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Empowering Leadership Through Empathy with Ellen Ramsey

• Walt Sparling • Season 1 • Episode 67

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In this episode:

Discover the power of empathy in leadership with our insightful guest, Ellen Ramsey. As an associate professor from Lynn University, Ellen shares her journey into project management, revealing how authenticity and kindness can transform both professional and personal spheres. She speaks to the significance of vulnerability and connection, offering listeners a fresh perspective on fostering creativity and positivity within teams.

 Throughout our conversation, we explore the challenges of communication in the workplace and how adaptability can create unexpected opportunities. We discuss favorite tools like Canva and empathy maps that streamline communication and inject creativity into design projects, encouraging us to work smarter, not harder.

Our discussion touches on building community within project management, emphasizing the vital role of sharing experiences and resources. By learning from each other, we can foster a sense of solidarity and motivation, ultimately growing into empowered leaders. Join us to uncover these insights and more, and remember to subscribe to the PM-Mastery Podcast for continued growth and community engagement.

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Intro/Outro:

Welcome to the PM Mastery Podcast. This podcast is all about helping you master your project management skills by sharing tips, tricks, tools and training to get you to the next level, while sharing the stories of other project managers on their journey in project management. And now here's your host, walt Sparling.

Walt Sparling:

Welcome everybody, to the current edition of PM Mastery, and today we have with us Ellen Ramsey. Welcome, Ellen.

Ellen Ramsey:

Thank you, Walt. I'm really happy to be here. Appreciate you asking me.

Walt Sparling:

Glad to have you on, so let's talk a little bit, starting off with a little bit about yourself.

Ellen Ramsey:

Okay, well, I've lived in South Florida since the 80s. I'm aging myself. I moved from the up north and so I've been in the Boca Raton, delray Beach area for quite some time. My family and I did move to the Orlando area for my then husband's job, and then we moved back about my daughter and I back around 2019. So I've been in that area to where I also work at Lynn University, but I was working remotely, which I can get into later. But so I've done a lot of different things. But a little bit about me. I know people start with being philosophical, but I guess I tend to think of myself as a lifelong learner and how can I be remembered? As far as a legacy, maybe, that I could leave behind someday, many years from now, I hope. But I do believe in the power of connection, growth and leadership and, beyond my work, I'm someone who values authenticity and kindness and that ripple effect that we have from lifting others up.

Walt Sparling:

Awesome. And so you work at a university, so you teach.

Ellen Ramsey:

I do. I'm in the College of Business and Management at Lynn University. It's a small private school, it's about 3,500 students now we do have an international base and I would gather around 500 or so faculty and staff and so my role there. I have a couple of different hats, but as far as being an associate professor of leadership and management, I'm in that specialization where I teach mostly our MBA students, you know, with leadership and change and management and strategic management. And then my undergrads are in business strategy as well as organizational behavior, and I teach the capstone classes too. So it's great to see those students as they get to the end of the program and what projects they'll create that way.

Ellen Ramsey:

And my other role is an academic administrator of adjunct faculty and that's where I began, based on industry. Over 30 years ago I was a part-time instructor, so I do know what they might value when I can teach them. You know hands-on what was something that was necessary. So, like they come to me with any issues or concerns and just any positive things too, I do a newsletter for them so that they feel valued and appreciated. So just different things like that. I try to think outside the box of what people might need, or just positivity to encourage them to tap into their own creativity, which then also helps our students. So it's like a win-win-win.

Walt Sparling:

So I was going to jump into the why, but you kind of like explain the why just in your chat there.

Ellen Ramsey:

That's the most I've talked all day, so I'll let you lead.

Walt Sparling:

Well then you should. Yeah, you're rested and ready to go, all right. So you love helping others, you love educating. That's going to be part of your legacy many years from now.

Ellen Ramsey:

Many years from now.

Walt Sparling:

Yes, so we know you're an instructor and saying you teach, but how do you keep up with your own learning? You indicated earlier that you were a lifelong learner, so what are the resources you use to continue to learn?

