Craig Anderson [00:00:00]:

My boss looked at me and said, you're going to have to lay off half your sales force, and all the rest are going to have to take a pay cut. Welcome to Executive Evolution. I have over 25 years of leadership experience in corporate America. I learned a lot of lessons the hard way, and I created this podcast so that you won't have to. Leadership is not easy, and it's really not easy in tough and difficult times. There was a time in my career where we had built up a really strong sales organization and a good sales organization. A lot of these people we hired ourselves. We didn't inherit them.

Craig Anderson [00:00:38]:

We had really worked to build a great team, but the world was changing around us. Markets were changing, the business was changing, and we had to make some tough decisions. And I really was pushing against making those decisions. We had to do a reduction in force. We had to let go of a number of our sales team. And then the kicker was the people we're going to stay behind were going to have to take a base pay cut and get much more of their compensation than they were used to on variable comp. I was torn at this point in my career, was really stuck on wanting people to like me. I was always trying to thread that needle of, yeah, here's a little darkness, but here's a little light.

Craig Anderson [00:01:17]:

I'm still working hard for you, but I didn't see a way out. I was stressed. I did not want to do this, but there was no one but me to do it. That is the burden of leadership. And so I did it. And it was hard, but I tried to be honest. I tried to have empathy, and I did the best I could for my people at that point in time. In today's episode of Executive Evolution, I'm speaking with Christiana Thornton.

Craig Anderson [00:01:41]:

She is the Chief Executive Officer of Granite Edvance, and she is going to share the story of her Executive Evolution. And one of the many things we talk about today is that difficult time when you're going to have to make a decision that's going to make you unpopular. But that's just part of the story. So let's jump right into our interview with Christiana Thornton. Christiana, welcome to the Executive Evolution podcast. I am so glad you'd be able to join us today.

Christiana Thornton [00:02:10]:

It's great to be with you. It's been a long time that we sort of started connecting on, in some ways, the beginning of my leadership journey. It's fun to come back and have a chance to talk to you, like, five years later about what that has.

Craig Anderson [00:02:23]:

Looked Like, I'm excited about it and I've always enjoyed talking to you about it. And you've done some great things. So this is going to be a great time. So are you ready? Because we always start out with a lightning round. Are you ready to jump in with both feet?

Christiana Thornton [00:02:36]:

I hope so. I'll do my best.

Craig Anderson [00:02:38]:

All right, here we go. Question number one. What is the best book on leadership you have ever read?

Christiana Thornton [00:02:45]:

It's very hard to narrow down to one, but when I thought about books that have been most impactful to my journey, there's a book by Andy Stanley called When Work and Life Collide. And for me, I think starting out in particular as an individual that was balancing children and a successful career and a husband, that Work, Life, Balance piece was always really a challenge. And so I found that to be a really practical book to help me to kind of navigate some of those challenges early on in my career.

Craig Anderson [00:03:16]:

Yeah, and his name's come up before, but I don't know that we've had his book come up before. What were some of the kind of big insights that he had in the book about how to strike that balance?

Christiana Thornton [00:03:26]:

Setting boundaries and really kind of thinking about prioritization and ultimately what's most important to you and sort of being true to your values and your core and identity and knowing that sometimes if you valued, like having that time with your family and those relationships being most important to you, then that would mean you'd have to make some sacrifices in your career. And just this idea of kind of like aligning those pieces and making sure that, like, you're being true to yourself and what's most important to you and knowing that, like, you can't always do everything all the time and something will have to give at some point.

Craig Anderson [00:04:02]:

And that's the thing. It's just trade offs because we are pulled in so many different directions, especially once we're sitting in the big chair like you are, are. If you don't build the cutoffs, the cutoffs will never exist. Your weekends will be your days will be your nights, and it all just flows together on you, Right?

