Allison Hambrick:
Hello and welcome to this episode of ASHRAE Journal podcast live from the AHR Expo in Las Vegas. My name is Allison Hambrick, assistant editor at ASHRAE Journal. I'm joined by my co-host Linda Rathke. Linda, how are you today?
Linda Rathke:
I'm fantastic, and I'm really excited to have Karine Leblanc and Nancy Kohout with us today to discuss skills for effective leadership in STEM fields as well as the Women in ASHRAE initiative. Woo-hoo! Starting with Karine, can you tell us more about what you do in the ASHRAE world and what brings you to the AHR Expo?
Karine Leblanc:
Hi Linda. Thank you for asking. Well, guess what? All my friend thinks I work for ASHRAE. I always talk about ASHRAE. I post my picture about ASHRAE, my stories about ASHRAE, and they're like, "So do you still work for ASH...? And they don't know how to pronounce it, so it's so funny. So I do have a real job besides ASHRAE volunteer work, and thank God that job supports me in what I do for ASHRAE and also the AHR Expo. So thank you. So what I do as far as a living is I'm a regional equipment sales manager for Daikin Applied. So I basically bridge the gap between the factory and the reps. So I just help them. And as far as ASHRAE, what I do is I'm on the nominating committee. I'm also the vice chair of honors and awards and also have been a distinguished lecturer since 2017. So lot of presentation to, over, I would say, at least over 130 presentation in over 17 countries. So a lot of ASHRAE presentation globally.
Linda Rathke:
Wow, thank you. How about you, Nancy?
Nancy Kohout:
Yeah, so in my day job I work for Smith Group as a senior principal MEP leader in the Chicago office. Smith Group is an architecture and engineering firm with offices across the U.S. And as far as ASHRAE goes, I was involved very early in my career. I think I was the membership chair or something of my chapter. This is back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, so I don't even remember. And then I had a very busy career and I had four children. And so I kind of fell away from ASHRAE for a little while. And it wasn't until I took my job at Smith Group about eight years ago when my new boss said, "So you're a member of ASHRAE, right?" And I was like, "Absolutely." And I re-signed up right then.
But I've been super involved ever since and I'm currently the Illinois ASHRAE chapter president and co-chair with Karine of the Women in ASHRAE Leadership Symposium. In fact, we thought of it together, so we're super excited about that. Also, ASHRAE Decarbonization Conference Steering Committee member last year and this year, and I'm on the Technical Committee 6.8, which is ground source heat pumps and heat recovery, the handbook chair for that chapter. And I think that's about it for ASHRAE.
Linda Rathke:
Wow. That's fabulous. So can I address both of you about this? What lights you up about leadership in the STEM and HVAC space?
Karine Leblanc:
Well, what lights me up, I am an engineer. So solving problems are really what lights me up, especially if it's complicated and if I have a customer saying, "Hey, Karine, I cannot find it," and I can help that person, whoo, that lights me up. But really in my core, besides solving problems, what really lights me up is when I see a good leader. When I see a good leader that is very smart because I'm very impressed by smart people. But when I see a good leader that has also have those human skills, wow. I'm always impressed and I want to follow that person and I want to be with them and it's so rare. So that's also another part.
Nancy Kohout:
I would say for me, I learned my leadership skills by observing what it was I didn't want to be as a leader. I think getting a degree in engineering, you have a certain level of intelligence and competence technically, and you don't necessarily develop those human skills that allow you to lead. I'm a very people-centered person. I consider myself a servant leader of the people that work for me. I absolutely love to identify the strengths in people and help position them to live their strengths and see the potential that they have. So I'm very passionate about leadership and very passionate about—that kind of extrapolates to making a place a bigger place for women in our industry just by its nature. I know what my experience was starting in this career 30 years ago, and I want to make a different place, a place I wish I had then. And I think it's changing by the day.
Allison Hambrick:
Well, that actually brings us to our next point pretty well. ASHRAE is full of brilliant technical minds. So why are human skills the real advantage?
Karine Leblanc:
Why are human skills more interesting, more competitive?
Allison Hambrick:
Competitive?
