Biblical Leadership @ Work
Biblical Leadership @ Work
Danielle Whah - C12 Principle Chair, Experienced Executive Leader, and Engineer
In this months episode, Danielle Whah shares her incredible journey from a mechanical engineer at Panasonic to a significant leadership role at Whirlpool, and now her impactful work with C12, an organization dedicated to integrating faith in the workplace.
Danielle talks about her upbringing, her mechanical engineering background, and how her quest for spiritual and professional fulfillment led her to pursue an MBA while raising a family. She delves into her pivot to marketing and sales, her leadership philosophies, and her transformative shift to integrating her Christian faith openly in her professional life.
Listeners will be inspired by Waugh's commitment to authenticity, her belief in continual growth, and her emphasis on balancing personal faith with professional excellence.
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Welcome to the biblical leadership at work podcast. I am your host, Jason Woodard. And this month's podcast, we will meet Danielle. Why? Listen in as Danielle shares her journey from a mechanically inclined childhood, working in the garage with her dad to a successful career as a mechanical engineer, and eventually moving into various leadership roles. As Danielle discusses her roles at Panasonic and Whirlpool, she reveals how her faith played a crucial role in shaping her career and personal life. She emphasizes the importance of being authentic. Knowing one's identity in Christ and integrating faith into the workplace. Danielle is now leading. 12 in west Michigan, where she mentors, Christian business leaders, helping them navigate the intersection of faith and work. All right. Well, Danielle Watt, thank you so much for being on the podcast today, sister. I, uh, really look forward to hearing about your background and what God has done in and through you throughout your career. So thank you for joining me today.
Danielle:Thank you for having me. I am super excited to be here with you and to chat more about what we're doing here in West Michigan and my background and build up and how I might be able to help and inspire somebody else.
Jason:Awesome. So let's, uh, get started with your, with your background. Danielle, what was your, can you take us back maybe even education, early career on up through where God has you at today?
Danielle:Yeah. Um, my background, my story. Um, I can go on forever, but I'll try to be quick and then you can cut me off when you need to. Um, we've talked before a little bit and I've mentioned my dad. Um, I, I grew up in a space where my dad really instilled in me that I can do anything. That I feel like I'm called and led to do. And not only can I, but I needed to, and he showed me the ropes and all kinds of things. And you know what, when it came time for me to leave high school and to go into college, I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew I was mechanically strong raised in his garage and in his workshop and tinkering with boats and tinkering with cars. If you wanted a car, you had to know how to fix the car. So I went into mechanical engineering. And, um, it was a fabulous foundation for me, um, from an educational standpoint, that was really a launching pad for essentially going anywhere. And you'll hear that briefly as I go through, you know, my background and where I ended up, um, but that, that. Learning how to solve problems is truly what that discipline taught me. And, um, and I did it in such a way and learning through people and experiences that helped me prepare for what I was going to experience, um, in the real world, in the business world, when I got out there, so graduated from the university of Louisville down in Kentucky. I live in Michigan now. Um, we'll talk about that at some other time, but yes, I still live in Michigan 22 years later and absolutely love it up here. Um, but I went to school, um, and after graduating went to Panasonic Home Appliance Company down in Danville, Kentucky. And I was leading design teams for floor care product. So I designed cordless vacuums, bagless vacuums, all things, um, that suck. Duh duh duh, right? Um, so I was going through that phase of my career and after one of the first products that went from, Early innovation all the way to production. It rolled right off of the production line, which is what I loved about Panasonic. Like our engineering was up front and everything, like the lab moves seamlessly in the middle. We had our tooling department. We had our manufacturing lines. You can literally walk that product from beginning to end. The first one rolled off the manufacturing line and I was not happy. I was sad because I wanted to know who bought it. Why did they buy it? What did they pay for it? Did they like what they purchased? That led me to go back to school and get an MBA. Um, so went back to school to get an MBA. Um, was Raising a family at the time. So working full time, going to school at night and trying to, uh, have babies. That's, uh, an interesting, uh, stage in my life for sure. But, uh, if the Lord, uh, puts it in front of you, you got to go after it, know that he's going to give you the strength to get through it. And that's what I can say. You know, he did. Um, so once I finished the MBA, I got a call from this company called Whirlpool, up here. And Benton Harbor, Michigan. And I thought, well, my dad taught me to love boats. I love water. I have never seen this freshwater ocean people call Lake Michigan. So I'm going to go up there, get some interview experience. It's been a while. And you know what? Never ever am I going to accept the job. Never ever am I going to move to Michigan. And 22 years later, I'm still living here in Michigan. So accepted that job at Whirlpool, which was awesome. Um, still at that time in the engineering space. Um, but it was a very short Tenure ship at Whirlpool in the engineering space. And then I quickly moved over into marketing and product development, which led me into our sales team and then to our merchandising team and many other leadership roles at Whirlpool that just gave me, um, another fabulous. Foundation and build up for leading large and small teams, both locally, remotely, um, leading sales teams, leading product organizations. I mean, just the people leadership experience that I got was just fabulous, but there came a time when that wasn't enough. Um, I had experienced a pretty rapid change in my relationship with the Lord. And we, we can maybe get into that at some time too. And I just realized that what I was. Doing at Whirlpool, people didn't know who I was as a Christian. They didn't know who I was as daughter of Christ. And I did not like that about myself. So my husband thankfully saw that and he encouraged me to take a step back and to take some time off time off that I have never had in my entire life. And I, I took some time off and I did some soul searching about what's next for me. And in the course of my searching and praying, I was getting. Frustrated because the whole patience thing in the Bible, I haven't quite fully grasped that just yet. Um, and I was just really looking for what's next, Lord, what's next? Like you gave me this great buildup. What am I supposed to be doing? And finally, my husband gets impatient with me after many months of me searching. And he's like, Danielle, there's this group, it's called C12. And you send me leadership materials that are faith based all the time. Like I have folders of stuff from this organization. How about you check them out? And so with that prompting there and that nudge from, from Ken, um, I started looking into C 12 and realized that this fabulous organization didn't have any business forums here in West Michigan. Or Northern Indiana. And so now three and a half years, I've been with C12 and leading business forums of Christian executives and CEOs and trying to help. Each other, figure out what this thing called faith in the workplace actually is and what it looks like and how we can do that. Well,
Jason:How long was it from the time you, uh, left Whirlpool till you started C12?
