long period of time, there are short-term disability policies and things like that. But this is, I think, where we see a lot more focus on family leave and caregiving leave, and a lot of organizations have put in more generous policies around taking care of other folks or needing to take time away to take care of your own health. The challenge though was there’s still a lot in that gray area between, my kid is sick, I’m sick, but not sick enough to need to be on disability. There’s just a lot of scenarios and I think that’s, again, where we just have to have really human and kind workplaces where people can talk about that and figure out the right approach, and you never know what’s going to happen.
Gosh, breaking a bone. There’s just so many things that get in the way of being able to show up to work, and that’s especially true for folks that don’t have computer-based jobs. The things that get in the way of healthcare workers getting to work or transit workers getting to work are even bigger. So it’s a big thing for employers to solve.
Tegan Trovato:
Yeah. Break down kindness for us at work. What does it take to have a kind culture?
Jen Benz:
Yeah. There’s a lot of components there. Just basic communication and treating people nicely. You hear companies that have the no jerks policy, but I don’t think that’s enough because you can be surface-level kind and surface-level nice, but not be creating structures that actually help people be successful. So I think you have to go pretty deep on that to make sure that people have clear expectations about their roles, that they have development opportunities, that they have mentoring opportunities. We’ve created a formal mentorship program and we have almost a third of the company participating in that.
Tegan Trovato:
Fantastic. Wow.
Jen Benz:
Yeah, it’s awesome. And that’s a way to build those relationships and build those connections. My sister, who used to teach junior high school, just the other day said to me, “Clarity is kindness.” And-
Tegan Trovato:
Yes. We say that here. Yes.
Jen Benz:
…I love that. I love that.
Clear expectations, clear communication about deadlines, teaching your team, when there is an issue, how to resolve it, how to give people feedback in the moment. People really want feedback, and you have to build in systems and teach people how to give it to each other in the moment, not wait until the end of the year. So there’s a lot of different aspects to that.
Tegan Trovato:
Yeah. What comes up for me as you share some of those specifics is the need for skill building for leaders.
Jen Benz:
Yes.
Tegan Trovato:
We are not born knowing how and when to give feedback and how to manage our own emotions through it or receive the emotions of the person getting the feedback. That’s just one component of leadership, giving feedback, which is arguably huge, but also just one small slice of the competency pie, right?
Jen Benz:
Definitely. And peers have to know how to give each other feedback, especially how to give each other feedback over what could be very significant cultural or social or demographic differences. How do you really have a conversation where someone knows that you’re on their side and that you want the best for them, and that you’re helping them be better and not have them feel that they’re being criticized unfairly or singled out and so forth? There is a real skill to that, and I think it’s something that people at all levels need to be trained on.
Tegan Trovato:
Yeah. What would it sound like to give feedback to a peer?
Jen Benz:
Oh, I’m never good at role playing in the moment, but I-
Tegan Trovato:
You could just describe it if you prefer.
Jen Benz:
Yeah, I think you have to… Building in the actual phrases of the actual framing so that it becomes something that everyone does is really helpful. “So Tegan, I would love to talk to you about that client meeting we were in last week, and I’d love to give you some feedback. When is a good time to talk about that?” And letting that person actually know that’s the conversation that’s coming and say, “Okay. Today’s not good because I’m working on a ton of client deliverables, but let’s schedule time tomorrow where we can really have a conversation about it.”
So some of that is really helpful versus just getting on the phone where you think you’re having a normal check-in, and all of a sudden, someone feels like you’re jumping all over them for something that happened last week or that they didn’t expect it. So I think setting expectations is really helpful. And then listening too, making sure that it’s really clear and maybe your perception of the situation wasn’t actually the way the other person perceived it. You have to be open to that too. Like, “Hey, this is what I was picking up on. Is that what you thought? Or did you see that too?” So it has to be a two-way street as well.
Tegan Trovato:
Great. Love that. Talk about, over the years, how you’ve had to scale your expertise and knowing when you need to.
Jen Benz:
Yeah, I think this is a really interesting topic, especially for founders, or for anyone who’s growing a business. You’re not going to know how to do everything and to have the expertise on everything. So knowing when you need to bring in other voices or other leaders is really important. And there were several times when we were growing the business that was so key.
First of all, very early on, I partnered with Isabel who was my business partner of many years, and she had very complementary skill sets, and she had already run her own business for about 10 years, so she already knew so much of the ins and outs of running and managing a business that I didn’t know. And so that was a very fortuitous partnership early on that allowed us to grow very fast and not make the first time mistakes. And she kind of joked she made the mistakes in her first business, so we didn’t have to repeat them. Of course, we made mistakes of our own, plenty of them, but that was really key because I don’t have the operational mind. That’s not my key area of expertise or key skill sets. So that was really key.
Then as we got bigger and we needed more structure and leadership on the team, we brought in a woman to be our NCFO, and that was a key transition point where we needed that additional expertise to grow. We needed the structure, and she also became an internal coach for us and an internal leadership voice that was very much needed. We brought in some folks with deeper people management expertise at some different points, technical expertise. So knowing where you need to supplement your own skillset, I think, is really important. And then now that I’m in a larger organization, knowing how I can partner with other leaders who may see things differently or have a different point of view on things is really valuable.
Tegan Trovato:
Yeah, beautiful. Thank you for calling out that this is especially important for founders. Talking the other day with someone because I, you know my history. I used to work inside of organizations in talent development and talent acquisition, so I’m no stranger to a job description or the need for skill development. It was literally what I did for a living for decades, and I appreciated that when I was wanting my next thing, until you get to a certain level of your career, it’s pretty clear what you need to develop in order to be ready for the next thing. You can find it written down somewhere most of the time.