Karine Leblanc:
Oh wow. I like to say that we hire people for their technical skills, but then we keep the people for the human sides or we provide promotion because of their human side. We give them more options, we give them more influence opportunities because of those human skills. We used to hire solely on those IQ, but we would forget that you can have the smartest person in the world, but if nobody wants to work with them, what's the point? And this applies not only in the technical skills, but it can apply in sales. You can have the best product in the world, but if nobody wants to buy from you, who cares what you're selling.
Linda Rathke:
Exactly.
Karine Leblanc:
So this is what I would say.
Nancy Kohout:
And I think leading teams, it's important to understand the people that are on your team, what they need to be successful. In any team building you typically will have also a client that you're trying to serve the needs of. You can be the smartest engineer, but if you can't explain to the CFO who is not an engineer, why they should implement a geothermal system and save energy, if you cannot take the technical and translate it to tell me why I care, then you won't be successful in our industry. And you can be so smart and you can be solving the wrong problem if you don't have the communication skills to understand for the team what direction you need to go. So leadership is huge for success.
Allison Hambrick:
Well, what does leadership look like in 2026 for STEM professionals and what are the biggest gaps in human skills that you're seeing across the industry?
Karine Leblanc:
I'm seeing a switch. I don't know about you, Nancy, but I'm changing. I'm seeing some changes. It used to be from top down and you were kind of told what to do. Now I'm feeling more support, more opportunities for women to lead. It's still not perfect, I have to say, but at least the awareness is there. I think that's the biggest thing. If we're aware, then at least no excuse, we know that we need it. And I see a lot of more support between women. I don't know about you Nancy, but I see that I used to show up in a board—
Nancy Kohout:
For each other.
Karine Leblanc:
Yeah, for each other. So I would show up at a board meeting years ago, and I didn't really feel that really warm from other female. And I was thinking, Ooh, okay, now you show up and you're like, "Hi, welcome. Come over. Do you need help?" I see a huge difference. So I think it's a positive thing.
Nancy Kohout:
Well, I would say just to play on that, there's a shift from scarcity to abundance and as the number of women in our industry rise, we don't have the feeling that there can only be one at that boardroom table. And that allows us to be more collaborative and supportive and elevate each other. I don't really want to push upon women why it was that way. I think it's more the environment that they're working within. And I think in any ways, and certainly in leadership, we demonstrate by example what success looks like. So yeah.
Linda Rathke:
I want to ask you if you can give us an example of when emotional intelligence comes into play as you're working with engineers in the HVAC industry.
Nancy Kohout:
Oh my goodness. Every single day. Let's talk about this. Emotional intelligence—
Karine Leblanc:
It's excited.
Nancy Kohout:
... So critical for success. I think as engineers we are wired to look at the facts and be like, "Well, what do you mean they're wrong? It doesn't matter." But at the end of the day, if someone feels cheated or they feel like you did a bad job or they feel unhappy, how they feel is probably more important than what the actual reality is. And so reading that room and understanding that about your, I'm going to say client, understanding that they're frustrated and they don't feel like they got what they wanted. And having empathy for that and an attitude of I'm going to lose the battle maybe to win the war is really important taking a long term goal. Because if you choose to die on that hill because somebody's wrong, you're not going to maintain a long-term relationship for success.
And so I think that's really important. And as a leader of people, it's just so important to check in. Not everybody has the communication skills or is proactive to communicate how they feel, but to attract and retain great employees, you need to check in with them. "How's it going? Are you feeling good? Is there anything else that you need?" You make them feel empowered and that their input is valued. So all of those things come from emotional intelligence and are critical to success.
Karine Leblanc:
Do I really need to add, I just want to add something quick because that was very good Nancy. For me, example of emotional intelligence usually happen where we are under pressure. Because everybody has great emotional intelligence when everything goes well and then something happened and you're like, "Ooh, we really see who's having good emotional intelligence." So you either get that email that is super aggressive, that is mean, bold letter, exclamation point, and you're like, "Oh, okay. That's an example of a lack of emotional intelligence." Or you may see the other way around. You see a salesperson, a design engineer keeping their calm when there is a situation. So you have both of this, but it's present. Like Nancy said, it's every day.
Nancy Kohout:
FYI, when you get that email in all bold, it's time to pick up the phone.
Linda Rathke:
God, these are great answers. And so on point. I mean they span the spectrum of so many industries and professions.
Karine Leblanc:
Absolutely.
