Vulnerability and Curiosity: DeDe Halfhill’s Secrets to Leading with Authenticity

Carolyn: Hi, I’m Carolyn Swora, the host of Evolve, a new era of leadership. My guest today is DeDe Halfhill. I had the pleasure of meeting DeDe probably about a year, maybe a year and a half ago. We’re in a facilitation group together. And I was really curious about her experience in the military. Now that’s not an area that I’ve ever done any work in.

I have no experience. I don’t really know a lot about military operations. I do know, however, from research and reading that, Our current organizational structures are based on a military model. So I thought let’s have Didi on the show. So you’re going to hear us dig in and talk about leadership.

She’s got some phenomenal experience through all the different ranks specifically in the air force. So let me just tell you a little bit about Didi. She has over 25 years of command experienced and has been described by Dr. Brené Brown as one of her leadership heroes and a total badass. DeDe has held several roles, including as an advisor to the Department of Defense’s top leader, commander of Air Force bases in Barksdale and Iraq.

A National Security Fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Congressional Fellow Advising an Indiana Senator, Senior Advisor to the Air Force Chief of Staff, And chief public affairs officer for the Thunderbirds. She’s no stranger to high stress environments and she is a certified DARE lead facilitator and an executive certified.

Coach through Georgetown university’s executive leadership coaching program. She also has a master’s degree in leadership from American military university, as well as a BA in communications from the university of Iowa. We are going to have, I know just a really fun and interesting and informative conversation.

I hope you enjoy it.

Hello, evolve listeners. Welcome to another episode of evolve.

I’m Carolyn Swara and our guest today. I’m so excited to have her on the show. It’s taken us a bit of time, but we finally made it. DeDe Halfhill. Welcome to the show.

DeDe: Thank you. I’m so excited to be here. Like you said, we’ve tried several times, but the universe has aligned it.

Carolyn: well, I think it was waiting for us to talk to wait till now, I think there’s a really exciting episode ahead of us that would have been different. Had we done it months ago.

DeDe: Yeah. I feel like we’ve had some really great conversations offline. 

Carolyn: Exactly. Exactly. And we did get to meet in person, you know, you were up in Toronto. Well, what we are going to talk about today is leadership and DeDe, you have just some incredible experience. You know, you’ve got over 25 years in the U S air force. You’ve been a leader, you’ve taught leadership, you have a master’s in leadership. And so why don’t we just kind of start with.

Your story and what got you into the air force. , and what did you learn about leadership? That’s really applicable across all sectors.

DeDe: Wow. That’s a big question.

Carolyn: a big question, but I know you’ll take it into a good place.

DeDe: , I’ll start with joining the air force. I joined the air force from a rather simple reason. I didn’t have the money to finish paying for college. I was putting myself through college. My parents didn’t have the ability to afford the college.

And so I got a postcard in the mail one day, it said, aim high air force. And I was like, Oh, That sounds cool. And long story short, I joined thinking I would do four years and 25 years later, I still really wasn’t ready to go. It was an amazing experience. It changed who I am as a human being. It forged who I am as a woman.

And it was the people I was around. Sometimes when I talk about it, I still get emotional. I’m getting ready to go back and do some work with them and the people are just amazing. So I spent 25 years in an institution, in an organization that Really wanted to see me grow, really didn’t believe in opting out.

Like they would push you into the most uncomfortable places because they believed in you. They knew you could do it. And it was an organization that never allowed you to stagnate, like it was always an up or out organization. So the whole thing, even through systems and processes is about growth, which lends itself really well to the work we do now today is how to grow.

But how do we grow while facing the emotional component of that development and growth? So the Air Force is all about development and growth, but they lacked the ability to talk about the emotional component. And so I think that leads to your 2nd question, which was, what did I learn about leadership? I learned, you know, you rattled off my bio and I’m so grateful for that bio. But sometimes when I hear it, I go, wow, it’s so misleading because it sounds it sounds like I had everything All together, I had my shiznit together and in a sock, you know, and I didn’t even with all that training, it’s still hard.

And it’s still a daily practice. And I still to this day stumble. And I think that’s what I learned is that, I would say halfway through my career. I realized, wow, I’m not at all showing up as the leader. I envisioned I would be. I’m not at all showing up as the leader. I see others around me.

Telling me we should be. And it came down to for me that I had this realization in Iraq. And I just had a day where I kind of broke down a little in my room by myself feeling like I’m the biggest failure. I’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to the air force when it comes to leadership.

Yeah, it was a hard day. But it was also such a transformational day because it was a day where I realized I could no longer be who I thought they wanted me to be. And I decided to be who I was. I think that’s my biggest lesson about leadership is there is no ideal leader. And the best leaders tap into who they are and the unique gifts they bring to the challenge set they’re facing.

Those are the best leaders because when you’re not hiding, when you’re being truly you and you are bringing you to the challenges, that is when you will be most successful. And that proved to be true for me over and over and over again.

Carolyn: And so what were you doing in Iraq? Can you just give us a sense of what your responsibilities were when you were there? And maybe kind of what led to that putting the mask down and just sort of breaking. Right.

