How Leaders Can Spark Purpose and Inspiration at Work w/ Dr. Alise Cortez

urpose isn’t a poster on the wall — it’s an everyday practice.
 In this episode of Relationships at Work, Dr. Alise Cortez joins Russel Lolacher to explore how leaders can move beyond surface-level engagement and truly ignite meaning, connection, and inspiration in the workplace.

Drawing from her research in logotherapy, workplace meaning, and leadership development, Alise shares:
 ✅ Why leaders must first be inspired by their own lives
 ✅ How to embed purpose into workplace culture from onboarding onward
 ✅ The critical role of recognizing and rewarding kindness, empathy, and courage
 ✅ How relationships can elevate — or erode — a sense of meaning at work
 ✅ What to do when your purpose no longer aligns with your workplace
 ✅ Practical ways leaders can grow people into their fullest potential

This isn’t about slogans or vision statements gathering dust. It's about operationalizing humanity in how we work, lead, and connect — every single day.

Whether you’re a leader ready to elevate your team, or an employee looking to reconnect to your own sense of purpose, this conversation will give you the tools — and the hope — to start.

Hey! If you're enjoying the insights from our guests, you'll love our R@W Notes Newsletter. It’s packed with guest takeaways, the resources that inspire them, and my own tips on how we as leaders can be better humans for the humans the are responsible for. Go to RelationshipsAtWorkShow.com and Subscribe Now and help the workplace be more human.

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Transcript

Russel Lolacher: And on the show today, we have Dr. Alise Cortez, and here is why she is. Awesome. She's a speaker, author, organizational psychologist, and logotherapist.

I had to look up what a logotherapist is. It has nothing to do with branding. She is the Chief Ignition officer for Gusto Now!, which helps companies in their human and organizational transformation by activating meaning and purpose. She's also a management consultant and chief purpose officer through her agency, Dr. Alise Cortez and Associates, and she's a host of her very own Working On Purpose podcast through Voice America talk radio, I'm a sucker for fellow podcasters. She also wrote a pretty great book. I strongly recommend you check out The Great Revitalization, How Activating Meaning and Purpose Can Radically Enliven Your Business.

And she's here. Hello Alise.

Alise Cortez: Russel, what a fantastic introduction. Thank you for having me on. This is so fun already.

Russel Lolacher: Thank you so much for being here. I'm looking forward to I, I know everything we talk about today is gonna have...purpose. So we will definitely be weaving our way in and outta there. Before we get into our conversation today around inspirational development, though, I do want to talk about, well, your first experience as an employee.

So the first question I ask all of my guests, Alise, is, what's your best or worst employee experience?

Alise Cortez: And it happens to be really one of my very first experiences. So the, and I tell the story a lot. I'll be is, I'll be brief about it here, but I had the fantastic pleasure of growing up in a very small town in northeastern Oregon, population 4,800. And at that time I had one aspiration that was to get the heck outta Dodge, right?

And so I worked for my parents in the restaurant, grew up in, in high school, and I also had this co-op job working at the front desk of this pumping company. And I met the owner and he would call in from the Grand City of Portland, Oregon on occasion. But one day he uttered these amazing words to me.

He said, if you ever find yourself in Portland, you've got a job with me. And that's what we call a ticket out, Russel. The, that was the first time he saved me is he hired me and got me out of that small town. He had a commercial real estate development company and I was his front desk sort of admin person and had an amazing time working for this man.

He was a Czechoslovakian American. Bigger than life. Huge personality. He taught me so much, believed in me, and he was a great gobs of fun to work with. And one day, 18 months on the job, I'm sitting there in my little front desk behind my IBM select typewriter. And he walked past me on the way out for lunch.

And as you open the door over the shoulder, he said as he walked out, you gotta get outta here. You gotta see the world. You gotta do something with yourself. But before you go, hire your replacement. And, the door shut behind him. So I was quite surprised to realize that he had just fired me. So that was the second time that he saved me.

And why is that because before he said the things he said to me, Russel, I did not know one, I could go to college. My parents were entrepreneurs. They didn't finish high school. We never talked about college. Let's see, because of that push, let's see, one bachelor's, three master's, and a PhD. I think I can check the education box.

He told me to go see the world. I probably wouldn't have joined my boyfriend at age 26 who I knew for a month to go join him to live in Madrid, Spain, and then later Brazil for two, a total of three years if I hadn't heard that from him. He really was an incredible figure in my life. So that, that, that is, that was definitely, I would say the best experience that I've ever had, working.

And why would that be? I mean, I care about potential. I care about realizing your potential growing and transforming, and he did all of that for me, Russel.