Linda Rathke:
So let me ask you this, where can companies start if they want to build better people leaders and not just technical experts?
Karine Leblanc:
Training, training, training. It's almost like location, location, location. Training, training, training. Awareness. Providing a safe space as well is a big deal. When you're afraid of asking question or you're afraid of speaking up, it's difficult. So if it's safe, then it's easier and then you get trained of what to do. Don't expect everybody to just, hey, you go learn emotional intelligence. And the best way I think Nancy said, it is by example.
I just mentioned that what lights me up is when I see a very, very smart leader also being a human leader. Well, when you see that, you mimic them, you're learning from them. It's almost like a parent. And I actually had a customer who was a little bit disrespectful towards me, and that was a young engineer, 24-year-old. And after talking to him, I realized that, oh, I know it's my manager. And after talking to him, he's like, "Well, my manager talked to me like that." And I'm like, "Okay, so do you like it?" And he says, "Well no." And I'm like, "Well, why do you do it to me?" But he's young, he's just out of college and this is what he experienced every day and this is how he sees manager act. So even if you're saying "No, I'm not going to be like that," it's always you see it every day. So I think, yeah, that would be the best way for me,
Nancy Kohout:
I think to demonstrating vulnerability makes a safe space. So I'm an engineer. I will tell my team, "Oh, I made that mistake before and this is what happened." I make it a comfortable place for people to admit that they don't know everything because I show that I don't know everything and I'm always learning. So I think that's part of it. I think having a skill set to disarm. So sort of landing in a situation where someone's really being a jerk and being like, "Hey listen, are you okay? Is something wrong today?" Starting to just kind of give people the benefit of the doubt. One way in which I might communicate is something like, "I'm sure you didn't mean to say it like this, but that made me feel like this."
So that's kind of not accusatory to someone, it's giving them the benefit of the doubt. It's saying, I know you and I know you don't mean to behave this way and I just want to let you know. I think soliciting input could not be stressed enough. Making your team at any level and any level of experience feel like their input is valuable to the overall success is huge. When people feel empowered, they give more and they take more initiative because they feel like their input matters.
Allison Hambrick:
Well, you may have already answered this, but I was going to say, if you could teach only one human skill to every engineer, what would it be and why?
Karine Leblanc:
Well, for me, I don't know about you Nancy, but for me my most important one is self-awareness. You don't know what you don't know. And it's proven that 85% of the people don't actually know how they're feeling. So if you don't know how you're feeling, how are you supposed to control your emotions? So I think that's the most important one. If there is one skill that you need is self-awareness. That's the most important one.
Nancy Kohout:
And I'm going to say communication. And I tell a lot of times to my engineers so much, probably 95% even of the technical problems I solve, come down to communication. And so I will tell some people who struggle to communicate, I'll be like, "Pretend I'm your mom, tell me about your day. Tell me everything. Say more. More is more. Not less is more. When in doubt, tell me again." So I think communication can help solve so many of the problems that we have, but I definitely all over self-awareness too Karine. Very good point.
Allison Hambrick:
Okay, so I am going to shift gears a little bit, but how is leadership different specifically for female STEM professionals and what changes are you seeing for women in leadership across the HVAC industry?
Karine Leblanc:
I don't know about you Nancy, but sometimes I feel like women in leadership, we kind of need to prove ourselves. And I don't know, I've seen it, even me, I'm like, "Oh wait, wait a second. It's like what are you doing here? You know your stuff so you don't need to prove yourself."
Nancy Kohout:
And I think there's an extra lift for women. I think Julia had mentioned it earlier today at the Women at ASHRAE breakfast, women are seen as nurturers. Women are seen as sensitive and caring and qualities that contribute to success in the business world are strong, decisive, competent, and they're different than caring, thoughtful, gentle. So we're being held to a standard of what success looks like, but we have to walk a line and also be loving and sensitive and nurturing. It's kind of like the Barbie speech.
Allison Hambrick:
That's exactly what I was thinking, Nancy.
Nancy Kohout:
And I think we have a lot of men in our audience today, love having all of you here. Having empathy to realize that women have a second lift that is expected of them by the nature of them being women, I think, is great to understand and to realize.
Linda Rathke:
I'm interested to know what role has ASHRAE played in shaping your growth as women in a technical field?
