Relational leadership and management authority Cheryl L. Mason, J.D. is a TEDx speaker, author and CEO and Chief Catalyst of Catalyst Leadership Management. As the fourth presidentially-appointed, senate-confirmed — and the first woman and military spouse — to serve as the CEO/Chairman of the VA Board of Veterans’ Appeals, The Honorable Cheryl L. Mason has a proven track record of leading with an impactful morale-boosting, trust-based, people-centric approach. Mason also authored “Dare to Relate: Leading with a Fierce Heart.”
In addition to her TEDx, she was featured on NBC’s Charlotte Today, on multiple I-Heart radio talk shows, and more than 50 podcasts. She is guest author of several online journals articles to include HR.com and CorporateVision-News.com. She consults with several organizations on leadership development, organizational management, and relational leadership. She regularly speaks at conferences and corporate trainings.
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Cheryl L. Mason: As a catalyst and keynote speaker, I empower, inspire, and ignite new and aspiring leaders, employees, and organizations to become their best! Discover the power of authentic leadership – being real, caring, connecting, and engaging with your people. Leverage technology to support and boost effectiveness, build trust and morale, deliver impact, and elevate results. The employees are a company’s most valuable resource. Connecting and relating to them provides jet fuel to you and your organization!An expert in combining strategy, analytics, vision, change management, and empathy to enhance leadership effectiveness and sustainability. I offer efficiency improvements tied to business objectives seeking to fully maximize resources – from strategically investing in people, streamlining processes, utilizing and wrangling technology, and leveraging government budget dynamics.
I also help demystify and navigate the Department of Veterans Affairs as well as understanding and managing relations with Congress and other stakeholders in the government space.
Can you share a time when your business faced a significant challenge? How did you navigate through it?
Cheryl L. Mason: As the first woman Chief Executive of the Board of Veterans Appeals at the Department of Veterans Affairs, I walked into an organization with low employee morale, broken stakeholder relationships, subpar results, unhappy customers, and lofty expectations. Many eyes were on me. Many suggested I follow the traditional leadership approach and look for low hanging fruit to push for results. I knew that had been attempted before and it didn’t work. I decided to lead differently, starting on day one. From the moment of my swearing-in to my last day, I connected, communicated, and related with the employees of the organization as people. The employees were used to invisible leaders, those who remained in the office only appearing at town halls occasionally and relying on others to “deal” with employees. I began walking around all five floors of the building office space. At first, my employees believed I was “checking on” them to make sure they were working. When I explained that I had scheduled this time to make myself available to them, to listen to their concerns, issues, and ideas. They were surprised and hesitant. I kept doing it.
One day, an employee approached me with a new way to use our existing technology. It had great promise. We tested it and soon rolled it out. It increased our results by 50 percent that year, and 100 percent the following years. This was pivotal for the employees, the organization, and me. We worked together to improve processes and implement innovation technology, and I hired an additional 300 staff. By listening and investing in the people of the organization, I learned what tools and support were needed. We continued this throughout the pandemic and the organization thrived. Output exceeded expectations and set records, morale increased, and did trust and retention. The answer was in the people of the organization, and I knew it.
How has a failure or apparent failure set you up for later success?
Cheryl L. Mason: Failure is required for success. I learned as a young leader to learn from and admit mistakes. When you do so, success often follows.
At the beginning of 2020, I was in process of building my executive team. They all came on board just at the pandemic hit. We did not have time to get to know each other in person. Like all of us, the employees were struggling. I was worried and I began to issue directives to my executive team about what to do. This did not go over well as that is not the reputation I had as a leader. I did it because I had not built trust with them. In one of our team meetings, one of the executives expressed his concern. He correctly called me out. He was right. I appreciated his honesty and courage. That lead us to discuss all our concerns and began to build a strong relationship. This served us well in the summer of 2020 when there was much unrest in country and in DC. The staff was concerned. Because my team had held me accountable, we were able to communicate as a strong team and assure the staff that we would not accept poor and disrespectful behavior toward one another.
How do you build a resilient team? What qualities do you look for in your team members?
Cheryl L. Mason: Building a resilient team requires ensuring that team members know how to and are taking care of themselves. You can’t lead or even do your job, if you are running on empty or fumes. You must have the ability to recharge and sometimes to do so quickly. What I look for in team members is the ability to know when to rely on or collaborate with others. Our society has often taught that we have to do it all. That is not possible.You can do more together than you can apart – if you how to rely, support, and collaborate. This means not only knowing your strengths but recognizing similar or opposite strengths in others. Both can be complimentary. When consulting or advising leaders or teams, I often ask what they do for down time to recharge and how often. Some need more, some need less, but everyone needs it.
How do you maintain your personal resilience during tough times?
Cheryl L. Mason: My personal resilience was built early in life. I lost my father to suicide when I was 4 years old, and my brother when I was 17 years old. I was gifted with an incredibly strong mother who taught me how to live life facing forward and honoring the past and those in it. As a multiple suicide loss survivor, I learned that self awareness is extremely important. You have to know how you are doing – really. And find things that bring you joy and recharge you. For me, that is nature, specifically water. I love to walk along streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans. The water rejuvenates me. It can be a powerful force or a quiet trickle, both impact the area around it.
