Leadership in 2026 With L. Michelle Smith

Zach: What's up, y'? All? Y' all are listening to Living Corporate's flagship podcast. If you didn't know, Living Corporate helps organizations build employee engagement and market trust through data analytics and data transformation, our elearning platform and brand marketing storytelling. We're so excited for you to be here today. The conversation you're about to hear is going to connect the dots between employee experience and go to market effectiveness. If you're not ready, get ready. Here we are. Go. Hm. I am blessed and honored to have Ms. L. Michelle Smith, who is an author, speaker, code Coach, leadership expert. Ms. Smith, how you doing? Welcome to the.

L. Michelle Smith: I am good, Zach. Thank you so much for having me on your show.

Zach: Hey, it's a pleasure. Um, you know, when this. A little bit of behind the scenes for the. For the audience. You know, when you, um, when we, when we connected, I, like, I checked out your content, look at your profiles, like, oh, this is real. This is a. This is a great gig. Um, and especially in this season, I think every season. Right. Uh, leadership is of the utmost important, but m. Utmost importance, but certainly in times such as these, you know, you do a lot of coaching and work on leadership. You've written about leadership. Um, I'd love to talk to you about the intersection of leadership and employee experience, um, and what you believe is most critical, like in this moment.

L. Michelle Smith: Yeah. So thanks again for having me on, and that's a brilliant question, because that's where we are right now. Um, we need to be thinking about the leaders inside the organization and understanding that whatever's happening outside of the organization is impacting them in a major way, let alone what's going on inside. So they're the whole person. First of all, you bring everything to work. That is you. You told me you have twins, you have a couple of little ones. On top of that, you bring all of that. If you go into anywhere or even if you're virtual, you bring all of that with you. Even if you don't talk about it, you bring it with you. And I think that's something that we need to keep in mind as leaders in organizations. Uh, all that to be said, I take time to speak with HR leaders, often at least once quarterly, just to get a real feel of from the company's perspective, what is happening. Of course, I hear it from leaders, I see it from leaders, but this is what the HR leaders are telling me. Three things. One, this return to office is still a big deal. You're not seeing as much of it in the headlines, but people are still Getting ultimatums. Either show up or be out. That's still happening. Move or be out. Still happening. And then you have this adjustment that's happening inside the organization, where small things, seemingly small things, can be huge things, right? So just the fact that suddenly you have to come back and there's a commute and what that does to you, what it might do to your budget. Um, what happens when you get to the parking lot? Is there space? Some people aren't finding the space. And then when they get on the floor, many of them have moved to these collaborative spaces where you don't really have privacy. And it may be a hot desk situation. Where do you sit and where can you have. So all of these questions before you even get to the work are causing, number two, and that's burnout. Right. A lot of people are feeling burnt out. Usually, um, burnout happens because you're in misalignment, especially with your values. If you really dig deep into why you're feeling the way you're feeling, it has something to do with misalignment, with your values. And for some people, just in that situation that I just described, that in and of itself, not being able to have it, the privacy and the quiet to do the work that they actually want to do, maybe their value is excellence. How can you align with work excellence if you can't even figure out where you're going to sit every day? And then when you sit, it's noisy or somebody's in your grill or something. Right. The other thing that people are worried about right now that's impacting things is that people are. Right, sizing, they're downsizing, they're quiet about it right now. You know, about a year ago was kind of big news that this one was laying off and that one was laying off. Now they're quietly doing it. M. People are getting pink slips still. Whether that's, you know, for the DEI rollbacks, whether it was for the federal workers that were furloughed and then laid off as well. Um, whether you're in a tech company and they're trying to, you know, right size is what I'll call it. It's kind of a. It's clinical if you think about it, because it really doesn't talk about what happens to the people. And then there's the whole discourse around how technology is impacting workers and leaders. Um, yes, A.I. is a big part of that, and people are concerned about learning exactly how to use it in the right way in order to bolster their positioning within companies. That in and of itself gives you stress. And from a neuroscience perspective, if your mind's not calm, if you are concerned with your well being, whether you're going to have a job or not, whether AI is, uh, a real thorn in your side or not, whether you don't know where to sit, all of these things impact your body budget. And the body budget is all about energy stores. Your brain holds on to 20% of it. At least it tries. It's responsible for 20% of your whole body's energy budget. And guess what happens when you're concerned with, worried, afraid, that energy gets zapped and you feel like you've run a marathon. And here we are with the burnout. So this is what we're faced with right now. And maybe there are leaders that are feeling some of it, but not all of it. And maybe you're a leader who is in charge of overseeing layoffs or you're in charge of overseeing. You know, how this, this, this workspace is actually going to work for people. Even if you're in that position, there's a degree of stress that comes with that too. So everybody is on pins right now. And we haven't even talked about what's going on in the ether.