Ellen Ramsey:

Yeah, I look, thank you. I look at some of the journals that are in my profession. I also go to Udemy or with LinkedIn premium, there are some courses there that might be of interest. I also attend conferences, whether they're virtual sometimes that's at this point in my life that's a good thing to continue to find any. Sometimes you're bombarded with emails, but if there's any conferences that I can participate in or be at, it's just helpful. It's also a great networking tool. So that's a range of things that I look through.

Walt Sparling:

So some of my favorites are also Udemy and LinkedIn Learning. I've been on LinkedIn, I think, for 20 years and 20 plus, and I was about three years ago I had like 700 connections and I thought I was like woohoo. And then now with this, I'm getting up there and my goal is to grow as much as I can. That's amazing and my goal is to grow as much as I can. But it's amazing for networking and connections and some of the groups that we are both in is phenomenal people in there. So I've got to meet a lot of really cool people.

Ellen Ramsey:

So you must have seen LinkedIn grow a lot over 20 years from where it is now.

Walt Sparling:

They've. I don't know when you're in it all the time, the changes are subtle, but some of the things is the way they've changed the technology, like the learning they got that from lyndacom and LinkedIn is actually owned by Microsoft, which I don't know if a lot of people knew that. It's an interesting change there. And then how you use the posts and how the groups operate. That's changed over the years.

Ellen Ramsey:

I'm just learning that myself now. It's almost like a different language to learn, having certain people in a different network, because I have my higher ed network and then I have project management network and I have students. So it actually does flow with everything that I'm doing, which maybe it's my mindset to see how it weaves through, because with our students it's leadership and management and obviously project management, but the principles and how I like to lead with empathetic rigor. And so I'm now delving into empathetic leadership because we all are vulnerable at different times in our lives and there might be people who might be quiet or they have something to say. And that's why, on teams, if people, if you can read the room and make sure people have their voice and it's a diverse group and they feel comfortable doing so that just might have more of that incentive to have that innovation spark.

Walt Sparling:

If they feel like that you know, I don't want to say safe space, but just feeling like their leaders respect them and want to hear what they have to say say and I'd love that because I know when I left my last job, when I was trying to explain to my manager why I was leaving, and this is something I've learned over the years. I don't know if I'm using the right terminology, but I say I'm empathic because I'm very empathetic. You have to tell me if the words are wrong, but empathy is a big thing, so I can talk to someone and feel their emotions and they affect me. So when my team was happy, I was happy. When my team was depressed, I would take that on and it would change my mood.

Ellen Ramsey:

That's an empath, yeah, empath.

Walt Sparling:

Empath and I that's what I told him I believe, and so he was like I think I do and I go. Well, this last year has kicked my butt. I, you know, I just I can't continue like this. My friends and family are all saying you need to change jobs. And I've let everyone else's frustration and anger and whatever go into myself and I said I just can't be in this environment anymore.

Ellen Ramsey:

Yeah, you have to separate it as much as you can. But yeah, it's hard, it's easier said than done, especially when people are hurting. That's a different, whole different podcast, but physical pain that you can't take away from someone you know that's the, that's the worst.

Walt Sparling:

But maybe I'll try. I'll start one called the empathy factor.

Ellen Ramsey:

Yeah, that sounds good.

Walt Sparling:

All right. So challenges with all the busy stuff you're doing and the various roles you, you got to have some challenges.

Ellen Ramsey:

I do. It's what I used to have was. The funny thing is I always prided myself on getting back to students or staff via email. I do teach remotely right now and I do go. I do go to campus for college meetings or different other committees, but this has been very helpful for me. But because we have the remote learning with all different time zones and the students you know they say students, but they could be older than me or also in transition of work and they need to know have a question before they can continue on with the assignment.