Danielle:wow. That's an interesting story. Um, so insert a measurably more into our conversation right now. Um, so you'll, my life verse is out of Ephesians three 20. Um, and it is, and it speaks so much life into me and has for many years. Um, I intentionally took about six months off. And then I thought the Lord was calling me to take my business build up and go in and lead and serve and consult with nonprofit organizations, um, who knew their mission, they knew their vision, they knew their calling, but maybe they just needed a little bit of business structure help and, and getting through some of that so that they can execute their mission, vision, and values really well. So I started a company called Immeasurably More. After Ephesians 3 20. And, um, I was doing that for a while and I realized I was not a great solopreneur. So that's when I started searching again and I found C12, but the great thing about C12 is in our roles is what we call a chair at C12. We want to make sure that we are truly called to lead and serve in the capacity that we're doing. I mean, we're, we're talking important things. It's not just business, it's business, it's faith, it's family, it's health, it's mental health, it's all the things, everything, person, it's exactly what the Lord meant community to be. But C12 was like, listen, if you're called to lead and serve this way, we got to make sure you're right. And you're called for this. And so they have a mutual discernment process. And, um, some people it's shorter and some people like me, it's longer because I wanted to test things out a little bit. So it took me about a year walking with C12 before I decided full time to, uh, to take the plunge and to join this fabulous group,
Jason:And this was the start of a new cha Is it called a chapter? Is that what they're referred
Danielle:a, we're a franchise organization, so we call it territory, but
Jason:Yeah. So that was, it wasn't like you were taking over an existing territory from somebody. This was a new start in the area and in our area.
Danielle:yeah, we got C12 forums meeting across the globe now. Super excited. We're now serving over 4, 000 members across the globe. But here in West Michigan, when I looked, there was groups over in Chicago, groups in Detroit, groups down in Indy and nothing in the middle.
Jason:Yeah. No, I'm glad you're here. I've known of the organization for a long time and obviously I think the mission is exactly what I'm trying to do on this podcast, right? How do we as leaders love out our faith at work and glorify Christ and the work that we do and how we lead. So. So, uh, it's good. Hey, tell us a little bit, Danielle, tell us, well, wait, I have one other question before I go to my next one. How many other females were in your class of engineering, mechanical engineers at Louisville?
Danielle:Yeah, there was me and three others and all three were Asian. So I was
Jason:Oh, wow. I've, and you know this about me, we've talked offline, but I've, you know, I've grown up in the manufacturing industry for. 35 years and yeah, just seeing more females come into the technical space. You know, that stem space, I guess, has been, It's been good to see, but I know, you know, 30 years ago, 25, 30 years ago. Um, definitely, and I would see still probably not, not even a half, um, female to male ratio, but it's growing. So,
Danielle:You didn't ask me this, but let me share this with
Jason:go for it.
Danielle:role at Panasonic. Um, so Japanese. Run company. Um, our leader in our engineering space was Japanese man. His name was Scott Shimizu. Um, and, uh, he is not as tall as me and he was not used to working with women. And so he and I had quite the learning curve together on how to learn, how to, uh, Play well together in the business space and learn and lean in on each other's differences and experiences and all of these beautiful things that happen when you've got a diverse group of folks working together. But I remember the day I told them I was leaving and going up to Whirlpool, he pulled me aside and he told me, he was like, Danielle, You scared the daylights out of me when you joined Panasonic. He said, I did not know how to lead a female, much less a female engineer. And so it was just really exciting to, to see the growth in both of us over the, the time that we worked together.
Jason:That's good. That's a great way to leave that. That was an impactful relationship then. So,
Danielle:Absolutely.