DeDe: force support squadron commander. So I was responsible for basically all of the things that allowed people to live on an installation. I was responsible for all the feeding fitness M. W. R. Housing. I wasn’t responsible for like the structures, but I was responsible for placing and tracking housing.

I mean, laundry you know, laundry facilities for 25, 000 people doing laundry for about 15, 000 people. Mortuary affairs. I mean, like the list is so long. I had six dining facilities, all that served 1000 people. So you can imagine that’s just the feeding four times a day, 1000 people at a time. For every single meal for, you know, you’re, you’re putting 25, 000 people through the meals 4 times a day.

So the logistical operation was huge. I would say feeding was probably our biggest nightmare. It caused the most problems, but even M. W. R. 

Carolyn: West MWR?

DeDe: I’m sorry morale, welfare and recreation. So, in 1 conversation, I’d be talking about mortuary affairs. And the challenges we’re facing in mortuary affairs.

And I’d go right into what is bingo night look like. And then after bingo night or, you know, or whatever, like, you know, 80s music night, we then go into, we have to draw down. I was there during the presidential mandate to draw down to I think it was like 50, 000 troops when Obama was president.

And so we were talking about. What does it look like to decrease our footprint while also maintaining mission effectiveness? So it was the logistics of it were crazy because we had to manage that balance. We had to manage decreasing footprint, but yet sustain mission effectiveness. And how do you do that with what career fields and what timing, how do we house them?

So it was a big operation. I had all of that on my plate at the same time. We got a brand new commander, brand new wing commander. 

Carolyn: so as the wing commander, like the CEO, and then your role sounds a lot like a COO, like a chief operation officer, like making sure everything’s running okay.

DeDe: it’s interesting because I think my peers and I were all like, maybe the deputy to the major seat. Oh, right. So I was responsible for. Housing, feeding fitness when my peer was responsible for civil engineering, my other peer was responsible for communications. My other peer was responsible for logistics.

We were all responsible to another individual who was responsible for all of that.

Carolyn: So a new wing commander comes in, which is like the CEO.

DeDe: Yeah. The CEO of the mission, the installation, all of that. 

Carolyn: Okay.

DeDe: So he comes in and so that’s important, right? Because I want to make sure he’s happy with what I’m doing.

Carolyn: Right.

DeDe: He comes in and he thinks CrossFit is the answer to our physical challenges, our mental challenges, our confidence challenges.

And I’m not saying he’s wrong. I do think CrossFit can be really powerful. I did CrossFit for a couple of years.

Carolyn: Right. But it’s not the only answer, obviously.

DeDe: right. But he really did. he was very passionate about it. And so he came in and he basically like, Literally immediately after his change of command, he pulled me over, pulled me aside and said, let’s go to the gym. And he said, I want all these treadmills gone and I want to CrossFit gym put in here.

So we jumped through all these hoops to get all the treadmills gone, put a CrossFit gym in. And he really believed that as officers, we needed to be doing CrossFit to set the example. and to give him credit, it did make me feel stronger. It did give me confidence. I was finding myself a little sassy on a regular basis.

Like it does give you a degree of swagger, right? But I also wasn’t that great at it. You know, I can’t do pull ups. My, my overhead bench press is not great. You know, sometimes I can do the bar if I’m lucky. but he was so passionate about it that he really kept pushing it. And I was in the gym one day and I was trying to do overhead presses.

I wasn’t doing very well. And I turned to my side and I see these two young officers at the time I was a Lieutenant Colonel. They were young captains, which is like two ranks below Lieutenant Colonel. And they’re kicking butt. I mean, they were amazing and they were, they were, they were throwing that bar with weight around, like it was nobody’s business.

And the story I started telling myself is. You suck,

Carolyn: Oh,

DeDe: you suck, these captains, they have their shit together more than you do. You, you suck. And I went back to my room and it’s so funny now, but at the moment it just was this representation of how inept I felt, how incapable I felt as a leader, how much I felt like I was struggling as a leader.

It was all wrapped up into that bar. And I kind of started crying and I called a friend of mine and I had worked myself up because of this story. Of how horrible I was, how inept I was, how incapable I was, how I’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to the air force, you know, and I call him up and I’m in Iraq and he answers the phone.

All he knows is I’m in Iraq, right? And all he hears is me with that kind of crying that is like, you can’t breathe, you’re sobbing. You know, you’re like,

Carolyn: Yep.

DeDe: you’re like that kind of crying. And he says, Oh my God, are you all right? What’s wrong? Like I still get choked up when I think about it because.

How terrifying that must have been for him, right? And he’s like, are you okay? What’s wrong? And I said, I couldn’t lift the bar.

Carolyn: So he’s like, Oh,

DeDe: it’s like what? And I said, I, I couldn’t lift the bar. And, but that’s not what was going on in my head. Right? Like, The physical manifestation was I couldn’t lift this bar and I’m watching others who can lift the bar and I’m thinking I can’t lead as I watch others who can lead, you know, and so he calms me down and he’s like, what are you talking about?