Christiana Thornton [00:04:16]:

Exactly. Yep. So very, you know, just practical and thinking like how you live your life and how to balance having a really strong and successful career, but also maintaining that balance and focus on what makes you really tick as a human and that what you sort of value, if your family is something that you value, then making sure that you sort of align those pieces together in a way that feels good for you.

Craig Anderson [00:04:38]:

Perfect. Great. All right, next question. Who is Your leadership crush.

Christiana Thornton [00:04:44]:

Has anybody ever come on and said they don't have one?

Craig Anderson [00:04:46]:

You would be the first. But that's a good place to be.

Christiana Thornton [00:04:50]:

I don't know. I guess there's nobody, like, I put on a pedestal to say, like, this person has it all figured out. Because I think at the end of the day, every leader has strengths that you can sort of pull from different ones. Like, I thought about different people, like mentors in my career, that there's pieces of each of them that I would say would have me recognize them as a leader, but then there may be facets of another leader that I would look to. So I don't know. I guess I've always tried to have a broad array of mentors and people that I sort of would look to for advice, depending on what I was focused on at the time.

Craig Anderson [00:05:28]:

A lot of times people fall into one of two categories, and I think you're in the ladder. One is a leadership guru or famous leader. I think my very first person said, Jamie Dimon, right. At Chase Case. Or it's somebody who nobody's ever heard of but you and a handful of people because they were their boss. And that's the person who's brought things to you that you can pull from as you've gone on your own journey.

Christiana Thornton [00:05:49]:

Lately, I've been listening to some podcasts. There's a woman, Christine Cain, she's actually from Australia, and she is really involved in human trafficking within the faith community. I think, in particular, does a lot of women in leadership. And so I've been reading a lot of her materials, and she actually does a podcast similar to this, where you're bringing in different women from across the globe that are sort of talking about their own leadership journey. And so I find those stories of actually, like, people really in the thick of it, doing the work every day, like, sharing those impactful, compelling stories. And in some ways, aren't people necessarily that you would look up to and be like, that's a leadership guru, but, like, are doing amazing things, making a big impact in the world in different ways.

Craig Anderson [00:06:36]:

Yeah, and I bet that's really fascinating, given that she's got kind of a worldwide view of it. Because leadership across the world, I don't know how different it is. I'm sure there's commonalities, but there's all the different cultural pieces to think about, too. And she must have to navigate all that to be successful in what she's doing.

Christiana Thornton [00:06:52]:

Yeah.

Craig Anderson [00:06:53]:

Nice. Okay, well, let's try this one in 10 words or less. How would you define leadership?

Christiana Thornton [00:07:01]:

The 10 words or less is the hard part.

Craig Anderson [00:07:03]:

I know that's what makes it exciting.

Christiana Thornton [00:07:05]:

To the ability to bring people along in making an impact.

Craig Anderson [00:07:14]:

I like it. Such an important piece of that ability to bring people along. And then you add in the impact too. Right. Because they have to believe in what they're following you along for. And when you can define what the impact is, they're much more likely to follow what you're doing.

Christiana Thornton [00:07:28]:

I think it's always an interesting part of like as a leader is having the vision and the foresight to the strategic vision to know where you're headed or where an organization needs to go. And so like leading. But ultimately you can't lead an organization unless you have people coming alongside of you to accomplish that task. And so it's almost this balance of having the vision of the direction that we need to go in, but at the same time making sure that you're bringing people along with you, because if you're going there on your own, it's not going to be able to get it done. And so it's sort of like that collision of being confident and bringing people forward, but also making sure that you're mentoring and growing others to let them come alongside and help to propel you accomplish more together as a team.

Craig Anderson [00:08:19]:

Well, and especially when you talk back to when you were talking about Andy Stanley's book, you can't have work life balance if you don't have a team you can rely on to help you move the business forward or move the organization forward. It's almost impossible to do it all by yourself.