I visit the ocean at least 2x a year, I live very near a lake – I take daily walks around the lake. If I’m traveling, I find a river or stream. Nature is amazing, there is so much going on that we can’t see. Often sitting and listening can be breathtaking.
What strategies do you use to manage stress and maintain focus during a crisis?
Cheryl L. Mason: Stress is part of leading. You either cause it, receive it, or manage it. I prefer to manage it but to do this, you have to learn to read situations and tea leaves.It comes down to whether you are letting stress drive you. Often in these situations, leaders are reactive because they either didn’t see the problem coming or believe it would not impact them. Neither one is realistic. The best way to manage stress is to predict it, be proactive, and lean into it. This also helps with crises management.
Your team, your customers, and your stakeholders are watching. However, if you have strategies that include risk management and paying attention to what is happening around you, when crises occur, you are ready. My team often joked that I could foretell the future. I would tell them what was going to happen and work to prepare for it. Did I know it would happen? Nope, but I knew it was possible and preparation is a good plan. To prepare, you pay attention and read the signs of change.
For instance. as we entered 2020, I was encouraging my team to think about expanding our remote work program beyond specialty groups. I believed that it could benefit us with recruitment and was a good investment for our operations support team. I thought it was good for employees and I could envision as situation where it might be necessary to sustain operations for a short period of time. I did not foresee a global pandemic!
However, when it arrived on our doorstep and we had to transition nearly 900 staff to remote work, continue operations, and implement new training processes. We were more prepared than others, and it reaped dividends with our staff.
Proactive preparedness leads to strong plans that create confidence with your teams.
How do you communicate with your team during a crisis?
Cheryl L. Mason: Communicating with your team during a crisis is essential and should be done as personally as you can. One on one, group meetings, and if appropriate large teams meetings.
When I stepped into the role as Chief Executive, I knew that the work we did at VA impacted all employees. For this reason, I supported taking vacation time and protecting down time. I also knew that the customers we served, veterans and families, were dealing with a lot of stress. I worked with many on the team to create training to help our staff recognize veterans in crises to assist and help them. At VA, we had the benefit of the VA Crisis line to help us.I also brought in speakers and specialist to discuss and talk about suicide and suicide awareness. As multiple suicide loss survivor myself, I under the importance of communication and caring for each other and our customers.
I still faced one of the hardest situations a chief executive can face, the death by suicide of an employee. It hit me and the team hard. It was during the pandemic. But I knew my team needed support. After learning about the loss of this amazing person, I immediately reached out to the VA Crises Line team to ask for support.
They responded in under a minute to initially to support me and those directly impacted. My next call was to the family, who were reeling. For the next few days and weeks, I checked in personally – phone calls, video meetings, texts, whatever was needed with those on my team who were struggling. We had one on one and group counseling provided by the VA crises line team. The family asked to meet with coworkers virtually to convey how much the work and the team meant to this person. Being present, caring, and engaged with the entire workforce but especially with those directly impacted took a lot but it was necessary, and it was my job! Team members even reached out to me to see how I was doing. That meant a lot.
We are all human beings and we all need to know that we matter – all the time! but especially in times of crises and change.
What advice would you give to other CEOs on building resilience in their organizations?
Cheryl L. Mason: The best advice I routine provide to Chief executives is recognize that your employees are your most valuable resource and your most important asset. Your investment in them should include relating and connecting to them. Learn something about them. Invest in them and provide tools and encouragement.
If you remain in your office like it’s an ivory tower or you only show up with your CEO mask on – they know and they believe you to be uncaring and invisible.
But when you engage with them as a person with a real life, just like them. And lead by example, showing and sharing how you recharge and build resilience and create opportunities for them to do so, then you become a relational leader. They believe they matter to you and you care. This drives resilience and success.
How do you prepare your business for potential future crises?
Cheryl L. Mason: Pay attention to what is happening in the world and in your sector. Watch how other organizations and leaders respond, watch what works and what does not.Think about what you would do. Talk about with your team. Being proactive and planning is your best defense. The sports mantra – a good offense is your best defense- is true. Change is certain and inevitable. It can be a crisis or an opportunity, how you perceive it and plan for it matters.
Accept and lean into risk but include your team when you do so, and not just your executive team, your whole team.
Think of your organization like a ship. Your are the captain. There are often storms on the horizon you can’t see, but often your crew can because of their experience.If you build the right relationships and connections, they will warn you.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned about leadership in times of crisis?
Cheryl L. Mason: Following from the above answer, build trust with your team. Yes, you are the leader, they know that. But there are things and issues you can’t see or don’t know about it.If you develop connections, relate to and treat your employees as the people they are, you may be surprised when they warn you. Listen and act.
One of my employees, Harry, worked in our mail room. I had built a relationship with him over the years. We still received paper mail and his job was to ensure it was routed properly. We handled the paper mail of some of our partners. Now this mail could contain vital information that made a difference in outcomes for our customers. One day about 2 months into the pandemic. Harry came to me and said our partners’ mail was backing up. They were not picking it up. He knew this could result in negative outcomes for our customers and create a major public relations issue and require rework for our team. He brought it to me, knowing that I needed to know and because of his actions were able to get in front of major rework, continue to deliver results for our customers, and prevent a major PR disaster.
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