Tag Archive for: emotional intelligence

Why Introverts Make Powerful Leaders

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introvert leadersIntroverts are the folks who prefer to recharge their batteries alone rather than with other people. That isn’t to say they don’t like people — many introverts love working with others, but they also value their alone time. Sometimes, but not always, they may also have low self-confidence. They may not be able to see themselves in a leadership or administrative role. That’s where they’re wrong — introverts make some of the best leaders for several reasons.

What Is an Introvert?

An introvert is someone who may keep to themselves more often than not. They recharge their batteries by working and relaxing alone and may prefer small groups to large gatherings. However, being an introvert doesn’t mean someone is afraid of speaking or can’t step up to be a leader. Around 12% of people identify themselves as completely introverted, often drifting toward extroverted partners who likely can help them express themselves better.

Some traits commonly associated with introverted people include the following:

  • Quietness
  • Shyness
  • Thoughtfulness
  • Prefers privacy
  • Easily overstimulated

These traits are loosely related to introverts, meaning they may not fit every introverted person and might even relate to some extroverts. Many introverted people enjoy being around others and participating in social activities — they may just choose to take part on their own terms.

Introverts and extroverts have their places in business. However, workplaces with extroverted leaders yield 14% lower profits on average. While every person is different, introverts more often have traits that would make for exemplary leadership.

3 Stellar Traits of an Introvert Leader

Introverts often have traits that ensure they can lead teams well. Sometimes, the best leader isn’t an outgoing one who blazes the way — it’s the strong one who quietly reassures their team while supporting them from behind and picking them up when they fall. Strong leaders allow their employees to stand on their own without getting in the way of their successes, but they’re always there to provide guidance and offer a listening ear.

Many introverts are born with traits that naturally help them grow into better leaders than their peers. While some introverted people may not feel comfortable leading large groups, their quiet awareness and thoughtful decision-making can be vital to any team.

1. Expert Listening Skills

Many introverts prefer to listen over talk, participating more passively in conversations. Because they spend less time talking, they can study their conversational partners and pick up on small nuances, especially tone and body language, making them experts at listening to and reading people.

For example, something as simple as the pitch of someone’s voice can indicate whether they’re nervous or confident, something that people who aren’t as intuitive wouldn’t pick up on. Introverts might be able to identify these subtle changes in a person because their listening skills are often sublime.

2. Sincerity Above All

Extroverts can be genuine, too — they may find it easy to connect with other people and praise them for their exploits. However, you may be less likely to receive compliments from an introvert. Since introverted people often don’t talk as much as extroverts, going out of their way to compliment someone might mean much more than an extrovert who praises someone whenever they get the chance.

Around 96% of people feel praise makes them more productive, so an introverted leader who genuinely expresses their opinions is a must-have in any business. An introverted leader will assess the situation and praise anyone who deserves it — and they’ll be able to guide anyone who needs assistance.

Similarly, introverts will stand up for themselves. Introverted people may often come off as shy, but in a workplace, they can feel empowered to stand behind their decisions and won’t let people walk all over them. An introvert can exude confidence just as much as an extrovert, so employers can feel assured in enlisting an introvert in a leadership space.

3. More Creative Solutions

Extroverts and introverts can both be creative, but since introverts use self-reflection and think before acting, they have more time and opportunity to develop innovative solutions to tricky problems. When in business, you must understand situations from several angles. Having someone who considers every perspective is vital to the well-being of any company.

The best decision-making process relies on gathering the necessary information and sitting with it before making any conclusions too hastily. Many introverted people prefer to wait before making a decision and think over all the possible outcomes and variables so they understand the facts before making a decision. This person is valuable for any business, especially during times of crisis.

Introverts often use their intuition, leading them to success and practical decision-making. As a result, they’re more likely to realize when someone needs a little extra encouragement or just a friend to lean on. They’ll likely ensure everyone is involved in a project or feels appreciated in their team. That way, these leaders know everyone is included in a group.

How to Make Yourself a Better Leader

The good news is you don’t have to change yourself to become a better leader or pretend to be something you’re not. Both introverts and extroverts are valuable in leadership roles — as long as they demonstrate the right skills to prove they can support a team.

If you want to gain some of the most beneficial traits of a powerful leader, you’ll have to tap into yourself and learn how to reflect and listen more than you talk and act. Introverts make great leaders because they tend to solve problems more effectively, adding immense value to their company.

Here are some soft skills you should work on building if you want to succeed in a leadership role:

  • Active listening: To help others solve their problems
  • Critical thinking: To solve problems with your head instead of on impulse
  • Proper communication: To get across ideas and uplift others

You shouldn’t have to change who you are to fit any role. However, improving certain skills and learning different methods of problem-solving and communication can benefit you as you transition into a leadership position.

Introverts Are Some of the Best Employees to Have

Introverts tend to lean on the more intuitive and reflective side, making them an asset to any business, thanks to the skills they’ve honed in their interactions throughout the years. They’ll provide a fresh viewpoint and sage wisdom after thinking over certain possibilities. While some introverts might not have the best conversational skills, they’ll do their jobs to the best of their abilities and tackle new things that come their way.

However, both introverts and extroverts can make great employees. The best team members are well-rounded and demonstrate characteristics that will help a business flourish and positively affect company culture. One personality trait can’t guarantee a good leader, but it can help people understand where they’re lacking and how they can improve for the sake of their workplace.

By: Mia Barnes is a freelance writer and researcher who specializes in mental wellbeing and workplace wellness. Mia is also the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Body+Mind magazine, an online women’s health publication.

(The opinions and views of guest contributions are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com).

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Neutral Thinking: The Key to Hard Conversations and Hard Decisions

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Neutral ThinkingName one person who enjoys having hard conversations, and you’ll likely come up null. In the workforce, complex decision-making and delivering bad news are enough to make your stomach drop. However, hard conversations are sometimes necessary — they could entail asking for a raise, apologizing after making a mistake or losing your cool and providing constructive criticism.

Corporate leaders and professionals face difficult decisions and conversations daily. The key is to check their emotions and express themselves in a way that remains neutral and makes them proud.

Why Are Hard Conversations and Decisions Challenging?

There are a few reasons many managers avoid hard conversations and decisions:

  • Guilt
  • Increased anxiety
  • Adverse reactions from both parties
  • Threats and retaliation
  • Potential conflict or disagreement

Leadership may be known for avoiding talking to employees about hard topics, whether it’s firing someone, demoting them, issuing blame, addressing low productivity or resolving office conflicts. In fact, more companies are ditching the nail-biting year-end reviews for regular touchpoints focusing on goal-setting and open dialogue just to temper negative emotions.

Yet, despite the possibility of all these behavioral outcomes, 54% of leaders have indicated that conflictual discussions spark team engagement and uncover potential growth areas. However, they must engage employees with respect, transparency and prime leadership skills to avoid damaging outcomes.

Gender differences in communication styles significantly impact reactions. Women typically approach conversations with compassion and rapport, while men often lean into facts and problem-solving. Regardless of one’s method, learning to strike a balance is crucial.

6 Strategies for Having Hard Conversations

Your approach to difficult discussions with people can make or break spirits and significantly impact workplace morale. A 2019 Gallup survey found that a mere 10.4% of employees remained engaged at work following negative feedback — another four out of five sought other employment.

Fortunately, honing in on your leadership skills and aiming for neutrality is the best way to decide on and deliver bad news. Here are six strategies that will help you master hard conversations.