Christiana Thornton [00:08:33]:

It's always interesting when you kind of take a step back at an organization. Right. It's that time of the year and like annual reviews and you're looking at how did the organization do? And what you accomplish in an organization can only be accomplished because of each and every single person in the organization that has some type of role to play in some facet of the organization that ultimately I feel like oftentimes when I sit back and think like, was it a successful year? The success is really dependent upon the success of everybody else. And oftentimes just making sure that you acknowledge and recognize and appreciate those that have made a difference and are part of that success story. And I think sometimes when you're the leader of the organization, you have the opportunity to be out and to hear the positive things and have that appreciation. And so a lot of times it's remembering to like, come back and be like, hey, let me share with you the impact that we're making that you're making, that individuals, if they're working internally in particular, may not have the opportunity to see that.

Craig Anderson [00:09:38]:

Yeah. And you do get that external view a lot and you get to hear the results. And it's. I think one of the things we used to talk about a lot when we talked so much more about employee engagement five years ago, was that when people can identify not just with the vision of the organization, but how their role impacts the vision of the organization, that's when they want to stay with you and they want to work hard and they kind of want to be along for the ride and they will never know the impact of their role if someone doesn't bring back the stories of what we're doing out in the world. Especially. You're a very service based organization. Right. In many ways.

Craig Anderson [00:10:11]:

And you're out there changing lives. But if somebody in the bowels of the organization doesn't know it, where are they?

Christiana Thornton [00:10:16]:

Right. Exactly. Yep.

Craig Anderson [00:10:18]:

Nice. All right. Well, this is always the fun part because we get to see how people define their first leadership role. And you can go to any leadership role you have. I've had high school stories, college stories, first jobs in leadership. What do you consider your first real leadership role?

Christiana Thornton [00:10:36]:

I had one thought and then you made me like kind of go back and be thinking like further back. I'm going to go with my first initial instinct, which may not necessarily be the first one, but I think a leadership journey that I probably can pull from. Prior to this role, I was the president of the New Hampshire Bankers association and I had been a vice president of government relations and then ultimately was able to take on that presidency role. I was not quite 30 yet, I think, when that happened. And so in a lot of ways that role, I was still kind of getting my bearings in what it meant to be a leader in the workforce. And so I guess I would probably focus on that.

Craig Anderson [00:11:16]:

Was that a full time role or was that something you did in addition to your full time role?

Christiana Thornton [00:11:22]:

No, that was my full time position at the time. Yep. So I was leading a statewide trade association that was working on government relations at the state and national level for banks across the state of New Hampshire in particular, and then advocating on behalf of the banking industry in Washington in particular, focused on the institutions in New Hampshire.

Craig Anderson [00:11:42]:

So when you stepped into that role, so you'd had some kind of important roles, but this was kind of at the top of the organization. When you stepped into that, what surprised you the most when you were kind of sitting in what I always like to call the big chair for the first time.

Christiana Thornton [00:11:58]:

It's interesting because you're trying to start out, and in some ways, I think now that I think back about it, it's like, it was a little bit isolating at first, because I think you're trying to show everybody that, like, yes, like, I've been given this role and I'm capable of doing this job. And then all of a sudden you're like, okay, wow. I've actually never managed, like, a team of people before, and I've never been responsible for hr, and I've never been responsible for ensuring that the revenue is coming in and you are put into this role, and then all of a sudden, nobody really prepares you for that piece where you're actually responsible for all of the facets of an organization. Up to that point, I was focused in a particular area in the organization and had excelled in that piece, which enabled me to move up to the next level. But I realized quickly that when you were leading an organization, it was much more broad, and there were so many other facets of running an organization that I just had never even been exposed to. And then you're the CEO, and so where do you go if you don't know the answer?

Craig Anderson [00:13:10]:

And I assume you had the board and the board that hired you, but how hard was it to go to them for help, if at all, when you were trying to figure all this out?