Zach: You know what's so interesting is. And I liked, and um, I like to frame and discuss these things from the context of the fact that we live in a capitalist con. We live in a capitalist society, We're a capitalist country. And so like, burnout has been a thing. Like, it was a thing back when, like the employee experience and. Oh yeah, and the market was much more like in demand for talent. Like let's say like 2020 to 2023 or 2022 or 2019 to 20, uh, maybe 2017 to 2022. Ish.

L. Michelle Smith: Before the pandemic.

Zach: Before the pandemic. M. Pre pandemic. Um, we, we saw this, um, we saw a lot of conversation about burnout. We saw a lot of speakers and thought leaders and content books around burnout. Uh, because the nature of the work is to burn you out. Or rather it's to, it's for you to work and work until you can't work anymore. Like, if you are a person and you're not producing, we're pressured to produce.

L. Michelle Smith: Yes.

Zach: Until we're, until we die. We're pressured to make something for somebody and to be of use. If we're not producing, then, you know, we, we are. And we've been kind of conditioned to, we've been conditioned to contextualize our value against our amount of and degree of production.

L. Michelle Smith: Mhm.

Zach: But then like to your point, like in this season where the, the veneer has kind of gone away, we're seeing that much more nakedly. We're seeing folks, we're seeing folks worked 45, 60 hours a week. We're seeing benefits slashed and we're seeing leaders, um, really kind of take. We're seeing people in managerial positions follow the lead of their senior, mid and senior level executives and just push for production.

L. Michelle Smith: Well, and let's keep it a buck. Sometimes layoffs aren't aggressive layoffs. Sometimes they're waiting for you to quit, they're giving you reasons to quit. And they know if you are working all those hours, right. And you're burnt out, you'll probably want to leave.

Zach: Right.

L. Michelle Smith: So that helps them. It helps them even reputationally because they're not the bad guys that force this layoff. And over time they expect through attrition that people are going to leave on their own. That is a part of the strategy. And I don't want people to think that it's not the.

Zach: You're absolutely right there. And there's. I, I am concerned about a, a work culture and a leadership and, and frankly a leadership culture on one side for the employee where again, like people are disillusioned with the idea of, oh, this is a community, this is a family, this is a bit, this is an ethical business to, hey, I'm just here to, I'm just here to get a paycheck. And what that does to employee experience over time and then what that also does to customer experience over time. Because if you don't want to work there, you probably are not giving the best experience to the people that are purchasing the services or products or whatever.

L. Michelle Smith: Yeah.

Zach: So then as a leader, it's like, man, at some point, like, what decisions are you making so that people actually feel respected and safe and support it?

L. Michelle Smith: Well, um, you know, it's really important to, um. I think you hit on something that's really important when it comes to engagement and people feeling like it's transactional, which at the end of the day it actually is. They pay you for service, you give the service, you know, and you keep going. That's just it, right? There is no family. That's, that's messaging and it's probably a fallacy too. But ultimately if the trust is gone, because that's what's happened here, the trust erodes. Ah. When you just see it as I'm going to go up in there and get My check. And the bosses see it as you just better work and do what I say. And um, you know, that's just that that's how you get paid. The trust erodes. And one of the leadership lessons is in my current book call and response 10 leadership lessons from the Black Church. We learn from this cultural institution how community is actually formed. And that's really what we're after for a well oiled machine in the workplace. A group of people that move as one. I mean that's what corporate means after all. Right. One body. We're looking for, um, uh, um, an organism that's so intuitive and in sync with one another that they perform at the highest that they can. Well, performance comes at a cost. And performance, great performance means that people have to be tuned in. They have to really be excited and happy about what it is that they do. And when it's a transactional situation, which is not what community is all about, community does have more that family feel. But to break it down from science, it's actually more clinical than that. It's a hormone that our brain secretes called oxytocin. Mhm. When we connect with one another, it automatically happens, but we have to connect. And that's the thing that's not happening with some of these teens and some of these leaders. You have people in the same space, virtually or otherwise, that are all present, but they're not connecting. And why hormone makes you bond.

Zach: And why would, and why would they connect? Right. Like if, if I'm at work and we're not getting the same benefits that we were getting, I'm, I'm, I've gotten promoted with no raise. Um, and, and the, and the communication continues to dwindle. Like at some point I have to start, I have to retreat and get into survival mode.

L. Michelle Smith: Yeah.

Zach: Because I don't have any points of support anymore. I got to be my own support now. And while I'm also trying to figure out, oh man, I got, do I need to find the job? I'm trying to manage and take care of my kids, I got to pay my mortgage.