1. Create a Planned Approach

Develop a list of bullet points you want to discuss during your meeting. Having the most essential topics in front of you will keep you on track. Just be sure not to write out a script, as conversations rarely go the way you’ve planned.

A well-thought-out approach to challenging discussions with employees or co-workers ensures greater authenticity and a free-flowing discourse.

2. Practice Empathy

Emotional contagion is an alignment of emotions — if a person smiles at someone, they’ll most likely trigger a smile in return. When approaching difficult conversations, empathy goes a long way. The receiver of bad news will take cues from facial expressions, prompting a particular reaction. Likewise, a response may stem from the voice or tone used during indirect communication, such as online or on the phone.

Research suggests that women have an easier time with emotional contagion than men. One study even found that female babies cried for longer when they heard another crying.

However, empathy doesn’t come easily to everyone — some people need to practice it. Demonstrating emotional contagion, whether through facial cues or tone, will help regulate the receiver’s reactions and result in positive communication.

3. Listen and Observe

An effective leader engages in active listening and open communication to reach a solution. That means you should focus more on the other person’s words during conversations.

These one-on-one meetings don’t need to feel like an attack. Ask open-ended questions and allow employees to share their take on a situation. For instance, if someone struggles to meet deadlines, have them explain their challenges, then repeat what they shared to show you understand — “To be clear, you’re saying that knowledge gaps require more time to go over directions than doing the actual work.”

The attention and respect you offer by listening to your employees may result in a more favorable outcome than you initially thought, such as providing additional training. It may also be that they’ve taken on more responsibility than one person can handle, which leaders can step in and help delegate.

4. Face the Hard Stuff Head-On

Some decisions and conversations may be uncomfortable, but being direct often results in more profound respect and better workplace relationships. Nothing will ever get done if you constantly avoid potential conflicts and avoidance could worsen personality clashes and negative behaviors.

People who avoid hard conversations might purposefully overlook problems, joke their way through confrontations, change the topic or bottle up their emotions until they explode. Many put off having conversations indefinitely.

A more direct approach — even if it’s something positive like negotiating a raise or promotion — should encourage back-and-forth communication — this style comes across as less threatening to both parties. It might also be best to give the receiver some times to cool down and reflect on the discussion before continuing.

5. Avoid Absorbing Negative Emotions

While an effective leader should have empathetic tendencies, injecting too much empathy into hard conversations could lead to you absorbing negative feelings — also known as emotional contagion.

It’s crucial to create separation between what you need to get across and how the person responds. You can expect pushback in some instances or meltdowns, but protecting yourself is essential.

Imagine putting up a shield to block negativity or envision yourself wearing armor — this helps build up your resilience to say what you need. The key to emotional neutrality is to stay grounded. Of course, if a hard conversation ends badly, withdrawing to a quiet place will help you regroup and regain composure.

6. Stay Positive

It’s easy to anticipate discourse going array and for someone to fly off the handle. However, not all hard conversations end badly, and addressing complicated topics can have several benefits. When you approach these discussions positively, they’re more likely to be constructive than disastrous.

Hard conversations done correctly could result in an employee that strives harder to meet deadlines, boosts productivity and collaboration, feels more engaged and better aligns themselves with the company’s mission. It could also improve employee attitudes and reduce conflict.

Complex decision-making and conversations will become second nature in time because you’ll expect positive changes and relationships.

Stay Neutral for More Positive Interactions

It’s possible that you’ll never particularly enjoy giving negative feedback and criticism. You may especially dislike letting someone go or engaging in uncomfortable discourse about diversity and inclusion. But as you’re aware, these conversations are crucial and may present the best outcome for the company.

Mia Barnes is a freelance writer and researcher who specializes in mental wellbeing and workplace wellness. Mia is also the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Body+Mind magazine, an online women’s health publication.

(The opinions and views of guest contributions are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com).

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Melinda Cora: Principal, Head of Product Implementation and Project Management at PGIM Quantitative Solutions

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Melinda Cora“I’m a firm believer in the power of personal brand. When you see a particular logo – like Apple, Starbucks or Nike – you immediately have feelings associated with that entity,” says Melinda Cora. “When someone sees my name appear on their phone or in an email, my desire has always been that the brand I’ve developed makes them want to answer my call or read my message and engage with me. My hope is that they have positive feelings and thoughts, based on my work and experiences with them.”

Carving Her Own Trajectory

Growing up in Bushwick, Brooklyn, a low-income and predominantly Hispanic and Black community, Melinda recognized the lack of resources around her (vacations often meant opening a fire hydrant on hot summer days) and how it contrasted with the untapped wealth of talent. She was motivated to carve a different trajectory for herself and recounts that one of her earliest supporters in this regard was her fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Aievoli, who noticed Melinda’s potential and giftedness and inspired her to grow.

“She invested her time in preparing me to test for a specialized middle school. My acceptance into the school put me on a path to graduate high school at the top of my class at 16 years old,” Melinda recalls.

With hard-working Puerto Rican parents who hadn’t had the opportunity to pursue higher education, school guidance counselors who lacked the frame to point her towards scholarships, and a family mentality of avoiding debt and needing to make ends meet, she attained her associates degree in just 1.5 years before taking on a full-time role as a legal secretary at 18 years old in the M&A department of Shearman & Sterling LLC. It was in that role that Melinda began the practice of learning through observing and quickly became an asset to her team.

“I knew there was something wrong with the equation, and I wanted to be a part of making it right. We had pounds of hard labor workers in my community but a lack of role models who could demonstrate that it was possible to enter a variety of industries, and that lit a fire in me,” says Melinda. “I wanted to be able to go back years later and say, ‘I’ve had a successful career. I’ve been able to break out of this mold. And guess what? You can, too.’”

She was soon promoted to a marketing coordinator role at Shearman, before one of the lawyers she’d worked with called on her for an opportunity at Equavant. When that same lawyer again moved to Lehman Brothers, she called on Melinda again. After seven years at Lehman, where she was an operations analyst and later, a member of an alternative investment management team, Melinda was sponsored by another former colleague for a project management role at PGIM Quantitative Solutions (then known as QMA), a leading quantitative investment manager owned by PGIM, the investment management business of Prudential Financial, Inc.

“Multiple times in my career, former managers and colleagues picked up the phone and offered me some type of pivotal change,” says Melinda. “They believed in me and recognized my drive and many strengths. With each opportunity, I assessed whether it was the right, progressive next step in my career, and once I gave my ‘yes,’ I also gave those roles my all.”

Melinda knew she’d acquired the experience and network, but recognized that if it weren’t for sponsors, her lack of a bachelor’s degree may have filtered her resume out of the interviewing process: “I realized that I needed to go back to school, even though I was in my 30s,” reflects Melinda. “So, I became a full-time working wife and mother of three children—who was also earning her bachelor’s degree. I graduated Summa Cum Laude and have also taken several MBA courses to date.”

Striving For Excellence

“I appreciate that perfection is a myth. However, striving for excellence has been a driving factor for me. If it has my name attached to it, I want to do it with excellence,” says Melinda, speaking to honing her personal brand.

Nearly 15 years ago, Melinda joined QMA as a junior-level project manager and is now head of product implementation and project management at PGIM Quantitative Solutions: “It’s a dynamic role managing my team and a testament to the evolution of the body of work we coordinate within PGIM Quant,” says Melinda. “I have the privilege of working with some of the brightest individuals and leaders in our industry who I get to learn from and partner with daily. No two days are the same, and each new opportunity allows my team and me to be a part of developing new solutions.”

