Episode Description
Hortense Le Gentil is a successful author and executive coach. She has recently written her second book, the Unlocked Leader. In this episode, she helped unpack her contemporary take on leadership, including the importance of making peace with the past and finding your true north. If you’re a leader, and you’re looking to up your game, then this is the episode for you.
About Hortense
Order her book: https://www.hortenselegentil.com/
Hortense le Gentil is a global executive leadership coach and two-time author, with her upcoming book, “The Unlocked Leader: Dare to Free Your Own Voice, Lead with Empathy, and Shine Your Light in the World” released September 26, 2023.
She has worked with various Fortune 500 companies and CEO Perspectives on executive leadership programs.
– Top 30 Global Guru in 2020 and 2021 by World Management Global Gurus
– 2021 and 2023 nominee of the Thinkers 50 Coaching and Mentoring Awards
– Certified Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered coach and MG100 Coaches member
– Featured in Forbes, Fast Company, Inc. and Business Insider
– Harvard Business Review and ThriveGlobal.com Contributor
Points of Interest:
Life story and journey to becoming a successful coach (1:40)
Becoming an entrepreneur (4:50)
Using empathy as a superpower when you’re a leader (8:15)
Connecting with others using the right-side brain (11:35)
Recognising when something resonates with you, using emotion to heal (16:15)
Hortense’ story, not listening to external voices (18:00)
Making peace with the past (21:56)
Transcript
Note: This has been automatically transcribed so is likely to have errors! It may however help you navigate the points of interest.
Mike:
Welcome to the Troubleshooters podcast with me your host Mike McGrath. Now, my guest today is a successful author and executive coach, Hortense Le Gentil has recently written her second book, the Unlocked leader. Today, she helped her unpack a contemporary take on leadership, including the importance of making peace with the past and finding your true north. So, if you’re a leader, and you’re looking to up your game, have a listen. So, Hortense Le Gentil, welcome to the troubleshooters podcast.
Hortense
Thank you for having me. It’s a delight.
Mike:
We’re delighted to have you on. And we want to talk quite a bit today about this book you’ve just written called the unlocked leader, which is a terrific read. And I can thoroughly recommend it. For anyone who’s interested in this subject. You talk about dare to free your own voice, you talk about leading with empathy, and you talk about letting your light shine in the world. So, you know, great kind of sentiments really. So what I want you to do, if you don’t mind, just before we jump in and start unpacking some of the concepts and ideas in your book, which I really think are going to be very thought provoking, I wanted to just get you to perhaps tell us a little bit about yourself, Hortense and your story and your journey, because I’m only guessing here, but I suspect you weren’t always a very successful author, and a successful coach. So, talk to us about your story. And I know you cover some of this in the book, perhaps introduce yourself to our listeners.
Hortense
So, I was born and raised in France. It’s not a surprise with my accent. And my first passion was horses. I was a horse rider and show jumper. And I was show jumping and my horse was everything, was my friend, my best friend. And I learned a lot from there, you know, empathy, communication, hardworking, and everything about having a vision. So, I think I learned a lot there. So, it was it was my life for more than a decade. And then I was around 18 years old. And I was you know, finishing high school. And I had to take a decision, should I continue to be a professional showjumper? Or should I do something else. I decided to choose another path, because I had the feeling that okay, I already knew I had, I had a life, I already had a life, you know, and I just want to, you know, to know more about other things and have new adventure and discover the world. So I went, at a time it was not very popular, but I found business school because my second passion was America. And I wanted to go to the US. And so, I found the business school, and I learned marketing both in Paris, and in Boston, at North Eastern University, you know, it was an exchange at that time. At that time. It was not very, you know, popular or no and very less school.
Mike:
Okay. Yeah, yes, not so many, but it’s quite popular now going to International Business School, but not so much back then. Yeah.
Hortense
So, and then I felt completely aligned there. Because, you know, I, I loved the energy, I was aligned with the American dream, everything was possible, you know, everything was open. And by that, but I came back in France and in Paris and work for Loutro corporate, corporate industry for a decade, advertising agencies in finance, communication, I got married and had two children. And they arrived at a point in my life where I’ve felt absolutely, let’s say, misaligned and locked. I felt like, Yeah, well, you know, it was difficult and difficult, felt unhappy, in my personal life, my marriage and in my professional life, because I couldn’t express myself, I couldn’t fit there, you know. And so, I had it, so we will talk maybe more about it later when we but when we talk about my intro, but so I changed life. I changed everything. And I became an entrepreneur because this is what I wanted to be from the beginning. And I did you know, was on a trip Under for a decade, and then as it is, then and there after, you know, another decade that I found my calling. And they found that I was everything was, what all my life led to me to be to be where I am today, to help others to be an executive leadership coach. And this is what I do today, I work with CEO and senior executives in their journey from being hero leaders to being human leaders.