Ellen Ramsey:

So I've always prided myself on getting back too soon. I got to the point where when I didn't get back to someone in two days, they wanted to make sure if I was OK, or actually a day and a half, you know, because I set the bar high for myself. So my challenges are to, you know, reset and recharge. I just need to do that more and I have been doing that and it's just like putting that, that proverbial oxygen mask on first and then you can take care of other people. So that's what I'm doing. And sometimes challenges are communication, you know, especially work. We all know about communication issues, whether emails, they lack voice inflection, so you have to kind of know what are you making sure that?

Ellen Ramsey:

who you're directing that to challenge? I might be too detailed, and in an email it's because, well, there's no room for questioning I've got everyone to get what they need. So so you know it's, it's a learning curve at times, but I'm always open to learning and change. You know, I am objective, my course evaluations are high, but I get to look and see if there's something that I can improve. That's, you know, realistic, not like, oh, we don't like the final paper. Well, I can't, I can't change that.

Ellen Ramsey:

But you know, just make, make adjustments where necessary. And that's if they're in business and they rather do a project that relates to their job. Or if they I had a student do a project that relates to their job. Or if they I had a student, he was a manager and he said I really love this assignment, but can I tweak it a little bit because I'd love to have this specific topic to bring to my team. I said, absolutely, if it's going to help you and we're in the grading rubric, it's fine, because I rather you do it with your passion rather than just a grade, so things like that when I was in high school.

Walt Sparling:

I was, um, the scheduling software, whatever was mixed, messed up and I got put into a drawing class. It was a drafting class and I was like I don't want to be in this class, I want to be in a different class. And they're like we'll sit in here for a couple of weeks until we can get things. A lot of people got messed up, so I found out. I really enjoyed it. And so I found out I really enjoyed it and I was making like great straight A's and the instructor was very.

Walt Sparling:

He didn't give a perfect grade never gave a perfect grade and he would sometimes go through my drawings and he would scour them and he'd get out a magnifying glass and he'd look at the corners and go, oh, this fillet isn't right, you know 98, and I'll be like what.

Walt Sparling:

But he was, he was awesome because he really motivated me. That was a six or a half a term or two terms, and I went through that term and then I was like they're going to move me to another class and I go no, I love this, I want to stay. And the only other class they had was an advanced class that another student was in and we never met each other, but we were always competing with who was getting done first. And when I got put in his class, him and I became best friends and we flew by everybody in the class and the teacher started letting us do our own projects. We built a little model home and so it was really fun. So his driving you know perfection and perfectionist type stuff really gave me an opportunity and that's how I ended up where I did in the industry.

Ellen Ramsey:

So we'll see. What you said started like as a mistake actually wasn't. It was a reward. So you never know where life takes us, where it's supposed to be.

Walt Sparling:

So tools now for all these different things, and I ask that because I happen to notice one of your tools that you listed was the empathy maps which we just talked about. Empathy.

Ellen Ramsey:

Yeah, I remember having that activity for the undergrads, but then we made it a little bit more advanced when I say advanced more to align with the MBA, bloom's taxonomy and all those fun words. But what I like about the empathy map, we have a scenario, whether it's an organization or a business, because we have students also taking courses as an elective, but then it's also their major, so I have them pick something of interest and then put themselves in that person's shoes, that role, and they might not do that in life normally. And it's a great exercise because you know, people sometimes don't think about what someone might be going through positive or negative and then if you just step outside of yourself and into someone else's shoes, like, say, walt, you know what you've done, you know and and then it's also a way of finding out more things that might be of interest to you that you never would have thought of before. That's, that's a real basic answer to you, but you'll see the intrinsic value of it.

Walt Sparling:

And then any other specific tools that you're kind of your favorites.

Ellen Ramsey:

Well, one thing I'm doing and I know this is more fun and design, and you know, as we're talking now, I'm sure there's another program that's being made, but I happen to enjoy Canva.

Ellen Ramsey:

I create my newsletters with that, just just at work. You know, for the adjuncts I switched to bi-monthly, so every two months now rather than once a month, so I can get more time for me to get my content in. And then it's just more jam-packed versus having to, because I think I'm like you. I can see you give it more than 100%, maybe 150%. One issue I spent eight hours on. I'm thinking, no, this is not a good value for my time, because no one would know that.

