Work Besties Who Podcast

Ally, Bystander, or Savior? The Ally Mindset Test Every Work Bestie Needs to Take

• Work Besties Who Podcast • Season 2 • Episode 78

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Allyship at work isn’t just about being “nice” — it’s about how people actually experience you. In this episode, Jess & Claude take the Ally Mindset Profile™ and unpack how they each show up as allies at work: where they shine in connection and compassion, and where candor, vulnerability, and follow-through are still a work in progress.

You’ll hear them walk through the five Ally Mindset practices (abundance & generosity, connection & compassion, courage & vulnerability, candor & debate, and action & accountability) and connect them to the “four yeses”: Can I count on you? Can I depend on you? Do I care about you? Do I trust you? Then they invite you to take the quiz yourself and compare results with your own work bestie.

🔹 Take the Ally Mindset Profile (free quiz):
https://skyeteam.cloud/youmewe

🔹 Listen next – the episodes we mention:
Morag Barrett – Unlocking Career Success Through Relationships
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2320118/episodes/17012072-unlocking-career-success-through-relationships-with-morag-barrett

Ruby Vesely – The Power of Work Bestie Culture
https://workbestieswhopodcast.buzzsprout.com/2320118/episodes/18080530-the-power-of-work-bestie-culture-5-leadership-practices-that-build-trust-joy-at-work

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Work Besties! Theme Song Written by Ralph Lentini @therallyband

Jess K:

We've had the absolute joy of interviewing two of the authors of You, Me, and We, Farag Barrett, and Ruby Vesley. Both conversations blew us away.

Claude F:

So today we are keeping that energy going. We both took the Ally Mindset test to find out how we show up as allies at work. And we are going to share the results. Hi, I'm Claude. And I'm Jess. We are corporate employees by day, entrepreneurs by night, and work besties for life.

Jess K:

Join us as we explore how work besties lift each other up, laugh through the chaos, and thrive together in every industry. Work besties. Welcome back, Work Besties. So if you've been following along, you know we've been deep diving into You, Me, and We, the book that sparked so many aha moments about friendship and allieship at work.

Claude F:

We've now talked with two of the three authors, Morag Barrett and Ruby Vesley. And each of them reminded us how real connection isn't just nice to have, is the foundation of every strong workplace.

Jess K:

Exactly. And after our chat with Ruby, we decided to take the Ally mindset test ourselves and see how we both personally show up as allies. Spoiler, it revealed a lot.

Claude F:

It really did. But at the same time, we kind of knew about it, right? We were not that surprised. So let's break down what this test measures and why it does matter.

Jess K:

First, let's give you some grounding on what the Ally mindset test is. It's going to measure five key traits. It's going to go through your abundance and generosity, connection and compassion, courage and vulnerability, candor and debate, and action and accountability.

Claude F:

And all five link back to what Ruby and Moag called the four yeses. They are can I count on you? Can I depend on you? Do I care about you? That that one cracks me up.

Jess K:

And do I trust you? What I love about that framework is it's mutual. It's not just can I say yes about you? It's can I say yes about me as well.

Claude F:

Exactly. Ella ship is built in the space between people. Is the daily proof that your yeses go both ways.

Jess K:

And when even one of those yeses slips, when we can't fully depend on, care for, or trust each other, connection starts to erode.

Claude F:

Which is why awareness matters more than perfection, and how why it is important to take the test. All right. What did your ally mindset test reveal?

Jess K:

We talked about it goes through the five different traits and then it gives you what's your strengths, so the ones that you have the highest percentages in and the lowest. And I think we both decided that we're not going to share the exact percentages, but we instead went through what we had as our top strengths. So my top two were connection and compassion. So I really lead with empathy and build trust quickly. Which is so true. My second one was courage and vulnerability. I'm open about my own challenges. And then my areas that I really needed to work on the candor and debate, and I see myself do this at times. I'm sugarcoat feedback versus directly being honest. That's an area of working on. And then the last one where I have the most opportunity is action and accountability. I need to be a little bit more consistent on that. Follow through and maybe not overcommitting to so many things.

Claude F:

Well, it's also because you have so much, right?

Jess K:

You're working with a lot of teams, so it's hard sometimes to say no. Right. So that's the one thing too, when you're taking this, you want to think about it in the mind, at least when we chose to take it. We thought about it in the workplace of where we work from our nine to five, not in our relationship.

Claude F:

Nine to five. Yes.

Jess K:

So when you think about that, everybody's role is a little bit different. There's challenges constantly going on, which I think is what's so cool about this quiz is you probably could take it day to day and have different results.

Claude F:

Totally.

Jess K:

Um, but at the same time, it gives you those areas of where you can lean in on a little bit more versus those that you want to really be cognizant of and work on.

