We get a lot of “words on walls,” but let’s talk about the behaviors associated with them. In this episode, Belonging and Connection Strategist, Dr. Roz Cohen, shares a practical approach to hiring practices that foster employee engagement and belonging at work, as well as how leaders can share the mental load of being the person who does it all.
“We tend to do things because that’s the way it’s always been, not because it’s the right answer.”
In this episode, Belonging and Connection Strategist, Dr. Roz Cohen, shares a practical approach to hiring practices that foster employee engagement and belonging at work, as well as how leaders can share the mental load of being the person who does it all.
This conversation is so refreshing in that Dr. Roz takes big concept ideas, such as hiring practices, employee engagement, inclusive leadership, connection and belonging, and breaks them down into incredibly relevant questions and actionable behaviors, specific to you and your organization.
The more we can create the environment Dr. Roz suggests, the happier people will be in our organization, including us!
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Dr. Roz Cohen has spent over two decades proving that great workplaces aren't built on policies alone—they're built on real human connections. As Chief People Officer at LNW Advisors and founder of Socius Strategies, she's made it her mission to help organizations create cultures where everyone truly belongs. Roz's journey through HR leadership has taken her from the magic of Disney to the fast-paced world of Banc of America Securities and Hall Capital Partners. Along the way, she's discovered that whether you're entertaining millions or managing billions, the secret ingredient is always the same: authentic relationships and inclusive leadership.
With her Ph.D. in Leadership and Change from Antioch University and credentials as both an SPHR® and SHRM-SCP, Roz brings serious expertise to her work. But ask anyone who's worked with her, and they'll tell you she's just as likely to roll up her sleeves and dig into the real challenges facing teams today.
When she's not busy changing workplace cultures one connection at a time, you might find Roz training for the NYC Marathon, exploring new cuisines, or planning her next travel adventure. Her philosophy is simple: we all thrive when we feel genuinely connected to the work we do and the people we do it with.
Learn more about and connect with Dr. Roz at https://lnwadvisors.com/bio/rosalind-f-cohen-ph-d-sphr/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosalindfcohen.
Céline Williams: [00:00:00] I'm Céline Williams and welcome to the Leading Through Crisis Podcast, a conversation series, exploring resiliency and leadership in challenging times. My guest today is Dr. Roz Cohen, chief People Officer at l and w Advisors, and a leader who brings together the theoretical and practical in order to create cultures where everyone truly belongs.
Welcome, Roz.
Roz Cohen: Thank you so much. My pleasure to be here.
Céline Williams: I am. I'm really lucky that I get to talk to some pretty cool people on this, on this podcast, and I'm very excited to get to talk to you and to connect with you today. But before we get into all of the details of your story and my barrage of questions that will inevitably happen, I'm gonna ask the question I always start with, which is the name of the show is Leading Through Crisis.
When you hear that phrase, what comes up for you?
Roz Cohen: It's a good question. Immediately, I, I. Wonder, what do we mean by crisis? Mm. Because I think how people look at crisis can be [00:01:00] indicative of how they lead through it, right? Yeah. Yeah. And this is not some HR jargony type of thing, but really if you think of.
Things that happen as opportunities both to communicate messaging, to reconnect people to a message, uh, to share and, and really be transparent. That's a very different mindset than coming from a like, oh my God, what are we going to do about this? The sky is falling, whatever. Also not to be said that there are not some real things that are real crises, of course, but it really is about perspective and how, how are we going to think about this and what are we gonna do moving forward?
Yeah. So that, that's what comes
up for me.
Céline Williams: So I'm gonna ask a question about that. 'cause I think that's really, I think that's a very important thing to consider. And I, my bias, just so you know, is I agree. I think. We all define, I think individually we define crisis differently, and then organizations [00:02:00] define and teams and like you can, you know, micro, macro.
Right. And so I, you know, that's part of where this show comes from is my curiosity around that and, and what that looks like. And from your perspective, whether or not teams, organizations, groups are formally defining crisis. Mm-hmm. Um. Do you see some version of that? Whether you're like, here's what we consider a crisis that we can think about or, you know, but to avoid some of the reactivity that can happen otherwise.