L. Michelle Smith: Right.

Zach: There's a, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a degree of ex, there's an existential, there's an existentialism when it comes to work. Because so much of our lives is work.

L. Michelle Smith: Yeah.

Zach: So when you feel, and, and where, where we spend the most of our time is work. So. Yeah, I'm not, no, I'm not gonna feel connected. I'm not gonna, nor do I have A desire to connect. Right. And the people that I talk to so often, like it's been over this over several years, like connection at work is a, is a privilege. It's something that you, and when you do decide to connect people to work, it's something you decide to do. It's a, it's a, it's an intentional decision. Um, that's, that's, that's born out of trust and security or feeling psychological safety.

L. Michelle Smith: Security is so important. You know, I had a client say to me she was feeling some kind of way about work and she couldn't put her finger on it. And as you know, a coach, I'm asking questions just to. Because, uh, the client always has the answers. According to positive psychology, that's how I operate. She finally gets to the point where she says, I don't know that I can believe what my boss says.

Zach: Mhm.

L. Michelle Smith: She didn't trust her boss because there had been times we would find out where boss said one thing, something else happened. Boss said another thing, something else happened. So her words weren't aligning with the actions or what was truly the reality. So with that going on in the background, you're right. How can you connect, how can you connect with distrust? And there we are again with the distrust. It breaks the bond. It breaks the, um, bond. So if you have fear, this is the thing. Fear is in the amygdala. Right. You've got your fear center, so you've got fight, flight, freeze. And now they're saying fawn, which means that you just reluctantly acquiesce. Okay. Um, more passive. Flight, fight, flight, freeze. Fawn, amygdala, fear center. It literally hijacks your prefrontal cortex. That's where you make the powerful decisions. That's where you make everyday decisions.

Zach: Yeah.

L. Michelle Smith: How do you hijack it back? Hope.

Zach: Mhm.

L. Michelle Smith: A positive emotion, a of all things, actually takes over the prefrontal cortex when you have it. But how do you have fear and hope in the same place?

Zach: You know, when you talk about hope and connection, in my experience and like the leadership roles I've had, um, before taking on and being focused, um, on living corporate full time, the ways I was able to build those things was like actively engaging and serving my employees like my team.

L. Michelle Smith: Right.

Zach: So, okay, I give you an assignment, but we're going to work on it together.

L. Michelle Smith: Yes.

Zach: Or I support. Or you know, there's a project, but we're gonna be lockstep with it. I'm not, you know, or when we, when I meet you and we, uh, are, uh, we're onboarding. I take the time to actually learn to understand your working style so I can understand how to, how you're best supported and then follow through on the commitments we make to each other, on how we're going to show up for each other at this job. Yeah, you know, those are the things that they're tangible things. It's not just, you know, we all know that we're here to make money and you wouldn't be here, you wouldn't be working here for free. That's true. But we want to unlock and unleash and empower the best parts of your, your skill set.

L. Michelle Smith: So two things you just said. And every time you say something like this, I'm going to bring the science to let you know why it's a real thing. Right. Okay. So one thing you said was you get the group together and you say, we're going to work on this project together. The way to form community is to experience things together, to go through things together. Challenging things can't just be a cakewalk. And we're not just talking pizza night or you know, the wind down Wednesday, the beer cart, or even, even the zipline at the zipline park. We're talking about real things that impact people, that make them feel like they're a part of things and it causes you to bond. The other thing that you said was around, oh, you. When you're trying to reconnect, you start to serve people. Okay, uh, this is great. The first leadership lesson in the book. And by the way, the leadership lessons came from 155 high performing black executives.

Zach: We're gonna talk about it. We're gonna talk about it.

L. Michelle Smith: Yeah. Okay. So they're the ones that said these were the leadership lessons that we learned in the black church because we went all the time. Faith, um, and purpose is number one. And the chapters and the lessons appear in the order of rank. That's not spelled out in the book, but it's there. Um, so faith and purpose is number one. M. Science says that faith in something helps you to succeed, helps you to move forward. Doesn't have to be in a higher power, faith in something. So if your faith is broken or trust is broken or belief is broken between your colleagues or your boss, very difficult. Right? Purpose. You said that you use service, serving your team in order to recapture the connection. Purpose is in that because when you work with people, you start to empathize with them, you start to serve them. You begin to tap into your purpose. This is where you start to find that intrinsic motivation because there's a story in the book about a young woman, and now she is, um, one of the directors over accessibility technology at Netflix. She was nine years old, a daughter of, um, deaf adults. So a child of deaf adults who call it coda, right? So she had to learn how to speak to them through sign language as, uh, from a baby, from the crib, Right. She had to figure out how to communicate. So it was very innate for her to do this. But one day she's in church and the pastor says, get up here on this platform. She gets volunteered, sign for the people. Right? Because they had a deaf ministry. And it was the first time she'd ever seen anybody her size get up on that stage and do something like that. And she didn't know she could do it. But inside of her, she said, the people in this section deserve to experience this worship like everybody else. So it's on me. And that's what started to drive her. I wanted to make sure that everybody had the same experience. They could have the same joys, pains, everything that everyone experiences in this space in particular. And through that empathetic thought, this is emotional intelligence. At age 9, she found it in her to do it. And so she got up there and she's doing ASL and she kills it. And they're like, well, you need to do this more. So through this, she finds her purpose. And now she's done it for Microsoft, she's done it for Netflix and all the big companies. And even, um, presidents have come for her. She sat on boards, um, under the Biden administration, under Accessibility Technology, um, committee that was driving what's going on in our country. So two things there. You're not only solidifying the bond because you're showing the faith in the people they're able to see and have faith in you because you're showing up. But then you're also tapping into your purpose, and you may even find even more each time you connect with people and you serve them.