Claude F:

I like also the your your strength, warm and thoughtful, and really having this empathy with the team. Oh, thank you.

Jess K:

I'll take that. I do think my biggest strengths really are that connection and compassion. And what we've talked about before, I definitely have that courage. I don't suffer with imposter syndrome. But I try to really build that trust and lead with empathy, empathy, and openness when I'm in there. Um, but I and I also do agree with my areas of opportunity. I I know for a fact that I overcommit. And um, as you commented about, I do support multiple different teams, and there are times where I commit to certain things, but then something even more pressing comes out. So I have to reassess the workload and prioritization daily, if not multiple times a day. And that's hard.

Claude F:

Yeah, that must I would not like to be you. That sucks. Thanks. Appreciate that. But it's just the real reflection, right? Because sometimes caring very deeply makes it harder to deliver the tough truth. Right. But there's a that can be both ways, both ways, because at the end it goes back to truth to trust as well, right? You can have empathy and then your team trusts you to tell you the hot truth as well.

Jess K:

Yeah. I agree with that. I think what this did make me reflect on, though, is even though I know and my team sits there and does the reprimatization and reflection multiple times a day, um, that it does at times make it look like from the outsides that maybe I can't be uh relied on or counted on. So that's something for this whole uh learning. I do need to take that step back and learn how can I leverage my empathy to really be a part of that follow-through process too, and maybe bring those people into the journey to say, I'm committing to it today, but keep in mind as the day progresses or the week progresses, I may have to assess when and what I can do.

Claude F:

Yep. And it goes to accountability, right? For sure.

Jess K:

Yeah, all right, my friend. Now it is your turn. What did you find out from your results?

Claude F:

So, and not that much surprise there. My biggest one was connection and compassion as well, because I really do care about people well-being, and I always try to make it also fun at the same time, having conversations. Um, for me, it's important because we are our just trying to five jobs, we are more fun with our co-workers, our team than with you know our family. So you want to have it, have fun. And then my second one was candor and debate. I'm comfortable in being direct in some ways, um, because I have this empathy with my team. My team knows that and trusts me, and they know that when I mean something, I really mean. And I sometimes don't sugarcut as much. Uh, I'm being nice about it, of course, but I'm very factual. And I do think that my team appreciates that. My growth area is courage and vulnerability. Um, sometimes I hold back emotionally because I don't want to burden others. So that is a fault, also. I always had is kind of um delegating. I'm afraid because I have empathy, I'm afraid to burden my team. So I will sometimes do the work, or because I forgot to tell them and now the timing is too tight. So I will do it because I feel like it's not fair on them. Um, and then the second one is action and accountability. I tend to procrastinate. Um, so I'll wait until the last time to do the last minute to do a project. I'll still do it. It's still, I think, done correctly, but I'll go crazy until it's done. Uh, unfortunately, that's something that I've been dealing with dealt with since even I was in college.

Jess K:

Yeah, I think you brought that up in a different episode too, how that's something that you try and work on as well. Yeah, but at the end of the day, it works, so I don't learn my lesson. Well, that feels very on brand for you. You happen to be very warm, and I I get you're direct, but you definitely are still warm when you do it. Yeah. And I think the thing that you lean in on where you're much stronger than me is you're never afraid to say what those others are thinking. So I did notice that the majority of our results were similar, but I think we had some slight tweaks, which really the main difference was the um cando and debate. Yes, cando the courage and vulnerability for me. The only two that were like slightly flip-flop between the two of us, which is interesting. So I feel that goes back to some of the things we've talked about in the past too, and what we both lean in on um and how we've both been working on different parts of ourselves. It's interesting because the area that I know I still need to be better about is being that direct and building that relationship from that perspective.

Claude F:

Yeah.

Jess K:

So it's cool that we have the complementary element.

Claude F:

If you take that test, it's really, really interesting because you're going to learn all those different yeses, but also what it means. Yeah. And also you can go back and see, you know, you it's not only about the others, about yourself as well. So that I think it's really cool because I can see that I'm strong for the others, but not for myself. Looks like a Kendra and debate first. So question your status quo. Yeah. So that is for myself. Ask for what you need and then recalibrate relationship expectations.

Jess K:

So I feel like I don't know, from my perspective, on the myself, like focusing on what I'm doing for me. I don't know that I have the issues. That's gotta be on the others.

Claude F:

So on the others is ask what's working and what's not working. I definitely do that. You do that. I do that. Yeah. Do that. Seek to increase shared understanding of other perspectives, especially during disagreement. I do that. Name and address the elephant in the room.

Jess K:

That's probably it. I'm not great about that. Yeah.

Claude F:

So I do that, but I make it in a sneaky way. Okay. Like I'll ask a question when I know the answer, so that people will answer and they'll find out by themselves the elephant in the room.