Russel Lolacher: How have you paid it forward with that experience in your life? Because, I'll be honest, most people I talk to when they talk about their first jobs, it's not always a pleasant experience 'cause nine times outta 10, they have bosses with no training, no leadership experience themselves. So it's usually a pretty bad experience.

This was transformative for you.

Alise Cortez: Yeah.

Russel Lolacher: How did you pay it forward?

Alise Cortez: I also went on to fire several people. Oh, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Well, I do a lot of pro bono mentoring, and coaching, et cetera. And in fact, I have a client here in Dallas that what they do is they do life coaching for really at risk students. And I gift them, various programs throughout the year.

And of course, anytime anybody has a question like, what do you think about this? How should I go about this? I'm happy to talk to people, but for me it's been just a way, and even my speaking, right, just being out speaking and delivering these messages of inspiration and hope, encouragement and encouraging people and plucking them from, their comfort zone to reach for more.

That's just kind of my every everyday kind of life.

Russel Lolacher: It so speaks to the fact that and again... thrilled you have a good example because having those stories, I ask this question all the time and so often it's negative and so often it's something people are carrying with them 20, 30 years later. And for yourself it same thing, but it was more of an inspirational piece, which really reinforces leaders have such an influence and impact on people they have no concept of.

Alise Cortez: Huge. And to that end, Russel, that's one of the reasons that I'm an organizational psychologist. I'm not a clinical psychologist. I don't I don't treat, I'm not an abnormal psychologist, although some of that is involved, let's just face it. Right. But I believe very much in the playground of the, of life, in the world of work, I believe in the potential of that.

And yet, to your point, it has such a, such devastating consequences for so many people.

Russel Lolacher: So let's get inspiring.

Alise Cortez: I'm in.

Russel Lolacher: Let's not go down the rabbit hole of negativity. Define inspirational development. I always find it interesting on the show, we get these interesting concepts, but I don't think we always define things in the workplace as often as we should. Usually those are general concepts like diversity.

I'm like, okay, now define it. Stop using it and everything and now tell me what it means. So for the purposes of our conversation today, how would you define inspirational development for the workplace?

Alise Cortez: I don't know that I use that particular phrase, that combination of two words, but li what I would say is, development is obviously a huge part of everything that I do, helping people to develop and grow, but everything that I'm gonna be anchored in is in the realm, as you said at the beginning of the show of meaning and purpose.

And so if we say inspirational development, which is actually kind of a new phrase, I kind of like it. I Thanks Russel for that. It, well, what I would situate that in, is it a lot of the work that I do, Russel is helping people through my programs to awaken to and get access again through their passion, their inspiration, and be very present to what their mindset is.

And that's all anchored in the world of logotherapy, the world of meaning. So for listeners and viewers, if you don't know what logotherapy is, and I would doubt that you do, logos is a Greek word for meaning. So really it's about vitalizing and healing through meaning. And so if we wanna talk about inspirational development, then the first place to start would be to help people literally learn how to turn themselves on from the inside out.

And that's a lot of the work that I do. And you can do that by helping them access what are they passionate about? What inspires them and help them, continue to look for ways that they are inspired, and then really be mindful and intervene in that governing mindset. That's the first thing that I would say.

And then we could talk about the, the leadership part of things, which is a whole other realm, really heavily anchored in the world of inspiration, at least when it's done well.

Russel Lolacher: And I'm certainly not gonna take credit for that. I think that's something I pulled out of our, we have a pre, we had a pre-chat a little while ago before...

Alise Cortez: Yeah.

Russel Lolacher: We got into this, and I swear it's something you said and I'm like, Ooh, I love that. So it was, so I'm gonna flip it back to you. And you came up with your own term.

Alise Cortez: Wow. Okay. Okay. Well, thanks. I'll take it. I like it.

Russel Lolacher: Because we, this, we have professional development. We have this thing where we have you on a learning plan if organizations actually did that most of the time, which they never do, but there is always this talk about development. There's always this talk about that. So what are we missing that we need to take that extra step further?

Alise Cortez: Do you mean for the general workforce or do you mean for leaders?

Russel Lolacher: Both I think.

Alise Cortez: Okay.

Russel Lolacher: Yeah, both. I mean, for leaders for sure, but I think generally to create leaders we have to go down this path.

Alise Cortez: Oh, I, gosh, I could talk for eons about this. Okay. But I won't, but I won't. So the, but, so the first thing I would say is, people, if you ask most people, you know, about their work, they're gonna go, oh, is it the weekend yet? I mean, most people, I mean, I don't know what the engagement rates are these days, but I think it's 60% maybe are, if people are really engaged in their work at best. And any.