Melinda also serves as a role model and mentor. It’s her passion to build the power of dreaming big among youth and young adults. With HISPA (Hispanics Inspiring Students to Perform and Achieve), she speaks to middle school students in predominantly Hispanic New Jersey communities, inspiring them to believe there is space for them in the asset management industry.

Melinda is a co-founder of PGIM Quant’s Hispanic and Latino business resource group (BRG), Unidos, and a leading member of the Inclusion Council, which oversees each of PGIM Quant’s BRGs to drive meaningful results through a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion. She serves on the Latinx executive leadership team for PGIM overall. Melinda also volunteers through Junior Achievement of New Jersey, through her local church’s Girls Ministry program, and leads a young adults life group out of her home.

The Courage To Speak

Latinos are underrepresented across the finance industry at less than 10%, though they account for approximately 18% of the US population. That percentage drops significantly when accounting for senior-level Latinos in this space. Despite her Latino colleagues coming from different countries, the messages from their families and peers are often similar—like be grateful to have a job, keep your head down, and do not make big waves. Melinda says, at times, Latinos are often not outspoken enough in the workplace as a result of this common conditioning.

“I’ve often struggled with that internal tension. My perspectives and ideas are unique and valuable within the work environment, but everything in my culture tells me I shouldn’t speak up,” she reflects. “So, I’ve had the interesting dynamic of saying I am going to speak up and it’s going to be hard.”

To do this, Melinda calls on her own touchstone of living from courage: “Courage is sometimes ill-defined as ‘not being afraid’ or ‘the absence of fear.’ That’s not what it is. Courage is moving forward or speaking up, even if you are afraid,” she says. “I had to develop the courage to say I do have an idea and it is worth sharing.”

Valuing Diversity of Thought

Melinda, at times, struggles with the notion of imposter syndrome, but quickly reminds herself that her lack of privilege growing up does not equate to a voice that counts less. She recognizes the importance of embracing the background that shaped her and the need to value every upbringing – even the upbringings of those who grew up in privilege.

“It’s rethinking and relearning certain things as an adult to continuously challenge yourself. We’re all learning from each other. No one has arrived at any sort of final destination and we should regularly seek opportunities to further develop,” Melinda notes.

Her early experiences shaped the way that she cultivates different perspectives as an adult: “As a child, I felt like people often didn’t care about what students in my schools thought. It was a ‘what the teacher says goes’ mentality. Even then I knew, if we’re not allowing opportunities to challenge each other, then we’re doing ourselves a disservice and missing out on diversity of thought.”

Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

As a tip, Melinda discourages people pleasing: “What’s more important is developing into a trustworthy and sought-after business partner. Whether raising a difficult issue with her children’s schools or inside the four walls of PGIM, Melinda has learned that uncomfortable conversations must be braved.

“I’ve had many experiences where I felt uncomfortable raising a topic but I did it anyway, because there was merit in it,” she says. “If we’re going to have diversity of thought, then as leaders and as professionals, we have to evaluate the things that make us uncomfortable and really decipher, what is this individual trying to say? What is the goal here? Because if you believe intentions are good, you might want to tune your ear and try to better understand what is being said, versus dismissing or disqualifying it.”

Cultivating a Growth Mindset and Culture

As she’s become more senior, new challenges and greater stakes can heighten the fear of making mistakes: “I often say each product effort or project is like its own recipe,” she says. “You may have a group of people with different work styles or a different timeline. You may have different factors that lead to initiatives being diverse even when they’re similar on paper.”

Melinda embraces the idea of being a continuous learner: “We’re not going to get it right 100% of the time. So, two main factors drive my thought process. When I get something right, I celebrate the opportunity to teach. What went right? How did I get there? What was new? What defined the win?” She continues, “And then when I get something wrong, I celebrate the opportunity to learn. What didn’t go right? What can I learn from this? How can I get better? It’s important to look at mistakes as something that will help me grow and, in turn, others as well.”

Melinda looks for opportunities to convey that growth approach and reinforce it with her team members, too. She focuses on caring about people as individuals first and then supporting their career growth with the learning and opportunities to get where they want to go, in their own way and style.

“Whatever number of years and whatever season we spend together, my goal is to be that servant leader to individuals on my team,” she says. One way Melinda empowers her team, especially in the hybrid environment, is to let them decide on her attendance in meetings. This instills confidence in their abilities, while she remains available to provide guidance and be there if and when needed.

Melinda says she has gained the most from organic mentor relationships – precisely, from exposure. As a self-motivated learner, it’s not conversations, but truly watching people in action that inspires her.

“From the start of my career, the way I’ve learned from leaders is by sitting at a table with them, listening to how they interact with others, seeing how they get decisions made, and watching how they influence business,” she says. “How I learn best is by observing. What drives me is looking around the office and asking who do I want to be more like to continue growing as a professional and progressing in my career?”

From Childhood to Today

Mrs. Aievoli still figures prominently in her life and has proven to be Melinda’s lifelong mentor.

“To this day, she keeps me pushing myself. She always says, ‘okay Melinda, and what’s next?’ She keeps me focused on that idea of growth and development,” says Melinda, who still shares her milestone accomplishments with her. “She’s been invested in me from childhood and that’s resonated with me for years.”

Melinda is most proud that her three children – now 20- and 16-year-old daughters, Jayden and Madison, and 13-year-old son, Zachary – can see in her an example of the role model she wished for as a child.

“I had a non-traditional career and educational path, and while it hasn’t been easy, I never settled or gave up, and that’s something I hope encourages them throughout their lives,” she says. “I want them to believe in their own aspirations and carve their own paths so that they, too, can be role models to future generations.”

By Aimee Hansen

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Seven Things about Gut Instinct You Might Not Know

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Gut instinct Gut instinct – that instinctual sense of knowing that does not come from conscious reasoning, also sometimes called intuition – is one aspect of your decision-making that is worth better understanding – including how and when to leverage it. Here are seven things to know about gut instinct.