And I tell him the story at the gym and he’s like, what’s really going on? You’re not crying because you couldn’t lift the bar. So we dig into that, right? We dig into what’s going on underneath the bar. And I tell him I’m the worst leader. These are the problems I’m having. I feel like my team doesn’t respect me.

I feel like I can’t motivate my team. I feel like they’re not inspired. I feel like I’m failing. And he says, no, this gentleman was a mentor of mine. So he was significantly senior to me. He was a general officer and he said, Didi. There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t all feel like we’re failing.

Carolyn: Oh,

DeDe: And I said, why did no one tell me that?

Carolyn: I did not get that memo.

DeDe: I thought I was like, why did no one say that? Like, if you would have told me that I might’ve been a little more prepared for this feeling. And it was that moment where I realized if I ever make it out of this, if I ever get another chance to lead, which at the moment I did not want.

I was like, I don’t ever want to do this again. I want to go back. My background is communications. I want to go back to communications where I know what I’m doing. I have a lot of really great relationships in the career field. I do very well in that. It feels natural to me. And. I said, but if I ever get another chance, I will never let another leader if I can walk into a space without knowing the degree to which this is hard.

And we often feel like we’re not showing up. The way our teams need that we’re not doing as well as we could that in some ways we’re failing the organization and the team that is a very normal experience that we all have those days where we feel like I’m just not enough who I am what I know what I can do is not enough for the challenge at hand.

And that’s not true. It’s just a moment. And that was a moment. I realized, like, wow, I will never do that again. I’m no longer going to listen to who they think I should be. I’m going to define who I want to be based on who I, who I aspire to

Carolyn: right, right. Oof, that’s pretty powerful to, to have that Well one, clearly you surrounded yourself with great people that you were able to, to phone a friend like that. You know, it made me realize a lot of the, hyperbole, a lot of the inner saboteur can make it sound so simple, like, Oh, just get rid of the inner saboteur.

really what I think it comes down to more, I shouldn’t say replaces it, but I think is a big piece of it, which is what you were alluding to is the self compassion for ourselves. And this is not a skill that we’ve learned in. In life, let alone in leadership is to recognize we are like infallible.

We are going to be hard on ourself. And how do we skill ourselves so that we can pull out of those spirals? No.

DeDe: even know what self compassion was.

Carolyn: well, every time I used to hear it, I was like, whatever, that’s not for people who have the toughness that I do like back away. So I guess it’s not much wonder that the 2 of us found ourselves working in the space of vulnerability.

And I know you’ve been, you’ve been sort of, connected to that work a little bit longer than I have. I’m curious. where did you go after Iraq? And how did like the real Didi, like the Didi you wanted to be or felt more sassy, shall we say you use that word a bit? I’d say like the power, like the, the leader that the, the real leader within you, where did you go afterwards?

DeDe: After Iraq, I had the opportunity to do a fellowship at Georgetown. And while I was at Georgetown, they wanted us, was that right? 11. Oh, I went to Hawaii. I forgot, like, I didn’t go right to Georgetown. I was in Hawaii. But I was on a staff, so I didn’t have the opportunity to really lead as much. It was a very small staff, but I still learned some really powerful lessons there. But then after that, I had the opportunity to do a fellowship at Georgetown.

And in that fellowship, there were two really key moments. The university wants its fellows to all teach a class because they’re really trying to bring that practical experience, that practitioner experience into the school for its students. So it wants the practitioners that come to the school as fellows to teach a class.

And so, I ended up teaching a class on women in leadership and national security and foreign policy. And it was the first time I really dug into the literature around women in leadership. What is the environment? What is the current status? And then what are the skills I think we need to navigate that space?

So that was a big eye opener for me. The second opportunity while I was there is I had the opportunity to go through the Georgetown leadership coaching certification. I had applied and got accepted. It wasn’t a part of the fellowship, but because I was there, I thought I would take advantage of the opportunity. And I would say those two things completely changed me as a leader. I think when I was in Hawaii, I was still the same old DeDe. I was still leading with the same practices and behaviors that maybe I had in Iraq at a very small scale, because again, it was just a staff job and it was more of an individual contributor than a leadership role.

But the programs at Georgetown. Especially the coaching program changed me. I’m not even the same person I was before that program.

Carolyn: how did they change you? Like what did they change?

DeDe: I realized through that program, just how curious I hadn’t been with myself, with my team, with the organization that I was conditioned don’t come to me with problems, come to me with solutions. I was conditioned to have the answers. I was conditioned to know the answers. I was conditioned to have it all together.

Carolyn: Right.

DeDe: And I did that very well. You know, I actually had my commander in Iraq actually told me one time, you look two together.

Carolyn: Wow.

DeDe: When you’re up in front of your team, you look two together. And I was like, I don’t get it because just last week you were telling me what I was doing wrong.

And now you’re telling me I’m doing it too well. I mean, it was conflicting feedback, which the Georgetown program, the women in leadership class also made me realize some of the things I was seeing with him. Right. But I think it taught me that I wasn’t as curious as I thought I had been.