Jason:um, tell us a little bit about your family. You mentioned your husband, but talk to us a little bit about husband, children. What's that
Danielle:Yeah. We're a blended family, uh, living here in Southwest Michigan, um, on this beautiful freshwater ocean that I mentioned earlier, and that's a great time of year to be here, I must say. Yeah. We have six kids between the two of us and one grandson. So, uh, we needed to have the grandson because we have five girls and one boy. Um, they are all over the place. I think officially they live all six kids in six different cities right now, which is a little scary to think about where everybody's going to end up settling. Um, but we have one that has graduated from Michigan state and is now doing fabulously well out in California. Yeah. And getting ready to get married in April. So super excited about that. Um, we have one that's living down in Chesterton type Indiana area. And, um, she is the daughter of our grandson Emmett, who is absolutely the love of our life. And, um, she is doing extraordinarily well as a single mom. Working full time and going back to school.
Jason:and raising little Emmett?
Danielle:And raising little Emmett.
Jason:How old
Danielle:be five in
Jason:Oh, I have a, our oldest granddaughter just turned five. It's so fun.
Danielle:So fun. So fun. Um, then we have two that just graduated college. So Grace from university of Michigan. Go blue and Jonna from grand Valley university. And both of them are going to be going on to grad school. Uh, we've got Justin who is in the coast guard. He's serving over in Detroit right now at station bell aisle. So that makes mama's heart very happy that he's. Only a quick car ride away, at least for right now. And then our youngest is Jaden. She's 17 and finishing out her junior year of high school.
Jason:Okay, so one left at home. That's kind of, yeah, our youngest is the last one at home as well. So very cool. Wow. And so at once they all get out of college, you and your husband are going to feel like you got a big pay raise. That's a lot of kids in college at one time.
Danielle:Yes, sir, it is.
Jason:Hey, Danielle, let's talk about faith. What's uh, how did you come to know the Lord? Did you grow up in a church? Like what's that look like? I'd love to hear your testimony.
Danielle:Yeah, um, faith for me started with my parents and grandparents. I was born and raised Catholic. Um, down in Louisville, Kentucky. Um, I kind of feel like everybody in my community and anybody that I knew was, um, my parents did not have a lot of money, but did whatever they could to find the funds to make sure that my brother, sister, and I, um, got a Catholic education. So went through Catholic grade school, four years of all girls, Catholic high school. And through that, there was just a fabulous foundation. Um, of what it means to know Jesus and know the Bible. Um, but I will tell you the relationship part I didn't get until much later in my life. So fast forward from that, I'm living up here in Michigan. I'm, uh, found myself as a single mom of two. Um, I mentioned that Ken and I are a blended family. And so I'm here in Michigan. No family here, a single mom of two. Again, we're back to water. I love boats. Um, and the Lord put this couple in my life, uh, named Adam and Lori Wade, who bought their first boat and ended up slipping in the same kind of area of the marina that I was at. And the two of them talked more to me about what it means to have a relationship with Christ. Than anyone I have ever experienced before at first. I was like, what is up with these people? They're kind of weird I mean like we're on the boat. Why are they talking about their faith? Like I mean, don't they go to church on sunday and talk to people there like that was me And um through the course of getting to know them and them inviting me Um to attend church with them at a church that i'm still going to today is where I will tell you That's really where I met the lord Uh, for the first time. And, um, and, and in a way and with a relationship that was truly heart. I had, I feel like I had all the head stuff, you know, just this great foundation that I referred to. But man, it was like that, that journey from the head to the heart for me took a while. And, um, once I allowed him in and he took hold of my heart, my entire world changed.
Jason:Yeah, it does. That's right.
Danielle:Yeah,
Jason:Awesome. So is that how you and your husband Matt then at within the church or okay.
Danielle:And, uh, when I came up into Whirlpool, you know, I, I knew of him, uh, we were both leading, um, in different ways, but in a similar team, and he was always one of those leaders that I looked up to that people were just like, you know, in work, you need to have a mentor, right. You want to go to work for a leader who is really good, really strong, but somebody who cares. And I can remember from years back saying, listen, you know what, if you have an opportunity to go work in a different group, or you want to do a different experience, wherever Ken Wah is, go work for him. And so I knew of Ken through Whirlpool, but it took fast forwarding to life and what life ended up for both of us, where we were able to find each other and develop a relationship with each other to realize, okay, this is another example of, you know, the Lord's blessings and turning amazing, beautiful things into sometimes our crazy messes.
Jason:Yeah.
Danielle:He and I actually met at Whirlpool, but we did get baptized together here on the beaches of
Jason:Oh, that's
Danielle:Um, I mentioned Adam Wade about, you know, in my buildup and in my story. Um, so Ken and I were now both going to Lakeshore Christian and we were engaged and we decided we wanted to recommit. ourselves to the Lord. And so we asked Adam to baptize us together here on the shores of West Michigan or Southwest Michigan. And, um, and he baptized us there, but then he also officiated a sand ceremony for our wedding. And then that sand ceremony, Adam poured in as the foundation, the sand from the beach where we both got baptized together. And then Ken and I poured in sands representative of each one of our families, which is just an absolutely beautiful symbol that we still have up on our, our bookshelf today of, uh, you know, Christ is our foundation.
