We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Krista Boblitz-Randolph . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Krista below.

Krista, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Have you ever had an amazing boss, mentor or leader leading you? Can you us a story or anecdote that helps illustrate why this person was such a great leader and the impact they had on you or their team?

My best boss ever was a woman named Pat. She was my direct supervisor and eventually became a mentor in my first job in the mortgage banking industry. I fell into this job by chance as a friend of mine worked at the firm and they were looking for entry-level loan servicers.

Pat was a very polished, educated woman who loved real-life tea parties. To be honest, she intimidated me a bit because I was somewhat of a hot mess. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and I was very “rough around the edges” I guess you could say, as it related to the corporate world. Aside from our age difference, we were very different people, I am not into tea parties, in fact, I have been referred to as “a bull in a china closet” (ironically enough).

What I didn’t know at the time was that Pat would teach me many life lessons and instill in me foundational principles and values to support my entire career. She saw my potential when I didn’t see it myself. She started by teaching me the basics such as (1) Never attend a meeting without pen and paper. (2) There should be two sets of eyes on any official external communication. (3) Perception is reality. (4) If something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. Speak up. (5) A good manager works themself out of a job via documented processes/procedures, cross-training, and investing in their team’s professional development.

She would throw challenges my way and support me while I figured them out, never fully giving me the answer. She allowed me to learn through my mistakes instead of shaming me for them. She coached me before the concept of coaching was popular. To this day, I am not sure what made her invest so much of her time and energy into me, but I am so thankful that she did.

I ended up working for her until she retired about 8 years later. In those 8 years, I grew from my position as an entry-level Loan Servicer to an Assistant Vice President with the company.

Pat made such a lasting impression on me for two major reasons. The first is that she led by example, living in alignment with her deep-seated values and morals. If you have ever worked in corporate America, you may understand how easily those can be compromised if you are not intentional. The second is that she had this innate ability to spot potential in others. She would take people, like me, under her wing and invest in them. There are countless others that I witnessed flourish under Pat’s wing.

Thanks to this leadership style so early in my career, I learned to invest in others the same way Pat invested in me. I intentionally looked past surface-level performance for potential in others and helped them improve on their weaknesses and invest in their strengths. That is the most rewarding part of my job and is ultimately why I ended up getting into the world of Executive Coaching.

While mortgage banking has been my industry for 18 years – personal and professional development has always been my passion. Thanks to the impact left by an amazing leader and mentor, I knew what that looked like in the workplace.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am an ICF Certified Executive and Life Coach, who specializes in the area of burnout and stress management in professional women and entrepreneurs.

On a personal level, I am a wife and mother in our blended family of 7. I am passionate about wellness – mental and physical. I wholeheartedly believe that we need a pause button on society’s expectations of women, and we need to redefine the path to “success”. Too often as women, we are fighting to prove our worth, while juggling ALL of the personal and professional balls. The pressure to meet this vision of perfection is exhausting and unhealthy.

What sets me apart from a common coaching stigma is that I am not coming from a place of “my life is perfect and peaceful, now let’s fix yours.”

I bring a level of authenticity and realness to my craft. My life can still be chaotic at times (FIVE kids people, FIVE), it’s messy but I live it in a way that I am pouring from a full cup. I am in this with you, I have been in that survival state for a prolonged period of my life, I get it.

I work with my clients to reach their goals intentionally and strategically, without the “social mask”. We focus on a perspective of what feels good vs. what looks good. I support clients while they reconnect with their vision for their life and their needs vs. the “shoulds”.

The Thrive Era brand encourages women to get off autopilot and out of chronic stress. We cultivate real, authentic, healing and growth without worrying about wearing a social mask while doing it. We represent women taking their power back and showing up whole, healthy, grateful, and intentional about the life they are creating for themselves and their families. This is an era where we give ourselves grace instead of criticism and reach our goals with balance and fulfillment, not depletion.

At Thrive Era, we offer corporate workshops focused on team building, resilience, emotional intelligence, and stress management.

We offer 1-on-1 coaching sessions to help you reach your goals and create lasting change in your life.

We also offer products such as our Revive and Thrive Journal to promote healthy daily habits of intention and reflection that you can work through in your private space and time.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

Managing a team and maintaining high morale is cultivated through connection, coaching, and investing in your team.

1.) Set clear goals that tie into a unified mission, where each person knows how they fit in and what their role is.
You see a different level of engagement when employees feel like they are making an impact and are part of the bigger picture.

2.) Allow your team to bring fresh ideas; by showing interest in your team’s ideas, you encourage innovation and accountability. If you are always enforcing your way or the highway, you may get compliance, but you will rarely get passion, engagement, and accountability.

3.) Cultivate a coaching leadership style. Have regular 1-on-1 check-ins with your direct reports. Ask them what’s working and what isn’t. Be open to honest feedback without taking it personally. Ask what you can do to support them. Act as a sounding board for any issues they are working through. Do not always give the answers. Ask thought-provoking questions that support learning and growth – your team will appreciate the agency you are giving them and the confidence you have in them while they work through challenges.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Two lessons I had to unlearn was that failure is not a sign of weakness, it’s our greatest opportunity to learn and evolve. And we don’t evolve in our comfort zones.

At one time I was deathly afraid of public speaking, and I saw this as a sign that I was ultra-introverted and I needed to dodge any speaking engagements, speaking up in meetings, or anything that put the spotlight on me. Why? The out of the fear of what people would think, that I might say something wrong or sound “stupid.”

One day, it clicked, and I realized, if I didn’t push myself out of my comfort zone, I was never going to take my career to the next level. I started studying people who seemed super confident and comfortable speaking around me. I noticed they weren’t any better at speaking than the next person, they just weren’t afraid of it. They did it often, so they were now comfortable with it.

I made a promise to myself that I would start volunteering to present at internal meetings, then that grew into presenting at conferences, then it morphed into speaking to groups and hosting my own group workshops. There were times that I didn’t do so hot, but it didn’t even matter because I was so proud of myself for being scared and doing it anyway.

Every time I would identify something I did well and something that I didn’t do so well. I would ask for feedback from people close to me. And I still do that practice after each engagement.

Have I bombed some presentations? I have. But I learned from them. I have now evolved into someone who is comfortable with public speaking because I stepped out of my comfort zone, over and over again, intentionally. I am still not a pro BUT….ask me that same question this time next year :-)

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thriveeracoaching.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thrive_era_coaching/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61552421766952

Image Credits

Rachel Carey Photography