Is there something that you recommend when it comes to that or you've seen work when it comes to thinking about these kind of challenges, let's call 'em challenges currently.
Roz Cohen: Fabulous.
Love it. Love it. Love the vernacular. I always have, I have this sort of way in which I think about things for good or for bad.
But it's this, what's the foundation that we wanna always make sure we're operating from. Hmm. [00:03:00] And whether that's an overarching mission or a values or whatever the case may be. Because if we say that in general, we believe that. Anytime we have a chance to talk with our employees, to share with them the why things are happening, to be transparent as much as possible, I'm not.
Big fan of this radical transparency thing, I don't think it works. Um, but when we, if we think of all of these as opportunities to do that, then it's just about how do we do it? It's about, um, what's the messaging that makes the most sense for this? So the first thing to do is define on what, what are our values?
What are the things that we are gonna lead with and we are gonna look for in all opportunities that we have. And then figuring out the behaviors that will support that. So if your vision or if the, the goal is to always have to always be able to share information clearly and [00:04:00] transparently, well then what are the behaviors that that would help hold that up.
Then you can always go back to those behaviors when you're in the middle of a crisis. So when we said we're gonna do this, we say that this is what it looks like. So what do we need to do in this particular circumstance? So there is a really strong need to be proactive as opposed to reactive. We've had plenty of experiences over the course of the past five years, whether it's COVID or change of the administration, the White House, or whatever it is.
Where, where we've had to communicate as companies or individuals. So we have plenty of opportunities to, to think about it from that perspective and plan versus being reactive.
Yeah. And I love what you said, uh, again, fully biased in this, but I love what you said around defining the behaviors associated with those values, whatever, whatever that mm-hmm.
Category is. I think that is so often the piece that isn't done. It's the words I always say, [00:05:00] we get a lot of words on walls, like Yes, yes. Integrity, and this is my definition of integrity. That's right. And people go, perfect, but there's no behavior associated with it. Right, right. So it really doesn't, in that challenging moment, in that crisis, that what do we do with it?
It's a word on a wall. That's right.
The behaviors, uh, behaviors are so critical because people will emulate what you want them to emulate if you give them an opportunity to see it. Um, and we struggle a little bit with how people gain the behavior versus the demonstration of the behavior. And what I mean by that goes back to some DEI stuff, regardless of your political stance, uh, 'cause we're not here to discuss that. Uh, it's what are it, it doesn't matter how someone achieved the ability to have integrity, but what matters [00:06:00] is what are the behaviors? Do those align with the organization? So when you're looking at things like recruiting and hiring, I don't care whether you've been a.
Got the scholarship to Yale and are doing A, B, and C or you know, you're a kid that's come from someplace else that went to a state school. It doesn't matter if you are able to demonstrate the ability and the behaviors that are make us successful as an organization. That's what's important. Doesn't matter that where,
Céline Williams: so this is not where I was going to go with this, but I'm going to ask about that because.
In the past week, I have had multiple conversations with people around how terrible the hiring process is specifically, and talking about what you are talking about, which is mm-hmm. Like we focus on the someone's education or their past experience that's on a resume in such a way, [00:07:00] and then. Ask questions that are either so generic that everyone can plan for them or don't really get into real behaviors, right?
Like it's just, it hasn't been set up that way. And with the advent or with the, not adv, wait, I'll say advent. With the advent of ai. You can, people are really designing resumes that are gonna hit every high note. Absolutely. So context of why I am kind of, you know, going off the rail slightly for a second, um, because I think what you said is really interesting when you're talking about the behaviors and demonstrating those behaviors.
I hundred percent agree with you. And how, do you have any suggestions for leaders who are. Having this co, I'm not kidding you. I've had this come up in the past week, probably six or seven times in conversation where it's like, what do we, what do we [00:08:00] do? They, what do we do? Yeah. What do we do about this?
Roz Cohen: So it's very funny.
My doctoral dissertation was around inclusive leadership, employee engagement and identity. And I'm subsequently writing a book. Um. Funny enough called Hiring for engagement. Oh my gosh. Love this. Yes. So, so it, it, it, it's really funny how all this comes to play. I love
Céline Williams: that. The sidebar is actually like, well, here we go.