It taught me that questions are. The answer to making leadership easy, that when we know how to ask the right questions, when we know how to lean into the not knowing, when we know how to ask questions so others can find their own strength and their own gifts, It was night and day with leadership being hard to leadership being, I won’t say easy.

Cause if you’re leading the right way, it’s never easy, but it made it so much more enjoyable.

Carolyn: Hmm. Well, cause,

DeDe: became fun.

Carolyn: well, the mask is off cause you can lean in it. and that takes a lot of energy trying to hide things. And I think so many of us do it unconsciously. We don’t even realize that we’re, that we’re hiding.

DeDe: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was funny after that program is when I went to Barksdale Air Force Base where I was the what we call the mission support group commander. So per our earlier conversation, once I was the AVP, now I was the VP, right? The guy that I had worked for. I was now him for this base in Louisiana, Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

And I absolutely loved leading there because my team would come in and they would come to me with a problem looking for an answer. And when I would say, what do you think is the answer? What do you think is getting in your way? What do you think are the challenges we need to address as a training?

Is it resources when I can just get curious with them and have no attachment to the answer watching the magic they came up with. Was just, I mean, it brought me to tears on a regular basis about how incredibly creative and intelligent and passionate and dedicated my team was that I wouldn’t, I didn’t see in Iraq because I was so worried about doing it right

Carolyn: Right.

DeDe: quickly.

Carolyn: Yep.

DeDe: And having the answers, whereas once I was commanding at that next level and I’d gone through the coaching program, I was so much more focused on pulling The real answers and pulling out the real gifts and we ended up winning. I mean, you know, 1 of the things that kind of backs up this work is that we ended up winning the number 1 installation and D.

1. D. It’s called the presidential presidential installation. Excellence award. I have to go back and get the actual name, but we, we were awarded the best installation in the Department of defense. And that was my job. I was responsible for the installation running the installation. So. Yeah. And that wasn’t because of me.

It was because my team, I would hope what I’m telling myself is they felt supported in bringing their best work to the challenges. So yeah, it was amazing. 

Carolyn: You made reference to a term as you started to describe that non attachment. And you don’t hear that word much in leadership. And I think hearing you describe that story, you’ll hear the word non attachment, I think more in psychology spaces. And I think what you described there though, is a really important aspect of leadership.

moving forward. And maybe we should be using it a bit more because when we can be attached to the process and not the outcome, I think, it will serve all of us better to be attached to ensuring that people are heard, ensuring that we can create safe enough spaces, ensuring that we are aware of other cues besides just our words that might impact people and the outcome will find its way.

DeDe: Hearing you say that, because the job at Barksdale, and this is true for any leader, right? The job at Barksdale, my background in the Air Force was communications. I was what we call a public affairs officer. So I spent the majority of my career advising senior leaders on how to communicate in the public with the community, with the media.

Like, that was my job. I ended up in these command positions where suddenly I’m responsible for logistics, contracting, civil engineering, security, cyber security, and the people like force support, right? Taking care of people. I didn’t grow up in any of those communities. I didn’t have any experience in those communities.

I am the furthest thing from an engineer you will ever find. I have no lived experience in right.

So I don’t know the answers. I can’t. Tell them the way to do something. My real gift to them as a leader was getting curious to see what were we missing? What are other ways to think about it? What were stories we were telling ourselves about the challenge? What are the stories we were telling ourselves about the resources getting curious with them was what I contributed.

And I think as a senior leader, we need to be more comfortable with that because it was funny as I was getting ready to leave that job, one of my squadron commanders came up to me and he said, you know, ma’am. I was just so grateful for how much you trusted us and let us do our job. And I think I answered it by saying something like, well, of course you guys are amazing, but inside I was thinking I had no choice.

I don’t know how to do your job. But. I think the more senior we get, I actually talked to other people. And when you have a commander who has that experience, that is a comfort zone. They tend to get more involved in that space because they know it.

It’s comfortable. It makes them feel like they’re contributing the number of times. Have you ever seen that movie office space where, Oh, you haven’t.

Carolyn: I fall asleep in movies. I’m not a cinephile at all.

DeDe: Okay. There’s a scene in this movie, I think maybe somebody, some folks in your crowd will have seen it, but there’s a scene in this movie where they’re getting ready to do downsizing. They’re downsizing the organization, and they’re going through and they’re interviewing people about what do you do? How do you contribute, so that they can decide who to cut.

And this one guy is in there and he’s going on and on and on, and suddenly the team stops and they go, what is it? You’d say you do here, because like they were just like, figure out what you do. And my deputy and I would laugh all the time because the more senior you get, you’re not doing something tangible, right?

You’re not making a specific mission happen. You are looking at the landscape. You are making decisions based on the bigger landscape. you’re looking at the coordination and collaboration of the teams. So that you can create an overall mission success versus individual function success, right?

you’re pulling those stove pipes together so that they communicate, you know, and we would often look at each other because we were so conditioned to be doers in our careers and we look at each other and we’d be like, what is it you say you do here because it can be so uncomfortable as a senior leader.