Zach: It's just such a. It's a rare. I don't see it often.

L. Michelle Smith: Yeah.

Zach: In corporate America, I don't see.

L. Michelle Smith: And we need it.

Zach: Absolutely. I mean, I can, like, literally name the leaders. When I'm like. I'm talking about the people like that. Not only that I've met through and through this, through living corporate, but also that I've worked with or worked for clients. I can name, like, a handful of people that I'm like, wow, you're somebody that I would really. I Would go, I would go to. I. I would go. I jump off a cliff, I would go, I'd run. I went through a wall for you, right? And, um, that type of inspirational leadership because, you know, they care, you know, that they. And they're. And they're authentic. They're earnest. It's just a. It's a rare. It's a rare thing. Just.

L. Michelle Smith: It is. We call them heart centered leaders. And it's something that we need right now in the environment we just described, 100%.

Zach: We got to talk about your book right before we get up out of here. And I don't want to rush it at the end, so let's get to it now. That way we can give you all as much space as needed. Let's talk about call and response. Just now. You alluded to the fact that, you know, there's some. There's some losing to the black church. Like walk me through. First of all, why the title Call and Response?

L. Michelle Smith: Okay, well, Call and Response is a metaphor, first of all, for leadership. And I hate to even call it a metaphor because it is the very foundation of leadership. The call comes from the leader, the response comes from the people. You have to have leaders and followers. That's leadership at its very foundation. That being said, because these leadership lessons actually come from an institution that has used the call and response, like all the time. From the pulpit to the choir stand to the pews. It made sense to me that we would engage this cultural phenomenon. Now, there's history behind. Didn't come from the black church. It came from sub Saharan Africa before 1619. Now when you watch the way it travels not just to the United States, but as Bad Bunny reminded us, to Puerto Rico and the Caribbean too. Those boats made some stops, Call a response, traveled on the backs of enslaved people, and it made it all the way to the United States and some parts of Canada, I think. I'm not sure, but it definitely made it to the United States. And so we started to pick up on it in the fields, the cotton fields, tobacco fields, whatever you were planning, where the enslaved people were working. Because there were work songs. They were work songs that free people sang way back in the day. And these people that came to the United States are trying to hold on to something that they could recall from home. So here you are in the cotton fields, in the sugarcane fields, wherever you are. And as you're working, you start to sing and you lead out and the people follow, right? So you see something, say something, and the people respond with the song. A Word or a shout. That's what call and response is. And it's not just in gospel music. It's not just in preaching. It's in hip hop. Curtis Blow was the first commercially recognized rapper to record a song with call and response in it. And it's called the Breaks. I think you know it. If your woman steps out with another man,

Zach: that's the breaks.

L. Michelle Smith: There you go. That's the brakes. That's the breaks.

Zach: Now let me say something. Let me say something about that, Ms. Smith. I know I got this girl here. I'm 36, so I was not alive when or I was not rocking Curtis Blow, but I do because I like to be. I'm somewhat of a hip hop historian, but I just want to. Yeah, I thought she was gonna say if you die with opp.

L. Michelle Smith: Yeah, you know me, right? Exactly.

Zach: Say, hey, y'. All Say, oh, you know what I'm saying? Hey.

L. Michelle Smith: Somebody scream.

Zach: So I received that I love. Let me just start by saying that I love. Yeah. Okay. So I'm gonna be a little. I'm gonna break the. I'm gonna break the fourth one a little bit. I love how in this season where black, um, identity is under scrutiny, under attack, there's so many people that I've seen who are like, you thought they were. Like you thought they was kwame torre in 2020. Okay. All of a sudden they just as colorblind as three blind mice. Oh, I love the fact that you wrote something in 2026 that honors not only the present of black identity, but our, um, but our, but our meta narrative.

