WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP
The Value of Empathetic Leadership A Women in Leadership Zoom Recap Featuring Zeta Smith, CEO, North America Seniors, Sodexo
My background: I grew up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. My parents chose that
communication – it’s the same thing learning new environments focused on people. When I started with Sodexo, I had onboarded just a few weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic started in March 2020.
location Zeta Smith
because it offered an excellent education. When I graduated from high school, I was one of three African-American children out of a class of more than 400 stu- dents. I like to think that I grew up feeling that I was one of a few out of many, and it grounded me about some of the environments that I would be working in. After college, I worked for ExxonMobil as a territory manager in northern New Jersey. I was overseeing 26 gas station franchisees. Many of the gas stations had auto repair stations and I provided gas price recommendations and sold oil. I was walking on to gas station lots that were led by all white men with an average age of 45 who had about 25 years of experience in the business. I was once again the few of many. I needed to build trust, deliver constant communication, recognize and reward staff, and build a team through consistent actions. I spent 15 years with ExxonMobil and worked my way up the
corporate ladder. When Exxon acquired Mobil, the corporate culture began to change, and I wasn’t getting the energy that I had been for so many years. I decided to change direction and moved to New York to start with Starbucks. It was at Starbucks where I learned to be a people leader – that
it does take people to work with, for, and through - not only how to get projects done but how to develop the right people to work in the stores. My last job with Starbucks, I was overseeing much of the North American territory. I left Starbucks because the pace was rough – it was hard to
juggle life and my family. I moved to Sodexo and it was unique for me because for the first time, I was working in a B2B environment. Now I am dealing with the ultimate consumer and work with clients. Again, I find myself focusing on people, building trust,
Describe your leadership style during the pandemic? I truly believe that I was meant to be at Sodexo at this point in time. My experience with ExxonMobil and Starbucks led me to how to lead through crisis management. What I found was that I needed to form a remote team with a common goal. It goes back to consistent and constant communication and once again leading through people. Communication, when it is constant and consistent, can create a sense a calm in the wake of crisis.
Are there some things from the pandemic that came through as a positive? I developed a program call “Celebrating New.” Basically, we created a PowerPoint deck of pictures of employees with the residents, celebrating the great things that were happening in the units. Small celebrations make a big difference for the residents and create a positive environment for the team. I also started to call family members of staff to recognize team
participants and through this the staff members were praised both at work and at home. At the end of the day, empathetic leadership is a must – people need to know that you are human, that you can understand and empathize with what they are doing. The ability to honestly con- nect with individuals and people on a team will lead to great things.
What are your thoughts on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as a whole and what we can all do as leaders to continue to promote best practices? I am quite passionate about DEI. We know that more diverse teams do improve business and productivity. At Sodexo, during my second week on the job, I was meeting leaders throughout the country. When I walked into many of those meetings, for the first time in my professional career, I was not the only person of color. I felt this immediate sense of belonging and that I could truly bring my full self to work. The more I thought about it, I found myself saying, “I am a CEO running a business, and I feel this way when I am working alongside diverse teams, so what would this feel like
“I connect teams by building trust, consistently communicating, and routinely recognizing and rewarding staff.”
—Zeta Smith
26 SENIOR LIVING EXECUTIVE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2022
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