Mike:
Hero leader, meaning Superman, got all the answers, leading from the front and versus someone who’s more authentic, a little bit more vulnerable. And a bit more a bit more in touch with their vulnerability, I guess.
Hortense
Exactly you know, how to be human and connected with others. And so, this is what I do. And I’m an author also. So, I wrote them, my second book, so my first book was aligned, connecting your true self with the leader your meant to be. And my second book was just released two and a half months ago. And it is yeah, The Unlocked Leader.
Mike:
This book Hortense, The Unlocked Leader. So, what was the genesis of it? Well, when did you conceive that you wanted to write this book?
Hortense
So, it was it was during COVID. It was, you know, yeah, I think the idea I thought of during COVID, because, of course, everybody was locked. And, and what I do all day long is unlocked, people find a way, you know, to free yourself, and to free people from their mind traps. So, I felt that I needed to write a book to help more people there because I’m, I’m coaching some people, but I cannot coach a lot of people so and so I thought that it could be helpful to write this guide to free, you know, to free yourself from your mind traps.
Mike:
Yes, interesting. You quoted the beginning of the book, you give us a Thea Roosevelt quote, who says no one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care. So it’s an interesting idea that so you obviously like that concept of and it comes out, you know, in the book significantly around this idea of empathy. And, and, you know, what’s, what’s interesting to me is that when we’re empathetic, and we’re, you know, we’re, we’re being empathetic, it’s that line between, well, where does empathy stop, and, you know, where does empathy get me too involved as a leader, right, and I think one of the fears that leaders have is, if I’m too empathetic, then I’m gonna, I’m just gonna get smashed by everybody’s personal issues and challenges. So, talk to us a little bit about that, because I think that’s quite a common fear of leaders.
Hortense
So let me just maybe give a definition of empathy, that empathy is the ability to connect to put yourself in other shoes, it’s to feel with someone, and the first person who you should empathize is yourself to empathy, begin with yourself, and so on what it matters, you’re going to tell me what it matters when you are, you know, a leader, is because it affects the way you connect with yourself and with others. So, the world changed, and people wants to connect with you. They want to know who you are; they want to know that you are also a human being. They don’t want to know, not yet. They don’t want a robot, they you know, and the only way we connect to each other are through empathy. So, so empathy is that you know, that I call that a superpower. But so, you begin with yourself and what and, and after this is his ability to understand others through this ability to understand, you know, the diversity in front of you, your customer, your stakeholders, everyone.
Mike:
So, it starts, it starts with us. Hortense effectively it starts with that ability. You mean are you saying that we don’t have to be perfect then as a leader.
Hortense
No, you don’t have to. Nobody, you know, perfection is heaven, evil. No, you don’t have to be perfect.
Mike:
I was trying to use humour then. But I do I think that, at some level, we try and hold a kind of perfection up to ourselves often as leaders, right? We’re type A, we, you know, we’ve got a lot of get up and go. And we think that we’ve got to, you know, get it all together, you mentioned the book about having all the answers, but in real, in reality, unless you begin to empathize with ourselves and understand our own humanity, and the fact that we’re flawed fundamentally with difficulty then, if you don’t give yourself a break to start giving others a break around that idea.
Hortense
Yeah, so let’s say differently, I agree with you, differently, it’s, how can you understand others if you don’t understand yourself. So, if you don’t, you’re not connected with yourself, your inner self. How can you connect with others? How can you connect with your customer? How can you connect? How can you create projects for others? Because you need to understand them. So, this is what empathy is about? And you asked me the question, where are, where the boundaries are, is, of course, there are boundaries, because it’s a balance, it’s a balance, we’re not saying that you have to, you know, you know, be you know, noon be noon or zero world and, you know, keep it all together. No, this is not what we’re talking about. We are talking about, you know, our brain, we are two sides of our brain. So, we are very good in also logical one. So, the left brain, we are very good with that nobody, you know, if you are the leader, you don’t need me for that you don’t need anybody and the education anyway, is helping you with that. But the right side, the side with innovation, the side with who will connect with you, will help you connect with people, you are not use your energies to you to use it, and you are not educated, you’re not trained to do it. And now nowadays, because, you know, again, you know, because it’s you know, we have an we’re in this world of uncertainty and difficulties, it’s very important to use both, both side of this, you know, of our brain, or so, this is my, my favourite, you know, brain, they are called, they are called mirror neuron. And they are called Ghandi, neurons. Because, in fact, they are the neurons that are you know, that connect, you know, that connects you and me. So, if me if I do something, if I drink water, for example, my the part of your brain is going to do the same and why it matters, again, when you are a leader, is because it’s more about also what you do. Because you are a role model, and less about what you say.