Jason:that's right. That's a great story. Thank you for sharing that. Um, I'll talk about leadership a little bit. Danielle, you've been leading for, uh, many years and you've seen great leaders and now you're mentoring, coaching, and helping leaders in various businesses. When you think about leadership, what are the top, say two or three like core principles that you just always go back to when you think about effective leadership?
Danielle:Number one. is know who you are.
Jason:Okay.
Danielle:two is know who you are. And I think for a lot of years I knew who I was. Um, people knew that I, I'm not afraid to tell you what I'm thinking. Um, maybe I needed to have a filter sometimes on when I told people what I was thinking. Um, but that, that comes later in the who's you are kind of thing, right? And making those better choices about our words and what we say and when we say them. But, um, being truly authentic and knowing who you are, um, in the workplace, you're going to find yourself up in front of, walking beside, running along with, and sometimes opposing a lot of individuals with a lot of beliefs and backgrounds and thoughts and experiences that are different than yours.
Jason:Yep. Yep.
Danielle:Um, if, if you are easily swayed one way or the other, You're not truly bringing your whole self. So finding that ability to, to listen to others and understanding where you're coming from and finding that best possible solution out of both, man. I just think that that's the best thing that you can do. But I, the second one was no who's you are like, I. I also was tossed to and fro in the workplace until I truly figured out who I was in Christ and who he was in me and how he was leading through me.
Jason:Yeah. I think I, when you said no, no, who you are, I can, I, you know, I think back through leadership maturity for me and starting to understand more about myself and being comfortable with that. And like you said, not looking necessarily at other leaders that are different and saying, well, I gotta be like that, or I gotta be like this. Right. But being, I guess, growing comfortable with. Not, not complacent in our own growth and development, but knowing that God has wired you a certain way with certain skill sets and certain strengths and being okay with those and leveraging those and understanding, as you said, okay, I'm direct, that's good, but I can be harsh or I can be unsympathetic. Okay. How do I manage that? I'm not going to ever I'm not going to ever completely, you know, overcome that, but in some of the tools, right, the disc tools and the Myers Briggs tools, I mean, I'm a fan of, I can remember starting to learn more about, oh, wow, this is, yeah, I'm wired this way and not everybody's wired this way and that's okay. This is how, you know, the Lord made me.
Danielle:Yes. 100%. And you mentioned, you know, complacency, um, just a minute ago. And if you know who you are and whose you are, it ties right back in to that. Immeasurably more back into Ephesians three 20 and my life verse, um, immeasurably more means you're always growing. You're always changing. And those people at which you surround yourself with are going to be a big part of your growth trajectory. Um, I should know who said this, but you know, there's some great. Wise gentlemen somewhere who once said you are the combination of the five people you spend the most time with. Think about who you spend your time with in the business space. Are those people that you really want to be like? So surround yourself with people who are. Fueling you with the light of Christ and the knowledge of business. And they're not scared to intertwine on both. That's when some crazy cool dynamics happen and people start to lead and serve in ways that will just absolutely blow your mind.
Jason:Yeah. And you know, and that, especially as believers, right, that we're surrounding ourself with, that's why church is so important to have those, those five people I've heard that same. And I think there's a lot of truth to it that, you know, the church community and our close friends from our church and hopefully, and I'm, I'm very fortunate in that some brothers I serve with are also, um, leaders and they're out, you know, outside of church. We lead in church, but these are men who lead in the military, men who lead in the, in the workplace and to be able to talk about faith and work and how do we apply it together is, uh, it's huge. And it really, yeah, it's, Very, very much fuels and helps me grow as a, as a leader. And hopefully, you know, in my, in my service to Christ, what are your spiritual disciplines? How do you grow in sanctification? How do you stay close to the Lord? What are the things you do?
Danielle:Yeah. Um, first and foremost is I would,
Jason:I wed, I wed. What is that?
Danielle:every day.
Jason:Oh, okay.
Danielle:Yeah. We're back to the same guy again. That's a, that's a tagline, I guess, if you will, that Adam shared with our C12 forum. And it's something we all gravitated to. And, um, our, our founder of C12 Buck Jacobs also, I mean, he is, I mean, he just grills into us and everyone that he meets is that first hour. Is the most important hour. So if you feel like you need to wake up and do anything first, other than maybe go to the bathroom, that's okay.
Jason:Right. Brush your teeth. Go to the bathroom.