Russel Lolacher: I think it's far lower actually than that.

Alise Cortez: Okay, okay. So we, that's the place to start, right there. So that's already, we already know we need to do something to vitalize the experience of being in the world of work and I think it goes a long way to help people to get connected to what are they passionate about and looking for them to be unique individual human beings who you appreciate so that they know that they matter.

This, there's a whole inquiry in the world of mattering today. How do you help people understand they matter and one is you help them understand how it is that they are, that they're valuable, you, you know who they are with their contribution and that they add value. And when you communicate that goes a long way.

And unfortunately, for some reason, we have to teach people how to do that. They don't really it's not something that is, seems to be standard behavior when it comes to developing leaders. Let me situate a little, some really interesting researcher that came from Bain Consulting. They had done some research several years ago.

It's been a good 10 years now where they were, I think they worked with about 300 different companies to come up with this. But the long and short of it, Russel, is that they came up with this this way of sort of measuring productivity of engagement levels, and they came up with four levels of engagement.

One of our dissatisfied employees. Then satisfied, engaged, and inspired. And so what they said is, if we put the productivity measure of the satisfied employee at 100, forget that the, the dissatisfied is gonna be pulling you back. So if the satisfied employee is at a productivity level of 100, the en, the engaged employee is at 1 44, the inspired employee is at 225.

So that's where we talk about the difference when you are, when you've got an inspired workforce, and how do you inspire them is you help them, you communicate to them that they're part of something pretty magnificent, and you help them understand their place in that organization and why they're important.

And then you keep learn, you keep pulling them and transforming them up to their higher potential. Now you get a, you get an inspired employee. Now it takes a pretty gifted leader to be able to do that, right? It's takes somebody who knows how to be an inspirational leader to do that. And the first thing that has hap has to happen for them.

You're gonna be just shocked at this, I know, is they have to be turned on by their own life first. They gotta be turned on themselves. They can't, you cannot inspire somebody else if you're not inspired first by your own life. So I'll stop there for a second.

Russel Lolacher: Fair. Before we move on, I did a quick look. 32%, Gallup did a poll.

Alise Cortez: 32%.

Russel Lolacher: In 2024. 32% is the engagement rate right now of employees in the United States.

Alise Cortez: Yeah. Yeah. So what that means is for, for every, three people that you have on your team, one of them is really pulling you forward, and two of them are kind of either, if not holding you steady, then pulling you back. That's, it's so critical to understand this stuff.

Russel Lolacher: And there's a big opportunity here for a lot of leaders. I want to dig into your point of we need better leaders to create better leaders, and we seem to have the systemic broken problem of that's not what we have in the general workforce. We've got a lot of people in leadership roles that have no leadership experience.

They're managers, they're not leaders. And yet we'll call them a leader. We'll call them a leadership team, and I'm like, but they don't do anything that would pertain to what we would define as a leader. Where do we start? Because I mean, to your point, we said, is it the workforce? Is it leadership? I'm like, shouldn't it be at the frontline level? Is it at the executive level? 'cause that seems to be where all the money is. That's why you have so many executive coaches, not that's where we should be spending our time. So if we are here to engage our employees, to get them inspired, to get them connected, where do we start in this employee journey?

Alise Cortez: Well, I love that question. I, when I'm working with organizations, I, it's everybody's, it's everybody's job, right? It's not just the executives, it's not just the manager, it's not just supervisors. It's also the, the every employee to be able to speak their mind and say what's working for them and what's not.

So there's everybody's hands and voice matter and head matter. I definitely think that, when we, that's why I distinguish from my programs. My, my company, another company that I run is called Gusto Now!, and I created a program for managers and one for executives. Because they, to your point, managers do different things than leaders, managers are really managing and ensuring the actual work gets done, and the leaders are really casting that bigger vision for people to to come into and be inspired by. It's a very different set of responsibilities. So I do believe, and I, and this is what I've come to Russel, is why I do what I do at Gusto Now! is we're doubling down on humanity in the age of technology.

So we're teaching people how to be, really better human beings, better to each other. And that includes developing the emotional intelligence, leading with empathy. Learning how to listen and to communicate people's value. Some people think, well, I told them last year that they were doing great.

Yeah, that's not it. It doesn't cut it. So I do believe that there, there are, every part of the organization needs to be developed and touched and grow and grow. And it's not just a once a year deal. It's, it's an ongoing thing.

Russel Lolacher: Diversity always comes into play for me when we talk about things like we need to get everybody's purpose. We need to inspire everybody. I'm like, everybody's idea of purpose inspiration are very different.