Mike:
Yes. I mean, I think every parent listening gets the idea, right? That, you know, our kids are watching us and they’re more interested in what we’re doing than what we’re saying. That’s for sure. And so, this idea of a mind trap, you know, what’s holding us back, I guess. And sort of discovering our identity and what to listen to, and what not to listen to. Talk just a little bit about that mind trap concept.
Hortense
Yeah. So, the mind tribe is this mental, mental obstacle that stand between you today and you tomorrow. It’s those stories that our brains are cooking up for us the story that you’re telling yourself and, and so you feel there, and you cannot move forward, you feel like I cannot move forward? No. If you feel unhappy or unsatisfied or maybe arrogant, or maybe sometimes, you know, the imposter syndrome, but you don’t know you feel blocked, you don’t know what to do. And this is a mind trap. And for example, you were talking you know about you know, the mind trap you were talking before about perfection. Perfection is a mind trap. And, and, and it’s happened to everyone. And it’s happened to me, it’s happened to everyone.
Mike:
You talk about the gift of an external perspective, and the idea that you’ve got to challenge your beliefs, right. And sort of debunk those. I like the, you’ve got a snake in the in the book called yesbat, which I thought was great. Yes. But the snake we’re, you know, we’re, we’re told things right, we kind of tell ourselves a story that prevents us moving forward. And so talk to us about the gift of an external perspective. What did you mean by that?
Hortense
It’s difficult to see our self, you know, you know, so we need a mirror. So, it’s, so you can be held, its support, external support that you can have. It could be, it could be a coach, it could be a spiritual leader. It could be sometimes movies, read, podcasts, listening to podcasts, whatever it is, but this is how it resonates. Who is you exactly? This is how it resonates with you or not resonate with you. In fact, and this is this is this is quite important.
Mike:
Yeah, no I think that’s so true, isn’t it? I mean, I’ve got a 16 year old and I introduced her to a film on Saturday that, an old older film called Shawshank Redemption. Now, she never watches anything with me. For some reason, she sat down to watch that film with me, she was utterly gobsmacked. She said, it was the most wonderful film She’s seen for ages and ages. And she just she eulogised about it. And that’s the power of a perspective, isn’t it when something hits you, and you see the world differently, you know.
Hortense
Yes, it’s, it’s always my mirror my mirror neurons, it’s because it’s resonated with you. So, if something resonates with you, it’s important to notify, for example, if you’re looking or watching a movie, and at one point, you feel very emotional. Think about it. Because it tells something about you something that you that you have to heal, that you have to, this is where you are today. And we are all you know, in evolution. And it’s and you know, being this human leader that we are talking about, it’s a journey, it’s not a destination. So, it’s every day, every minute and this is an ongoing working in, so you are trapped somewhere, something happened is big trap or not big trap, but you know something happens. So, you have to challenge, and you have to do to go to a process of, you know, framing yourself or unlocking yourself.
Mike:
I mean, typically Hortense, you know, we’ve all got various fears that often hold us back and you talk about developing strategies to go beyond the fear and to do it anyway, to look the thing in the, in the face and then continue. So, you also mentioned that, to see the gift in a crisis. This is right at the heart of our podcast as troubleshooters, because, you know, looking back, we often see you know what looked like a disaster. When we look back Hortense we start to see, there was something extremely important in that crisis. And that there’s no way we could be doing what we’re doing and where we are without it. Now, that’s the benefit of hindsight. But talk to us a little bit about that, from your perspective is as a leader.
