Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Leslie Cove. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Leslie, appreciate you joining us today. Do you have any thoughts about how to create a more inclusive workplace?

I have been working with senior leaders on creating and supporting thriving teams for six years now and we always need to talk about equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) . Often, the leaders I work with have inclusion in their strategy but they struggle with implementation or understanding their own role in supporting equity initiatives. I was getting requests for advice and it prompted me to start Wild Rose House. I wanted to start talking more about strategic inclusive leadership and give leaders the safe place to talk about what that means to them and help them support and advocate for EDI initiatives in their companies. I wanted them to build confidence to be bolder!

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’m Dr Leslie Cove and I am a founder of Wild Rose House. Wild Rose House is a small startup, women-owned and led partnership. We focus on consulting, coaching and facilitation. We work with organizations on equality and inclusion, policy and strategy, and building stronger teams based on learning strategic inclusive leadership.

We work with individuals as coaches to advance skills around leadership, resiliency, strategy, inclusion. We work with teams to build common conversations, set out values and goals and support leadership team development. We like to take a simple and straightforward approach to complex topics that focuses on people and practical solutions.

I am a social psychologist and I’ve always been interested in service, how people lead and come to help one another. Over the past decade, I became passionate about equity as I worked in the public service and saw first hand how small decisions repeatedly influenced policy, program decisions, legislation and leadership decisions. I started to learn more about decolonization and equity across programs. Eventually, I became a Director and a coach/facilitator so I could support people within my role at the University of Waterloo and started Wild Rose House to work with leaders more broadly. I love meeting all the different people I work with, learning about each company and connecting with diverse groups through having my own company. I am fortunate to have partnered in business with my sister, Dr Michelle Cove. She brings so much to our business by handling the many administrative aspects and planning for growth. She is also a physician and busy parent and often brings her professional and personal expertise to our conversations. Michelle keeps us grounded in practicality while encouraging us to be dreaming bigger and thinking of where we can go as a company – she a lot of an entrepreneurial mindset and it’s an important balance.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had a lot to unlearn as I entered the coaching arena. I thought of the coaches I knew and they were not like me at all. I thought maybe I don’t have the personality type for coaching. I wasn’t one to shy away from hard conversations. I could be loud, I laughed with my clients and sometimes cried too. I was honest and kind but also I was curious and excited to see them succeed. I found myself trying to act “like a coach” and be more quiet and subdued and it wasn’t nearly as effective as just being myself.

My coaching took off when I found more confidence to be myself and bring my own open and friendly my approach into coaching and consulting. I want to be practical and keep it simple with my clients. They work with me because they want to have bolder or more productive conversations and leaning back doesn’t get us there. When I opened up and brought my full self to my business, everything changed and I was readily connecting with clients.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

In my first year of business I celebrated every client and completely committed to delivering for them. I got great reviews and despite working with them on setting up great plans, the didn’t immediately come back to work with me. I was crushed. I knew I had given it my all to serve them and they were thrilled with my work but my first two clients didn’t circle back … or at least that is what it looked like to me.

I’ve now learned that timing is everything and great work does circle back to you with opportunity. Often there are moving parts I don’t see from the outside and they are working on buy-in or senior leader approvals or just need to develop themselves as leaders before they are ready for the plan – the reasons are endless but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have great value for them. I have learned that patience adds up and things do tend to circle back just not always as I expect it and that can actually be even more exciting.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wildrosehouse.com
• Instagram: @wildrosehouse
• Linkedin: https://ca.linkedin.com/company/wild-rose-house

Image Credits
We worked with professional photographers and bought the rights to our photos.