Episode Summary
An executive is a powerful leader who is in charge of their company’s growth, and it takes a lot of hard work, strategic thinking, and problem-solving skills to become one.
But you can be authentically yourself and still be a successful executive. In this episode of the Taking the Lead podcast, our host Christina Brady welcomes Jamie Kirmess, the managing director at Shift Paradigm. They talk about the power of being yourself, how to embrace your biggest strengths, and why you should never stop learning.
Guest Profile
- Name: Jamie Kirmess
- What she does: She's the managing director at Shift Paradigm.
- Company: Shift Paradigm
- Noteworthy: Jamie is a marketing leader with eight years of experience in developing revenue-driven marketing initiatives for companies across multiple industries, geographies, and departments. She believes in using data to make informed decisions and encourage accountability within the marketing and sales departments.
Key Insights
- Be eager to learn. Life involves ongoing learning, and the same goes for your career. Learning should never stop, so take every chance you get to hone your skills and improve yourself. Jamie says, "I was a fish out of water when I started there. But I also love to learn, and I am naturally good with clients. So, in a consulting environment where I can learn about other people and what makes them tick and then use my resources in the background to make that a reality for that person, that is really what motivated me. I started to be of service to others and started sort of combining my education with the tech, and I think that's what allowed me to be successful there."
- The more you learn about yourself, the stronger you become. Self-improvement starts with self-awareness. You need to understand your biggest strengths and weaknesses if you want to get ahead in life. Jamie explains, "I know some people are like, 'I don't believe in these tests,' and I get that they can be flawed, but for me, they gave me so much more confidence because I was able to understand that something like learning and tenacity and grit and passion and just excitement that I naturally have, they are part of my strengths. But things like process, which is hilarious that I was working in robots, because things like process and data and the details and the pragmatism of day-to-day decision-making were actually not my strength. And so I think the Myers Briggs [test] and the whole executive coaching experience was super valuable for me, and it gave me the space to reflect on how I can add value in this position and not think that I have to do everything and be everything that I'm not."
- You can be yourself and still be successful. Despite what you might think, you can be authentically yourself and still become a successful executive. Jamie shares her personal story. She says, "What I've learned is that this is a journey. This is not like a light bulb went off, and now I'm all better, and I don't have these insecurities. But what I've learned is that it's okay for me not to be those things, and I can double down on my strengths, and I can surround myself with people who are really good at those other things. And together, we can make magic happen. But you have to let go of the ego associated with not being okay with not being all things to all people."
Episode Highlights
There’s beauty in youthful confidence
“The funny thing is that I didn’t have any of that insecurity when I was younger. I’m an ENTP personality type. So naturally, I’m very gregarious. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I love to learn and share information. And so, I went into this social media manager job being like, ‘I know social media, I can do it.’ I had no insecurities there.”
Don’t compare yourself to other people
“As you broaden and you learn, you learn that there’s so much more that you don’t know, and there are so many people that have other skills that you don’t have, and that’s a good thing. But it can be hard. It can be hard, in the moment, to see that as a good thing. It can be hard to not compare yourself to other people.”
Focus on the outcome
“If you tell somebody that this is the outcome that I need from you and put the learning and development in their court to say, ‘What do you need to work on to reach this outcome? How can I help you be successful?’ and create a safe environment where somebody can do that self-assessment, that will automatically give them more drive, I think — in my experience anyway — to go do the thing. So put it in their court.”
Interviewing for diversity of thought
“I have a competency model for my people. So, when I’m interviewing people, there are certain competencies that I need them to have, and how they approach those competencies or get to them are very, very different. So a competency might be customer orientation. And some of the behaviors that I would expect to see in customer orientation are things like reading client press releases, looking at earning reports, understanding what makes their clients tick, those types of things. And that can look very different.”