Hortense
Maybe I should share my story. So, I was I was telling you that they were years ago, and I didn’t feel it, you know, I didn’t feel that I fit though I feel locked in my life. And not unhappy, you know, not really happy not trendy myself not really doing what they think they should. So, you’re here you’re locked. You cannot move forward, you don’t know what to do. And I was lost, completely lost. So, what happened is everything went south. And I was stuck in bed, ill in bed for a month. And so, I had time to I had them to think. And I had a dream. And that dream, my grandmother I just loved she passed away the time but you know, just love came back to me and told me you have to find the path of roses. I didn’t have any clue idea, or what was you know, a path of roses. So, I asked her, you know where it is? And she just told me you know what it is. So, she smiled and she disappeared. So can you imagine, you know, I when I woke up, I was furious. And I said what? She didn’t give me the answer. And it was still lost. And so, it was it will be, it will be later when we’ll understand that what she meant was that I have to listen to my inner voice in order to free myself. And that’s and that’s hard because at the time, so my problem was okay, I was not you know, feeling well in my marriage. And you know, the external voices told me you cannot divorce. And I wanted to be an entrepreneur, and external voices told me no, no, no, no, no, you cannot be an entrepreneur at the age of 38. No. And so you’ll hear, you listen to external voices, or your inner voice will say, I need to do that, I feel I need to do that to move forward. So, the first thing is you need to be courageous, and to face your fears, face your fears, and do it anyway. And challenge those voices. Is it true? Is it true that I cannot divorce? Is it true that, you know, is it true that I cannot be an entrepreneur? Is it relevant? Is it helpful? These are my three, three power questions. And the answer was no, no, no. So, if the answer are no, no, no. So, you challenge your beliefs. And you let go, and you this is exactly at that moment that you free yourself. And this is exactly at that moment that I freed myself. And this is true for everyone. For every trap, for every mind trap that you have. Remember, it’s all about stories. It’s external stories, there are other people there, your education, your culture, your wherever it is, that are telling you things, but come back to yourself to the empathy, we were talking about empathy at the beginning, empathy, come back to yourself, what do you think? What do you feel is right for you? Right.
Mike:
You also mentioned about making peace with the past and I, you know, many of us look back and we’ve made mistakes and things haven’t worked out. And you know, we’ve got the benefit of hindsight, we, we turn left when we should have gone right. So, talk to us about how you how you made peace with the past.
Hortense
Yeah, so it’s all about resilience. Because if you’re not in peace with the bads, so when you need to let go, if you’re not in peace, you still feel anger, or you still feel victim, whatever, whatever what happened to you in your life. But if you tell to yourself, I am a victim. It’s not just why it happened to me, you know, you are still locked. So, you really need to make peace. It’s, it’s okay, this is this did happen for a reason. I learned that. Thank you, thank you, I’m grateful for that, I found you know, the gift. So, thank you, it was hard. But this is the only way to learn. I’m sorry, you just say that we are as you human beings, this is how we grew up. This is how we evolve, by you know, by having crisis, difficult moment. But let this is what I mean by Lego this is this is really make peace, feel peace.
Mike:
Yeah. As you move through this book, you know, there’s a big emphasis on working on yourself, and then you begin to then you know, let go the past, you begin to identify, you know, what, you know, build the courage, I guess, to make some choices, that that, you know, where you’ve been held back, and then you move into that area where you, you define your own identity as a leader, and you begin to get in touch with a true version of yourself. You know, you call it empowering the inner leader, I think, and so that, that, you know, that that, that path, that right path, you call it, you know, taking care of yourself, practicing gratitude you mentioned, which is quite interesting to continue refrain on this podcast is that the people we interview are invariably grateful for the things that have happened and where they’ve got to and that that’s been a bit of a process for them. So, listen, talk to us a little bit more about this mind bill, this idea that that once we’ve done that work on ourselves, where are we go, you know, what, what is the future hold at that point.
Hortense
So now that you freed yourself, because you find your mind traps, okay, you’ll find your mind traps, you, you, you’ve freed yourself. You face your fears. You really, you challenge your beliefs now, and you let go with space. Now. Now you can write your own story. So now you can be the author of your own life. And you know your life. You’re ready. You’re ready, you begins there. And then yes, then Okay, start to work. Okay. What is important for you? What are your values? What is your why, you know, how you want to show up as a person, as a leader? How do you want to remove to be remembered, and, and go and go on that and you know, practice you know, gratitude, find, you know, find positive, you know moment to continue to, you know, to grow and to find energy and do it every day because it’s a muscle, it’s a new muscle, you’re walking on a new muscle, it’s a new habit. So, if you don’t want to go back for word, so the only way to go is it’s exactly like you broke your arm or whatever it is every day that you have to work on it. So, I used to say, practice your daily, have your daily rendezvous with yourself. Because, you have plenty of rendezvous all day long, right? But what about having you rendezvous with yourself, just take 10 minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes, check, check if you’re still on track, checking, you know, if your values are still there, if you weren’t, you decided to walk on is still there. Maybe you decided as a leader to listen. So, to increase your empathy. So, to listen more to talk less, maybe you use whatever you decide, you write it down. And every day you check every day, you feel it every day, it’s your compass, it’s your True North, especially in in that time of crisis, you don’t know where to go, you don’t know who to listen to you, you know, we are lost. There. There are a lot of noises around us. So really, it’s sad moment for you, but this is very important, because it’s going to allow you to stay on track.