Danielle:don't, don't start swiping that phone. Don't start. And I'm, I'm guilty of that. I do that. But then I have to quickly reset myself to say, Hey, first things first. I need to get in the word. Um, I need to be thankful for all the blessings. Those count your blessings one by one. We all heard that so many years ago, but it still is incredibly true and relevant in our lives today. And finding ways for me through all of that is to truly lean on the Lord for show me what's in front of me today. I can be the one who's looking tomorrow, six months out next year. I'm quite the planner. Um, but to get rerouted back into Lord, who is it that you're putting in front of me today? That I need to lead and serve because you have put me here in this moment right now and equip me Make me ready. Let me see it make me willing to act on it and make me ready when it happens So first spiritual discipline I would say is is being that word every day And
Jason:couldn't agree more. I will tell you that over the years, I mean, I think I've been pretty consistently in the word for Quite a long time. Thanks to the Lord. He's, he's, he's put me in situations that forced me to do that. That's I, I'm a, I'm a thick headed person, but I'll say that for the last several years, um, I have changed my habit from evening to morning because in the evenings I just, I felt exhausted and I'm like, I'm just not, you know, it's just not, so I just forced myself to get up earlier. And it has been a game changer that first hour. And I, you know, and I, and I try to shoot for an hour of prayer and, and reading at least the chapter and yeah. And it, it doesn't happen every day and some days it's 30 minutes, but that I, I start the day that way and, and yeah, it's, uh, it's huge. So. Absolutely.
Danielle:that that you could read? a verse or a chapter today And you could read it a year ago and maybe in six months from now and maybe even tomorrow You know And it is going to speak differently to
Jason:yep.
Danielle:when you're truly have your heart and mind open and in tune to the Holy Spirit, it is, again, it amazes me. And, and I don't understand like the Lord, just like Danielle, immeasurably more than all you ask or imagine. Do I have to keep blowing your mind? I'm like, yes, you do. Please keep blowing my mind.
Jason:Yep. Yeah. I just finished Genesis. I'm in chapter four now of Exodus and of course, you know, read Genesis, right? I mean we read Genesis and we were kids over and over and yeah, you're right though. Different, different time in life, different application. You know, it's the same word, it's the same, it's the same information. It's the same inspired word, but you know, depending on where you're at the application and how he transforms you at that moment through that word is different. Uh, different leadership topics. So you, you might've hit on this earlier, but I always like to ask people who have been leading for a while. What was something that you struggled with early on as a leader? And what did you do to overcome it? Is it something you still struggle with? I've talked to leaders who are in their sixties and say, this is something I still, hardwired to do. So how have you managed it? How have you overcome it? Have you overcome it? So talk to us about that.
Danielle:that's, that's a good one. Um, I'm going to say leading up and you might hear a lot of people use the word managing up. It's that sounds a little manipulative to me, uh, managing up, but I would say it's, it's leading up and it's leading up and for me in two ways, it's the whole, gender thing really didn't matter to me because I was always surrounded by A group of men, whether it be in school or like I said, when I was tinkering in the garage with my dad, um, that really wasn't a thing for me, but learning how to lead up for people who are at a higher level than I, how do I appropriately lead up where I am fully respecting them and their position and their experiences. But also being true to me and the same, you know, being the same person all the time and, and, and being able to tell them why sometimes maybe their idea isn't the best idea. And here's other things that need to be considered. Um, so that one from a position leading up is one, um, but also leading up an age. So most of my career, the people that I was leading on my teams were older than
Jason:Yeah.
Danielle:Older, wiser, more experienced, different thoughts on all kinds of things. And, and both of those things as a young leader were things that I really had to soul search and figure out how I can do it. And how I can do it. Well, I remember I had a leader at Whirlpool once tell me I was headed out, um, into our sales organization and I was going to lead one of our sales teams and, um, there was probably, I don't remember now, nine or 10, 11, I don't know, um, field sales individuals who were all remote, who all would be reporting to me. And the only thing that they knew about me was this young chick up and Cummer at Whirlpool is now going to come lead us. And this leader told me, he said, in that first meeting, you literally have about 60 seconds for them to truly see who you are and have respect for why you were there. And that just really resonated with me to say, have the confidence. And where you have been called to lead and serve. And it was reminding me, Danielle, just because they're older, just because they have more experience, just because you're called to be here at this moment. So lean into that calling, get over yourself and figure out how you do it in ways that celebrate them, their experiences, their knowledge. But then also celebrate what you can bring to the table and the two of those things together. It's a much higher, greater opportunity and force than what either of you could have done alone. So that was really, I think, the, one of the things that I had to learn how to do. But, you know, you asked me, do I still struggle with it today? I do. Um, I mean, I've, I've never been the CEO of a company I've, aside from owning my C12 franchise, which now I can say that I'm a, a business owner. I never owned my own business yet. I am leading and serving CEOs and business owners. And there's times when I'm like, really publicly traded company. You want me to go talk to them, Lord? And again, he has to remind me. Yes, immeasurably more Danielle do it. You are called to be here right now. And, and go for it.
Jason:I can remember struggling with a manager that I had, and I had a really good mentor at the time, and he introduced me to this concept of yeah, managing up, leading up. I had never thought of it. I'm like, what does that even mean? He gave me an HBR article said, read that and we'll talk, and it was good. I still have that article too. It's like an old scanned copy on how to, and it's got good content, so that's good. No, I appreciate you saying that. I think that's That's it can be a big deal It can be a career staller derailer if you are if you don't have a good relationship with your manager and it takes you know being able to build that relationship and feel like that you're being heard and Having some some level of influence on them and you know, so yeah Hey, is you so you work with a lot of leaders from different industries? I mean you watch People and leaders. What do you think is a is a Like one of the most significant gaps in leadership that are, that just have a big detriment that you see quite often.