Jess K:

You're asking them a question that gets them to specifically say, Oh, I see the elephant right there. Correct. Got it. Instead of saying being rude, it's not a yes-no, but it's open-ended of what the result, what you created, what is that result, and how will it apply to this elephant?

Claude F:

Like, I won't say, Hey, that won't work. Right. You know? Right. That's the elephant in the room, and I'm like, but I'll be sneaky. I'm like, okay, so what's out? Play it out. I'll find out.

Jess K:

Okay, that's smart. All right, you're helping me.

Claude F:

Uh, and then finally is provide clarity through powerful questions and articulation, no, and articulating your perspective. So it's kind of what I said, even that.

Jess K:

But I feel like I do that. I think it depends on if the feedback is the part that I probably am the weakest in, but I definitely do articulate to people.

Claude F:

But so I just want to make sure that's your growth opportunity. But when we look at percentage, you're still in the average. It's not like you're Oh, yeah, it was above the average. You're still above the average, right? But it's still like you can make it. You're not there.

Jess K:

I wasn't needed 100%. So if we wanted to work on one area of that, what what would be the point? I think what we're trying to do is deduce where that's a gap better. All right, so let's do yours. Yours is courage and vulnerability. Let's go through what that is, and then you you can kind of do the same assessment that I was trying to figure out. Okay, so being a friend to yourself. Do you feel like the courage and vulnerability is more on yourself or to others? I think it's more on myself. Okay, ask questions. Let's ask a question. So the first one is show more of who you really are.

Claude F:

So if we I'm I'm kind of an open book.

Jess K:

Yeah, I don't think people. So I share too much actually. Speak your truth to self and others. I think you do that. I do that. Expand your comfort zone. I do that.

Claude F:

Honor your beliefs and values. Not always. So, like honor my my belief. So, for example, in in a work setting, there's something that has to be done. I don't agree. I will say once time, two times, three times, and say my point of view. But at the end, this time I paycheck. So after saying I don't agree, I'll do it. Obviously, if it's not like illegal or in illegal or hurting someone.

Jess K:

Oh, I know, I know what you mean about to do the disclaimer. No, I know. Okay. Um, so do you think it's more on that? We can go over what the other ones are too, just in case. So being a friend to others, um, encourage others to share their truth by creating a session. I do this, model vulnerability by sharing your own challenges and uncertainties. I do that. Support informed risk taking.

Claude F:

Nah, maybe not. Support informed. What does that mean?

Jess K:

Uh support informed risk. So it would be like um those that are risk taking, you support them even if it might not be the right approach.

Claude F:

Yeah, that maybe not. That might be the one where I'm not that good at.

Jess K:

So I think you're strong in that one.

Claude F:

So it's probably stronger, but I still don't like it.

Jess K:

Doesn't yeah, I don't know that this rated us based on what we like to do versus don't. Yeah.

Claude F:

I don't think. Well, I will procrastinate, but at the end of the day, I will do it.

Jess K:

Right. Well, I think to be yeah, well, that goes to what we both had the largest opportunities, which was the action and accountability. And I think we both agreed that those are things that we actively are aware of and working on, which um I think we both already called out, but it's probably worth it to say, go through what these lists are so it ties back to.

Claude F:

And it's going to be more on ourselves than on the other people. Yeah.

Jess K:

Sure. So we'll go through the the friend to others first because we know we probably are okay with that. And then we can talk about that. Okay. So the being the friend to others is demonstrate peer accountability. Have your colleagues back, provide reminders on their goals as needed. We definitely do that a lot. We've talked about how when we were on the same team, we used to send emails exactly at the same time to make sure and keep each other accountable to do have the exact date that was needed. Exactly.

Claude F:

And reminding the other one because we didn't want one to look better than the other. Yeah. So from a peer perspective, I don't I gotta do it.

Jess K:

I think you and I are strong in this, but we'll go through this. Yeah, okay. Go first, take personal responsibility for the health of your professional relationships. I can say I see you doing this already and me as well. Like, this is just showcasing that you still are responsible, like helping others at the same time as keeping yourself strong.

Claude F:

Yeah.

Jess K:

Strive for joint ownership versus individual blame. Oh, yeah. We definitely both do that.

Claude F:

And to uh fault actually, like at the end, no, well, at the end of the day, I do believe that when you're a manager and you're managing people, at the end of the day, it's a reflection on you, right? So I know that if my like, for example, my boss or whatever will say, Hey, that wasn't done, what I'm going to say is say, Yep, it's on me on that one because I didn't explain well or I didn't give. So, and I think it shows maturity, right? And being there for your team.

Jess K:

Yeah, yeah. I think the joint ownership versus individual blame, especially individual blame, especially when it is warranted, but and then the last one is celebrating other successes and joint wins, which we bath we definitely both do for sure.