All you’re doing all day is making decisions. You’re not doing something tangible.

Carolyn: right,

DeDe: Sometimes we go home and your partner might say, what’d you do today? And you’re like, Oh, I decided this and I decided that 

Carolyn: Well, and that’s, that’s hard when your worth has been shown for all the things that you, that you do. So I’m curious, why did you finally leave? The military. And now you have a successful career speaking and coaching and consulting. So, can you kind of help us understand that transition and then what fires you up?

What, what are you really passionate about right now in your business?

DeDe: leaving the military was probably the hardest decision I’ve made in my adult life because I loved it. I love the people, but I started to realize that again, my background was communications. And the military, unfortunately, is not great about seeing people outside of their what we call Air Force specialty code, which is like your career field.

So the Air Force saw me only as a public affairs officer, and I no longer had someone advocating for me for positions that traditionally public affairs officers didn’t get to do command. And so I realized to stay in the air force meant I was going to stay in the track of public affairs. And that wasn’t horrible, but I also didn’t have the love and passion for it that I had when I was leading the organizations, leading the operational organizations.

And candidly, I knew I didn’t have that. Love and passion. And what I realized is it would be unfair to both the organization and the people that I would be leading to continue to stay and not be as passionate about what it is I was doing. And I thought, I can’t, I love the air force so much. I can’t do that to the air force.

I can’t show up and not be a hundred percent. Because as public affairs. We’re definitely, we’re leading more of a function than we are leading large groups of people because all of the people who do public affairs at an installation are under their own leadership.

chain, right? You don’t have any authority or responsibility for them. You’re really kind of managing a career field and managing the corporate message. And my heart just wasn’t in that anymore. And I thought the Air Force won’t ever let me do something that is outside of this career field at this point in my career, because I’m too senior.

They needed me to be in public affairs, right? Because that’s what, that’s what, that’s kind of what they had been growing me to be. bunch of us, you know, they grow a group of people so that they can kind of select from that group. And I realized, like, if my heart’s not in it, I can’t do that to the Air Force and I can’t do that to the people.

And I had discovered some work around values and my top 2 values are authenticity and growth. I thought I’m not growing the way I want to grow if I stay in the Air Force, and I’m not authentically being me if my heart’s not in this,

Carolyn: Hmm.

DeDe: and I was already kind of doing some of the work we both do in helping leaders and helping organizations navigate these hard realities of the emotional experience we experience as leaders.

Like, Sometimes I tell people like these aren’t soft skills. These 

Carolyn: These are the hard skills.

DeDe: These are the hardest skills.

Carolyn: Yeah.

 

DeDe: hardest

Carolyn: Yeah. Right.

DeDe: work first and none of us really want to do that. Right. And so I was already in that space and I loved it. It felt like I was going back to who I was in Iraq.

When I said, I will never again, if I have the ability, let another leader. Step into this space without knowing it’s hard and knowing the skills to navigate those difficulties. And so I thought, I think it’s time for me to go. And it was hard. It was incredible. It’s still hard. I still cry at the Nash just this 4th of July.

I was crying at the national Anthem. Like I tear up all the time. I am only who I am today because of the air force. It was so amazing.

Carolyn: So you must be taking some incredible insight and confidence isn’t the right word. I’m trying to think like passion into your work now. So, you know, you’re doing leadership work, you’re speaking. What’s the message that you are really trying to help leaders get, like really get, I mean, you and I have both been in this leadership space forever.

We can hear the same things, like be your best self and dah, dah, dah, dah. Like, you know, what do you really want to get to the heart of with your work now?

DeDe: Oh God, there’s so many. But I think if I had to sum it up into a brief kind of overall message you know, I’m not a soft person. I think because I talk about these things, people assume you’re going to be soft. And it was funny when I was in command and my replacement got there, my replacement said to my secretary, because my replacement knew I was Doing this, some of this work.

And I was talking about things like vulnerability and compassion and self compassion. And when you hear those things, you think, Oh, let me just give you a big hug. Right? Like that’s what people envision, right? Like let’s hug and kumbaya. That’s what they think when they hear things like self compassion and kindness and empathy.

And she said to my secretary. You know, I’m not going to be touchy feely like Colonel Halfill. And my secretary was like you don’t know her at all. Like she is not touchy feely. I love structure. I love process. I love accountability. I, I am all about let’s get the job done. Like I’m that person who writes an email and I write the email and then I forget that I got to go back and say, Hi, Carolyn.

How are you today? How have you been? Like I have to get the mission done first and then I remember to deal with the people and the kindness. And so I think what I would want leaders to know is I see you, I see that we are dealing with some really hard things in our corporate environments, in our government environments, in our country.

We are dealing with incredibly hard things and we need leaders who can deal with those hard things. And this work isn’t about being soft. This work is about being effective. And when I learned these skills, I became a more effective leader. I didn’t become a kinder, softer, gentler leader, maybe a little, because I was pretty, I could be

Carolyn: You’d be kinder. Maybe not nice. Right? Like there’s a difference, right? Between kind and nice.

