Leaders Unscripted

Conversations with leaders about the challenges they’ve faced and what they’ve learned.

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1: The Power of the Vulnerable CEO with former-CEO of StickerGiant & Founder of Humankind Business Leaders, Beck Sydow

Episode cover image

Humanity in a CEO is a side that’s difficult to get right, but Beck Sydow managed that as a trailblazing CEO at StickerGiant, even with Covid shining a light on the business’ most challenging areas.

Beck joins me to kick off this series with a look at culture and gender identity in work, having a plan with room to be flexible, the need for leaders to understand the human condition, and so much more!

This Episode Covers:

  • Beck’s remarkable multi-industry background
  • The value of flexibility in a plan
  • Navigating the challenges of uncertainty
  • A CEO’s need to care about both business acumen and human nature
  • Authenticity, diversity, and gender identity in the workplace

Episode Highlights:

“It's so important to have a plan and work that plan, but to be really flexible. I'm so grateful that I learned how to listen to my insides too, around that connect point. Culturally, we're really taught to chase all the external validations of our success and how we feel about ourselves.” - 7:30 - Beck Sydow
“Covid has shined a really bright light on areas in our companies and businesses that were difficult before, and it just brought out the more difficult nature of things, right? Having enough people to keep up with demand, keeping a workforce happy and healthy, all of those things.” - 12:25 - Beck Sydow
“You have to have a lot of good business acumen to be in a role like COO or CEO. But I almost feel like with every passing day, you have to understand the human condition too because it's the complement of how you're using business acumen and tried and true philosophies and frameworks to help a company move forward.” - 15:30 - Beck Sydow
“Vulnerability is like the buzzword of leadership these days. But if you're not well supported, then vulnerability is going to come across as oversharing, too emotional, and it's going to confuse people more than it's going to help them.” - 24:05 - Beck Sydow
“So I just said, I'm gender non binary and I've known this for some time. I've been same-sex attracted for a long time, and it just felt so inauthentic for me to be talking about how we put together our own understanding of how to be supportive of people that are different from us by any kind of identity that people have, right?” - 29:00 - Beck Sydow
“I do give a lot of thought to communication, whether it's about something like this or any level of communication we're doing, because you only get one shot to do the best job possible.” - 33:30 - Beck Sydow
“Everything's out of control. All we have are varying levels of influence. That's humbling. We can't control our cultures. As soon as leaders start thinking that we can, we might get tricked into doing some manipulative things.” - 38:55 - Beck Sydow

Links & References:

Suzan Bond: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanbond/

Beck Sydow: https://www.linkedin.com/in/becksydow/

StickerGiant: https://www.stickergiant.com/

Boulder Mindful Living: https://www.bouldermindfulliving.net/