Perfect.
Roz Cohen: Um, so, so here's what, here's, because I come at this from a pragmatic stance mm-hmm. Give you a little context. Theoretically we talk about engagement being a bunch of different things. Practically what I found in my research, and this is building off of others obviously was that there are three kinds of engagement.
There's an, I think there's an I belong and there's an, I feel, I'm, I'm boiling down the, the, the book by book details, but, the, I [00:09:00] think behavior is sort of how you perceive the work that you do. What gives you that, that sort of intellectual charge. The other two are more involved in the culture of an organization.
So what I found was you can hire for, lemme say this differently, you may have to edit this little piece. I belong and I feel. Really has a, uh, an IM is impacted by how a manager acts. If you act in certain ways that are more inclusive. If you act in ways that bring people together to create this space of belonging, you can do that.
Right? That I think engagement, you can't. And what's happened is we've been so focused on the degree, the school, the, the key, what we believe to be key thoughts about the job that we forget about this? I think, so we don't structure processes that try and hit on those [00:10:00] marks. We don't structure ways in which people are recruited in way we onboard folks that lead that connect with that, I think mentality.
So what I have found is that when we look at what the behaviors of success are within an organization. When we look at people who are successful in how they act and use that as a way of determining how to hire the right people, we remove some of these biases. It's not an easy process. It takes a while and there are steps that you should do to in order to do that, but you decrease the bias, you decrease the ability for, um, you, you end up having the folks who are.
More likely to be successful in the role end up going through the process. So it's something that is near and dear to my heart, ironically enough, and being able to then talk about what are the behaviors that [00:11:00] make us successful as an organization, and how do we make sure that we're hiring people with those characteristics.
It doesn't matter how they got them, it doesn't matter that they were. At Yale or versus state school. And the best example I have of this is when I, I worked at a company previously and we were looking to hire entry level folks and you know, we had all the based in California, had all the Stanford grads and everybody who had been doing X, Y, and Z.
You had this one resume of a gentleman who had, was pivoting in his career, a little older than the traditional, was a doorman. At a, a building in New York City had gone to, uh, city College, uh, in one of the city colleges in New York to, to get his degree. And so when we were, the first one of the comments that someone said was, well, he went to a state school or he's a doorman.
But when we looked at behaviors, we want someone who's gonna be able to be [00:12:00] customer service oriented. They have to connect with our clients. Well, if you've ever seen a New York City doorman, they are. Fantastic at that. Um, they, we want someone who's gonna be able to think through problems, right? So when you understand what makes your people successful and you hire for that, you remove some of the other stuff.
So it's interesting. That's literally what the book and my dissertation was about.
Céline Williams: So first and foremost, please come back when your book is published 'cause I would love to talk about this more. Fantastic. Uh, and I'm gonna put that out that put that out there right now. And I love that example of the gentleman who pivoted in that way.
Yeah. Because I think the reality is that now, um, there are so many people who are pivoting. I think there are so many people, whether it's a similar whatever his reason was. There are so many people in a position where they are either having to or choosing to pivot their career in some way, and they often are overlooked because people are looking [00:13:00] at the.
Not the, I mean, I don't, I'm trying to think of a good word for it. Maybe not the things that are going to help them be successful in the role. Right. They're looking at the, the stuff that we've been told matters most for years. That's right. That's right.
Roz Cohen: And it's, and to be fair, what that archetype is is very specific.
It, and particularly in finance and some other, uh, industries, there is a specific archetype that we believe makes people successful. Mm-hmm. Why? Well, because that's how it always has been, not because that's the right answer. Yes. So we have to be thinking about that when we go through this whole, this whole process.
And it also means being more proactive than reactive. Right. Initially, someone leaves the organization. Someone picks up the job description, they're like, yeah, looks right. They post it. We go through the process. Well, what if we were doing something a little more proactive? What if every couple of [00:14:00] years we're looking at job descriptions and we're asking the people who work with the person, is this really what they do with you?
Like, is this still accurate? Does this still make sense? So there's so much that can be done in if you're able to look forward versus being reactive in this process. Yes, I love that.