Karine Leblanc:
Personally, I would never be the person I am without ASHRAE. Seriously, ASHRAE has changed my life. A lot of people know my story, but I come from Quebec City, I only spoke French and I moved to California and I have no friends, no family, I didn't speak English. And the first thing I did was to basically join ASHRAE, the local chapter. And they were so welcoming. They became my family, my community. And that really made a difference. ASHRAE not only shaped or provided that community but also provided me leadership skills. Because let me tell you, when you're a leader in a company, people have to follow you. They're paid to follow you, you don't even need to be good. But when you're a leader in a volunteer organization like ASHRAE, oof! People, they have many things they can do. They don't need to follow you.
So when you work through the rank, you become like ASHRAE chapter president or regional vice chair or you chair a committee. You need to lead a lot of people that don't need to follow you. So you really need to influence them. So I learned all my leadership skills through ASHRAE and now the beauty of it is my company benefits of all of these and didn't have to provide any training. So ASHRAE is a big deal. Seriously, it's huge in my life.
Nancy Kohout:
So I kind of feel like I'm a little bit the flip side because I really was hunkered down and focused on, I worked and I was hunkered down focused on my family. I didn't spend a lot of time with ASHRAE, but I did spend a lot of time developing my leadership skillset. And I think my recent involvement in ASHRAE allows me to come in with a perspective that doesn't have a fixed mindset like "Well what if we did this?" And I really feel like my lack of experience with ASHRAE, but leadership skills and then Karine's heavy involvement in ASHRAE was the right mix to create the Women in ASHRAE Leadership Symposium. Because I wasn't set by what was done before because I didn't even know. And she knew how to navigate the society to create something new. And so that was really special.
I would say I can't agree more about the leadership of volunteers. If you can lead volunteers and they like being a part of your team, you can lead anywhere. Because you don't have the same clout, you don't have the same ability to get people to do things when you're leading volunteers. So if you can get them to do it in volunteers, you're going to be a great boss at work. So I think there's that. And then I would just say I feel called to share my years of experience in leadership and help benefit ASHRAE right now. So I mean ASHRAE is wonderful. I'm happy to be back in. I'm a little jealous when Karine talks about her involvement because I'm kind of sad I didn't stay involved.
Karine Leblanc:
Status of your training.
Linda Rathke:
All right, along the same line, what advice do you have for women wanting to take on or navigate bigger roles in STEM organizations?
Karine Leblanc:
What advice do you have, Nancy?
Nancy Kohout:
I would say I like to go second. Have you noticed this theme? I like you go to first always. I would say be the leader that you wish you had. And I coach people all the time for this. Because I have people who work for me who are developing their leadership skills and if they become too micromanaging or something, I'm like, "Be the leader you wish you had." So I think that's one piece of advice I would give for women. I also would always say sit at the table. I think by our nature and by what society expects women to be, is to defer to other people and be thoughtful and sit in the back row and make room for other people. And so I think to have success as a leader, there's an element of assertiveness that you need to engage in to put yourself out there to show that you have interest, to make a space for yourself.
Karine Leblanc:
I would say the advice I would have is to speak up. Speak up. Don't be that person that after the meeting you're like, "Oh, you say it in the meetings," or somebody, I'm like, "Can you please say that during the meeting?" Speak up not only for you, but if you see something that happened to somebody else, speak up right away. And if you don't speak up and it's something bad happened or that is not okay, it'll happen again because you let it go. So speak up is a big deal.
I would also recommend or advise to believe in yourself and you are good enough. It doesn't have to be perfect. Don't wait to have all the skills to apply for a role that you want. It's okay. You are enough. Believe in yourself and if you think you're at 70%, go for it. I feel like sometimes we really want to be 100%. "Whoa, I got, I need all those box to be checked." Well if you do that, then we would never have a seat at the table because maybe other people don't do that. So that would be my advice.
Nancy Kohout:
I think I'm going to pile on. I think also disarming a situation is important. Being able to communicate in a gentle way what needs to be said, like saying it Karine, but making it feel comfortable that no one's perfect, I think is a way to deliver your message that it's better received.
Allison Hambrick:
Well. Absolutely. Now you guys did start something really special that we've touched on. So tell us about the Women in ASHRAE Leadership Symposium. What makes it so special and what will participants walk away with?