Christiana Thornton [00:13:20]:

I think, right. And that was the delicate balance of stepping into a role. And when you have a board showing them that, like, yes, you've made the right decision, I'm highly capable of doing this, but at the same time, not recognizing what my limitations were. And I do think that's the part of learning to be authentic and vulnerable and being open and honest and sharing when you needed guidance or you hadn't handled something before? And I was fortunate at that time that the board of directors, they were all individuals. There were presidents of banks at the time in the state, and they all had their own leadership experiences. And I guess through that experience, I started to learn to lean into that and to recognize that ultimately, people love to mentor others. If you can ask people for advice, like, nowadays, I love it when somebody says, hey, what advice do you have? Like, I think leaders actually enjoy the opportunity to share about their experiences. And I think if you can sort of get over that part of feeling vulnerable and being willing to say, hey, I don't know how to do this, or, I've never done this before.

Christiana Thornton [00:14:30]:

Have you? Been through this before. Do you have any advice? That actually ended up being super impactful because I was able to just to learn from a lot of different people that had been. Had traveled that road before and had learned through that process, and then I was able to learn from them. And I think that was probably one of the greatest takeaways, was just like knowing that you can tap into other people and everybody had to start somewhere. And that was, I guess, really important part of my development.

Craig Anderson [00:15:03]:

No, I'm sure. Yeah. And maybe we'll get into it later. But when you and I first met, we were talking before we started recording. It was a peer group of leaders. And just to have that kind of support and feedback of people who are. It's. I.

Craig Anderson [00:15:16]:

I think they talk a lot about. The President of the United States is such a special group because nobody. So few people have done it. And they have a special link. And I think all leaders do. There's just. Until you've sat in that chair, it's really hard to understand that tug of. I have to be good.

Craig Anderson [00:15:32]:

I have to set the example. I have to lead. I don't always know exactly what I'm doing. I'm hoping I'm doing a good job. Who can help me and where can I pull all that in? And I think it's really hard. And I think a lot of people are surprised by what you said early on. It was a little bit isolating because where do you turn? So, yeah, it's really interesting. Yeah.

Christiana Thornton [00:15:51]:

Because at that point, before you take on a leadership role, your colleagues are right, there's more opportunity, other people in your role that you can lean on and share with one another. And then all of a sudden it's a little bit different because you have that responsibility and it looks a little bit different. And you can't necessarily. You have to have those boundaries in place, those relationships kind of change a little bit. And that can be sort of an adjustment. But I do think to your point, those opportunities to find individuals that are either in a similar role to you that are navigating the same challenges that in their leadership journey, or having the opportunity to look for mentors that may be further along in the journey, I think each of those can play a really critical role and play different roles in the types of leadership mentorship that you're getting from different people. When I first started out in leadership as somebody who was a people pleaser, where it's like I just wanted to make everybody happy and would go above and beyond to just not have People upset or try and get everybody's opinion and really try to collaborate and come out with decisions that like, everybody would be happy with over time. I sort of, I learned, and maybe sometimes the hard way earlier on that like, isn't always achievable and you have to be comfortable making difficult decisions and you can do your very best to collaborate and to get people's feedback, but ultimately sometimes you will have to make decisions people may not agree with.

Christiana Thornton [00:17:47]:

And you can't delay making those decisions out of fear of people being upset with you or disagreeing with the decision that you've made and how am I going to relay that decision and recognizing that ultimately you have to be comfortable with making those difficult decisions. Sometimes you have to kind of get over the people pleasing part that like, you can't be in leadership and expect everybody to be happy all the time. It's just, it just isn't possible. And I think that that was something that early on I definitely struggled with and over time have sort of have grown through that. But you know, still there's moments when you kind of revert to those things.

Craig Anderson [00:18:27]:

Especially if you kind of grew up that way. That was always one of my challenges, was I got to figure out a way to make everybody happy. And then you get into that role and you just look around and you go, I can't. You can do all the triangulations in your head to say, well, if I pull here and push there and tie there and do you realize I can't. I'm just going to have to pull the trigger using the best information I have and then deal with it from there. And if it's the wrong decision, I'll deal with that too. But we can't lead from making everybody happy because decisions by their nature force. Some people did not be happy.