Céline Williams: And I, it's. Very clear that, you know, the thing that stands out to me, I'm saying very clear. It's what stands out to me is that is the element of critical thinking, which requires us to be proactive.
But that element of critical thinking that you're talking about, yeah. Bringing into the process that I think is unfortunately often missing because we do rely on biases and organizations do rely on that. It's. You know, we think we're thinking critically and we talk about strategic thinking, but we're really, that's not what's really happening.
And you're talking, what you're talking about is Yep. [00:15:00] Actually critical thinking and strategic thinking in an intentional way, which is what it's supposed to be.
Roz Cohen: Yes. It, we, we, we assume, right, that because we've always done it this way, we should always do it this way. Mm-hmm. And that's not always the case.
Um. And it's hard to be the person that does what Simon Simon Sinek talks about all the time, asks the why. Well, this is the kind of person, well, why? Why is this the person? And when you keep asking that question, you get down to the kernel as to the real reason. And you need determine from that whether or not it's the right direction or not the right direction, right?
Yeah. Will we hire folks out of these schools? Well, why did we do that? Well, because we found that most people from those schools apply. Well, what? Right. And so if we keep on, keep asking the question, not because we're trying to be difficult, but because we're really trying to get to the kernel of what is it we're trying to answer?
Yes. But you have to have an organization that's open to that. Mm-hmm. Right. Sometimes when you ask the why, you're seeing [00:16:00] as well, you're not on board. Yeah, you're not, so you have to be careful, right? You have to have, are we comfortable and is there the psychological safety to ask the hard questions and really go through that exercise.
So there's a piece to that that's also gotta be built into this. Yep. Discovery process.
Céline Williams: Yep. It's interesting you say that. When I went through coach training, uh, many moons ago, one of the things that they taught us, I assume they still teach us. Going through, you know, going through a formal process of it, was to not ask why questions and to reframe them as what or how questions.
Because why can't, and I'm not saying I agree with this that I'm going to No, no, no, go ahead. Yeah. But because, uh, why question can feel like, uh, like you're questioning someone, motive, intention, whatever, and it can turn into a defensive conversation. Sure. And I, I. And I'm gonna say I acknowledge and I understand that, [00:17:00] and that's part of, I think what you're talking about is like you can be seen as not being on board when you ask a why question, when actually sometimes you have to ask a why question to get into the real meat of things.
Roz Cohen: Yeah. And that's where the psychological safety comes in, right? If I'm with a group of people that I work with, that I trust and they know me and I know them, and I ask the why question, it's not about being defensive. It's not about the, the challenge for, from a negative perspective, but it's really an opportunity for us to think differently, um, to, to examine the cog.
This, this concept of cognitive dissonance, right? Where you know information and you get new information that is. Different than that, and what do you do with it? So if we, if we have the opportunity to be in a safe place where the cognitive D dissonance is actually helpful, it doesn't matter whether you say why, how, or what.
It's, you're coming from a place to try to get to the best answer, not trying to appease any kind of particular thing.
Céline Williams: Yes. [00:18:00] I love the way you phrase that, and I'm going to. I think it's, I don't think we can emphasize enough the importance of getting to the right answer and not trying to just appease someone's.
And I just wanna reiterate that 'cause the way you phrase that I think is, was beautiful and superbly important these days. Thank you. And I agree. The concept is critical.
Roz Cohen: Yep.
Céline Williams: Um. So where I was going to go initially before I side barred us into something that was very relevant was you had actually mentioned the, the, this idea of DEI advocacy in your answer, where I then was like, well, let me take you on this route.
Um, and I know that that has been part and parcel of your career in a very meaningful way, um, for. Many reasons. I have no doubt. Clearly from your PhD thesis, it's, you know, it is I would say [00:19:00] it's some element of that is gonna be part of your value system, right? It has, it drives you. So I'm wonder if you can tell us a little bit about your experience in that, in that realm.
I know you have a lot of real world experience and we talk to a lot of, and we hear a lot about DEI that's not, that's theoretical and not practical, so I would love. For you to share some of your stories or some of your insights because you do have that marriage of the theoretical and the pragmatic in a way that is really beneficial.