L. Michelle Smith: I received that. Thank you.

Zach: Um, that is. That is incredible. I think that. And I think what it also speaks for me is, is that so often we, like, this is not just for black folks. I think people in general do this. We compartmentalize our identities, um, and we decide to kind of pull things out at certain times when they are most. When we believe they're most opportune. There's this like, really, like, pessimistic and I think almost self hating calculus to it. And so I appreciate the fact that like, you wrote something that is not only like scientifically backed, uh, that is. But that is also historically rich, culturally rich, and also honors like, so many traditions.

L. Michelle Smith: Yeah. Um.

Zach: Of marginalized. Of a people, um, that have overcome every obstacle, um, that's been placed in front of them.

L. Michelle Smith: Well, you hit on something right there at the end. And I honor everything that you just said. But the fact that the people have made it this far, despite what all, uh, has Come our way. This seems to be the kind of resilient, courageous, innovative, creative and emotionally intelligent leader we should all strive to be. And there are examples of these kinds of people all through the book. Although Mellow's story threads the needle, you get to find out how Carla Harris, who grew up Catholic but was moonlighting in the black Baptist Church. I'm going to leave it to you to find out why. It's a great little story, but she even says, this institution taught me leadership. And whether it was through practice or whether it was through modeling, this is what happens. Now. That being said, um, two things. Those of you who are not church, or they don't go to church or they're not believers, this book is still for you. Because if you notice the title, the subtitle says from the Black Church is very different from the subtitles of my pre. My previous books for women of color in the workplace. For. That's a different term from. Means it's coming out of. Okay, so this institution, no matter where you stand, when it comes to religion or anything else, because it's not a religious text, this institution is responsible for every freedom that black people exercise today. And you have to shout it out for that, even if it has its little traumas and adversities. We've all been through some church trauma, and some of the people have been driven away by it. I get it. Every institution, if there's one or two people gathered, you're going to have some drama. You're going to have some. Some craziness. So it's not just the black church. Every. Every organism of people is going to have its drama. But when there's something as significant as that, it demands another look. But I would. I would have to tell you the origins of the book were a lot more simple and not as complicated as you and not as layered as you might think. This started with a question 10 years ago for me. I'm working at AT&T, and I was asked to fill in for an officer to do a keynote last minute. I'd never done a keynote before. I presented in boardrooms. I sat on panels. I'd done fireside chats and even lectured in colleges. But keynotes are different. It's a different skill. Never done it before. Apparently, I killed it. So much so that the organizer, the founder of this organization, said, I need you in New York in two weeks. Do that very same speech. I was like, man, I got a day job. Are you kidding me? He's like, I'll pay for your hotel. And Your. Your flight. I was like, okay, let me go ask my boss. Boss said, yes, I'm on this flight. I go to New York, deliver the same thing after it's over. The social media manager who was in the back monitoring all the social media chatter says, do you realize that you garnered 25 million impressions in 45 minutes that you were standing there? Mind you, there were just 150 people in the room, roughly. I said, it couldn't be true. He's like, no. He turns his laptop around, he's like, see? Uh, and then someone asked me, where'd you learn to speak like that? Now, honestly, Zach, church didn't come out first. It did not.

Zach: Mhm.

L. Michelle Smith: That was so buried inside of me. Although church is very much a part of me, it was so buried deep down, all I could think of was connecting that to my professional development and my professional life. So the first thing that came out was, well, I'm a corporate media trainer. This is what I do. I train C level executives to get up and do what I just did to myself. Well, who taught me? Who taught me? It was weeks later when it dawned on me. I was 14 years old. My sister was 12. When. When you get ready to go to junior high or high school, they moved it to high school. By the time I came through, I don't know. You were assigned an adult Sunday school class.

Zach: Mhm.

L. Michelle Smith: Full of doctors, attorneys, PhDs, educators, nurses, entertainers, politicians. And you had to get up there and deliver. So there's some riffing that comes with that. We didn't have PowerPoints, so that, you know, that's a luxury, right? To have some pictures behind you. Listen, we didn't have that.

Zach: Listen, I recall, you know, when I was, um. So I was born in Rome, Georgia. I went to a church. Uh, the first church I was a member of when I was four years old.

L. Michelle Smith: Mhm.

Zach: Was church still there? It's called Lovejoy Baptist Church.

L. Michelle Smith: Uh, they're all still alive, by the way.

Zach: That's dope. Um, pastored by Reverend Ingram. Reverend Carrie Ingram. And what I. For me, for Easter, we all had our poems, we had the things, we had to recite the things. And so you had your Easter speech, so you had to practice that Easter speech. And then later on, I became a licensed minister when I was like 20 years old.

