Supporting & Encouraging | Ruthie Lee-Esene | Sirvist HRC

Transparency, growth mindset, and emotional intelligence are the core qualities that define Ruthie Lee-Esene, Principal & CEO of Sirvist’s unique ideology. For Ruthie, relationships are important, but the right relationship is crucial. “The people that are part of your inner circle are your greatest support and your greatest critic- they are your critical thinkers. The critical thinkers bring you the transparency you need to be truth to yourself, your clients and have the ability to encourage you to do the right things when other will not like you,” she explains.

“A growth mindset has allowed me to take every opportunity as a learning experience and anything that needs to be transform or reinventing as an opportunity to add value to someone. Today more than ever you have to have the ability to manage your own emotions and be there to help aid someone else.

Ruthie has been a support system to the female business owners who are trying hard to establish themselves. “There is a group of us that meet and talk. We celebrate each other birthdays, we reality check each other, offer critical feedback even if it may hurt my feeling.” According to Ruthie, constructive feedback is for people that want always to learn and grow. “When we run into even college-age young women that are looking to be in the same field, we introduce them via email.” Sirvist HRC also participated in several non-profits like CSTEM, CEO Dr. Reagan Flowers. At Mission of Yahweh, they provided free resume workshops and interview guidance for women. The company has been part of some events where they have offered free services to educate and talk to the youth. The executive director of Huntington Learning, Wendy Tilford, sponsors a GPS for College Students. Sirvist HRC presented the “Future of Work,” and offers free performance and behavior assessments. These entities are women’s own, so it’s about supporting each other.

Inspiring and empowering team members to become great leaders of tomorrow is Ruthie’s core quality. Sirvist HRC leadership team meets weekly, brainstorms together. It makes it a point to organize a book club reading the best of what the management world offers alongside providing training and development opportunities.

Becoming a Leader

For Ruthie, success is absolute. There is no one definition of success. The best advice she offers everyone and anyone is to follow their God-given path. “Each of us has one; take what you love to do, the things that bring you joy. Assess your innate knowledge, skills, and abilities and then help someone be better.” But for her, the process does not stop here; she encourages everyone to be courageous. “Have the courage to do the right thing everytime. The courage to support people even if you know it is not popular. The courage to just stay the course when the politics, and others are trying to get you on a different path. The courage to stay silent because there are times when those that said they care, only care when its me centered and then they judge, and you have to move past that and not be distracted and to them you are weak, but they do not realize how strong you are to bypass someone that like to pretend.”

Changing Face of HR

Diversity Inclusion and Unconscious bias are today’s most sought-after topics for any organization. Diversity and inclusion issues go back to biblical times. Yet, humans have become subject matter experts at covering up their mistakes and missteps based on how different someone is from them, race, gender, religion, disability, ethnicity, or veterans, and the list goes on. “Now we are divided, HR must be part of the process to bridge, heal and transform this great divide in the workforce, within the cultures, and by getting all stakeholders to be part of the process,” says Ruthie. “That means the HR professional must also deal with the issues that may have created some of these workforce divisions, either by our silence or by adding our conscious and unconscious bias to the workplace.”

Sirvist HRC is developing Mitigating Unconscious (current titled) bias while navigating Diversity and Inclusion for HR professionals at Rice University, Glasscock School of Continuing Education. “I am constantly keeping abreast of all the HR academic literature on issues related to DEI, leadership, and Managing a global workforce in person and hybrid,” adds Ruthie. “I enjoy teaching, so being an instructor at Rice University, Glasscock School of Continuing Education, and Prairie View A&M University teaching the SHRM certification course for HR Professionals is particularly important to me.” Sirvist HRC collaborates with Team Excellence and sets the stage to help an organization define or redefine its business philosophy for its organizational culture. “We will use a personal strength inventory (PSI) tool to help their employees better understand themselves and their knowledge, skills, and abilities to work within their innate capabilities.”

For the days to come, Sirvist HRC will be persistent in partnering and collaborating with entities that want to equip the human capital to prepare for the future of the workforce. “That future must include managing diverse and inclusive workforce cultures. There is a bright light shining down on us. If we just stay in the shadow, we are about guarantee an unseen benefit, but only if we intentional set our sights on holding each other accountable for our biases conscious and unconscious. We were created to be here together as the human race,” she says. “Personally, I will continue to learn, grow and get more involved in HR academic so that future HR professionals can evolve and lean into the hearts and minds of organizations and leaders by modeling integrity, transparency, accountability, and trust.”

Sirvist HRC will continue to evolve and nurture collaboration with Team Excellence and Inspyr. This collaboration will be utilizing a tool and a philosophy that help organizations, HR professionals, and leaders move past indifferences, shine a light on culture, and model and coach the human capital without ceasing to know themselves better and others. This collaboration is about choosing success, personal accountability, and objective, looking at their strengths. I Choose Success (ICS) is a professional coaching process that respects your individuality and personal dignity. ICS is an ongoing process to help all the professionals assume greater personal accountability for what they accomplish and achieve while providing everyone with an objective and encouraging comparison of their strengths with others. “The premise is not to change who you are, but to offer you a more objective self-understanding of who you are, not in judgment, but comparison to everyone else, and then point some alternatives behaviors you might want to consider using, if or when you decided these alternatives behaviors serve your best interest.”