Mike:
Yeah, so that I suppose the results of that work in that identification of what you should be doing and how you should be contributing, it brings you into connection with others, inevitably, right? Because that’s, that’s the nature of kind of letting your light shine really isn’t it is that you’ve got you’ve got a purpose perhaps it’s bigger than you and then you talk, I mean, I love this idea you mentioned to learn to listen more and speak last you mentioned. Right. So that idea that, you know mean St. Francis said seek first to understand before you’re understood. That, we do that in negotiation all the time I run an m&a practice, we’ve got to figure out what other people think before we can start to negotiate. Because otherwise we’re negotiating in a bubble. So they’re really important skills and their skills, that it’s easier, I think, to demonstrate, and practice, if you are having this rendezvous with yourself regularly, if you are coming in touch with where true north is for you. So just finishing up, talk us a little bit about the conclusion to these insights. Right and, and how you, you know, where you’ve seen them work with people and you know, where you’ve seen some breakthroughs, because you must have seen quite a few being a coach like you are.
Hortense
I think what I see is, it’s really first physical, it’s when you’re unlocked, you are so much happier, successful, better, better with yourself better with others, it changes everything. And it changes your environment, the people want you know, to talk to you with you, connect with you, and ready it brings you and you know you and to your environment, happiness, success. And, and you are not fighting anymore against something else because you’re you are authentic, you are yourself. So, you are you are who you are, you don’t pretend to be someone somebody else.
Mike:
It’s interesting, you mentioned success, but you’ve defined success at this point. Success might not be success by a worldly standard that says you’ve got to become a bestselling author and an executive coach, it could be that you’ve defined through, you know, through this process that that you want to spend more time with a family that you want to spend more time doing a hobby, whatever it is, it’s that I guess it’s that connection with yourself effectively. And I think that’s misunderstood, isn’t it? We’re presented with this idea, you know, you in some ways fell for it, the idea that what, you know, what should you do, versus what you really meant to do and they can be, they can be in conflict, can’t they?
Hortense
Exactly, that’s why you have to choose because I am a big believer of everyone, every one of us, we have our own talent, if you find and you’re connected with your own talent, so your why, your own talent, and of course, you continue to work because it’s every day you know, you evolve and every day you have to work on it, you will find happiness and you will find success and you will define new success for you to be a leader of a large corporate and have a lot of you know, will make other leaders feel the same, you know, because this is you know, the purpose of that, or could be just, you know, somebody who decided to spend years like you say more time in the family, in the community, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter because at the end of the day, what we want is to be happy and we are happy when we can make good around us. And when we are connected with to with something bigger than the us, we are happy and we make happiness around us and I think the world need that. And we are and we are where we are not cutting to. So, it happened in your working life and in personal life. So, you are very completely different person. You are yourself.
Mike:
Yeah. Hortense, thank you so much for joining us. And I will tell you that was really a great insight. I can thoroughly recommend this book, The Unlocked Leader. Not only can I recommend it, but very illustrious people have been recommending it. It’s been very well received. I understand Hortense so congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. And so, recommend the book. Thanks for the conversation. I know it took a while to get it together but we’re very grateful that you spared the time. Good luck and I hope that your light continues to shine.
Hortense
Thank you so much and shine your light as well, so thank you I’m very grateful for your light and grateful for being here. Thankyou so much Mike.
Mike:
Take care Hortense.
Mike:
Wow. There you have, human leadership by a hero on leadership. What an interesting and contemporary take that was. The need to work on ourselves and get comfortable with who we are before we can really step up to lead others. If you like what Hortense had to say the details of her latest book, The unlocked Leader will be in the show notes. Now if you liked this content, be sure to tell your friends and leave a like, only good ones please. As you know we’re very sensitive. Shout out to our wonderful sponsors Oasis partners corporate advice with a practical bias from extremely self-aware and unlocked leaders. So, until next time, stay safe.
Link to previous episode: https://www.oasispartners.com.au/podcast/how-to-play-the-long-game/