  1. The gut truly is the “second brain.” – A neural network of 100 million neurons line your digestive tract, evidencing the gut’s processing ability. The gut has more neurons than the spine. It’s not only the stomach that has a brain, but the heart also has neural cells – there’s more to processing than we “think.” According to Sarah Garfinkel, professor and cognitive neuroscientist at University College London, “Instinct is when physiological signals change quickly in response to different stimuli, with or without the conscious awareness of the properties of those stimuli. A capacity to tap into and be guided by those signals gives us a route to gut instinct, which bypasses higher-order awareness mechanisms that don’t yet have access to that information.”
  2. Gut instinct is not a mind “or” body thing, and it’s complicated. – When considering a decision, the brain works in tandem with the gut, making intuition a mix of emotional and experiential data as the brain accesses memories, preferences, needs, past learnings and more. The mind-body dualistic idea that suggests mind and body responses are separate has long been disproven. They are interrelated. We feel in the body the result of cognitive processing happening in the brain. As a predictive processing network, the brain seeks to quickly compare sensory information with past experience, knowledge and memories, sending signals to the gut. These rapid assessments are subject to error, due to things like confirmation bias where we scramble to see what we already believe true or when we impose past circumstances upon a current situation and perceive danger.
  3. Gut instinct is often a valuable part of decision-making. Partnering gut feelings with analytical thinking leads to better, faster, and more accurate decisions and increases the confidence behind your choices – especially when there is no “correct” and clear-cut option and you’re overthinking. The majority of top executives report that they leverage feelings when managing crises. Women often speak to The Glass Hammer about their ability to read the room as way of informing how they approach a meeting or having gut instinct around an idea that comes up. And when, for example, you are in a familiar setting or with a familiar person, your intuition can pick up subtle cues that something is off or amiss by noticing indicators that are not usually present. It can also guide you against making a wrong choice that presents unnecessary risk. Without gut instinct, and a sensitivity to somatic cues, we can fall into analysis paralysis.
  4. Gut instinct is NOT such a good indicator for decision-making at other times – such as in hiring and recruitment. A clear example for where gut instinct should not be trusted in decision making is in hiring and recruitment, when guts instincts (fast thinking) around the “right candidate” and “culture fit” or “likability” are usually just unconscious bias (such as affinity bias, anchoring bias) – especially related to race, disability, gender and sex. Within seconds of hearing speech, Yale found that we make snap perceptions on social class (based on speech patterns such as pronunciation), competence and pay package. We also like people who are like us in tone, body movements and word choices – and the things we like cast a positive halo over the rest of the interview. Assessments from unstructured and organic interviews, where managers go with their gut, have very poor correlation with job effectiveness and finding the most qualified candidate, because unconscious bias is rife and gut instinct is often rationalized.
  5. The quality of gut instinct is interrelated to emotional intelligence. Research has shown that people with lower EI tend to misread their own bodily signal and somatic cues, misinterpreting the warnings of intuition that would normally guide us against bad risk-taking and decision making. But just as emotional intelligence can be strengthened through intentional training, as we become more sensitive to our ability to read and discern different emotions, where they are coming from and how they influence us, so can we develop our gut instinct. Discerning fear from intuition is an important part of honing our ability to use gut instinct in decision making, as these can often be confused. People who are highly sensitive – and perceive, process, and synthesize information more deeply – often have stronger intuition but may also have learned to distrust and invalidate this strength. Like a muscle, intuition can be built up. Practicing using it through fast, decisive actions on relatively inconsequential matters to build up trust and your ability to emotional regulate through discomfort. By role-playing the outcomes of different decisions, you can also see if your intuitive-based decisions would be aligned with your highest values on the other side.
  6. Distraction from overthinking helps our intuition to weigh in on decisions. When processing a lot of complex and difficult to remember information around a big decision, the tendency can be to painfully overthink – going between all the pros and cons – or to make a snap decision to escape the pain of indecision. But research has found that there’s a value in allowing our minds to wander in unrelated activity, as the unconscious mind helps to sort through the seeds. Participants who were distracted by an unrelated activity after being presented with a bunch of information about a decision made better (and more intuitive led) objective choices than those who consciously weighed up options before making a final decision. Overthinking in a strictly analytical way can muddy your judgement. But in the pause, the unconscious mind can help to surface the gist from the information overload and improve the accuracy of intuitive judgement.
  7. Timing and context is critical and most people don’t know when to use their gut instinct. Because it’s intertwined with many other rapid processes happening in the brain (triggering, bias, memory), it’s critical to assess when to rely on gut instinct in decision-making and when not to, and most business leaders do not know the difference – not only that, but it’s the same for most doctors, therapists and other kinds of professionals.

All in all, gut instinct is a valuable aspect of processing that is bound to contribute it’s voice into your decision-making, whether you are going with it, weighing it up or fighting against it. The more you can learn about gut instinct, the more you’ll be equipped as a leader to use it – and not use it – wisely.

By Aimee Hansen

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Lead with Clarity: How to Change Up Your Perceptual Lens

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perceptual lensMost of us think that our beliefs are truth. But beliefs are not facts. Rather, they are a core part of
 our perceptual lens, and thus very powerful in shaping our everyday experiences.

Psychologists refer to this as a perceptual set – a predisposition to perceive things in a certain 
way, which leads us to notice only certain aspects of an object or situation while ignoring other
 details. I like to refer to these as perceptual lenses, because it’s literally the “lens” which you
 unconsciously and subconsciously perceive the world through that’s driving your behavior.

There are all kinds of perceptual lenses, and each of us tends to use, and overuse, our own few
 personal favorites. For example, when someone has a competitive lens, they will relate to almost
 any situation as though it is a competition, whether or not any such competition exists. Someone
 with a binary lens will relate to most situations as if there is only one right answer, and
 everything and everyone else is wrong.

Typically, we each have a few favorites that we apply no matter what the context. Because we
 are using these few lenses by default, they often are not appropriate to the context. We need to
 expand past our tired old playlist.

There are two kinds of lenses: generally helpful lenses, and those that are impeding when 
overused.

Generally helpful lenses:
  • Collaborative lens. The I-win-when-you-win-approach.
  • Optimistic lens. “Everything always works out for the best, even if it doesn’t seem so in the moment.”
  • Create possibility lens. It temporarily sets aside all perceived obstacles, problems, or doubts, in order to give you freedom to imagine an ideal.
  • Opportunity lens. With this lens, you ask yourself, “How can I find an opportunity in whatever situation I face?”
Impeding lenses:
  • “Problems to fix” or “what’s wrong” lens. With this lens, someone is always looking
 for something to go wrong; they are always wondering what can go wrong here, what
 will go wrong here?
  • Victim lens. “It doesn’t matter anyway.” “I can’t make a difference.” “Bad things always happen to me.”
  • Distrust/“It’s not safe” lens. A person with this lens operates from a default position that the world around them is inherently dangerous.
  • Binary/“black or white” lens. With this lens, a person tends to view situations as “either/or.” There’s no gray area, there’s no middle ground.

Each of these lenses has its own set of underlying beliefs and assumptions. You see what your
 lens shows you.

If you habitually default to the same lens all of the time, in every situation, then you are not 
perceiving the actual circumstances and environment around you. You are seeing only what your
 lens shows you. You are making assumptions instead of gleaning useful data that would more
 constructively guide your choices and actions.

You can’t be human and be without any lenses, but you can be aware of your lens, as well as be 
intentional about choosing an appropriate lens for any given situation. There is a place for a 
competitive lens and a collaborative lens, for a problems lens and an opportunity lens, and so on.
 What does not serve us is to blindly and automatically apply one lens across the board no matter
 what is actually happening.

Road Bump To Choosing A New Lens: You’re Attached To Your Story

You can’t change your lens while wearing your current lens. The people who have the hardest
 time transforming their leadership, or their lives, are those who hold onto their own story very,
 very tightly. Their self-image is dependent upon them being “the one who always_________.”
 The one who’s always right. The one who never gets what they want. The one who always 
achieves. The one who always cleans up after others. The one who’s the smartest. The one who 
is always betrayed. When you are so locked into your story, then a change of perceptual lens can 
feel destabilizing. If you aren’t the one who always is this or that, or who does this or that, then 
who are you?

When you step into the unfamiliar territory of using a new lens, you need to be willing to “try” it 
out. On some level you will feel some relief—because you are choosing a lens that empowers
 you— but on another level you are likely to resist the feeling of change.

Recognize your discomfort for what it is: your ego’s inner defenses against change. The 
solution? Acknowledge that discomfort while trying on the new lens— even though it feels odd,
 contradictory, or just plain impossible. You keep doing that again and again until the new lens 
can start to stay in place, and the new lens becomes the new you.