Generations, culture, how do we approach it from a diversity lens because different people are motivated by different things?

Alise Cortez: Well, let me. Let me back up first and say that I, so when I look at some of the best practices that I have out there, in fact later on today I'm gonna be doing a prerecorded conversation with Carlos Rey, who is in Barcelona, Spain, and they are actually measuring purpose in organizations. It's amazing the work that he's doing.

I can't wait to talk to him. But when I look at what I consider to be some of the best practices, like the, this is best in class stuff. I think Bimbo is one of the, one of the companies, and they're a, I think they're a South American. And they do ingredients and things for restaurants, baking, things like that.

I think they have like 130,000 employees if I remember this correctly. But they actually have this process where they enroll, they start people, and they are, they're enrolled immediately and they start into a program where right out of the gate, they are in taught how to start looking for and discovering their own purpose.

And then looking to see how can they thread that through that of the organization. And it doesn't matter wherever you are on that space, but the idea that you're going to be brought into an organization and encouraged and invited and given a platform to help look for that for you. That's amazing. And it doesn't matter what, whatever it is.

Like if you say, well, to me it's just this or whatever, that goes back to the diversity lens. And for some people, this is like, man, we're going to Mars and back here kind of thing. So yeah, to your point, some people were like, I don't really care that much. I just wanna know that I matter here and you guys, care about my wellbeing and it pays pretty good.

And that's why being a meaning of work researcher as I am, I learned that some, that what people find valuable and meaningful wildly varies. I found 15 modes of engagement that really actually extend to the levels of meaning that people experience or like to experience. And those levels relate to Maslov's hierarchy, needs and beyond.

Russel Lolacher: Oh, I'm gonna ask you a couple of levels, but before we do, I just wanted to mention that I love the idea of, it always worries me when we talk about these big ideas and things, but we don't talk about operationalizing it. And for you to talk about this other organization who's looking literally at onboarding and onward.

Alise Cortez: Yeah.

Russel Lolacher: I can't tell you how many stories of conversations I have with people and onboarding is the biggest failure. The first impression is they come into an organization, organizations don't even remember they hired people.

Alise Cortez: Right.

Russel Lolacher: No computer works for them or like, there's all this first impressions that we fail at miserably, and then we're supposed to do follow ups right up to the exit interview that never seem to happen.

Alise Cortez: Yeah,

Russel Lolacher: So for them to focus on purpose right out of the gate and build on that and build on that, it makes me cry a little.

Alise Cortez: I know. Isn't it beautiful? It's so beautiful.

Russel Lolacher: So we talk about 15 levels of engagement. I'm kind of cur, obviously, I don't want you to go through listing all of them, but give me a sense of what that looks like from just a, a, yeah, from a spread, I guess, through it.

Alise Cortez: Yeah. So it, it is been, really amazing to get to do this research. Just to sort of situate first how I did, how I came up with them was I, when I asked people. What do you find meaningful in your work and why is that important to you? And then I would ask, how important is your work to your sense of self?

So what I did was I coded all their interviews. It was like 2,500 pages. And so when I was coding, I would, the higher the level that you know, that you go up Maslow's hierarchy. So you know, you have what? Physical security and then belonging and esteem and values and. You get into sort of more the purpose sort of realm as you go.

So the higher that they would talk about, what they found valuable or meaningful in their work would find them higher on this graph. And then I would, I wanna understand, how is your work related? And people would say things like, it's 1% of me. There's no connection to really who I am. It's, separate from me. Others would say, I'm expressing myself. I, it just fits me. Others would say, it's inseparable. And others would also say it's, there's a conflict between me and my work. So depend... based on all of that, then I was able to take an chart on this graph from highest, most engaged, elated person with their work at the very top, down to the very, very bottom, which were people in existential crisis.

The top one is called Transcendental Connection, and that's really where people are feeling like their work is like the highest, like it's a spiritual quality to it. It's definitely purpose, and there's no separation between who they are, and those are people that tended to be priests, rabbis and like a spiritual counselor, et cetera.

'Cause they really are connecting to, higher, a higher being kind of thing. In the middle you had people that were doing like, instrument, like instrumental, sort of, it was an instrumental relationship. In other words, there was a, we were trading skills for a paycheck here and having many other things in life that are very important to me.

But appreciate the job and the work for, what it enables, for the rest of my life, a middle tier, so not super, super engaged, but in it and so that's interesting. At the very bottom is the people that literally are, it's so miserable, but feel stuck in their job because they need the money or et cetera. And it's a horrible, dismal experience. It negatively impacts how they feel about themselves, their self-esteem and it's just miserable. So to quickly illustrate kind of, what that, how this kind of plays out and looks like in the real life there were three people in the 115 people that I interviewed that were in existential crisis.