Karine Leblanc:
Oh my god, I'm so excited about this symposium. It's about time you guys talk about this. So the symposium is going to be the least expensive symposium or conference you're going to ever attend with the most value. Who doesn't want that? I'm like, "Hello!" The conferences are so expensive now and we are providing it to you at the low cost with the high value. Now what makes it so special? First of all, it's a woman symposium. So for once it's going to be all women together and there is something special about being all together. And what I want to mention is sometimes what I've heard from other women saying, "Karine, well when we have women a conference or event, it's always about soft skills like we're not technical or we're not smart." And I was like, "Hmm... That's a good point. So let's fix this." So we fixed this, not me, but the committee. And we are putting 50% of the breakout for soft skills and the other 50% is technical.
So we're going to have two breakouts at the same time. We're going to have 14 breakouts total. So 7/7. And each of them you have a choice. You can go to that soft skills or you can go to that technical skills. So how wonderful is that? And lastly, why it's so amazing and everybody needs to go. It's because of the networking. Last year we've heard it, we didn't have enough networking opportunities that the participant felt like they didn't have that opportunity to really connect. They had to go to another one, go to another one. So this year we listened and we read the survey and we added extra time between every breakout. We made sure also that we're going to have fun, not only the work or the learning. And we have three amazing keynote speakers. And so the topics are going to be amazing.
Nancy Kohout:
I would say too, the last one that we had was probably one of the most inclusive experiences I've had with ASHRAE. It was literally women at the late end of their career, people just starting, all really there to support each other. It was super collaborative. It was just such a love fest I want to call it. I also want to highlight that anyone who's interested in elevating and bolstering women's involvement in HVAC is invited. Men are invited. We love to have people who care about women's success in ASHRAE at this conference. And it was just really, really special. It's kind of an investment in yourself at any level of a career. Late in my career, like I am, I feel like it's my gift back to young engineers. As a young engineer, it's a great investment in yourself. Networking, connectivity, mentors, sponsors, advice. We're all here for you. Be there or be square.
Allison Hambrick:
Well actually that is, well maybe not the last be there, be square part, but otherwise that's a perfect segue into what I was going to ask you next, which is why do representation and community matter so much in engineering and HVAC?
Nancy Kohout:
I think people have said it, you can't be what you can't see. You walk into a room, you look at the board of directors, you look at the leaders in a company and just so you all know, women always look to see who's the leader in a company. So when you want to recruit women and you don't have any women in your leadership, think again, figure out who has that skill set or who has that potential that you can help develop to put in that place because representation matters. I will tell you mechanical engineering is 9% women. And I think HVAC is like 5% women or something according to Julia's statistics today. I know when last I counted, I had like 60% women on my team and it's literally nothing to do with me trying to hire women. It's because women want to work where they see women in leadership. So that's why representation matters
Karine Leblanc:
For me, ASHRAE is my family and I love to pick up the phone and ask my friend anywhere in the world for a technical question or anything else, but I have my family, so it's so important. I know that no matter what, they have my back. And like Nancy said, I also zoom in to see if there is a new woman in the leadership when they take those photos. And I'm not shy to say, "Yeah, nice photo. So where are the women in this photo?" Oh, it's coming. Always like an excuse, right?
Nancy Kohout:
I do. I know I always want to call out “manels,” that's a panel with only men, but I try to curb myself a little bit. Diversity doesn't happen accidentally. Diversity is thoughtful. Having diverse perspectives in anything is a thoughtful consideration. Because the default is to pick someone like you. So we have to expand and say, "Who is not represented here and who can I bring along? Who else can we include in this conversation panel, etc?"
Linda Rathke:
Well, with that, I mean tell us where can people find out and learn more about Women in ASHRAE Leadership Symposium and get involved?
Karine Leblanc:
Well, it's pretty easy: ashrae.org. And you can just type in the search Women in ASHRAE Leadership Symposium. And by the way, have we mentioned the date? I think it's kind of important. So April 13th and 14th, 2026 because this is going to be recorded and people are going to listen to it like years later and they're going to be, "I want to go," but it's okay because we're planning to have that every year. So April 13th, 14th, and we're kicking off with the cocktail welcome party on Sunday the 12th. And we have a theme, it's a black and white party, so it's going to be fun. The Monday morning with yoga session, Monday night Dodgers game. So it's going to be a lot of fun and a lot of networking.