DeDe: Yes. I probably did become a little kinder. 

Carolyn: Yeah.

DeDe: And maybe a little nicer. But I became so much more effective because I wasn’t wasting time. When you know this work, you get to the root of what is going on. You get to the core of the problem, which meant I wasn’t wasting time dealing with. The ineffectiveness.

I wasn’t wasting time with the drama. I wasn’t wasting time with the stuff that happens when we don’t know how to get to the root. I could get to the root. We could problem solve effectively. And I was creating a space. Where the best of people was showing up, which also made my teams more effective, right?

Because They weren’t operating out of imposter syndrome. They weren’t operating out of insecurity. They weren’t operating out of projecting the fake it till you make it. They weren’t operating out of, you know, approving mode. They were operating out of authenticity. And so this wasn’t about being.

This wasn’t about being liked or soft or anything. It really was 100 percent about being effective. And that’s what I’m trying to get leaders to see that especially today you want to be more effective and to be more effective. These are the skills you need going forward. Like there’s no going back.

Carolyn: I think of your story that you told in Iraq about what happened to you is your effectiveness escalated because you stopped pretending. You stop looking around at other people and not giving it, you know, okay, great. Somebody can lift a bar higher than me. But like we need these moments and, and I believe it’s these moments as leaders that really humble us and, you know, really poke at these elements of our psychological structures or personality structures that help us make a choice.

We’re either going to harden up even more.

DeDe: Yeah.

Carolyn: Or we’re going to say, huh, all right. You’re poking at something. I see a little bit of light there. Am I going to follow that light and find out more?

DeDe: Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. And it’s a choice.

Carolyn: How do we get more leaders to make the choice of following that little bit of light?

DeDe: Oh, you know, I was just talking to that team and when I was, I’ve taken a lot of military groups through this work, right? This work around vulnerability and shame And empathy, and at the beginning of the program, we asked them, why do you not? Like what gets in our way of using empathy as leaders and almost 100 percent of the time.

It’s like, I don’t have enough time. I don’t have enough time because I’m terrified. I’m going to get sucked into the vortex. What they’re really saying is I’m going to get sucked into the vortex of feelings, you know,

Carolyn: Yep.

DeDe: I’m not equipped to get sucked into that vortex and I get it, but they. Don’t really understand that.

And they say, I don’t have time when we teach them the skills, time becomes irrelevant because they realize that by having these skills, these conversations actually are a lot easier and they actually don’t take as much time as we thought they might, it’s just really about acknowledgement, acknowledging people, hearing people, seeing people.

So I think the way we get them is we have to really communicate to people that these are learnable skills. You can practice these skills, right? You just got to start.

Carolyn: and I really appreciate what you’re saying about the time. Cause it’s not time bound. I know there’s one little exercise that I learned from Laura Cook. Shout out to Laura. And it’s a, an empathy exercise that takes a grand total of four minutes,

DeDe: Hmm.

Carolyn: two minutes for part one, two minutes for part two, and people come out of that exercise and I’m like, do you feel like that other person saw you even if they didn’t?

give the right answer. And people are like, yes. And I said, four minutes, that took you four minutes, four minutes. And I think it comes down again to when we can allow ourself to be seen and make that connection through our body, right? Like our emotions are in our body, We refer to them in our heart, but I think one of my big ahas over the past year, not ahas, but I think where I’m getting more clear and articulated in my work is As a leader, I spent so much time in my head. I was rewarded for all the things that went on here. Great. We’re not saying take that away, but what I now know is there’s so much information from my neck down that when I can bring it into play with this information, so many more things can happen.

Or like that, that little bit of curiosity can just be pulled on what there’s more light that you can follow.

DeDe: Yeah. You know, I think what else I love hearing you say is. , as a leader especially senior leaders, like the kind of leaders we’re working with, right? We’re working with senior leaders who are dealing with really unsolvable problems, complex problems, paradoxical problems. You’re not dealing with something that could have been easily solved because it’s already been solved.

And as a leader in that space, what you want most is options. You want options because if you don’t have options, it really limits how you’re gonna resolve and, and even address those challenges. When we combine our head and our body and our heart and we bring all that together in not only us, but in the leaders we’re leading in, the teams we’re leading the options and creativity just explode.

Carolyn: Yep.

DeDe: And so this again, isn’t about. Soft skills. It’s about effectiveness and increasing your options. And that’s what you want. Because if I’m terrified to say something, I’m not creative. I’m not in that creative space. If I’m hiding out of fear for evaluation, I’m not in that creative space. 

I mean, I just think the number of times as a senior leader, I probably shot myself in the foot because I wasn’t creating enough of that space for people to feel comfortable and just ideate, right. Just kind of like, let’s do this.

Carolyn: Right. 

DeDe: yeah, what you’re saying is I think that just open it explodes options for us and that’s really what we want

Carolyn: Absolutely. . Before we get to our evolved questions, because there’s some, good insight. I know you’ll be able to share with us there, but is there anything else you want to share with the listeners?