Initially, you aren’t going to have “proof ” that any of these helpful lenses will bring you better 
results than your current, impeding lens. You can only give them a try. Be curious, open,
 experimental. Lean into it. Doing so increases your options. And pay attention to what happens; 
observe your new results. Loosen up on your own story until you really get that your story is not
 you. That’s the only way that true change can happen.

By: Jody Michael is the author of Leading Lightly: Lower Your Stress, Think with Clarity, and Lead with Ease (Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2022). She is CEO of Jody Michael Associates, a coaching company specializing in executive coaching, leadership development, and career coaching. She is recognized as one of the top 4% of coaches worldwide and is an internationally credentialed Master Certified Coach, Board Certified Coach, University of Chicago trained psychotherapist, and Licensed Clinical Social Worker.

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Louise Carroll: Partner, Real Estate, Katten

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Louise Carroll“People need to feel you’re hearing them and you’re answering truthfully on what you can deliver,” says Louise Carroll, who recently joined Katten as a partner in the Real Estate practice. “That skillset has served me in every situation — whether negotiating a deal, talking to politicians at the federal, state, and city level or calming passionate constituents.”

Carroll talks about her experience as former New York City Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Commissioner, leveraging her differences, using her voice, and navigating the complexities of the law to find innovative win-win solutions that have helped deliver nearly a quarter-million affordable housing units in the city’s 59 community districts — one of the most expansive affordable housing plans in U.S. history.

Hands-On Career in Creating Affordable Housing

Born in the U.S. Virgin Islands and raised in Saint Lucia, Carroll attained her undergraduate degree in Wales, acquired her MBA in England and worked as a senior executive for a German ship-owning and brokerage company in Cyprus before entering Tulane University Law School. She began her legal career serving as a transactions attorney for the business law division of the New York City Administration for Children’s Services, followed by prosecuting public officials who violated New York City ethics laws, and advising on real estate projects and housing programs and policies, as well as drafting zoning and tax statutes. Over a 20-year public service career, she worked her way up to the General Counsel role and then became Commissioner of the largest municipal housing agency in the country.

At the time, Carroll had no idea how gratifying working with the affordable housing industry would be. She recalled the first time she went to speak to tenants in a supported housing residence in Times Square, in which HPD was a government partner on the building renovation. She saw how much the project affected and changed how the tenants felt more positively about their current life situation, and gave them not only a safe and affordable place to live, but also inspiration and hope at the potential of what might lie ahead in their lives.

“When I look at all those massive buildings on Riverside Drive, or Hudson Yards, all along the Greenpoint waterfront, I can say, ‘This is my building, this is my building, this is my building,’” says Carroll. “I have managed to put low-income tenants and families in some amazing buildings throughout the city, next to good schools and great access to transit. It took a great deal of work —drafting and revising legislation — to make these projects happen. This industry can be so complex, because there are so many different players and different laws, that just finding a way to do it over and over was both amazing and fun.”

Navigating Complex Win-Win Solutions

Carroll prides herself on her ability to listen to many sides, navigate diverse interests and find the best compromise or solution. “In good negotiating, you have to understand the viewpoint of the person across from you — what it is they’re trying to achieve. You have to listen and have empathy, and make sure people understand the parameters of where you can and can’t meet them and why,” she says.

Carroll met Katten partners Ken Lore and Martin Siroka when they were working together on many mixed-income housing developments. “I knew they were clever lawyers who were able to problem solve on really difficult issues, so I’ve respected them greatly over the years,” says Carroll, who herself joined Katten in March.

As Commissioner of the NYC HPD department, Carroll worked directly with Katten on real estate deals that had a combination of low-income housing tax credits, tax-exempt bonds, and other innovative financing structures, each with complex requirements and regulations. “What I loved was that every time I did a deal with Katten, we improved the status quo by making new changes that accommodated the private lenders in a better way. There are often cookie cutter deals in city government, but that was not the work we were doing together,” she says. “Instead, we tackled the intricacies of laws to figure out how to make them work best for every stakeholder involved in the project. Finding solutions to those incredibly complex problems was personally gratifying and provided housing to so many communities.”

When her public service career was winding down, she considered whether to work for a not-for-profit organization or take a post at a law school, but realized she wanted to continue working on impactful deals. “Some people could do the HPD commissioner role as a figurehead job, but that’s not how I did it. I read every piece of legislation. I was there for every policy draft and every brainstorm. I formed the working groups,” Carroll says. “I knew that finding a job that could compare was not going to be easy, but this role with Katten offered me the opportunity to work on affordable housing projects in the way that I love, and to contribute to the firm’s widely renowned practice.”

At Katten, Carroll’s practice focuses on affordable housing and community development, mixed-income housing, public finance and government relations. She is highly regarded at the firm for her experience and capabilities to guide clients through the financial and legal complexities of housing projects.

Leveraging Her Difference

“I went to an all-girls Catholic school, where the nuns told us we were as good as anybody. That’s, in part, why I’ve always spoken up,” says Carroll. “I understand the stereotypes or expectations when a woman is in the room — how we’re expected to speak, defend our work, or refrain from speaking in an authoritative way — and I’ve told myself, ‘None of that applies to you, because you weren’t born and raised in this culture, so you’re going to embrace the otherness.’ So, I speak up, respectfully and never rude, but I have to speak.”

Carroll leverages her experience and seniority to advocate for others. “When I see people not speaking up or being silenced or pushed out, I step into that space and say, no, I would like to hear what this person has to say,” she notes.

While Carroll was warned the commissioner position would be an outward-facing job, she couldn’t have prepared for just how much moment-to-moment adrenaline would be involved and how she would need to transition from a naturally shy person to an extrovert.

“As Commissioner, I was constantly on the move, interacting with many different people in sometimes challenging circumstances throughout the day. I might start the morning with a press conference, go to a 50-person meeting to solve problems around affordable housing, switch to working with my policy team on rewriting legislation, and then shift to being present for heated phone calls with city council members,” recalls Carroll. “I learned to put my game face on and step into the moment, whatever it was. Sometimes that meant winging an impromptu speech.”

No Task is Insignificant

Carroll credits her grandmother for inspiring her lawyer deal-making mentality of getting things done. Her grandmother instilled in her at a young age that no matter how big or small a task, you do it well.

“Everything you touch, you have to do the best you can — even when you’re not leading the team, and are just a part of the team,” says Carroll. “Before I became commissioner, I was the attorney that people could call at 11 p.m. and who would send the agreements back at 3 a.m. People started to talk about my work and every time I got a new challenge, even when they were difficult challenges, I would aim to make things better — and that kept me moving forward.”

A decade ago as a new mom with a rising legal career, she made it home from work for bedtime, and then started working again — knowing it was important to her advancement. “We all have adversity in some way,” says Carroll. “There are real issues, such as childcare. There are also times and places to address it, and how we handle our adversity is as important as the adversity we face.”

Married for nearly twenty years, Carroll has one 10-year-old son and enjoys watching him play travel ice hockey, a sport off her radar growing up as a Caribbean woman. Her sport of choice: tennis. She completes twice a week against tennis pros — and, sometimes, she wins.

By Aimee Hansen

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Avoid These Four Leadership Failures To Retain Employees Through The Great Resignation

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Great ResignationFor more than a year, the employment world has experienced significant upheaval as millions of workers make a mass exodus from the traditional workplace: a phenomenon now commonly called ‘the Great Resignation’. Women leaders who recognize and avoid four common leadership failures in the workplace will be better placed to retain their best employees through these turbulent times.