Nancy Kohout:
Tuesday night, happy hour at Smith Group if you're staying late and it's in Los Angeles and we would love to have everyone there. And if you have any questions, look me up on LinkedIn, look up Karine on LinkedIn, we're here for you. We want you to have success and find a way to get there.
Linda Rathke:
It's fantastic. Can you both tell us what was one powerful moment from the last symposium that sticks with you?
Nancy Kohout:
I think just seeing women of all ages and experiences sitting together, collaborating, mixing and matching, networking. Someone came up to me and told me, and this was probably one of the most moving things for me, because I actually found ASHRAE intimidating when I got re-involved, that they had never experienced something that felt so inclusive. They came by themselves. They felt like embraced, shepherded and connected. So I guess that was maybe my "Aha!" Moment
Karine Leblanc:
For me was to hear everybody brag about it. Everybody texting me, sending me photo, like "Karine, the conference is amazing. The keynote speaker is amazing." And everybody wanting to do it again. So I think that's a good sign.
Linda Rathke:
Absolutely.
Karine Leblanc:
Absolutely.
Allison Hambrick:
Well, I am going to bring it a little bit more broad, but in one sentence only, what is your hope for the future of ASHRAE and for the industry at large?
Karine Leblanc:
I can say for me it's very easy. I'm just hoping that we can be more human in a technical world. This is the title of my book. That's my passion. This is my dream that we have both, because when you have both, this is where the magic happens.
Nancy Kohout:
What she said.
Linda Rathke:
All right, this is time for my favorite question.
Karine Leblanc:
Woo!
Linda Rathke:
Yes. If you could time travel, what would you tell your younger self as she embarked on her career? I think you kind of touched on it earlier, but I want to fully ask that question.
Nancy Kohout:
Well, I would tell my younger self to stay involved in ASHRAE because it's such a great network and opportunity for your career. Everything Karine said, I feel like I missed out on by having some time away. So that's what I would tell my younger self.
Karine Leblanc:
I would tell my younger self, keep doing what you're doing, volunteer. What I've noticed is people love ASHRAE, but the people actually volunteer are not that many. Yes, we do have many, but I think this is where the difference-maker happened. It's not just attending a conference. It is participating, right? Giving. Because the more you give, the more you receive. And I think that's the best way I would explain. What was the question?
Linda Rathke:
If you could time travel, what would you tell yourself?
Karine Leblanc:
Oh yeah, time travel. Jesus.
Nancy Kohout:
Keep doing what you're doing. You were telling yourself to keep doing what you're doing.
Karine Leblanc:
And I would also tell myself, stop trying so hard. You are good enough. That would be really my important one.
Nancy Kohout:
And maybe don't judge yourself by the frame of others. Leadership is authentic to each person. And leadership styles are not the same from one person to another. So you have to find your own path. And I think that starts with loving and accepting your strengths and figuring out what your own style of leadership is.
Allison Hambrick:
That was amazing. Well thank you ladies. We actually would like to open the floor for any questions that people have. There is a microphone over there, so—
Nancy Kohout:
Don't be shy.
Allison Hambrick:
It just takes somebody to get the ball rolling.
Nancy Kohout:
Go girl.
Beth:
I'm pushing the ball now. Hi.
Karine Leblanc:
Hi.
Beth:
I'm starting to interact with clients on a daily basis and those will be male engineers with all of the power over what work we're doing. And they are used to dealing with male engineers who are aggressive, confident, assertive. And I'm over here, more empathetic, more calm-minded and we're not communicating well. They don't seem to respect what I have to say in the same, "Okay, yes, you said it, I believe you," kind of way. They're looking for that well, male approach in many ways and I'm not sure how to cross that barrier. Internally, makes sense. Build some relationships, but with the client it's a little bit more difficult. Advice?
Karine Leblanc:
What's your name?
Beth:
Beth.
Karine Leblanc:
Beth. That's a great question. Wow, Nancy.