But when you’re a founder, or when you’re a CEO of any business or an executive in any business, you just bump into stuff. There aren’t job descriptions anymore, and you just find, all of a sudden, that you are without knowledge in a key area. And sometimes, you don’t see it coming and it hurts. But I’m with you in that story of we knew it was going to be time to have a COO a couple of years ago. We’re so lucky to find Maggie, and that literally multiplied, doubled our capacity, and she’s so complementary to my brain and how it works. And then the pain of not having the right partners is expensive.
Jen Benz:
Absolutely.
Tegan Trovato:
If you don’t find the right people to partner with your business and play those functional roles for you, whether that’s financial or legal or marketing, it costs you money and business.
Jen Benz:
Yes.
Tegan Trovato:
So that’s another place that I think founders and executives who consume partnerships as how they get their work done, bend to things and have to move quickly to rectify it and find the right expertise again. And it can be quite a journey.
Jen Benz:
Absolutely. And the people who might be right at one size may or may not be the right fit as you grow. And there has to be a willingness to adapt and change as the business grows or as the needs grow, as the team grows and so forth.
Tegan Trovato:
Yeah. Beautiful. You mentioned coaching several times. So it tells me you’ve been a consumer over the years of coaching. So tell us about your experience with coaching over the years and what you’ve appreciated about it.
Jen Benz:
Yeah. There is no way that I would have been able to do what I’ve done along the way without a lot of great mentors and very disciplined, very consistent coaching. I just think that that coaching support as a leader is so critical, and I got that in a couple of different ways. One from outside personal coaches who I worked with personally, and then one who worked with several people on our team, which was really valuable. And that’s why Tegan, when I first got to know you and your business and heard about the model you have of working with teams, I was like, “Oh my God, that’s just so brilliant. That’s what’s needed.” This coach, while I worked with her a lot, personally, having that voice to connect some of the things as a leadership team that we were working on, was so powerful.
And she provided a ton of support for where I was running into roadblocks, where I was getting drained, being able to think about and create clarity on really what I wanted and the vision that I had for things. So that was so, so valuable. And then I mentioned our CFO, COO. Libby was really an internal coach as well as her leadership role. So she had worked with several other professional services organizations. She had a lot more depth. Especially as we were going through the acquisition. She was a tremendous coach for Isabel and I, having not gone through that before. So again, that kind of team leadership coach and then having the coaching built into the way you’re working as a team is so important. So there’s just no way we would have had the success that we’ve had without some of those incredible coaches.
Tegan Trovato:
Amazing. Thank you for sharing that. Well, as we’re coming to a close today, I always like to just turn the mic over to you and say, if you had a room full of thousands of leaders, what advice would you give them in these times? You gave a ton of great ideas today, but in closing, what are a couple things you’d say, “Go do this, go be this. Go think about this?”
Jen Benz:
Yeah. We’ve touched on a lot of different topics. The thing I would say, and I have this conversation with our clients a lot because they’re part of HR teams at big organizations, is people need good leaders and good workplaces now tremendously. There’s so much uncertainty in the world. There’s so much that’s scary in the world right now. And to have organizations that really take care of their people, that create the right leadership opportunities, the right economic stability. I sometimes think we don’t talk enough that the goal of the leader is to take care of the financial security of your people too, and to create a stable source of income for them where they don’t have to be fearful of where their next paycheck is coming from or if their job is at risk and so forth. But I think that is so needed right now in our world and in society to have really great places, and it has such a ripple effect.
When people have a great work experience, they can be the best friend and partner and parent and person contributing into their community and so forth. And when you have a really bad work experience, it really drains you. So I didn’t know how hard it would be to build a great workplace, but also how rewarding it would be. And along the way, that has been one of the things that has been very personally rewarding to me, is to see when that is actually working and the impact that it has. So I think I would just say that role of being a really good leader is so valuable right now and so needed. And take care of yourself so that you can really show up in the way that you need to for your people and your organization.
Tegan Trovato:
Yeah. Jen, thank you. To the point of the ripple effect, look at the ripple effect you have created. So thank you.
Jen Benz:
Oh, thank you.
Tegan Trovato:
Thanks for modeling for all of us what that looks like. And thank you for your time today and sharing with our listeners all your wisdom.
Jen Benz:
Thank you for having me.
Tegan Trovato:
Effective communication isn’t just a business tool. It’s really the foundation for building trust, engaging your team, and driving business results that matter. As Jen shared with us today, creating environments where communication is clear, intentional and rooted in kindness can truly transform both your work and your personal life. Whether you are leading a team through change, managing stress or just making sure everyone feels heard and valued, Jen’s insights remind us of how powerful thoughtful communication can be.
As you think about how to bring these takeaways into your own life, consider how you can improve the way you connect with your team and colleagues. Can you be more transparent? Listen more closely? Create a space where feedback is genuinely welcomed? By focusing on these areas, you can help build a culture that not only achieves business goals, but also boosts everyone’s well-being and satisfaction.
Remember, effective leadership really starts with how we connect with others. By prioritizing clear and compassionate communication, you can create stronger, more resilient teams that are ready to tackle any challenge.
Thanks for joining us on this episode of the Life + Leadership podcast. If you enjoyed our conversation, don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube Music and share it with anyone who might benefit from it. We’ll catch you in the next episode.