And my research design was such that I would, came up, I did all the coding. Everybody.... I did everybody's individual. I think you're in this mode. When I interviewed you. And here's the sheet that I wrote about why I think that's and we would have a conversation. I, they'd share all the research, share theirs and say, do you agree with me that was the mode you had when I interviewed you and has it changed since we've since talked, which is six months to a year. So I did, wasn't looking forward to having the conversations with the three people. I mean, who wants to tell somebody that you're in existential crisis? So I get one of them was a chef and I reached out to him. And I'm hoping he doesn't answer the phone, but he picks up, he's like, Hey Alise, how's it going?

It's so great. I'm so happy to talk to you. I'm now in conflicted fit, which is like another, like five feet up, but, five levels up, but still negative. And for him to understand and recognize somewhat joyfully, he said, when you interviewed me and when I interviewed him, Russel, he literally, during the 90 minute interview, we were in his restaurant having dinner together...

He broke down in tears five times. It was awful. He was really in a rough spot. He said, after you interviewed me and you sent me my transcript, I shared that transcript with my wife and my mother, and they both sobbed. They had no idea. I was so miserable and so unhappy, and that already started to change things.

I'm working on weekends when my family's home, et cetera. I still, he says, but here's the thing. I still have the screamer boss that, I have to deal with. I'm still working on those crazy, awful hours. But I see my work differently now. I see it now as a way to be able to provide something to my family and I'm, my, my kids are really proud of where I work, et cetera.

But it still isn't where he wants it to be. He's in the right kind of work, but it's not in the right environment and that's why it's called Conflicted Fit. So he still has lots of ways he can get more engaged. But anyway, there's more, way more I could say about that, but it's ama, it's amazing when people recognize where they are in this whole grid, if you will.

Russel Lolacher: Have you seen this change over the last couple years through your research and I ask this because I know of say, even Boomers, Gen X identity is a big piece. You've mentioned this, where people attach their value to the work and then they get fired.

Alise Cortez: Yeah. Yeah.

Russel Lolacher: And then their entire identity gets shattered or laid off or whoever.

I've done episodes on this very topic where it is such a transformative thing. Meanwhile, we have Gen Z for us Canadians and millennials that are coming up going work is not who I am.

Want, well, I don't know if balance exists, but I sure as hell don't want to be nine, be my nine to five.

Alise Cortez: Yeah.

Russel Lolacher: And that seems to be seeping into other generations. So how have you seen that?

Alise Cortez: That's a great question. So I must confess, I don't really have a good finger on the pulse for that. I am not super surprised that it, but it'll, it would change to the generations. However, the one lens that I do have from a research vantage point is, and this has been really interesting to talk about from a generational vantage point, I do believe that every generation makes us better as a human species. I do not have, I do not hold the mindset of, oh my gosh, this next one coming in. Oh my God, we're totally doomed. I just don't have that at all. I think that the Boomers really taught us about the notion of being, stable and disciplined and persevering, et cetera.

I'm a Gen Xer, we were a little bit more selective about where we put our, where we put our time and we, some kind of balance was important. And the millennials and the Y came in afterwards and said, Hey, did you guys get the memo that you don't have to work 90 hours a week? Really, it's not necessary.

We can actually, and, can we actually work and work through our values? And then the Zeds that Z coming in, they're now saying, this stuff's gotta be meaningful. And I gotta feel like I'm part of some organization that is has a purpose beyond just making money. So that I do recognize as a very strong trend.

But I don't know that still means that, the younger generations are identifying themselves with their work, but they are demanding more meaning and more purpose.

Russel Lolacher: So what's the role of leadership through all this? We've kind of danced around it a little bit and really focused on the individuals of how we could find purpose ourselves, going through these engagement interviews and so forth. But as a leader trying to create an environment where supporting purpose, defining purpose matters beyond just a poster on a wall or an email where we put a whole bunch of vision mission statements that nobody ever reads. What is an actual, and I mean a good leader's modeling of how to support this?

Alise Cortez: What a great question. This could be a whole podcast itself, but, so first, as I said before I really am really most interested in developing inspirational leaders. Not just effective leaders, but ones that really are inspiring. And first that means, again, you gotta be turned on by your own life and be proud of who you are being in the world. And cascade that passion. And then you've gotta be able to communicate the vision. Why does this organization exist and why should anybody care? And it's not about just how well we're doing for the, for this, for the shareholders. Nobody cares about that if you're inside the organization.