Nancy Kohout:
So I'll speak from the standpoint of being one of those engineers. I think what I value in–Are you in sales? Okay. What I value in someone that is trying to support me in some way or another when I'm their client, is one, responsiveness. So if I need something, they get me the answer. I don't care if they know all the answers, I care that they're like, "Absolutely I need to check on that thing. I'll get back to you." And then I think whenever you're working with someone, it's build the relationship first, build the personal relationship, get to a point where you feel comfortable and that you have a relationship. Because whenever you have a relationship with someone, they're going to want to be more receptive to who you are. And then speak with confidence. Build up your confidence, make sure you feel confident. Don't apologize if you don't know something, just be like, "I'll look into that." So I think those kinds of things make somebody give you more of the benefit of the doubt.
Karine Leblanc:
On my side, I would say it's good to have an ally. A one person. So if it's a group of people, you may be more open with one person, just have a one-on-one and just have a conversation. Maybe be more vulnerable and say exactly what you just said. Because I feel like in group you're always so tough, but when you're on one-on-one, you see the softer side. And I've seen this, I've seen in my role dealing with in meetings and I'm like, oh my God. And then I would go and talk one-on-one, I'm like, "Oh, he's just human. It's a front." They want big ego or they want to be tough or something like that.
So after that, then you have that person who has your back or your corner who understanding then that person will change also the tone and maybe the way they talk to you. So the other people will also do it. But you just need one person, only one. I always believe in speaking the truth and being open. I don't keep stuff. I would rather say it than because otherwise you are the one hurting. You think that they are hurting? Absolutely not. They do business every day. And for you, why would you suffer? No way. We need to fix that yesterday.
Nancy Kohout:
I think sometimes you can soften it with humor. You can be like, "It hurts my feelings. I know what I'm doing." You have to kind of judge the person. I think that one ally is a person you can strategize with. Who is this person? What makes them tick? How can I best approach them? So I think those are some things that can help you. You're not going to be a man, you're not going to approach it like a man. So it's just figuring out how you authentically with your strengths can best approach that personality type.
Karine Leblanc:
Does it help?
Allison Hambrick:
To that point, of course the floor is still open. But I will say one quick thing to y'all, which is that I actually think that reinforces part of what you said about having safe spaces too, because you're talking about having safe spaces with people within your own team, but then that's also part of the function of women in ASHRAE and having that broader network. So even having a support system outside of your work would probably be beneficial to you.
Nancy Kohout:
But inside of your industry, right?
Allison Hambrick:
Yes.
Nancy Kohout:
There's somebody in ASHRAE that's doing the same thing and having the same problems.
Karine Leblanc:
And if it's a new team, it may be also more obvious, but the more they know you, then it may also improve. But it can be the opposite too, if they're already dealing with you like that, and then it may be worse. So there is the two side of it.
Nancy Kohout:
I think sometimes being like, "Hey, can we have a reset? I really want to support you for success and I feel like this isn't going great." Just something like that. "I want to help you and I want to help us be successful working together. It doesn't feel like it's going great. What can we adjust here?" Just like that. But maybe in a smaller thing, not in a room with five of those people from your client, but with one.
Karine Leblanc:
Easy to say that, right?
Allison Hambrick:
Okay. Well again, floor is open. So—
Karine Leblanc:
Any other questions? It would be good to have a question from a guy, a man?
Nancy Kohout:
Yeah.
Karine Leblanc:
Your perspective.
Allison Hambrick:
We're going to put you on the spot.
Karine Leblanc:
Andy, why don't you go to the mic and tell us. Ask us a question. Andy, you're from Florida, you're working with women, tell us?
Nancy Kohout:
You're a Florida man.
Andy:
Ask you a question?
Karine Leblanc:
Yes. Or a perspective or how is it to work with us?
Andy:
I have to say this has been by far the best event I've seen today. So well done. And congratulations guys.
Nancy Kohout:
Ah, shucks Andy.
Karine Leblanc:
See, I knew you needed to talk!
Andy:
I don't really have a question, but I agree with the stat. In my industry, in our company, we only have like 3% women in the senior executive role, which is disappointing. And I'd love to work more with women. My favorite bosses have been females most of the time. So yeah, bring it on, ladies.
Nancy Kohout:
All right, thanks Andy.
Ruby:
Hi, I have a question. My name is Ruby and I wanted to see what advice we would give to women going into the industry because it is very intimidating. And my dad has a company and one day, I started to work with him to one day take over. But again, it seems like all the sales teams or contractors don't want to speak to me. They double check with him. So I want to know what advice would you give me since I'm starting out and how to, I guess, feel more secure in the role or how to grow in the industry so that one day I can lead as well.