L. Michelle Smith: So, Zach, you know what's up? I am finding this out about so many people because of this book.

Zach: I mean, and so it's funny because, like, when I do corporate presentations, to your point, about like, you know, sharing and so I, I talk about, as an icebreaker, like, I'll be like, listen, I'm. I'm a preacher, so, you know, I like call and response. So, so. So, again, like, the. All of this is. Yeah, for sure. So, like. But I like. I like. I like interaction. Please don't just stare at me. I come from a black church. It's different. Right. Like, I remember I was like a. I was a youth pastor at a, um. At a Presbyterian church, and it was a white church. That was my first time really like this. I was in college. This is my first exposure to, like, the white middle class.

L. Michelle Smith: Yeah.

Zach: And like, so, you know, you see, like. And like, the way it is not. It's not bad. It's not. Or worse, it's just different.

L. Michelle Smith: Like, it's different.

Zach: The white church. The white church can be very stoic.

L. Michelle Smith: Very. Especially Presbyterians, they're not used to.

Zach: They're not used to loud talking.

L. Michelle Smith: No.

Zach: There was a guest pastor from Mississippi, and he was up there and he was preaching, and you could see like, the. He was, like, gesticulated like he was. And like the, um. And the. The congregation was, like, jumping like they were scared.

L. Michelle Smith: Right.

Zach: It's a lot. And so. And so. But I say all that just to say, like, I love that. I love that you're sharing this, because I do believe sharing your family, your background, and even elements of your faith, um, is important. I think it gives. It gives people grounding and context to who you are.

L. Michelle Smith: It really is. And, you know, it's interesting because we talk about how in corporate America, historically, they want you to be someone of character, Right. If it's a good company, they want you to be someone of character that has ethics. So you bring that element of faith into the building. But don't talk about it.

Zach: Right?

L. Michelle Smith: Don't talk about it. This actually unearths and uncovers for so many people. Um, in fact, when I interviewed the leaders for this book, at least three of them ended up in tears telling their stories because they came to the interview thinking, okay, I'm not really sure where she's going with this. I, uh, know we're talking about corporate. I'm going to tell her how I came up in the church. But when they started to understand how much was deep down inside that they had pressed down and had given credit to all other organizations, you know, grad school, leadership training, you know, my company sent me to this leadership that most of it came from something that was so close to them, so dear to them, so regular and old. Fashioned.

Zach: Mhm.

L. Michelle Smith: That giving it this kind of credit was overwhelming.

Zach: If you are 50 plus, if you are black and 50 plus, especially from the south, your core skills came like. There's an overwhelming chance that your core came from the church.

L. Michelle Smith: Well, see, that demo is who we talked to. It was older millennials and gen zers and then some of the voices in the book. There are at least two boomers.

Zach: Yeah.

L. Michelle Smith: So one of them actually grew up in Jim Crow South.

Zach: Oh, yeah. So, you know, you think about the church, the black church, because of the nature of Jim Crow and the nature of just racism, period. Redlining and all these other pieces, like just. And another. And then just, just outright exclusion outside of like the legislated federally, um, um, backed and amplified and supported and rewarded elements. There was also. People just were ex. It was just. You were also just excluded. So the church ended up being like a default place.

L. Michelle Smith: Place that's exactly right.

Zach: Where you would engage. So, yes, project management and communications and public speaking and problem solving and, um, logistics and finance.

L. Michelle Smith: And you're on it.

Zach: All these other things.

L. Michelle Smith: Robert's Rules.

Zach: Robert's Rules of Order. You're going to learn about. Right. You're going to learn about meeting management and creating agendas and all these different things. You're going to learn. You're going to learn about, uh, compliance and, and documentation. You're going to, you're going to learn about all. You're going to learn about all these things through the church. Because it, the church is such a, you know, the local church, the local black church was like. It was. It was a living thing. It was an organism. All different things going on. Especially if y' all had like, programs, then you learn about volunteer work. You would learn.

L. Michelle Smith: Yeah.

Zach: Um, you just, you're learning, you're learning about community service. And so, so many things come and happen out, out within this space. And so you're gonna. My bad. You're also gonna learn how to, to read. You're gonna learn.

L. Michelle Smith: Yes. The third space.

Zach: It's, It's. It's your third. And I think because of just where we are kind of going back to what I said about just, you know, capitalistic context, like third spaces are continuing to erode. Right. So libraries are going away. Um, you know, the cities sitting cities are being designed, uh, so that leisure or like just kind of sitting around in the city is not really the same. Because, because we're. We, um. Because we criminalize home houselessness. Um, you know, benches are made more. Everything's uncomfortable. The idea of just being like, hey, we're going to go hang out at the park. Like that just isn't. It is not as common. And so this idea of like this being a foundational place and I think we owe it to us. It goes back to what I'm saying about. Just the flowers I wanted to give you about the book.