World-wide, leaders are grappling to understand what is fueling ‘the Great Resignation’. Also known as ‘the Big Quit’ and ‘the Great Reshuffle’, this is an ongoing economic trend in which employees have voluntarily resigned from their jobs en masse since early 2021, primarily in the US.

Research into this phenomenon that is wreaking havoc in the employment world suggests that many people are rethinking their careers, seeking a better work-life balance, facing up to long-endured job dissatisfaction, and preferring the flexibility of remote work.

As ‘the Great Resignation’ unfolds, there has never been a more important time for business leaders to think smart to ensure their work environment appeals to the post-Covid generation of workers.

Here are the four fundamental leadership failures that drive good employees away. Recognizing and rectifying these leadership failures will provide women leaders with an edge to help them retain good employees amid a mass exodus.

Rectifying leadership failure 1: Treating employees as the primary customers

The first crucial leadership failure is not recognizing that the employee is actually the primary customer.

Employees are initially drawn to work for a company because of various reasons, such as the company’s reputation. Ultimately, however, good employees stick around because of how well a company looks after them.

 Employees should therefore be treated as the primary customer. This means that each employee should be treated, cared for, managed, and responded to in a way that is consistent with how the company wants its customers to be treated.

Not only does it set a good example to manage employees this way, but it also increases one of the most important assets of any company: credibility, and the trust it brings. Employees want to work with and for a company that they can trust.

Rectifying leadership failure 2 – Recognizing leadership is not management

Another crucial leadership failure is not recognizing the difference between leadership and management.

Most companies have a management culture, which is not the same as proper leadership. Management is important and is a part of leadership responsibility. Managers have to make people follow, but leaders make people want to follow. Managers bring about compliance, but what leaders are able to create is buy-in, and this increases the likelihood of employees bringing their best self to work.

Recognizing the difference between management and leadership not only increases the likelihood of recruiting and retaining good employees, it also increases the chances of having a team that gives their best effort and go beyond the regular call of duty.

Rectifying leadership failure 3 – Realizing valued compensation is not just financial

The failure to recognize that finances are not the only form of valued compensation is a third common leadership failure today.

This is a recent development and is clear when considering the work patterns of the Millennium generation. This is the first generation in some time that does not out earn the previous generation. And it’s not because this generation is not capable or competent, but rather because they value some things more than money, such as flexibility, being part of something bigger or being valued as individuals.

Whereas paying employees so well that they tolerate toxicity in their working environment – often called ‘golden handcuffs’ – may have worked in the past, but will not work in the future.

Rectifying leadership failure 4 – Recognizing that EQ is the IQ multiplier

Last, but certainly not least, is the leadership failure of not recognizing that EQ (Emotional Intelligence) is the IQ (Intelligence Quotient) multiplier, especially now during ‘the Great Resignation’. 

It’s not that employees are avoiding work, or that they prefer to stay at home, but rather that many have had a glimpse of what it’s like to work in peace and don’t want to return to a toxic work culture.

For this reason, building Emotional Intelligence is a core leadership competency. Fortunately, building EQ is possible, and requires attention to each of the four qualities of EQ, briefly described below.


The four qualities of EQ
  1. Self-awareness, referring to how well you are aware of yourself as a leader.
  2. Self-management, which is the ability to manage yourself based on what you know about yourself.
  3. Social awareness, or the ability to discern the difference in others’ relationship management approaches.
  4. Relationship management, which is determining how different people communicate, comprehend and are motivated, and the ability to lead and respond accordingly.

In a post-COVID work world, dominated by ‘the Big Resignation”, being an emotionally intelligent leader – able to manage yourself and others – is key and critical to recruiting and keeping good employees.

By: Dr. Dharius Daniels is an emotional intelligence expert, author of Relational Intelligence: The People Skills You Need For The Life Of Purpose You Want, and former professor at Princeton University.

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Jingjing Liang: Associate, Compensation, Governance & ERISA practice, Shearman & Sterling LLP

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Jingjing Liang“The truth is, if I can be loving and patient, and approach whatever comes my way with compassion, everything will fall into place,” says Jingjing (JJ) Liang. “Being a good lawyer, a good colleague, a good mother, a good partner, a good daughter – it all starts with being a loving person. Approaching things with a loving attitude will make things easier for you.”

Liang speaks about staying open-minded, building your confidence, using your voice and showing up to the moment.

Be Open to Surprise

“Keep an open mind,” Liang advises law students. She never would have seen herself in law, let alone as a specialist in compensation and governance – yet there are advantages to unforeseen changes.

Having specialized in European history in her undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto, Liang became interested in legal history while studying in Europe. She took her mother’s insightful advice to work as a paralegal before investing in law school. After working for a year as a legal intern in Beijing, China and another year as a legal assistant in Toronto, Canada, she headed to the University of Texas School of Law. During her summer associate program at Shearman & Sterling in New York, where she rotated through the firm’s M&A and litigation practice groups, she received an offer to join the compensation and governance group.

“At that time, I thought, I have no idea what this is, this is so specialized, I just want to do M&A,” confesses Liang. “My work was very tough in the beginning as a first-year associate, because there were nothing from which I could draw on from my law school studies. The learning curve was steep.”

It was only when Liang found herself teaching summer associates that she realized how quickly she had grown and how much she enjoyed the work. Relative to her peers in other practices, Liang found she was not just reviewing and proofreading documents as a junior associate, but actually providing substantive legal advice and engaging directly with clients. “I’m glad I kept an open mind to try out this practice, I never would have known how well-suited it was for me if I hadn’t.”

How You Approach The Moment Is the Practice

Being patient, flexible and quick on her feet has served Liang well, but her ability to approach a situation and respond adeptly is her core practice.

When an urgent request comes in the night before an early meeting, it’s easy to stress. But Liang draws on her work as a meditation and yoga instructor: “The person in front of me and the request is not by definition stressful. It could be stressful to me, but interesting or fun to somebody else,” she observes. “So if the stress is coming from me, then I have the ability to change it. That’s how I try to approach difficult moments. I try to ask, ‘how can I ease the situation so it becomes easier for everyone involved.’”

Early on, Liang received two valuable insights into the enigma of work-life balance in Big Law: “It can be pretty impossible to strive for ‘work-life balance’ on a daily basis, so if you focus on balance in the ‘tree’ of a day, it can feel like a fight. But if you can step back and observe the wave of activities that come and go throughout a month or couple of months, you can take in the ‘forest’ and find more balance.”

Liang recommends that junior lawyers make plans with families and friends and surround themselves with people who will understand when something comes up. Even if you need to cancel a weekend plan, it’s important to still create the room to nurture your personal and social life.

Building and Bringing Confidence

As she becomes more senior, Liang’s advice to her younger self would be to take time and dig into the topics in your field you’re deeply interested in. “What did I enjoy most in this deal and what can I do next to strengthen the skills I gained today?” She recommends stepping back after big deals or intense periods of work to reflect on the learning experience to deepen career development.

“You’re learning so many different topics over time and quickly, it would be worthwhile to categorize your specialties so you can reinforce each one, becoming aware of your strengths and weaknesses in the substantive aspects of law,” says Liang. “I think it’s important to build confidence in your knowledge base, and that’s hard to do when it’s go-go-go.”