Claude F:

And I know I say that several times in all the other podcasts. What I like doing, and I see now my team doing that. When someone goes above and beyond, I will send them an email and CC the boss. We tend to always say something went wrong, but not when it goes well. So I always make sure I do that. I do being a friend to yourself. Perfect. Create new patterns or rituals through continuous learning and practice.

Jess K:

I don't know about you, but I definitely do that. So that's not where I'm falling. Because I do anytime things didn't work, I do a quick assessment of why and create new rituals of how to fix things.

Claude F:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Always like, you know, at the end, not everything is always going to go right. So how can we make it understood? Practice brutal focus.

Jess K:

That's where I'm not so good. I don't know how you can do that in any organization, though. People are in meetings non-stop and still expected to have answers to things while you're in meetings. During that day, at the end of the day, you're constantly doing two to three things at one time. It's really hard. But if you block out the times, I yes, there's tips and tricks we could do to try and get to that, but it's it's a harder one to accomplish. All right, so celebrate small wins about yourself.

Claude F:

Yeah, I know. Um I'm like, it's my job. I'm support well, I'll do it to myself. Sometimes I'm like, yes, I'm happy, but not on everything.

Jess K:

You do, but you don't do it consistently. Like there was one time I remember you like telling the your team, like, oh look at IDM, and you're like so proud of it. I know it was so stupid. Oh, I do that. I do that, yeah. I do it probably more so to my peer set andor my boss than maybe to the team. So I probably should celebrate more with the team. But I still I do celebrate the small wins because goodness knows you need something that helps keep you going.

Claude F:

Remember when I was so proud of myself. I did tell you when I could pull from that database.

Jess K:

Oh, I was thinking about like some deck that you had done that you were like super excited about. For me, it was the pull of the database. Um, all right, what's the last one?

Claude F:

Hold yourself accountable to do what you see you will.

Jess K:

That's where I fall. I get inundated with tasks, projects from many different teams. So every day I have to sit there and reassess. Okay, I did commit to you that I would have this to you by the end of the day, but somebody asks for something that's going directly to the CEO, so I'm yours gets Trump. So the problem that I have is I have to constantly go back and say, here's the new date I can I can hit. Um so and some of that is some of that's a resourcing versus a true reality. But the it does look like an accountability issue because it looks like I'm avoiding or not doing when that's usually not I I even say it's like who shouldn't it's usually it's never not the case. I'm always working. Yeah, you do. Yeah.

Claude F:

I for me I'll do okay, I can let me get back to you, I'll give it to you later on.

Jess K:

But the majority in you were in one of these meetings of the people will say, I need it, I need this date. And they're even when I say one of them say, Okay, where's the date? I tried it. You were one of them where I said it's unrealistic for me to have this by your date. What's an actual date? Or I just can't do it. And your response was great, I still need it by that date. Yeah, so that doesn't seem to work. Maybe that goes back to my issue with some of the other opportunities I have of calling people out. But yeah, it's it's an interesting. You can call me out.

Claude F:

I didn't need to.

Jess K:

I did, and everyone on my peer set was like, You were so close, girl, you were so close.

Claude F:

Yeah.

Jess K:

All right, anyway. So now we've gone through ours. It's time for you, work bestie, to do the same thing. Um, again, we'll link in our show notes how to take the ally mindset test. It's super easy, it's free. You get the results like instantly. Um, and it's fun. It is fun. And it does make you reflect on things.

Claude F:

Oh, totally. And also what you can do better, because at the end, we're always there to try to better ourselves. Yeah.

Jess K:

Um, and if you're interested, we as we mentioned, we did have episodes with book two out of the three authors. Eric, we're coming at you next. Um, we had interviews with Mirag and Ruby, and we will link those as well. They are fantastic, both of them. And we learned so much.

Claude F:

Yeah, go back and listen to those episodes. In the meantime, you take the test, speak about it with your work besties, and also tag us, tag at work besties podcast, and tell us your top ally mindset trait, because we would really love to hear from you and where you shine and where you want to work on. And maybe if you have tips and tricks for us. Yeah, it's go back to the little community, right?

Jess K:

And helping each other. Yeah, because being a great ally and a great friend definitely go hand in hand. And until next time, keep showing up and keep connecting.

Claude F:

And remember, work is always better with your work bestie by your side.

Jess K:

Remember, whether you're swapping snacks in the break room, rescuing each other from endless meetings, or just sending that perfectly timed meme. Having a work bestie is like having your own personal hype spot.

Claude F:

So keep lifting each other up, laughing through the chaos, and of course, thriving. Until next time, stay positive, stay productive, and don't forget to keep supporting each other.

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Claude F

Co-host
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Jess K

Co-host