Christiana Thornton [00:18:58]:

I can remember a decision having to be made and that the team at the time that I was managing, like, disagreed with. But I felt really strongly that we go in a particular direction. And I remember saying, like, I'm going to take ownership for this, right? So like, if this is not the right decision to make, ultimately, like, I will take the responsibility and I'm going to own this decision. And in the end it ended up working out, but recognizing that I was making a decision that maybe other people didn't necessarily agree with and maybe were struggling with and sort of like taking that onus off of them to be like, I understand you're not happy with this decision. And so if this doesn't work out the way that I think it's going to work out like I will own this decision and the outcome.

Craig Anderson [00:19:44]:

Yeah, that was a phrase I stumbled on one day, was, I appreciate you disagree with this decision, but this is the decision and we will deal with it. You know, I will deal with it as I need to as we go through. Well, now let's fast forward to your current role. How has your leadership philosophy evolved now? How have you changed and grown as a leader over the time? Since that first role, the focus for.

Christiana Thornton [00:20:11]:

Me has been really on building just trust and trust with my team and really having confidence in the people that I've assembled. And that has been a really critical part of my own leadership journey because as I've learned to trust others and recognized that it's not just my capabilities, but it's really the capabilities of the entire team that the success. I don't have to own everything like delegation and collaboration and teamwork is so powerful and I can accomplish so much more in my role when I am able to really tap into the expertise and the experience of other people on my team and really to trust them and to delegate. I think when I first started out, I felt that responsibility of like, I've got to be involved in everything. And I think over time, as I assemble people that I really trusted, that I knew were highly capable, really was empowering to be like, wow, I have this group of individuals working alongside of me that are just as capable and are going to be tremendously impactful and I can trust them and I don't have to carry all of that myself. That that can be shared. Like shared responsibility across the team has been really transformational for me in our organization.

Craig Anderson [00:21:39]:

You can't underestimate how important it is as a leader to be surrounded by a team that you can rely on, that you can trust, that's willing to push back on you professionally on things and force you to think through things, but is also aligned with you. That has kind of a same team mentality and we're really all working and rowing in the same direction because even with just one person with that paddle in the water at the wrong time, and it's really hard to keep your momentum going, especially stepping in because you stepped into this role from the outside and having a team around you was probably really critical to you getting through the, to the organization to where it is today.

Christiana Thornton [00:22:22]:

And I think as individuals, it's easy to be like, okay, this is, you know, I'm going to do it all. Like, I'm going to, you know, I'm Going to do it all. And I think interesting too, when you're, as you progress from managing an organization of one size and then you go to another level with like more people, you have to realize different organizations and the different size, scope, scale of an organization will change sort of your approach to how you lead, because it may you a larger organization, you will have to delegate more and you won't be able to be as involved in the day to day in all areas that you may have in a different role when it's, you know, a much smaller team. But when you move to a larger organization, your approach to how you lead and what you're involved in and engaged in has to evolve and change to sort of reflect the differences of that organization. And it means that you may might have a larger team with more opportunity to delegate in ways that you couldn't before and really benefit from having a lot more expertise and experience that you can sort of lean into as a, as a larger team of individuals working together well.

Craig Anderson [00:23:39]:

So, Christiana, this has been great. The one question I always like to close on and is to let you go back in time, however you want to do it, whatever machine you want to use, go back to you in that first leadership role we talked about. What's the one piece of advice you would give yourself that would have made you a better leader, made you more comfortable, Whatever you think would have helped you the most in that first role.