Ellen Ramsey:

It's just more detail, so working smarter than harder at times. But yes, I like Canva. We have, I like Studio for the videos, for LMS is Canva Canvas. So I know Canvas and Canva two different things. So we've used that, but I'm still looking at other different tools. Do you have any that you recommend that you like to dabble in?

Walt Sparling:

Well, canva I just started using this year and I talked to a bunch of different people who are doing newsletters and art and I started doing so. I looked at a bunch of different products and I ended up getting Canva so I could do carousels and then, when I looked at what the yearly cost was and some of the other products, I decided to go with Canva. And now I know there's so many other possibilities I can do with it. It's just a matter of the time, because I've got my hands in 20 different things Daily. I use my three, I would say this, are Outlook, excel and Snagit, and Snagit is a graphics program. You can do videos or or screenshots with it, but you can annotate the crap out of them and all these people are in there using Microsoft snippet and they're doing stuff and they go. How do you?

Ellen Ramsey:

do that on yours. Well, I just learned something I never knew about Snagit and Excel and Outlook, or just you know, daily. I didn't think of those as tools, but yeah, they're constant In OneNote, In Outlook, are just you know daily.

Walt Sparling:

I didn't think of those as crudels.

Ellen Ramsey:

but yeah, they're constant In OneNote In.

Walt Sparling:

OneNote, yeah, which is going to go away, so hopefully I'll be retired by the time it does, but I've got so much in it that some point down the road are going to have to probably convert it, so okay, okay, now, before we get to the big question at the end. I know that one of the reasons I asked you to come on here was that we are in a joint program and I've already had a couple of podcast interviews out there on the peer program I'm sorry, peer project manager by the Peer Management Alliance and you are one of the instructors, so I was hoping you could share a little bit about the course that you teach in the program.

Ellen Ramsey:

Sure. Thank you again, walt. Yeah, it's amazing how I came across being part of this initiative and I'm very indebted to Joe for taking me on. I thought that was very nice of him. We had a nice conversation with Amanda, so all went well with that. But what I did is try to think of, well, what could be of value to anyone taking this program and all the several different courses and mine is entitled Innovative Project Management Empowering Leadership and Enhancing Team Dynamics and what my course focuses on is the creating that real, actionable takeaways that the students or participants can connect. On a personal level and I do encourage self-reflection, like I do with our courses, you know on my full-time job, but that way is helping leaders discover how they can truly empower their teams and lead with purpose.

Ellen Ramsey:

And I do get into empathetic leadership as well. You know how you can genuinely connect their teams and lead with purpose, and I do get into empathetic leadership as well. You know how you can genuinely connect with teams on that human level.

Walt Sparling:

I have not started yours yet, but I did see the promo so I'm excited about taking that, and especially on the empathy, empathy part. Maybe I'll learn a little something there. How long is your course?

Ellen Ramsey:

Mine is about 35 hours. I'm just kidding, it's not quite. I think it's two hours and seven minutes. Okay, the good news is I do know that you can speed it up if you so desire.

Walt Sparling:

Yes, I'm actually going to do an episode on tips and tricks for people that are doing it Some of the instructors have we've been talking and tricks for people that are doing it. Some of the instructors have we've been talking and we've all created these different forms for how to track your PDUs, your hours, your time, how to sort everything so you can take all the small ones first and or group them by topic. So I know at least two other instructors. In fact, your friend Tanya has already created one.

Walt Sparling:

She showed it to me last night and then I told her about Brooks, who created another one, and him and I were collaborating on that a little bit. He did it all. I just offered a couple suggestions and I have a PDU tracker on PM Master. I've had it for years and I'm going to try to implement some of what both of them have done into that so you can kind of have a dedicated tab just for pure, because there's a lot to it.

Ellen Ramsey:

That's a great idea.

Walt Sparling:

60 hours is a lot of PDUs.