So when you, and that's something you've gotta be able to continue to do. So what I love doing is helping organizations to be able to articulate that purpose and then start to fold it through into their culture so that it's been reinforced. We're about, enabling people to live their best, physical health, 'cause we're a healthcare organization, well, how do we actually live that in the organization?

Do are we literally working people 16 hours a day? That wouldn't be an illustration of that. So walking the talk is important. Being able then to reward and recognize people who are living the purpose of the organization and its values is another important key element of that leadership.

Being able to find what's great in people already and to call that out. But then in so doing to situate for them, like Roland did for me, a bigger version of themselves that they can grow into. That's incredible leadership, right? And that takes knowing your individual people. Who are they? What do they care about? What are they already great at? What do you see for them that maybe they can't see for themselves that you could help them grow into? Or what are their dreams? Where are they trying to get to? If you could do all those things, because all that's gonna happen is those people are gonna wanna work harder and persevere longer for your organization for as long as, for whatever period they're there to be able to deliver on your mission because you're helping them grow into the person they want to become.

And so that idea of the two way street, and I love or forget whose work this is, but the idea is. If you can situate in the organization that the organization says, I will help you grow young man, young woman, or whoever it is, and in exchange you will help us be better as a company, you'll help us realize our mission.

That goes a whole long way. So learning how to communicate people's value, when you do give feedback where it's constructive feedback, do it in a way that doesn't diminish them. Do it in a way that makes them feel like, oh, Russel has my best interest here. He knows that I wanna grow. And you learn how to give that feedback in a way that is encouraging and inspiring and not diminishing.

You do some of those, just some of those things, and you're on your way to be a much more effective inspirational leader.

Russel Lolacher: It reminds me of this question that a lot of, and I'm gonna use air quotes here for people that are not watching the video, leaders will ask us in whether it's a performance review, productivity review, whatever you want to call it, what's your five-year plan? And my answer's always, what's your five-year plan for me? Because as an employee, my lens is finite. I just see my boss, I see my team, I see the threads in which we are connected. The leaders, if they are leaders, see a bigger picture or should see a bigger picture of fit, of vision, of mission, of where we fit into the larger scope. It's so funny how most managers 'cause they're not leaders, will throw that on the employee being the sole responsibility of figuring out themselves when they sit there, truthfully, with a lot more knowledge where they can actually help. Where the purpose, to your point, can flow within the organization or outside the organization to be fired much like you were. So I always find that burden that these managers throw on employees to be so frustrating.

Alise Cortez: I think that's beautiful insight Russel and the other thing is, to your point, sometimes of course, an employee doesn't know what they don't know. I mean, and that's what I think makes for a great leader is help people understand and discover their own potential. I mean, help them be, be that diamond in the rough and where they're gonna come to.

The other thing is sometimes you don't wanna tell your boss, well, my five-year plan is I'm gonna have your job, or I'm gonna be on my, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start my own company. And so you can't really be honest necessarily unless you've created that environment. And so yeah, I completely agree with you.

And so I think the better conversation would be you can ask that question, but then say what, even to your point, what do you see for me? Or what do you think could be here for me? What do you think I'm good at, what do you think I kind of maybe should stay away from kind of thing.

And, but that's only one perspective. That person still, if you start hearing that, surround sound, then you've probably got something. If they're the one-off person that says, I think you should be a astronaut and everybody else is saying, you are a fantastic chef. Well consider that.

Russel Lolacher: We talked about good leaders need great leaders in order to, for this to really happen and really to drive to purpose. What do we do in a toxic environment? So say we're a great leader and our leader does not provide psychological safety.

An environment, to your point of being able to be honest about what my say five-year plan is. What do we do?

Alise Cortez: Oh gosh. Before we go into that's so good. Russel. So good. Because, to be a really great inspirational leader, firstly, that means you gotta be cared for yourself, right? You do need people, for your people above you to give you compassion and empathy and support, and see you as a unique, all this stuff has to happen above you too.

So if you're in a toxic environment. This is gonna be really difficult. And I do know of many situations where the leader is bearing the brunt of a lot of toxicity above, and they try to shield their people below them, which is a beautiful thing. And that's a lot of hard work for that leader. So that would be one thing is if there's anything you can do to help shield some of that toxicity from your direct team, that would be great. That would mean though, that you're gonna need to find ways to heal yourself or handle all the stress that comes with having to do that. I think too there that most people are not, do not feel empowered to say like, Hey, this is an, this is ugly, this is icky, this, we shouldn't be operating this way.

They're feeling it and they come home and tell their loved one about it and complain to them, but they're really not communicating it back into where some, where something can actually get done. The organization. So I think, the first thing I would say is if it's toxic first say something about it.