Because as I'm sure many people living in 2025 are aware things are a little odd this year, more so than even usual. Yes.
Roz Cohen: Yeah. Um, you know, I. In terms of values, just to give context I am, uh, Jewish. I say that because there are some values as part of Judaism. I'm not practicing. I don't go to Temple, [00:20:00] none of that.
But there are two values that are really critical to who I am and what I do. One is this concept of t. Klum, which is to repair the world. Mm-hmm. The other is taka, this idea of giving back. And I'm, I'm sure there are, people are gonna be like, that's not exactly what it means. Ra and I, I acknowledge that, but this is how I see it in my life and how I practice.
Mm-hmm. Um, so the, the work that I do, particularly around HR is about those two things. Mm-hmm. And it's how do we create space? To have people show up to be able to do those things. Yeah. So, um, there's a couple of ways that I like to employ it. One is around access. So particularly in the area of financial services.
Again, if we go with the archetypes, there's a traditional archetype of what people look like. Um. Mostly it's because they've had experience or they've had the [00:21:00] opportunity because families have had the opportunity because they were born into the right pick the identity category you wanna choose. What happens is we actually don't, folks who look different don't have the same access that that other folks do.
Céline Williams: Yeah,
Roz Cohen: and I'm not particularly trying to be vague about identity. But it's less about the particular identity and more about the concept of it. Yep. So that's why I'm saying it that way. Uh, so what I have strived to do throughout my career is provide access to folks, to financial services, to opportunities that may not have auto, may not have had those to begin.
One of the. Things that I'm most proud of in my career is when I was at a previous organization, we partnered with about seven, uh, organizations that really [00:22:00] focused on underrepresented groups and giving them. Tools to be successful in ways that they, and in areas that they may not have been. So after a lot of vetting of these organizations, a lot of conversations, both with our internal management and the management of those other organizations, we decided that there was such an alignment between that if you came from one of those organizations, you automatically got a first run.
You had the opportunity to interview for positions that maybe you. Wouldn't have had that access to. It did two things. One, it helped us think about what is it we're looking for by way of, of behaviors that maybe show up differently than we anticipated. But it also allowed these students and, you know, undergraduate and graduate students to be able to apply for positions and then it was theirs to win a lose.
Right. The organization that they came from would, [00:23:00] would do some training with them and give them some sort of, here's how to think about this, here's how to frame your questions. And then we had a group of people who had interviewed them. We had a good number, I wanna say remembering about. 40 to 50% of folks who interviewed with us ended up moving through the process.
So they went on to second and third interviews. I don't remember unfortunately, the number that ended up getting hired, but. How do you repair the world? Well, you do it one person at a time. So you perva you, you challenge the systems. You ask why of the systems and why do we continue to do it this way? And you challenge that in order in, in the i in the service of.
How do we provide opportunities for people that may not automatically have those opportunities? So that's sort of how I see my values being reflected and, and, and every interaction and [00:24:00] every, um, policy that I write or process we put together. These are the questions that I ask. Why do we do it this way?
What can we do differently? Are we providing them enough access to people who may be qualified but just don't have the opportunity? So that, that's sort of how I think about this.
Céline Williams: Yeah. And I think that I, I wish more leaders were intentional when they approached concepts like that. Mm-hmm. In that way.
'cause that is, it's very clear, Roz, even though you and I have just met, it's very clear to me that you are intentional in your approach to things. And I think there has been. This, I am not even sure if it's deep seated, but this resistance, there's been kind of two things happening from my, you know, if I step back and look and that is that there is both, there has historically been this embracing and [00:25:00] talk around dei mm-hmm.
That may not have been. Very intent, like the talk about it was intentional, but the actions or how it was implemented were, seemed to be less intentional. Mm-hmm. Or there was a lot, and I, these are broad groups. I'm not saying that this is Yeah. Many shades of gray in between or there were the, the, these groups that.
Just anti DEI for all of the reasons that still make no sense to me. Like, like same full disclosure, same doesn't make any sense to me. No. To just be, you know, to, to pretend like privilege and where people come from and their access to things doesn't affect their ability to, it's, it's crazy making when you think about it, right?