L. Michelle Smith: Thank you.

Zach: We, it goes back to. We have to honor and really be thoughtful of and not forget, um, our own foundation. Yeah, because, because your company, Your company didn't. I'm about to start preaching anyway. Keep going.

L. Michelle Smith: Preach. Preach.

Zach: Well, no, no, just your company. Your company didn't know you when you were seven. Your company didn't. Don't.

L. Michelle Smith: Didn't care. You.

Zach: Your company, Your company already. So the ironic, the irony is that like, And I think this is so true for all people, especially people on the margins is organizations see your value sometimes way sooner and more than you do first. That's why they, it's like, I think, I think there's like this, there's this uh, fantasy that we, that we believe that like, oh, oh, these companies are just benevolently giving you jobs and like seeing if you can do something. No, no, they know that you can do this thing and they're going to put you in this position because it's going to generate revenue.

L. Michelle Smith: Right?

Zach: It's gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna get, they're gonna get return out of it.

L. Michelle Smith: It.

Zach: They want you to be, to, to be doubtful of that so they can continue to, you know, exploit. But.

L. Michelle Smith: Mhm.

Zach: But like, no, people, you weren't, you weren't forged through this. You were. No, by your early experience, you were built.

L. Michelle Smith: I mean, if you understand the history of our country and the experience of black folks in this country, it's impossible for them to have poured into you like that. It's just, it doesn't add up. It doesn't add up. But I do believe that this is part of the reason. I'm so sorry. This is part of the reason why at the end of the book, towards the end of the book. Well, um, I mentioned it in the very beginning. The conflict in the book. Now that we know, how can we be more intentional? That's the first thing. But this generational spectrum that you just mentioned, if older millennials, Gen Xers and boomers got it this way, how are younger millennials, Gen Zers and Gen Alpha going to get the same thing? Because there are things that have changed and one of which is that group, not Gen Alpha, because they're not at the age where they can actually make these decisions yet.

Zach: Mhm.

L. Michelle Smith: Many of the parents are still making decisions for Gen Alpha. But the natural progression is that when you leave, let's say you are a church going child, when you leave to go to college or you leave to do work, you start to make religion decisions. Mhm. How you're going to attend church if you're going to attend church. And that group, younger millennials and Gen zers are opting out more than any other group. So if they're opting out, where does that leave them? When it comes to this leadership pipeline that we just identified that comes from the pews into corporate America, what does that do? So there's that but then there's also this modernization that's happening with our churches. You know, one of the executives in the book tried to call me out and he's like you, you talking about us trying to be white? I said that's part of it. And what he means by that is you've seen on the threads, where are the gospel choirs? Where are they going? You know what, what is with these little praise teams?

Zach: You know we're about to have a whole separate pod.

L. Michelle Smith: Yeah, it's a whole separate pod.

Zach: But, but no but you, but you're right though. It was the, you know these, to your point about these praise team like the, the experience and visualization of the church. Kind of like the choir marching into the church and like it being this like 50 or 60 piece or, or the every fifth Sunday choir or um, you know different types of choir, the children's choir and then like the, the elders choir. Like all you know, um, they changed as the off really largely a significant part because the black church, uh, some largely was trying to emulate the, this, the corporatized model of the white church. Um and realized that it was not as efficient to. And also it costs more money. It just wasn't financially as operationally sustainable um, in this, in a more capitalist or corporatist ah model to have these multi piece choirs where you get in all these robes, you have to watch them, you gotta do all this stuff with them. Um, and also like you know, you want to speed those things up because you want to get to offering. You want to. So you're absolutely right.

L. Michelle Smith: I mean, well, even, even more basic than that. I was on the before or what's it called, um, Sunday Morning Beyond Sunday Morning podcast.

Zach: Okay.

L. Michelle Smith: And if you've never watched um, David who is white and I had this conversation and his question to me was do you believe that black the black church. I'm talking about the black churches in the black tradition. Because there is a distinction. You can have a black pastor in a black congregation and not have the black church. That's a whole other pod. Right?

Zach: It's a whole nother pod.

L. Michelle Smith: But he asked me, do you believe that the black church has been following the lead of white evangelical spaces when it comes to format? And, uh, he was honest about that question, and I was honest on the way back. Absolutely. Positively, yes.

Zach: Absolutely. We don't just. We don't just see it with the choir. We don't even see with the choir either. We see. We. Yeah, yeah.

