Christine Leans Into Vulnerability & Moves Her Career Path Forward
"One of our principles of shared leadership is the willingness to take risks and step into vulnerability: taking risks allows everything to open up for you by allowing others to come in. Amanda's vulnerability created the space for me to come in," reflects Christine, Business Support Liaison at The Masiello Group
Christine Callahan, Business Support Liaison at The Masiello Group, is a lifelong learner. She first started in the real estate industry at The Masiello Group in 2005. Since then, Christine has enjoyed a career that has taught her about client services, business support, and facilitating transactions, and earned her New Hampshire real estate license. Currently, she is pursuing a degree in Business Administration that explores business management, psychology, and leadership.
However, as Christine puts it, some of her most powerful lessons and life-learning in the past year have come from The Shared Leadership Journey™ she has taken with The Masiello Group and us.
"The magic of our Shared Leadership Journey™ at The Masiello Group is that we were able to re-establish trust," Christine reflects. "It has been an amazing process."
Through innovation management and group coaching as part of The Shared Leadership Journey™, there were several quick fixes to internal challenges that the team could immediately address. For example, communicating about new hires, team bonuses, and updates about opportunities for team development were tactical changes they knew they could make.
One of Christine's primary learnings – and career-changing moments -- came from a hiring group she participated in for a business support liaison, someone who could act as a go-between with support specialists, sales directors, agents, and the home office team, with supervisory responsibilities of the support specialists. The hiring team searched internally, allowing anyone to apply if they thought they were a good fit. Many candidates were interviewed through the internal search, but there was no one that the team could unanimously agree upon.
As we shared in a recent blog, Amanda, CFO, and COO of The Masiello Group put her shared leadership learnings to work and leaned into the group wisdom instead of needing to be a leader with an answer:
“Team, I don’t know what to do. We are divided between the two candidates, and a majority rules vote doesn’t feel right. What do you think? Where do we go from here?” admitted Amanda.
Amanda's vulnerability allowed Christine to feel that she, too, could be vulnerable. Christine felt like she was a perfect fit for the job throughout the selection process but was unsure if she had the capacity, given her tight schedule with school and commuting. She finally gave words to the gnawing feeling she had inside of herself and spoke up.
"I can't believe I'm doing this, but I think I should apply for the position," Christine shared with the hiring committee.
When Christine raised her hand, the interview committee enthusiastically welcomed her suggestion and reworked the hiring process, ensuring it was fair for her and the other candidates.
"One of our principles of shared leadership is the willingness to take risks and step into vulnerability. Taking risks allows everything to open up for you and it allows others to come in. Amanda's vulnerability created the space for me to come in," reflects Christine.
Christine's promotion is the coalescence of The Masiello Group's commitment to sharing leadership, power, and responsibility. Creating space for vulnerability allowed people to speak their truth and work together to find the best solution.
"I don't think this would have happened had it not been for Global Round Table Leadership and the deep level of trust we created together, especially in our hiring group," says Christine. “I learned to trust the process. Shared leadership doesn't happen fast. You have to include others and you have to trust others. Trusting others is a vulnerability. Then you notice the magic of change. Finally, we can look behind us and realize just how far we've come in our journey together."
Read about the Shared Leadership Journey™ of Amanda Adkins, COO, CFO of The Masiello Group, and from the lens of Kristen Diamond, CMO, The Masiello Group. If your team is ready to dive in with us, we'd love to hear from you. Get in touch!