Reflecting on how her generation is changing the legal field, she feels her peers in her generation are more likely to just sit at the table rather than waiting to be invited: “Even more, when we sit at the table, we’re not afraid to ask questions and contribute. We’re not afraid to give our view and participate in a discussion among more senior lawyers, ” she says, also noting her parents encouraged speaking up early on in life. “I’m not embarrassed to be wrong (of course, being thoughtful about my contribution is important too). I’m excited to have this conversation with everyone at the table.”

Liang recognizes that she stands on the shoulders of women who have paved the way, and for that, her generation of women tends to hesitate less: “Women lawyers at conferences are always talking about not having to stay quiet because you’re a woman, and I am thinking, I don’t think we’re being quiet.”

When it comes to being Asian American, at certain times in her journey, Liang has felt stereotyped, such as the expectation that she would be quiet, being asked where she’s really from, or being spoken to in some Asian language. These problems can be subtle and until she talks with Asian peers who have had similar experiences, it’s difficult to validate what’s happening in that moment. “It’s a difficult conversation,” she says, “but because discrimination, macro or micro, is still there, we’re still talking about it.”

She does not, however, feel she’s facing a “bamboo ceiling” in Big Law, and found it inspiring last year to witness two female Asian women appointed to partners at Shearman, including Lara Aryani. She also feels lucky to work closely with female partners at the firm who value the mentoring and sponsorship of young lawyers through open dialogue and active training on how to be successful in this industry.

An Ever More Compassionate Self

Certified by Three Jewels Enlightenment Studio, Liang became a meditation and yoga instructor. During the pandemic, she was able to establish a more regular meditation practice to help cope with work, the ever-changing state of the world, and more recently, being a new parent. To give back to her community, she currently teaches yoga on Sundays with Three Jewels.

One of Liang’s meditation practices is “Future Refuge” – where you envision your future and step into that version within your present self: “If I can envision all of these aspects of my future self, what’s stopping me from being that today? Even if I can’t change external conditions, how can I embody the characteristics of the ‘future me’ now?”

Engaging in her meditation and yoga practice regularly, she sees herself in five years as being even more calm, loving and compassionate. Going back to when a client asks her for an emergency request, in a difficult moment, she chooses to view the request as if it’s coming from her best friend who she would do anything for, even if it throws her evening plans awry.

She also loves being with her ten-month-old son, watching how he explores the world and looks forward to traveling the world with him in the future.

By Aimee Hansen

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Elena Kim: VP Business Development, TV/OTT at Global Music Rights

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Elena Kim“I found a different lease on my otherness. I can’t chase everybody’s projection of me,” says Elena Kim, “but the more I recognize the uniqueness of my own experience, the more I feel I have to offer.”

Kim speaks to how she learned to dream, connecting through differences, emotional regulation and integrating masculine and feminine aspects of leadership.

How the Invitation To Dream Changed Everything

Kim spent the first six years of her career in investment banking in Moscow, before the financial crisis of 2008. She decided to take the ‘opportunity’ of the market slump to invest in herself by pursuing an MBA. While filling out the application, she had to answer where she envisioned herself in five years, which she had never considered: “It quickly became a self-discovery journey for me.”

When Kim pondered what she cared or was passionate about, she realized she didn’t know what she really wanted.

“It was the first time when I allowed myself to dream as if anything was possible,” reflects Kim. “At that time, it was films and TV series – my window into the bigger world, into a different world. Growing up in Uzbekistan, I never had allowed myself to even consider the possibility of working in entertainment.”

She received her MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management in Los Angeles when digital media was becoming prevalent in media and entertainment, which created a permissive playing field of newbies. Jumping on the rising wave of digital transformation as major players were just coming onto the scene, she joined a startup and began to reinvent her career path.

For several years, she acquired film and TV content for digital platforms, such as Hulu, Vimeo and iflix. For the past three years, she has negotiated and licensed music rights for programming across broadcast, cable, local TV networks and streaming platforms, which gives her a bird’s eye view of the whole TV and film industry.

“What I’m passionate about is figuring out what makes people’s hearts beat faster. What do they really love to watch and what determines that?” she says.

Having worked across emerging markets, she observed the obvious: whereas what people prefer to watch in Latin America might differ from that in Eastern Europe, Middle East, Africa or Southeast Asia, the love for stories about human experience is shared universally.

The Curiosity to Learn

Early on, Kim believes that her strongest asset was curiosity and willingness to dig deep into a subject. She notes she had amazing teachers who taught her the structure of learning a new skill and how to dissect a new concept to understand it.

“So how do you learn a new industry, for example? You look at the main players and their business models: how do people make money? What is the current political, economic, legislative environment impacting the industry? What are the major trends? What stands behind the main buzzwords?” asks Kim. “As you learn the basics, you then start tuning into where the opportunity is. What forms core competitive advantage, and what is driving the opportunity, what needs to hold true to fully unleash value? etc.”

When she was coming from Russia to the U.S., shifting from banking to media, she applied this process: “It became very clear to me that the wind was blowing towards online viewing, and I knew I wanted a job that had something to do with digital distribution.”

She loves how digital distribution of content included many more voices in a global dialogue. Regardless of where you are from and what you believe, you can connect over Game of Thrones or Friends.

The Value In Our Differences

As an avid globe trotter (over 60 countries and counting), she finds traveling therapeutic. She especially enjoys interacting with local people who don’t speak her language, figuring out ways to communicate beyond verbal. She holds such memories dear to her heart after surviving an earthquake in Nepal, sharing music with children from indigenous tribes in Indonesia, self-driving through Botswana and Namibia with local hitchhikers, getting help from local police after being robbed in Argentina, for example.

During one such trip, she traveled to Peru and had her first experience with plant medicine under the guidance of a local shaman, who held space with due reverence to ancient practices and traditions: “This was learning on a cosmic level. I won’t even attempt to describe it in words. If my spiritual inquiry started with understanding the concepts of neuroplasticity (who you are today is not a verdict), my awakening was turbo charged by living through the learning during this psychedelic experience.”

Kim continues, “One of the things now running through my veins is the knowing that what makes me connect with people is the ways in which we are similar, what intrigues and draws me to people is the ways in which we are different.”

“My personal journey with ‘otherness’ has been an emotional roller coaster. I am Korean ethnically, born in a Muslim country of Uzbekistan, mentally grew up in Russian culture in the Russian society,” says Kim. “Now I live in the U.S. as a gay woman, a scientifically-inclined spiritual psychonaut, where I’m ‘too woo woo’ in analytical circles and ‘too in my head’ in esoteric environments, etc. Of course, these are mostly distorted self-assessments.”

Growing up, she felt the disconnection of being Asian in Russia by not ‘presenting’ as Russian. Yet she speaks Russian, not Korean or Chinese, for which she’s regularly mistaken. Last year, prior to the current geopolitical crisis, she spent time in Russia, where she identified a piece in herself that she feels is Russian: her sense of depth. She does not give people any box to put her in anymore: “I don’t even fit the labels I have for myself,” she notes, “I’ve stopped explaining. ‘I’m from Russia’ is all I say now.”

To Kim, whatever makes us different is what helps us to represent a specific side of humanity as part of the whole. She resonates with Jerome Braggs’s notion that if you believe in universal oneness, then excluding experiences that are unique leads to robbing others of a fuller wholeness. Therefore, the more different we’re perceived we are, the more important it is for us to show up in all areas of life – and she notes those differences are defined in so many ways beyond ethnicity, race, gender or sexual orientation.