Yes,

DeDe: to this work. And I would say focus on your circle of influence, like, do the work. And by doing the work, others will see it. And they will want to do it as well. I think we spend a lot of time thinking, how do I get those around me to change their behavior?

But when we do the work and we change, they will notice.

Carolyn: yep.

DeDe: And they will wonder and they will want to know as well. So be that change so that others can see it, be the model for others to see it.

Carolyn: It’s so true. it’s just let it do the talking, right? it feels safer in our heads to worry about others when in fact. Turning in is the hardest piece. Where could people find you? What if they want you to come speak at their event or, you know, how can we get people to get in touch with you?

DeDe: Well, I would love that. First of all, call me. They go to my website, ddhalfill. com. It’s under revision right now. I’m actually getting ready to launch a new website, but in the meantime. The website’s there, they can see a little bit about my work. It’s not all encompassing.

But there’s a link there for folks to contact me if they want to.

Carolyn: All right. Well, we will make sure that those are in the show notes and I know you’ve got a big presence on LinkedIn, so. We’ll include that in the show notes as well. Any other places that you hang out under that?

DeDe: I think LinkedIn is probably where I’m most engaged. I’m also on Instagram and I have YouTube shorts. But LinkedIn is probably where I’m, I’m really navigating the most because that’s where leaders are and I wanna be there to answer the questions they have, you know?

Carolyn: Yeah. You’ve got lots of great media. Like you can tell you were in comms. Let’s just put it that way. to end off every podcast, I ask our guests, three questions that revolve around the evolved leadership model. Are you game?

DeDe: Damn, I’m up for it.

Carolyn: All right. So the first question has to do with self awareness, and I know we talked a little bit about that.

So this portion is really just an opportunity to share a story, an anecdote, something you’re comfortable sharing that really took your level of self awareness from one place to a whole other place.

DeDe: Oh yeah. So, when I was applying for the coaching program, you had to submit a letter with your application about why you wanted to get certified as an executive coach through their program. And the story I shared in that letter was a moment on the staff in Hawaii, I had a gentleman come up to me and he was junior ranking, and he said, Hey, ma’am, how come you only mentor the women?

Carolyn: Hmm.

DeDe: said, we don’t. I don’t, I don’t only mentor the women. He says, yeah, you do. You spend a lot of time mentoring the women and you have a lot of conversations with them and you support them a lot. And I just noticed, it seems like you only meant to the women and you don’t ever mentor the men. And I was kind of, at first I was like, He’s ridiculous.

That guy’s insane. You know, like I mentor anybody. I’m an equal opportunity mentor. and I went home that night and I started thinking about it and I thought, I think he’s right.

Carolyn: Wow.

DeDe: I think he’s right. And the story I’m telling myself is that. The women want to hear from me because I am a woman and they want to know how do they find success in this very male dominated environment.

So it felt very safe, felt very comfortable to mentor women. The story I had, I grew up in Iowa you know, very traditional. I grew up in a home where the men were very much the revered, like they’re the ones with the right answers and they’re the ones that are leading. I told myself a story that, well, the men wouldn’t want to learn leadership from a woman that the men think that I was successful by luck, not by skill and that the men wouldn’t want to hear what I have to say, nor would they emulate how I am leading.

And so I realized I had a huge story in my head that the men don’t want to learn from me. They want to learn from other men and I realized how wrong that was. I was minimizing them as much as I was minimizing myself. I was putting them in a box the same way I was putting myself in a box.

And that was a big moment for me because I thought I am doing this to myself and I am not sharing what I could share with others because of a story I’m telling myself. And so that was my big aha, like really getting clear on the stories we’re telling ourselves about how we engage in leadership.

Were you able to go back and thank him and give him a big hug? You know, ironically, I mean, I think that next day I went back and I was like, yeah, what’s on your mind? Let’s chat. And I had an opportunity to work with him again. He was in the army. So, you know, the odds of me working with him again were slim, but I actually had the opportunity to work with him years later at the Pentagon and same thing.

He would come in and we would chat and we would have great mentoring discussions I think he was mentoring me sometimes That question was mentoring me in and of itself. had great back and forth conversations. Yeah, he’s a hoot.

Carolyn: Hmm, cool. Thank you. So second question has to do kind of, you know, we, you talked a little bit about emotions and getting to know, like that’s the hardest part is getting to understand your sort of emotional landscape, what is a ritual, a technique, a strategy a process? what is it that you do to help you honor those emotions, work through them?

And not get swept up or stuck in them.

DeDe: I struggle with meeting my emotions most when I am tired. When I am fully up and ready physically, I find I can slow down more. I can ask myself what’s going on when I’m tired, I completely forget and I am just reacting.

So the 3 things I do would be a get really good sleep. I know it sounds crazy because, like, how is addressing that inner world? But being not being tired is huge.

My partner and I, he’s going to laugh if he hears me downstairs my partner and I cold plunge and cold plunge is amazing for giving me the motivation because it’s a huge dopamine hit, right?