Danielle:I think that lack of authenticity that we've talked about, um, there's so many people that I have the opportunity to speak with today who are faithful followers of Christ and who lead and serve businesses and just don't understand how they can do both. There's this great fear of what can I, or can't I do from a legal perspective? And. I think that's one of the biggest gaps is for people to, to think that you have to be two separate people. It's back to being that one authentic being that the Lord made you to be. Um, and so finding a way to break down that barrier between the two worlds and finding the synergy. And living one life that's focused on one truth. I think if we could all do that, those gaps in business that we just talked about would probably go away.
Jason:Yeah. And as I've worked through that probably for the last 10 or 15 years, it's been a pretty incredible like saying how, yeah, I'm the same person, right? I mean, when I'm at work, when I'm at home, I am indwelled with the Holy Spirit. I'm a Christ follower. you know, there's some different objectives and different things, but that's who I am. And that's okay to be that at work. And, you know, and in fact you should, you should, that means you should be really, really good at what you do and really intense about it and you know, purposeful about it. And it's, there's so much, I think now I've read probably three or four books in the last six months that are on that topic and, and, and really trying to get people to understand that as Christians, We cannot see our, we cannot see our work as just a necessary evil. We cannot see our work as a, just a tangible thing that provides us an income. It is not, it is a calling. God has made us and wired us to go work and to do it really well and we should shine as an example. Whether, whatever you're doing, it doesn't matter what you're doing and God's put you in that place. So I could get on a soapbox. I've had several podcasts
Danielle:Please do. I love it.
Jason:well, I've had, you know, there'll be podcasts that have come out by NI by the time this one does. Where I've interviewed authors that have written on that, and it's just so important for believers to understand that and yeah. So,
Danielle:some fear in that as Christians, right?
Jason:yeah.
Danielle:Does that, does that mean you can make a mistake? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and celebrate your wins and celebrate and learn from your mistakes. And just because you're a Christian doesn't mean you've got it all together.
Jason:No, no.
Danielle:of fact, if you want to give this perception you've That you were that wonderfully put together business leader, father, mother, Christian church leader, everything all in one. And yee haw here I am. Well, then you're a liar.
Jason:That Amen.
Danielle:we need to go back to finding that true authentic self and be willing to say, Hey, I screwed up and that's okay. And when you do watch the reaction of others around you, And watch that circle of influence that you can have and watch others probably take a deep sigh to be like, okay, so Jason's not perfect. He, he is a real person. So yeah, maybe I do need to figure out what this thing that he calls faith and work is like, and maybe I do need to understand a little bit more about who's this God and how's this Holy Spirit thing come into the mix because. Maybe I can find myself in a way where I can be open and vulnerable and transparent and a leader and awesome and faithful in this beautiful, messy creation that shines God's light into the world.
Jason:And I think too, in those situations where people put on that appearance, cause it's an appearance, it, it intimidates people in that you won't have, there won't be some authentic relationships because they're not going to be vulnerable to you. Cause they're like this, this person's, there's no way that I'm going to tell this person about my whatever, because they are so perfect in all they do. If they believe it, I had, and, and I think as a believer, I had a great opportunity this week. I made a mistake. Was it yesterday? Day before I, I, it was an oversight on my part. And a guy in our shop was like, why didn't they do something? And we should have done it. I should have done it. I should have made a decision. It was on a safety issue. We were moving fast and we didn't, you know, we didn't do something. And, uh, he said something to somebody else and it got back to me and I went right out there and I apologized to him. I said, I should have, you're right. I should have. Done that thing that you said I should have done. And, you know, and he was, he shook my hand. He was like, thank you.
Danielle:Yeah. So powerful.
Jason:I think so. Yeah. Cause I'm like, I'm, I want to make sure that we, that guy knows that I, that we can have a trusting relationship and I'm an honest person who, yes, I make mistakes. And if I do, and when I do, I will be the first to admit it or try to be the first.
Danielle:Yes.
Jason:I had another question that I asked people, I'm going to ask this in a little different way, because your work is. fundamentally faith based, right? So the question I ask people is how do you honor Christ in your work? But tell me about, you know, kind of let's think back to your end of your career towards the time when you were nearing the end of your career at Whirlpool, like what did you try to do to honor Christ in your work? Like to, it sounds like you went through a transformation of, Hey, I don't want to be two people. I want to be Danielle Waugh, who's a Christ follower at work and at home. So, I mean, what were some things that you did there? That you look back on and you're like, I think I, I mean, I think I did that well.
Danielle:Yeah. I think it, uh, it was again, this mind shift for me and saying, you know what? I know the product. I know the brands. I know my team. I know the strategy. I know what we need to be doing. And I can trust and empower them to be doing that. I need to be shifting more to that vulnerable, authentic side to where I was starting to mentor more. And it wasn't mentor conversations of, Hey, look at me, see what I've done. How can I help you move from position A to B? But it was really more of the, Hey, let me come alongside of you. Who are you? What's your story? What do you want to do? What do you love about your work? How can I help you, you know, like, serve and explore and understand that? And really mentor in ways that gives the people the opportunity to share their story, to maybe explore what their calling is, because they might not even know. What that is. They may not even believe in that at that time. Right? So it was this shift in mindset for me to empower those who are doing the job to do it exceedingly well. And you still have to watch and manage and, you know, show results, right? I mean, that's just part of work. Like we don't, we don't do sloppy agape and whirlpool. We didn't do sloppy agape and C12, right? You've got to lead well, and you've got to drive results. Yeah. But that shift for me was mentoring the people to build them up so they can deliver and drive those results in ways that again, here we go. It's a measurably more, it happens all the time. It fits everywhere.