Christiana Thornton [00:24:06]:

I think, if I'm being honest, in that fear of trying to like, to not drop any balls and to do it all and to please everyone, I think I probably didn't set the boundaries that I needed to. Definitely there had been a point in time in my career in particular where I didn't set those boundaries. And so that led to exhaustion, which then could lead to things like anxiety that ultimately could be debilitating. And so just really, I think maybe trying to. When you kind of like you jump in to a leadership role and all of a sudden you're just like, you're moving so fast and just trying to keep up and trying to make everybody happy and show everybody that you were capable of doing the job, that you almost kind of start to just immerse yourself and you're not setting boundaries and you're taking on too many responsibilities, which I think ultimately, you know, over time I've learned you need to have rest, you need to have boundaries. Like it's okay to not say yes to everything. Where in the beginning it sort of felt like I was trying to do it all. And make everybody happy and not let anybody down.

Christiana Thornton [00:25:26]:

And I think being younger at the time, right, like, you're kind of trying to prove yourself. I think sometimes trying to prove yourself can. Can ultimately lead you to be a little bit worn down. And I experienced some challenges in that time period because I sort of had overextended myself. And I now have gotten to that point where, as I moved on, I've been able to set those boundaries. And I think that's really important now as a leader, to do my best to show those on my team how to set those boundaries and to try to be a role model, an example, to say, your work can be really important, and yes, I want you to do a really good job, but it's also okay to like to set boundaries and to not wear yourself out that like it. You have to be just, you know, thoughtful about how you. How you approach your work and making sure that you don't come to the point of being tired or exhausted or just running thin, because that does end up causing challenges down the road.

Christiana Thornton [00:26:31]:

You know, sort of protect yourself and make sure that you're not overextending yourself.

Craig Anderson [00:26:36]:

Because no one's going to tell you to work less except for you. As a leader. You can work all day, every day, so you can.

Christiana Thornton [00:26:42]:

You absolutely can.

Craig Anderson [00:26:44]:

Yeah. Well, Christiana, thank you so much for sharing the story of your Executive Evolution. If people want to connect with you, learn more about you, where's the best place for them to go?

Christiana Thornton [00:26:53]:

Probably on LinkedIn, I would say so. Christiana Thornton at Granite Edvance would be the. Probably the best place to track me down. Or they can contact you and you can help them find me.

Craig Anderson [00:27:06]:

I'll be the best gatekeeper I can, but we'll definitely put the LinkedIn connection in the notes for the show. And thank you so much for spending the time today. I really appreciate it.

Christiana Thornton [00:27:14]:

Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. It's really good to be with you, and it's kind of just fun to take a step back and reflect and especially as we close in on the end of the year, opportunity to kind of look back and think about, all right, how do we prepare for next year?

Craig Anderson [00:27:29]:

There you go. Thank you. I really enjoyed that interview. I enjoy all these interviews, but she had such a great story of her own career and the growth that she's gone through as a leader. As always, I like to break these episodes down into three key takeaways for you in the areas of confidence, confidence, and calm. Where Christiana talked about confidence was the confidence that she has now. That she's built a solid leadership team around her. These are people she has picked to help her advance the organization forward.

Craig Anderson [00:28:01]:

She has a team she can trust to delegate to that she knows will get things done through the team. And that is what really will drive a lot of confidence for you as a leader. When you can get to that point in the area of competence, accepting that you can't make everyone happy, accepting that decisions have consequences and some people are going to be happy with them and some people are going to be unhappy with them and there's not a whole lot you can do about it. All you can do is make the best possible decision for your business based on the information that you have at the time. And what I really liked was how Christiana also added that she would take responsibility that competence to make those statements, to make those decisions are crucial for you to be successful as a leader. And then in the area of calm, where we talked about that book by Andy Stanley and the lesson she learned there about building boundaries for herself, we can't have work life balance. We can't get to calm until we set those boundaries. As a leader, there will always be something for you to do.

Craig Anderson [00:29:03]:

There will always be a meeting to have. There will always be an email to read. But you have to successfully set those boundaries if you don't want to make yourself crazy as a leader. Thanks again, Christiana, for sharing the story of your Executive Evolution. As always, remember, you can go from being an accidental leader to the greatest leader of all time. All it takes is building your confidence, confidence and calm. See you next time on Executive Evolution.