And yes, I recognize that might mean that you're, you might get fired for that. I understand that, but would you wanna stay there anyway? I mean, I recognize if you need the job, I understand that, but first I would say something let's talk about it. Let's, let's raise the flag that this is not acceptable and in the appropriate places.

So I, I would start there. I mean, I don't, I just, you can't do anything about it if people aren't first aware of it's a problem and how it's impacting their performance.

Russel Lolacher: I was recently having a conversation with someone who was frustrated that he was... the problem was, is that he was thinking, his leadership was leadership, so he was, all these expectations of how the person should react, how they should be supporting them wasn't happening. I'm like, because you think they're a leader.

Alise Cortez: Yeah.

Russel Lolacher: They are. They're looking at you as one more thing on their plate that they need to deal with. They're not looking to inspire, they're not looking to grow.

Alise Cortez: Right.

Russel Lolacher: They're just, you're a cog in a wheel that's frustrating them.

Alise Cortez: Yep.

Russel Lolacher: So after two years, you need to be looking for other work. Nothing's gonna cha like, I can't believe you waited two years.

But that's a pretty solid bit of research from anthropological research to figure out that this is not working for you. So for you to, and he had purpose. He had amazing amounts of purpose. He knew what he liked. He knew what he loved. He knew what he was connected to, and yet he felt so stunted in the environment.

Alise Cortez: Yeah. Well I think you gave him great advice, Russel.

Russel Lolacher: How do you pivot in or in... so we talk about purpose, we talk about inspiration, but that doesn't stay the same throughout our careers. For a lot of us, it might change because say we get a family, and that might change where our priorities lie. Where our values lie. As we're in an organization and our purpose and our inspiration changes, how do we pivot through our career to go, okay, my purpose isn't the same anymore.

What do I do now?

Alise Cortez: Yeah. And that's where I think, really learning to be, to advocate for yourself individually as individual employees is really important. Because you're right. You know when, let's, there's so many people that are maybe taking care of a sick parent, or they are just becoming parents themselves, and that radically changes how you engage with the workforce or want to engage the workforce.

Not the same for everyone. Some people were like, Hey man, plowing on. And others are like, I need to kind of, ratchet back a little bit here. So communicating that, having created a culture where you can communicate and say, I know that last year I was gunning for being the director, and now I've, I'm married and I've got a, I've got a child on the way, and I kind of feel like I wanna be a little bit more present, so I'd like to dial back that ambition for now kind of thing.

So being able to communicate that to your immediate manager and have an agreement about that, I think is really important. I do see though, however, Russel, and I know you have too, so many people that are managing employees, especially when they're managing women have the idea of, oh, well she's got kids, she's got a family, so we don't wanna push her too much.

And so they don't promote her because they assume that she doesn't wanna be promoted because she's got family. And that is a faulty and wrong assumption that really, you know, stunts people's careers, women's especially.

Russel Lolacher: The, I think the term is the missing rung where women get to a point and then they don't get that extra level within an organization of promotion because of unconscious bias, because of these assumptions that just poison the organization and take away these opportunities. Maybe not explicitly, but certainly impactfully as numbers are less at women at the executive level 'cause they never got promoted throughout their career.

Let's wrap up our conversation on a more positive note, shall we?

Alise Cortez: Let's do it.

Russel Lolacher: And you talk about this in your research, in your books, you talk about having a meaning infused culture. Now we've talked about purpose. We've talked about inspiration, but we also need to see it and feel it in our cultures themselves. Because as much as I can come with passion, if I show up at work that seems aimless, then I am gonna not feel attached or connected to the organization in which I work. So how do companies thread that purpose through the culture to strengthen it and reinforce it?

Alise Cortez: Well, so there's a, we do it from, we can do it from top and also from bottom, if you will. If we do it from top, then we're talking about making sure that there's always that communication of why, what do we, what are we doing here at this company? What are we up to? Why does it matter?

And that's a thread of communication. There's stories about that. Maybe customers are brought in and sharing how the company's products or services help them directly so people understand I'm connected to that. And then from the bottom part, if you will, that's where you're really recognizing, you as the manager especially, are recognizing, Russel is my, is my guy that does this part this job for me. And being able to recognize, Russel, you just brought it home for us and you are living the talk here. You're living the values of this organization and because of your contribution last week, we actually now can realize this project that we've had on the books now for two years.