Integrating Feminine and Masculine Traits in Leadership

In a previous role, Kim was encouraged to start an initiative to foster diversity, equality and inclusion across employees from 40+ different countries and cultural backgrounds, which activated for her the importance of so-to-speak “feminine” qualities of leadership, especially when dealing with something intangible like what gives people a collective sense of purpose, belonging, safety for authenticity, and striving for excellence.

Kim recounts we have historically glorified and rewarded traits of leadership that are labeled as “masculine” – assertiveness, linear thinking, clarity without questioning and go-getting. But traits that we assign as “feminine” – such as empathy, collaboration, creating constructive atmosphere – are considered nice-to-have but not necessarily perceived as attributes of leadership or rewarded.

“The DE&I initiative quickly led me to a path of dissecting and challenging the leadership paradigm that we were operating under,” reflects Kim. “It’s so clear to me that to be successful in a multicultural organization, you have to have an acute level of empathy and cultural awareness. And the soft skills are increasingly becoming must-have.”

She has come to see that “feminine” leadership qualities are a necessary complement to “masculine” qualities, not a compromise or trade-of. “I used to hold this myth that once you start being softer, you lose your edge, an ability to reach goals in a timely manner. I had this notion you either be like a robot or you float in the clouds, and that was a misconception.”

Reflecting on the evolution of her leadership style, she says: “Even if I was telling myself a different story, early on I was truly managing out of egoic fear of losing control. I was never a micro-manager, but I was a micro-controller. I had to know everything, call the shots, be the one interacting with management to control the narrative, etc.”

Kim realizes this came from being extremely demanding on herself, and meant she came off polished and unapproachable. As she steps up as a leader, her focus is increasingly shifting to creating opportunities for others to push their growth edges, normalizing making mistakes while minimizing their impact.

Now she finds herself at a company that’s thriving despite the global pandemic. “We have set clear goals, roles, strategy and timeline, while the flow and interaction within the team remains fluid, supportive and trusting. I don’t need to chase anyone to get their job done, rather keep communicating progress, so folks can self-direct their work streams to deliver on time. This release of control within set boundaries is still work in progress as my ego peeks its head constantly. With that, I find myself being successful at my job, really supported by my team and a much happier me.”

Emotional Regulation and Co-Creation

Kim feels the pandemic, socio-economic inequity, and current geopolitical crises have brought a set of unique challenges around managing people’s mental and emotional states. Leaders are not necessarily equipped with due skillsets, protocols or guidelines to attend to people’s emotional turbulence. She is increasingly interested in the area of emotional self-regulation and has heard many executives speak to challenges of operating in toxic environments where stress and reactivity are the norms: “Even in my relatively emotionally intelligent company, without the acquired self-regulation practices I’ve exposed myself to in the last couple of years, I could not have managed some of the incidents that have come up inside and outside of the company. A simple thing like taking a deep breath might lead to a more beneficial outcome in an emotionally charged situation. These tools are teachable and the impact is quickly palpable.”

Her latest fascinations include Web 3.0 and decentralization, and she’s presently teaching a blockchain fundamentals course at chief.com to a network for executive women.

By Aimee Hansen

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Danielle Arnone: Chief Digital & Technology Officer, Combe

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Danielle Arnone“In times of uncertainty, the focus has shifted from seeking answers to raising questions and building relationships to lead through the unknown,” expresses Danielle Arnone. 

Arnone speaks to leading through disruption, the value of listening and encouragement and the importance of taking risks as the stakes rise.

Be Willing to Challenge, Even as Stakes Rise

“Each step along the way has offered me an opportunity to learn and develop my leadership style. From a career perspective, I continue to challenge myself to push ahead in order to grow,” says Arnone, about her twenty plus year of working in technology, digital and e-commerce across various industries – and most recently, in beauty, health and wellness.

With tech at the center of every business, her work is about leading enterprise change “from the inside out and the outside in.”

Early on in her career, she felt she brought a different perspective to problem solving and would regularly test the status quo. Often the only woman in the room, as she began to move up the ranks and the stakes rose, it began to feel riskier.

“It’s a double whammy. You’re challenging the status quo and you represent change in just who you are,” says Arnone. “I’ve had many moments where I had to remind myself – you’ve got to stick with it – because I believed in what I was fighting for.”

She continues: “I won’t say it’s not hard, because in my opinion, it’s unnecessarily hard for women in STEM and why we lose so many and particularly those with high potential. At a certain stage, I decided I didn’t want to be another of those women.”

Being in a male-dominated industry can amplify self-doubt, but being aware of that has often helped her to overcome it.

While many hurdles are systemic and the pace of change is very slow,” Arnone says, “I realized that I’m the only one that can get me unstuck and that is powerful.”

Navigating Uncertainty through Vision

Despite the challenges during these pandemic years, Arnone has focused on leading long term change. While the emphasis in tech has often been to develop the next innovation as quickly as possible, today she stops and asks at every critical decision point: “Where do we ultimately want to go? Not just in the next twelve months but what do we want to envision in five or ten years time? And are the things we’re focusing energy on now truly in service of that long-term goal?”

“The circumstances of the last two years have made me a different leader. I had to take a step back and ask: what did I do in this time? And take the necessary steps to hopefully be proud of the answer,” reflects Arnone.

If there’s one thing Arnone has confronted as she rose, it is getting comfortable with uncertainty. She’s found that by letting go of the notion that you need to have answers, you can come together with curiosity and openness as a team, and arrive at better results.

Speaking to vision and prioritization, she says, “You have to conserve energy to focus on what’s really important, knowing that can change in a moment’s notice.”

“I’ve had to get comfortable with ambiguity. We often don’t know the target or the rules of the game to hit the target,” says Arnone.

Listening and Fluidity in Thinking

“The leaders that I admire most have the ability to listen deeply and surface the question behind the question, without putting people on the defensive, and in a way that takes the conversation to the next stage,” says Arnone.

She feels that listening is key and that an analytical approach can be useful in managing conflict and problem solving. “In an emotionally charged situation, I will encourage the team to tease out the facts, take the personalities out of it and then listen for what is not being talked about.”

When it comes to what she brings to the table, Arnone is adept at absorbing new and broad ideas and loves encouraging the exchange of ideas around the table.

She also enjoys the invitation to step out of linear thought and indulge her penchant for abstract thinking, in which perceptions move and change shape, which is not unlike the leadership skill of having the flexibility to navigate uncertainty.

She will often step away from work to get in the zone so that she can reset and let ideas pour in. These days, she’s exploring artistic outlets. She also jokes that if you saw her many playlists, you wouldn’t even believe they belonged to same person.

Encouraging Others Towards Their Best

Arnone finds leaders who encourage others towards their personal best in service of a greater mission to be the most inspiring. She feels it is rare to encounter, but she has had the fortune to have supportive mentors along the way that have greatly impacted what she values most in her life and in her work.

“Encouragement can be an antidote to self-doubt and frustration. It’s as simple as saying, ‘I see you struggling – what’s going on and how can I help you’.”

She wants to be known for her work to develop people and is especially passionate about helping women succeed. She observes that women coming into the workforce today have a strong sense of what they expect from employers beyond a paycheck.

“I want to see this generation of women keep the momentum going. They are demanding more equity, more balanced and fulfilling lives and holding leaders accountable. To me, that is progress.”

By Aimee Hansen

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