And it motivates me in a way that keeps me alert and aware, which also helps me lean into my emotional space. And I’ve only realized recently that when I am really, really stressed and I’m ruminating in my mind heat. is amazing for calming me down. So like a

Carolyn: Oh, wow.

DeDe: like sitting in a sauna allows, it’s almost like it physically pulls the tension from me.

And it clears it in a way that lets me think. So I think those three things, sleep, cold plunge, and sauna.

Carolyn: I don’t think I’ve heard any of those three of the over 80 folks I’ve asked. Do you have like a cold plunge

DeDe: We have a cold plunge. We do. my partner converted a freezer. 

Carolyn: Do you do it every morning?

DeDe: , we were really good for a while.

We’ve been hit or miss lately just because we’ve both been traveling and we’re getting ready to move. But we’re such big fans of that and the sauna that we’re building a house. We put a sauna in our primary bathroom. So I have daily access to cold and heat and I’m super excited.

Carolyn: That is fantastic. Well, and talk about getting to know your body and like learning how it, it communicates with you. Oh, that’s wild.

DeDe: Yeah.

Carolyn: All right. Last question. What is a song or genre of music that makes you feel connected to something bigger than yourself?

DeDe: You know, that’s a hard one for me to answer. And I think it probably depends on what state am I in, to begin with 

Carolyn: Post, cold plunge.

DeDe: Like, if I’m in a really bad state, sometimes sad songs help me get it out.

Carolyn: Hmm.

DeDe: If I’m really happy, happy songs help amplify it.

Carolyn: Right. 

DeDe: I’m really overwhelmed, I love binaural, binaural, what do you

Carolyn: Bayernal, 

DeDe: I can’t say it, but yes, that’s it. Those just almost like the sauna help me really breathe.

So I would say it just depends. I use music like a recipe. Where am I at? Where do I need to be?

I start. with where I’m at in music that either helps amplify that so I can get it out or amplify it. So there’s more of it. And then I allow That to take me to where I need to be.

So I don’t know that I have one specific, I’m a big Taylor Swift fan, like all the other Swifties out there,

Carolyn: There you go. What about a happy song? What’s a happy song that just comes to mind for you right now?

DeDe: oh, a happy song. 

Carolyn: I’ll tell you mine to get you started if you want. So I love the bleachers. Like they are my happy, happy, happy place. I turn it on. And before we recorded, I was playing tiny moves by the bleachers who, by the way, Jackie Antonoff lead singer is a producer for major acts, including Taylor Swift.

DeDe: okay.

Carolyn: Yeah. He’s the most famous producer. You didn’t know you knew.

DeDe: Okay. All right. All right. Awesome. A specific song isn’t coming to mind except for don’t worry, be happy. Like, I don’t know why that song

Carolyn: There you go.

DeDe: I don’t know that that’s it, but if that’s what’s pop, like it’s going over and over and over in my mind.

So maybe I should just go listen to it to see like how happy does it

Carolyn: That’s funny. Well, you know what we’ll like do saunas and cold plunges. I will bring the playlist and my Sonos speaker and we’ll have it all. We’ll have it all wrapped up there.

DeDe: That would be amazing on so many levels.

Carolyn: Thank you, DeDe for coming on the show. I am sure the guests have really learned so much from your wisdom and your experience.

DeDe: Thank you for having 

Carolyn: on.

DeDe: Thank you. Thank you.

Carolyn: I hope you enjoyed that conversation with DeDe as much as I enjoyed having it with her. One of the stories that I thought was very poignant was when she shared Why she left the military and that connection to her values of authenticity and growing. And we heard at the beginning of the conversation that the military gave her a place to learn and grow, which satisfied that value of hers.

And then near the end of her career in the military. You could see once again that her values, and in particular her value of authenticity, helped her make a very difficult decision. But at the end of the day, as difficult as it was, you heard her say it was the right thing for her to do. It’s a great reminder, a great example of how useful it is, especially when you are in a leadership role where people and processes are counting on you, where there isn’t a binary yes, no answer, your values, your Can help you make personal decisions, and also they can help you make organizational decisions when you use organizational values.

So really grateful to DeDe for sharing that really practical example. The other piece that I’m sitting with in this conversation with DeDe was that moment that she had in Iraq when she realized. That she was being really hard, not compassionate with herself, and she thought she wasn’t good enough.

And I’m going to invite you, all of you listening to think back to those moments where you’ve had those similar experiences, cause we all have them. And what can you do now to give yourself more compassion? Self compassion I think is the antidote to so many things, and we haven’t yet built a robust leadership portfolio or leadership work.

in this space that is really mainstream. It’s getting there. And there certainly are programs like the, the work that DeDe and I do with shame and vulnerability and self compassion. There’s a great work of Kristen Neff, but I really encourage you to dig in a little bit more there. Thanks as always for tuning in really, really glad you’re here and would really appreciate it if you could like and subscribe to whatever platform you’re listening to on this.

And you can always reach me at www.carolynswora.com and Hey, if you love what I’m talking about, why don’t you just join my newsletter as well? And you’ll find that on my website. Take care.