Those are all that communication people recognizing how people know they matter. That is something that needs to be communicated. And again, to back to diversity in a way that is important to that employee. Some people wanna be trotted across stage and given an award. Others would be horrified and quit if you did that to them. Right? There's so much that you can do to, and then to encourage your people to also walk the talk and be supportive of each other. Reward and encourage when somebody says, I just want to do a shout out for Russel. He was in this meeting last week and he brought up a point that nobody else would bring up, and I just want to, I just want to reward him and thank him for his courage and his model for that.

So if you can create a, an environment where you're now encouraging and rewarding your people to be good and kind and supportive and encouraging and empathetic and empowering for each other, oh man, now you've really created something special.

Russel Lolacher: They have to feel like the purpose they have has value in the organization that they work in.

Alise Cortez: Oh, and I have definitely felt where I, the who I was in the organization wasn't valued. In fact, my boss, I guess I could put that one in there. She said, it's just too bad that what you really care about, this inspirational stuff, we're just never gonna care about that.

Russel Lolacher: But I mean, that's great information to know.

Alise Cortez: It was, it.

Russel Lolacher: I will stop wasting my time.

Alise Cortez: It was a contract job. It was a six month contract job, and she didn't say that to be diminishing to me. She really was I'm so sorry that this is the situation.

Russel Lolacher: And yeah, I mean, it's so helpful to be able to be in a position where you're like, okay, my purpose doesn't align with your purpose. Let's talk again in three years.

Alise Cortez: Yeah.

Russel Lolacher: Maybe you will have changed, maybe you won't.

Alise Cortez: Yeah.

Russel Lolacher: But let's not end the relationship. Relationships at work. I gotta plug relationship in there somewhere. And how important relationships have. So yeah, maybe that's one more question I want to ask. How do relationships in the workplace help inspire or diminish purpose? Because you are not islands. We work with teams, we work with other human beings. How can that be fostered or anything we need to avoid when it comes to relationships with others?

Alise Cortez: Well, the first thing that I like to say to about that is I really want to encourage people to maybe to try as much as they can to replace judgment, which is a natural thing that we all do with genuine curiosity and compassion. If you can just start there, a lot's gonna help, and so remove your belief.

I know Russel is trying to undermine me. I know he is. I see him in these meetings and, so I, you hang through these stories and that is just, it's, very toxic and negative. So it, so that's the other thing I'd say is if you could always try to assume a good intention. I believe Russel is a good human being.

I I think he's got great ideas. I don't think he's trying to run me down or get my job or whatever. That goes a huge, long way. If you can just do those two things.

Russel Lolacher: I did an exercise once with a team where we did a values exercise. Everybody does a values exercise, but the key part that we found interesting was we also did a motivation exercise.

So everybody in the team figured out what their motivation, their primary, and their secondary motivation to be in the workplace. Then we talked about it. We talked about it as a group so that everybody understood that our, my motivation is not your motivation. It is not your motivation, but we still like working together.

Alise Cortez: Yeah.

Russel Lolacher: So when we need others to help us or to support us or to anything, we knew how to communicate with them because we understand what buttons we, for lack of a better term, buttons we need to push because those, their purpose though didn't align, was still valuable and still needed to be supported because we're all rowing in the same direction.

Alise Cortez: That's beautiful. That goes, that's a huge start. And that goes back again to let's look for every human being as a unique valuable, interesting human being that deserves compassion, understanding, grace.

Russel Lolacher: I love the dot after grace because it's all about humanity, and I appreciate that immensely.

Alise Cortez: Let's double down on humanity, man. Let's do it.

Russel Lolacher: Thank you so much for this conversation. I thank you for hammering home the importance of having purpose in the workplace, not only as individuals, but as leaders and as organizations. So thank you for that, alise, you're not though, because I have one last question to ask you which is, what's one simple action people can do right now to improve those relationships at work?

Alise Cortez: Well, it's, you're not gonna be surprised by this. Extend kindness. Extend kindness, which means you look beyond yourself and you just think, what could I do to help Russel? Could I even, could I say something? Russel, I just wanna say, man, I just see how you're, you are, you bring a concentration like nobody else does.

Just start looking for ways you can celebrate other people or be kind to them. I mean, that is, I know that sounds like kindergarten, but that's what we need to do. We have to go back to kindergarten to make this stuff work. I think.

Russel Lolacher: That is Dr. Alise Cortez. She's a speaker, author, organizational psychologist, and logotherapist. She's written two books I highly recommend you check out. One is called The Great Revitalization, how Activating Meaning and Purpose can Radically Enliven Your Business And Purpose Ignited How Inspiring Leaders Unleash Passion and Elevate Cause. She's also the Chief Ignition Officer for Gusto Now! Thank you so much for being here, Alise.

Alise Cortez: Thanks for having me, Russel. You are fabulous.