Ellen Ramsey:

Absolutely no for sure, and I know this is a serious topic and I made a little joke there. But I mean, you gave me an idea too of making possibly a little toolkit or a PDF that could go with this, like back in the day, something called Cliff's notes. I don't even know if that's still around, but you know, after you go through it it's something that you can look back at. You know, like when you have those laminated little project management.

Walt Sparling:

Yeah, you figure how how big PMI is and how it's grown over the years and you think, you know, with this program, I think it's gonna, I think it's going to be amazing.

Ellen Ramsey:

So Absolutely, I do too. And just the how I got started with project management, you know we're always doing projects and don't even realize the actual. The initiative did start with our university. Our Dean actually actually the higher eds with the administration went to our dean to mention about how important project management is. So he wanted all of us, you know, encouraged us all to get our cap, them to start, and so we had training and on the side I actually invested in Joe Phillips Joe's course, not even knowing that that would have been something that I would be part of. And talking to him today, it's amazing where life takes you.

Ellen Ramsey:

So the little stepping stone was through our university and then I didn't pass it the first time. I do admit that because I told the dean sometimes I'm not a great test taker but I was very determined for myself that it wasn't a failure, it's an opportunity. I just not to sound false positivity, but I said I'm not going to allow that for myself because I invested too much time. I finally took Joe's course again along with the other training we had, and that's what I felt got me through it. And I was so happily surprised when on the screen it pops up that you pass actually sat there to say print that out. I need to make sure that my dean knows that I passed so anyway. After that, it's just you're always a lifelong learner. Even though I have a PhD. There's things that you can learn, and obviously project management. Several years back was you know the principles and the key components, so that's what got me involved and I haven't looked back as far as how I apply this to my courses and to other areas of of my life.

Walt Sparling:

Awesome. So I'm looking forward to that course and many, many more, and we're going to get to your last and final question, which is do you have a? Did you know that you can share?

Ellen Ramsey:

I do, and hopefully people will enjoy this one. Because let's see, do you know, geese fly in a V formation because it makes flying 70% easier. It's perfect example of teamwork, because that's when one leads, the others benefit and when they get tired they switch. So we can also use this as a kind of a dynamic to help teams create where everyone can be lifted up. So next time you look up in the sky, see that V versus any S's or other shapes yeah, the V is doing much better. Yes.

Walt Sparling:

Awesome. It kind of makes me think of aerodynamics. Things are pointed and it kind of flows air and water and all that.

Ellen Ramsey:

I find I know we're getting off track, but I love nature. I don't know, as I'm getting older, I'm appreciating more, just nature how you can just reset and how geese do that on their own a V formation. You can just reset, and how geese do that on their own a v formation. I mean, you know, it's just, and we do that with technology or, as you said, robotics or whatever it be. This is uh, nature doing what works well well, I appreciate you coming on.

Walt Sparling:

I I will add some links in the show notes, hopefully a link to your courses on pure or course on pure and uh. Share your LinkedIn profile If you don't mind for people to connect with you.

Ellen Ramsey:

Absolutely. I was going to thank you for that and also I hope there were some good takeaways and the main part is having some value here and, uh, I'm always eager to connect with anyone who might like to talk further about other topics.

Walt Sparling:

No, I love it and that's kind of my goal when I started this was to connect people in the in the community. They don't have to be a project manager, but if they're in project management in some form and we can all learn from each other, and part that's part of the reason why I share the tools and challenges, so that other people say or see that, hey, I'm not alone.

Ellen Ramsey:

Absolutely, that's true, and hopefully, at the end of when all is said and done, if you think about what makes you get up in the morning to just feel what drives your energy. So hopefully, whatever you've taken life as far as channeling passion and growing into a leader is whatever can be the best. So thank you again for your time and what you do for other people.

Walt Sparling:

I appreciate that. Thank you and for everyone else, we will see you on the next episode of PM Mastery.

Intro/Outro:

Thanks for listening to the PM Mastery podcast at wwwpm-masterycom. Be sure to subscribe in your podcast player. Until next time, keep working on your craft.