Yes, absolutely. Yes. I appreciate that you're very, that again, there's, you're very intentional in how to actually [00:26:00] do something with this concept that we talk about around DEI and put it into action and what does this look like and how do we make it real? How do we make it real and not just a talk track?
Roz Cohen: Well, I I, I would agree, and I would even take it a step further. When we talk about DEI, we talk about, in, in my world, in my head, when we talk about DEI, we talk about a place that people can connect and belong based upon their identity. Great, well, how do we do that? Because everyone wants to feel connected and, and as though they belong to something.
So I think a lot of the, I don't wanna say problem, but a lot of the consternation around this topic has been because. I want you to recognize who I am as an individual and what I bring, but I also want you to recognize that I have this identity that connects me to other people, and so how do you hold those [00:27:00] two things in the same place?
There's no great answer it. No one's come up with that with that. Shining star, so to speak. But that's really what it ends up being. It's, I am a unique person and I have certain characteristics that I wanna be valued, and I also am part of this group identity group that I also wanna be valued. And so it it, you're forcing people into a choice.
I've gotta pick one or the other. And that's not life. That's not what it is. And so the more we can think about how we create space for those two things to live together. The better off we are and the happier people will be in an organization, and it, it doesn't,
Céline Williams: you know, to what I hear inside of that is that it doesn't, it, it shouldn't be a choice.
It doesn't have to be a choice, right? Mm-hmm. The, i the, it's the whole dialectic thing, right? You're gonna hold these multiple thoughts Yes. Together at the same time. And it's okay that they're different. They, it's okay that they might seem [00:28:00] to be in opposition. We live in a world that is many more shades of gray than it is black and white.
Roz Cohen: Absolutely. And when we can acknowledge that, I mean, it's just people wanna be able to say, okay, this is the thing and I'm now gonna act because this is the thing. But it's never really the thing. There's a lot of things
Céline Williams: we really as humans want that certainty. Yes. More like more than. Yeah, it makes sense.
In my opinion, with our, the experience that we have of the, each and every day kind of shows us that certainty is illusory. It's just, it's not, and yet we're like, oh, we can create arbitrary categories of certainty, so we're gonna hang onto that. 'cause that's exactly
Roz Cohen: right. Because then I know how to act.
Right? If I know that we are gonna say that you are X, Y, and Z identity, and I'm gonna, then that is who you [00:29:00] are, then I know how to act around you. Yeah, because we're, there's a fear factor, right? There's a fear piece. And if I don't know how to act around you and I say something, then what does that mean?
So there's all of that around it. If we think about it from this concept of how do we create space for people to have both their individual and collective identity and allow them to be that person in the space. If we think about it from that perspective, I bet we come at different answers and there's less, maybe, maybe there's less sort of fighting or, um, rna uh, pol politicizing, let's say.
Céline Williams: Well, and wouldn't it be nice if that was the way that we thought about creating psychological safety from the beginning to a hundred percent? A hundred percent, right. How great would that be? Well, and I, you say that and I think, oh, that sounds like a very practical approach to what psychological [00:30:00] safety could be, as opposed to, again, there's a lot of theory, and I'm not disparaging theory.
We, the theory matters. Absolutely, and it's important, and when it's all theory and not a whole lot of practical application or figuring out what works or doesn't work. Yeah, exactly. Right. To me, that is, I think also part of the problem, and I hate to say this, with a lot of how people see DEI, especially if they're prone to being like, Ew, no, DEI, for me, is that it's like right.
Uh, psychological safety, like we're talking about it, but like, that's not how the real world works. So that's not how we put it into place. And what you're, what you just said is actually, if we think about this in this way, what can we do? Right?
Roz Cohen: There's an actionable piece to it, which again, pg pragmatism, being able to take the theory and, and when I ask questions in my, in my day job, the questions are, okay, so this is what we need.
What does the organization need? How are we gonna get there [00:31:00] and what's the risk? And if we look at those things, we can come to an answer that we can live with. And you know, in the best case scenario, help people. Help people thrive in, that's where we have to get to. And less about the other stuff. You call it psychological safety.