Jason:Uh, developing and pouring into people is the most rewarding part of leadership. And my, I think you would say the same thing. I look back at people that I helped mentor 10 years ago. I still get excited when I hear from them or see them, you know, on LinkedIn, whatever, growing, getting promoted. It's yeah, it's awesome.
Danielle:I agree. I agree.
Jason:Wait, yeah, the business results are fun, but not nearly as rewarding as people
Danielle:The people, the people's what matter.
Jason:Hey, who do you follow? For your own leadership development. Who do you listen to who's authors podcast books? Like what are some recommendations that you would encourage people to check out?
Danielle:Wow. Uh, there's so many of them that on the spot, I will never be able to pull them out. Um, NC12, the great thing is, is we have all these footnotes and the curriculum that we put out every month. So there is never a lack of, of knowledge and links that you can dive into and explore and swirl out on. Um, so when, when I don't need to be focused, I mean, I can dive into that stuff forever. But I mean, Craig Rochelle is one that continues to come back. I mean, there's just a lot of his wisdom and insights. Uh, Pat Lencioni. Is another one. Um, super excited about some of the things that we have coming up between him and C12 and how he's helping our team at HQ, who's then in turn helping us. So just some really cool things going. Um, both of those men, I think, speak in ways from the heart that really do define what is this thing we called faith and
Jason:Yeah, I just
Danielle:do we do it exceedingly? Well,
Jason:I just really, I love, Lencioni's books are phenomenal. I love his style and just the burns into your memory with the way he writes and summarizes. And I just found out he has a podcast. I didn't know that. And so I've been listening to his, yeah, his podcast Table Talk, I think, or is it something like that? Anyways, yeah, highly recommend. Read all his books, listen to anything he's got to say is full of wisdom. And he just summarizes these complex truths so well. God's given him a gift as a communicator
Danielle:Yes. 100%. Um, another one, you just had Jordan, um, Raynor on your, yep. Rain around there. Um, his, his, um, his book, and it also has a Bible study out on the U version of the Bible app. Um, the sacredness of secular work,
Jason:right. Yep. Yep.
Danielle:fabulous. And the, I literally, I mentioned to all of the members that I have the opportunity to serve. I was like, go out there. It's a five day. Study on the you version of the Bible app and then I bought them all a copy of the book and I was like now Read the book and then if you want to take a step forward and doing ministry in your workplace Hey, how about you take a swing at it? Use the you version of the Bible app and then give people in your workplace a copy of this book now Therefore you go and do like do this ministry element of your business as well. So that's a really great one, too
Jason:I bought a case of those books and gave them all away in like five days. And now we're doing, we're doing a study on it in our, we have a men's breakfast once a month at church, you know, group. And, uh, so we're, we're doing a study on his book this summer through the summer. So.
Danielle:Excellent
Jason:I love Jordan. He's a great guy. I couldn't believe
Danielle:more and
Jason:Go ahead.
Danielle:thing. Um, uh, the guy's name is Brandon West. I have to give him a plug. Um, he's a C12 member as well. He's, uh, down in Florida, I believe. Um, and he just recently released a book. It's called, It's Not Your Business to
Jason:You told me, you told me about this. It's not your
Danielle:Woo.
Jason:succeed. Yep. Yep.
Danielle:I'm telling you, I can squirrel out when I read. I really have a hard time focusing and retaining. So I take a pen and a paper in the book and I bend pages and I underline and I write in the margins. My book is a mess because of all of my scribbles and underlines and highlights and page turns. So, uh, if you're looking for one, uh, I found that one to be just, just largely impactful.
Jason:I have it queued up. I didn't read it yet, but I'm on a, I know you told me about that one recently. I'll have to try to get him on the podcast maybe at some point. Maybe a
Danielle:Oh, that would be great. And he is a great speaker. He's a fun guy to be around. Fabulous, faithful leader, lots of great stories.
Jason:Um, okay, let's say somebody comes to you, Danielle, young in their career, maybe a young female engineer. And she says, Danielle, I just got promoted to lead a team of engineers. What advice would you give someone that are just young and they're coming into a leadership role for the first time? What are some things you would, you would advise them to do or not do?
Danielle:Know who you are. Know who you are.
Jason:Yeah. How
Danielle:would be the first two things.
Jason:How would you, so let's say someone like that's moving out of an individual contributor role early, like first time supervisor, team lead, know who you are. How? Like, how do they do that? What, what tools, advice would you give them? Like, how do they better do that?