L. Michelle Smith: So I'll give you an example. And it's just of me. And this isn't in the book, but I started a praise team at my childhood church. And it wasn't really formalized. It was just that we wanted to, you know, the deacons were on their knees, they were singing, oh, one hundreds. And some of us felt like we couldn't relate. So the question was, why can't we stand? Can we stand and lead songs? We weren't calling it a praise team, but this was the beginnings of four or five people, six people standing in front of the congregation before the choir gets up.

Zach: Mhm.

L. Michelle Smith: And I didn't appreciate what those deacons were doing. Now, to my home church's credit, Good street is in the book. It's dedicated to the original, um, not the original pastor, but the one that's well known, Caw Clark, the preacher's preacher, you know. Right. It's dedicated to him, but to their credit, in the year of our Lord 2026, they do have a praise team, but they still have devotion.

Zach: Come on, come on.

L. Michelle Smith: Those deacons turn around and kneel in front of those folding chairs and say, guide me, oh thou great Jehovah.

Zach: Come on. Oh, yeah, that sounds. That sounds like some church. That's. That sounds like some church my mom specifically would love. Uh, and it's also. It also just brings back so many memories. Right.

L. Michelle Smith: Well. And it does something that contemporary Christian music can't. And it's the DNA of the music. That's a whole other pod. But it's in. It's in the book now.

Zach: Now look, we got three other topics for when you come back.

L. Michelle Smith: Okay. You said, oh, you chide me like I'm a Baptist preacher. I'm like, we gonna go on too long.

Zach: Like, come on. Like, I'm like, this is. Yes. Uh, but no, I find these, I find these topics really dynamic. And I think they're really important. And they're. And again, like, you're the first, maybe the only person that I've ever spoken with, I've ever engaged that has connected the dots between the cultural tradition of the. Of the black church and leadership and work.

L. Michelle Smith: Well, this is why the book is historic. I mean, it's in the messaging, but once people start to read it and talk to me about it, they're like, this is groundbreaking. I'm like, yeah, it's. The rigor's there and everything we're talking about now, the culture of the black church, the history of the black church, the. There is a science pillar that goes right along with it. And because it's there, we have the language to share how it feeds right into this leadership theory that we would find in Harvard Business Review.

Zach: I need to work with your team because we should do like a giveaway or something.

L. Michelle Smith: Yeah, let's do it.

Zach: Okay, so I'm gonna work with your team on that. And then let me just. Let me say this. This has been L. Michelle Smith, speaker, author, uh, thought leader, writer, written, ah, several books.

L. Michelle Smith: Four most.

Zach: The recent. The most recent being Call and Response.

L. Michelle Smith: Yeah.

Zach: Um, dynamic, innovative, incredibly creative, rigorous, thoughtful content and work.

L. Michelle Smith: Thank you.

Zach: Um, make sure y' all click the links in the show notes to learn more about not just Ms. Smith, but also her. Her work, specifically her book. You can buy it and copy it and then like, yeah, I'll come back to y' all another time.

L. Michelle Smith: And there's curriculum.

Zach: And there's curriculum. Okay, so we're gonna. We're gonna figure this out because, you know, living corporate, you know, we have basically, we have three different pillars. We have. We have our brand storytelling pillar, work with organizations to help amplify their stories. We have. And. And we use our podcast for that. Um, we have an elearning platform where we have, like, 1700 modules, and we use AI to create, like, these, like, custom dynamic learning paths for people based on the profile that they create. And then we have data transformation, analytics.

L. Michelle Smith: I love it.

Zach: And so I love. I just. I'm passionate about talent, enablement, and I love, like, learning and content that's been unique. I think, look, analyzing any culture, like, to be clear, right. For the audience, like, the idea of looking at a culture culture and like, how they engage or practice community, and then pulling from that principles to then apply to other elements of anyone's life, I believe is brilliant.

L. Michelle Smith: Thank you.

Zach: And I support that.

L. Michelle Smith: So thank you. And. And you know what? You just previewed. There's more to come I love it.

Zach: I love it. I mean, I can see, like, a series, so.

L. Michelle Smith: Yeah.

Zach: Yeah, I can see it.

L. Michelle Smith: Yeah.

Zach: Let's listen, y'. All. Y' all know we here. Check us out. We appreciate y' all listening. Make sure again, make sure y' all click the links in the show notes. Till next time. Peace.

L. Michelle Smith: Living Corporate is a podcast by Living Corporate, llc. Our logo was designed by David Dawkins. Our theme music was produced by Ken Brown. Additional music production by Antoine Franklin for Musical Elevation. Post production production is handled by Jeremy Jackson. Got a topic Suggestion? Email us at livingcorporatepodcast at gmail. Com. You can find us online on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and livingcorporate. Com. Thanks for listening. Stay tuned.