You don't like that term? Fine. How do you have people come to the work, come to work in a place that they feel that they can ask questions? Bring their experiences and behaviors in such a way that it is collectively helpful for the organization and the individuals. Whatever you wanna call it. I don't care.
Fine. We caught up in language too much
Céline Williams: sometimes. Yes. Yep. I concur. And I think that that is, um, I think that's it. I would really love that anyone who is listening or watching actually thinks about. Whatever we wanna call psychological safety in that way as a starting point. Like just start to think about it a bit [00:32:00] differently.
Yep. Because imagine what you can do with any team that you're working on, that you're part of, that you're leading. Like can, you can have a real impact on people. Yes, a hundred percent. I feel like I could ask you a hundred more questions and. That we could go into 12 different topics. Right. Uh, literally just from what we, you were just talking about.
Well, I'm happy to come back. If you want me back. I'm happy to talk about other things at some point. Oh, I, for, I, I was so fully Please come back when your book comes out. And I truly, there's so many, there's so many important. Practical. Can I say practical one more time? But truly there's so many important practical elements that you spoke about today that I don't think we get into the practical applicability enough.
Yeah. And so first and foremost, I want to thank you for that because that's, um, incredibly important [00:33:00] to the world, but also to me. I really appreciate hearing that and having that conversation. Before we wrap up. I do want, just wanna ask, is there anything that we didn't get to that you're like, I absolutely wanna talk about that today, or that you wanna emphasize inside of this?
The answer can be no. There's zero pressure either way. I just always wanna give the guests the opportunity to, to bring up or emphasize something if they so desire. Um. I will
Roz Cohen: say one thing and that we didn't get to today, which is, which is totally, totally fine. When we talk about crisis leadership. We talk about sort of what that looks like.
I think leaders have a tendency to become isolating and just sort of turn in. And really it is the perfect opportunity to bring others into the solution and trying to solution and figure out what the right answer is and how you lead through a crisis. And if we can switch from this, I [00:34:00] have to be protective.
I've gotta sort of turn internally because I'm supposed to know everything to a. How do we turn around and tell folks what should we do here? Here's what we're struggling with. How does everybody's different experience and different behavior and, and sort of what they've gone through help us in leading through that crisis?
That would be the only thing I would add.
Céline Williams: Yep. I could not, again, could not agree more. I have, I. Have probably said 500 times in the last five years that it is not one person's responsibility to come up with every answer or to know everything anywhere, ever. That's just, that's not absolutely, that's not the, so why I really have a lot of empathy and compassion for leaders who are put in positions.
Or whether, you know, by people around them where it's like, oh, well you have to fi or they feel like they have to find the answer That's right. Or whatever, whatever the, the environment [00:35:00] is that creates that. Let's stop that deal. Let's stop that.
Roz Cohen: That would be amazing, right?
You don't have to solve every problem. You're not expected to know every answer. Oh, wait, Roz, can we make mistakes too? You know what? You can't, as long as you own up to the mistakes and say, here's what I'm gonna do differently in the future, you can absolutely make whatever mistakes, mistakes you need to.
Céline Williams: This sounds like I would like to work in this environment. This sounds fantastic. That's right. Exactly. Let's, let's make that happen. That's what we hope to create. Um, I definitely would. I definitely wanna have you back. This was. Fantastic conversation. I thank you for your time.
Roz Cohen: You are welcome. It's been my pleasure.
Like, it's been a really good conversation, so thank you for the opportunity to do, to talk to you.
Céline Williams: Oh my gosh, absolutely. My pleasure. There will be, you can find out more about Roz in the show [00:36:00] notes per usual. There'll be links to everything, but I'm gonna ask a question. Is LinkedIn the best way to get ahold of, to connect with you if people want to?
100%. Okay, so the uh, Roz's LinkedIn will be in the show notes as well, and for those who are listening and just wanna note it down, it's Rosalind F. Cohen on LinkedIn. Thank you for your time today. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Really appreciate it as well. Thanks for joining me today on the Leading Through Crisis podcast.
If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a minute to rate and review us on your podcast app. If you're interested in learning more about any of our guests, you can find us online. At www.leadingthroughcrisis.ca.