Danielle:Yeah, I think, um, the first thing is really, it goes back to that I wed time, um, in your journaling time. Um, go in and ask the Lord where he's calling you to be. These are things that I wish somebody told me when I was the 20 something female engineer going out into my first big job. I mean, I got a lot of attagirls and go get them and right. Changed the worlds, but I really didn't have anybody at that time in me to understand. The importance of the roles that I was going to be in and that it was going to be hard and in those hard times, yes, fine. The physical people around you find your peer group, find your mentors. They are going to help. You through the tough times, but I never had anybody else say, but seek the Lord first. And that's crazy because I grew up in Catholic schools, right? I did 12 years of Catholic education. I was surrounded by people all the time, but never did I have anybody at that young age in my life telling me to seek the Lord first and to have confidence in that. And that's honestly where, where I would lead first in any of these type of conversations, because if there's one thing. That I wish that I could have changed in my life is finding that true relationship with the Lord earlier than I did.
Jason:Yeah.
Danielle:And if there is one prayer that I have for my children is that they truly find a relationship with the Lord earlier than I did.
Jason:Yeah, no, same way. We have three, well, two adult, one, well, I guess he's 18, so he's an adult, and then two grandchildren, and that's my biggest prayer. That, like, everything else is nice to have, but I want him to walk faithfully with the Lord and, yeah, grow faster with Him than I did. Same way. I was, it was a slow process, so. Uh, last question for you. Connect with you. What's the best way to reach out, follow online, social media, whatever. How can they reach out to you? If they'd like to learn more about you, network with you or C12, if they're interested in learning about C12.
Danielle:So for me, um, jump out on LinkedIn, um, search for me out there, Danielle Waugh. Uh, I will pop right up. We also have a C12 West Michigan and Northern Indiana LinkedIn page as well. So you can go out and follow that. We share out a lot of stories from our members. We celebrate the members that we have the opportunity to serve on there. And we share a lot of the great resources that C12 has to offer. And in C12, if you're not on LinkedIn and you just want to go out and search that up, if you go to join C12. com, there are. Blogs, there's articles, there's posts, there's white papers. There's our strategic planning guide. There are tons of resources for Christian business leaders. So in C12, you know, we want to change the world by expanding the gospel in the marketplace. It doesn't say with C12 members. Yes. We would love to have more C12 members, but any Christian who is in the marketplace doing any work, like we talked about before, top of the top to the super entry level. You want to know how to lead well and serve well like a Christian in the workplace? We're gonna have something out there for you. So go out there and take a look at that and then our YouTube channel For c12 forums has a ton of great videos We again use our members as our heroes So there's member videos talking on just about any subject matter that you could imagine Business, faith, health, nutrition, all things. You will find great resources, great videos, um, great learnings out there as well.
Jason:Great. Good. No, we'll, and we'll link to that. I'll link to that in the show notes and, uh, both on, we have YouTube and then on our podcast. So thank you for taking time off the water, uh, to join me today from the boat for those watching this on the video, get to see that. But if you're audio only, yeah, Danielle's on beautiful Lake Michigan here. And, uh, yeah, springtime, it is gorgeous. I love Michigan and spring and fall. I love summer too, but yeah,
Danielle:absolutely amazing. Um, I do have one test for you.
Jason:go
Danielle:You've never seen my boat. You have no idea what the name of my boat is, but after talking to me today, what would you think the name of this boat might
Jason:Oh, and measurably more.
Danielle:right
Jason:Ah, see? So now you know. Where do you, where do you guys, uh, where do you dock at? Where do you kind of keep it at? Is it over in, uh, Benton Harbor area
Danielle:St, St. Joe Benton Harbor, um, at the end at Harbor Shores. Yeah. Beautiful, beautiful facility. That's where we run our St. Joseph Forum as well. So it works out perfect for me. I generally camp out here on the boat the night before, and I just get to walk up there to the boardroom and lead and serve. Well, our C12 forum that meets here once a month. It's super cool.
Jason:So for listeners who are from the area, if you're over, I know many of us, I love to go to my wife and I hit South Haven in the summer. That's our, that's our kind of our lakes, Lake town, but I'm sure there's some, I know there's some who hit St. Joe. So if you're ever over in St. Joe in the summer and down by the boats, if you see a measurably more look around, maybe Danielle and her husband are out there. So,
Danielle:Give me a shout out. Come by and say hi. We would love it.
Jason:All right. Well, thank you, sister, for your time and your wisdom. Thank you for the service that you are giving us. In the name of Christ to business leaders. I think it's, uh, I love it. I love the, this movement that's happening and, um, seeing people influence the marketplace for the glory of Christ. So thank you for that. It was a great having you on today. Thank you.
Danielle:Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on and for what you're doing and how you're leading and serving this way. Um, so getting more folks exposure
Jason:Yeah,
Danielle:to real Christians doing real work in the marketplace is incredibly powerful. So thank you for doing what you're doing as well.
Jason:good. Thank you. And thank you for joining us. Once again, this month, as we hear from another faithful leader, striving to honor Christ in their work. Please be sure to rate and review the show as it helps others to find us. And we'll see you over here again next month.