Nancy Kohout:
I had a friend who, I worked for an architecture and engineering firm, she happened to be an architect, before she went to a project interview she would go in the bathroom and stand really tall and put her arms above her head and take up space. I think part of it is hyping yourself to be the person that you can be, projecting confidence, recognizing that your unique contribution perspective and set provides value. Diversity makes things better. The top quartile of companies with diverse leadership outperforms the bottom quartile by 39% financially. You contributing to your company is a financially good proposition.
So just remember unrelated to anything else, diverse perspective has value. You as a woman are probably good at different things and have a different perspective. So I think just knowing that about yourself and believing in yourself is important and you grow that over time. You grow confidence over time. So to our kind of answers to Beth earlier is sort of strategizing for success, taking particular moments and sort of picking them apart later to figure out could I have approached this differently? Building your network, getting input from your network on how to adjust. Those are some things that I think of to help you have success, but it sure is intimidating to walk in a room of all men as the only woman.
Karine Leblanc:
I would say, I would ask the question to you, is it because you're new? Is it because you don't have a lot of experience or it's because you're female? Because I feel like if I would get somebody else, right? Well, you can answer that question.
Ruby:
Oh, I think it might be both. But I've been working a year with him and I've only met one other woman in the sales teams that I have worked with. And in the contractors two, but they're kind of not in the higher levels of leadership, they're more like the secretaries. So I think they see us as just the base of the company, but not as someone who I want to be to own the company and be the contractor myself.
Karine Leblanc:
Prove them wrong.
Nancy Kohout:
And I think you are new, so give it some time. Build your competence, which will build your confidence. It's hard to join anything new. And it's also hard when everyone automatically thinks you're the secretary. So you got a couple of things going there. So I think build your network outside of the company through something like ASHRAE. And then also just continue to strategize, to regroup, to think again about how you might adjust. Be careful not to be too apologetic. Take up space, sit at the table.
Ruby:
Thank you guys, I appreciate it.
Allison Hambrick:
Okay, well one more call for questions. I know it sounds like we're bullying you now. Otherwise, I would say, what parting thoughts do you have? What do you want people to take away from this? And I know we've gotten to the root of a lot of things, but as we're summing up.
Nancy Kohout:
I think we've come a long way, but we still have a long way to go. And I guess for me, one of the biggest things I do, and I'm 53 years old, is I consider myself a lifelong learner. And I don't think I ever know all the answers. I'd love to continue the discourse and discussion on what leadership, great leadership can look like and what we can learn. Some favorite sort of influencers, I'll say that I follow: Adam Grant, Simon Sinek, Mel Robbins, Brene Brown, have such amazing insights and that kind of helps me continue to shape and grow my leadership skills all the time. And Karine, sorry, did I add her to one of my influencers?
Karine Leblanc:
Well, the answer to my question, all the answers are going to be at the Woman in ASHRAE leadership Symposium.
Nancy Kohout:
So don't miss it.
Karine Leblanc:
I'm sorry. You're just going to have to come and attend.
Linda Rathke:
April 13th and 14th.
Nancy Kohout:
We can't reveal.
Karine Leblanc:
We are what? We're February 2nd, 2026. We have 150 people already registered, and this symposium is only in April. So if we going to have, at one point, we're going to sell out. So if you want to be in the room, it is time to register like, now.
Nancy Kohout:
The room where it happens.
Allison Hambrick:
Well, Karine, Nancy, thank you for your time. Thank you for joining us and to our audience, thank you for coming to hear us live. And to our future listeners, thank you for tuning into this episode of ASHRAE Journal podcast.
Karine Leblanc:
Yay. Yay.
ASHRAE Journal:
The ASHRAE Journal podcast team is editor Drew Champlin; managing editor, Linda Rathke; producer and assistant editor, Allison Hambrick; assistant editor Mary Sims; associate editor, Tani Palefski; technical editor, Rebecca Norris; and creative designer Teresa Carboni.
Copyright ASHRAE. The views expressed in this podcast are those of individuals only and not of ASHRAE, its sponsors or advertisers. Please refer to ashray.org/podcast for the full disclaimer.