Good Vibes Leadership with Bernadette Smith

We are in National Hispanic Heritage Month and I’d like to recommend some Latine folks for you to follow and/or hire all year long . Ingrid Harb is my guest on 5 Things in 15 Minutes this week. She’s a fabulous, connective speaker who also leads transformative in-person DEI experiences. You can follow Ingrid here and catch her on my podcast this week. My friend, speaker Miguel Aviles-Perez is base...

There was a recurring theme this week in my conversations with clients: how to recover after you’ve been called out or accidentally offended someone. Here’s the short answer: don't get dramatic. Apologize sincerely once without diminishing their experience. If you’re corrected, say thanks. Educate yourself, rather than asking them, so you can do better next time. During an in-person keynote for a...

If you’re a long-time reader of 5 Things, you may have noticed that it doesn’t matter to me why an organization decides to “do the right thing” – to embed equity and inclusion into its systems as a way to accelerate the promises of diversity.  I don’t care whether an organization is working on DEI initiatives because everyone else is because they see the promises of higher revenue because they wan...

This week I met with a client to prepare for an upcoming keynote. We were discussing some of the company’s DEI challenges, and I heard the familiar comment, “We struggle to get the sales team to care . They don’t get why it’s important.” It’s a common struggle: in many cases, DEI events are voluntary, and many folks on the sales team are in the field. How do you reach them? How do you get them to...

This week I facilitated a conversation with a client about my book Inclusive 360. In the conversation, I was struck by how often my conversations around DEI quickly focus on hiring for diversity. Yes, that’s important, but data tells us that at the entry-level of organizations, the percentage of men vs women, and White people vs BIPOC are fairly balanced . The gaps widen as employees are promoted....

This week the U.S. Congress passed a significant and transformative climate bill that President Biden is expected to sign. Among many other things, the law will provide many incentives for shifts to clean energy , including rebates for car buyers.  I found this timely when I read how GM connects the dots between diversity, equity, and inclusion and its goal to be an electric vehicle leader . Telva...

This week I was reminded that every story is nuanced – sometimes, I miss the [whole/complete] picture when researching the stories. In the last 5 Things, I shared how Shopify’s CEO was humble and kind in handling layoffs. A reader so smartly responded: While they lost their jobs due to his mistake he still made over $20 million and cashed out more than $623 million in equity last year. To me, this...

This week I had some important conversations with my team about the future of our little company, where we’re going, and what we have to do to get there. As a CEO and leader, I’m making big decisions and taking massive risks. It’s scary but it’s less scary when I admit how scary it is, and when my team shares their fears, too – and we all move forward anyway with humility and our shared sense of p...

This week my partner said something incredibly wise to me when we were talking about the kids’ rules. She said, “what I’ve come to realize is that it should be about equity, not equality." That was a mic drop moment for me. By that, she meant that each kid should be treated according to their own unique needs . Of course. The kid who gets overstimulated has different needs than the one who is a ha...

This week we launched a really cool DEI web app (and the feedback has been 🔥). Creating the Inclusive 360 Assessment and Roadmap has been my obsession for 10 months as I sought to solve a recurring challenge our clients share - a need to cut through the overwhelm and get crystal clear direction about the next steps forward with DEI. To be perfectly honest, I was also dissatisfied with the custom...

This week I spent time in California whitewater rafting and hiking with an old friend. There was no cell service while we were on the overnight rafting trip, and it felt great to be completely unplugged. After I returned from the solace of nature, I learned there was a parade shooting in Highland Park, Illinois about 30 miles from my home.  Another shooting. So much for good vibes. I wanted to unp...

I spent two days this week on a retreat with my mastermind group. We’re a bunch of varied founders who come together to learn and support each other as we build our businesses. The theme of this retreat was “communication” and one of the sessions I enjoyed was on communicating with ourselves when we’re triggered by something someone says at work . We started by learning our individual fear respons...

This week I had a bunch of planning meetings in anticipation of upcoming keynotes. About 80% of the time,  the client advises: “As a heads up, our employees are generally pretty conservative.”  I’ve heard this from clients in many industries: financial services, energy, manufacturing, commercial real estate, and more. Still,  they’re willing to learn – and admit what they don’t know.  Recently I h...

Happy Pride! I’m going to be honest here…to me, life as a gay person in America right now feels like whiplash. On one hand, we’re seeing rainbow everything and everywhere this year – from products at IKEA and Target to tweets like this from the Marines . It’s so extreme that I’ve seen posts decrying the commodification of pride. They’re not wrong. And also, I really love rainbows. This week, Equal...

 I discovered that there were a lot of really inspirational actions being taken to create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive world, but typical news stories focus more on negativity. I decided to begin sharing what I consider to be "good vibes" each week in an effort to provide a little bit of hope -- to others, and to myself! 5 Things caught on quickly and now thousands of leaders around th...