About Our Guest:

Valerie Cockerell was born and raised in France where she graduated from Institut Pitiot-Lyon II with a degree in Business hospitality. She participated in the World Showcase Fellowship program at Epcot in 1987/88. After working as an investment advisor for a bank, she eventually joined Disneyland Paris in 1991 as a retail manager and ran multiple merchandise locations in the Resort division. She eventually joined the Merchandise Buying Office and oversaw the assortment planning for all Resort merchandise locations at Disneyland Paris.

Upon moving to Florida in 1997, Valerie worked as the Assortment Planning Manager at Downtown Disney and Epcot Center. She eventually moved to Merchandise Brand Management for both Epcot and the Disney Cruise Line. Valerie left the company and started consulting for outside organizations in the retail world. She returned to Disney in 2013 to become a contract facilitator for Disney Institute. She facilitated professional development classes and custom programs in both French and English. She drew from her international management experience in retail and operations to teach Disney’s approach to Leadership Excellence and Customer Service. 

Since May 2019, Valerie has been a keynote speaker and facilitates workshops with her husband Dan. She shares her expertise and methodology in leading teams and delivering outstanding customer service. With her new book, Manage like a Mother, Valerie brings a simple to understand and easy-to-implement take on leadership inspired by a mother's playbook.

You can find more information about her book here.

You can email her at valerie@cockerellconsulting.coma and find out more about her consulting services here.

About the Episode:

In this episode, Dr. Whitney chats with Valerie Cockerell, author of Manage Like a Mother. They discuss how, as moms, we can be (and should be) confident in our ability to lead in the workplace, because we have so much experience leading as moms and because of our “mom skills” that can absolutely be translated into “boss skills.” They also chat about how women can stand out in their workplace by using the leadership skills they’re uniquely gifted in. 

Episode Takeaways:

• Women who have been in and out of the workforce constantly question, “Am I still relevant? Do my skills still matter?” But what we’ve regularly seen is that what is required to be a “great leader” is not much different than what it takes to be a great mom and what we do as moms. Both require things like healthy relationships with people, emotional intelligence, and coaching and developing other people.

• Just like in parenting when you adjust the way you show love to your child, based on who they are and what they like and dislike, we need to adjust the way we show appreciation to those we are leading, based on who they are and how they operate.This is where emotional intelligence comes into play. You have to pay attention to feedback and nonverbal cues to understand them better so you can customize the way you’re showing appreciation. 

• Generally speaking, men approach leadership much differently than women do. And for decades, women came into the workforce thinking that, in order to be an effective leader and move up the corporate ladder, they needed to lead and behave like men.

• Recently, studies have shown that servant leadership and emotional intelligence are better approaches–both of which women are uniquely prepared with, often because of motherhood. Men need to recognize and see the value in that and leverage the fact that women bring a new leadership approach. And when you combine the two approaches, that’s when there is wealth, success, and power.

• You are the most powerful when you are yourself. When you show up as your authentic self and when you help to raise up other women to be their most authentic selves in the workplace and to bring everything that they are, that’s when you’ll make systemic societal change in the workplace.
  

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