Wondering how to embody leadership? It's way beyond a title.
In this episode of the Kick It Open podcast, host Shelby Nicholl is joined by Sheila Bast, a leadership coach from the Cohen Leadership Group. Sheila shares her journey in financial services and her passion for leadership development. They delve deep into the essence of leadership as a way of being rather than a title, discussing the importance of influence, executive presence, and empathy. Sheila provides thoughtful distinctions between 'being' and 'doing' leadership and offers insights into navigating organizational politics, the glass cliff phenomenon, and the differences in male and female leadership styles. The conversation also touches on practical advice for leveling up in leadership roles and the significance of mentorship and sponsorship for women aiming to climb the corporate ladder.
Recommended Resources
Sheila suggests a few key books:
· Finding Time to Lead by Leslie Peters: A short, insightful read on the shifts necessary for leveled-up leadership.
· Dare to Lead by Brené Brown: A profound exploration of vulnerability and authentic leadership.
Plus: Sheila's favorite leadership-related quote:
Walt Whitman said, “We convince by our presence."
Recorded and produced by Muriel Network.
Graphic Design by John Gallagher.
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/let-good-times-roll License code: EV5ON7Y3CSESDSEU
Join our community
Instagram
Wondering how to embody leadership? It's way beyond a title.
In this episode of the Kick It Open podcast, host Shelby Nicholl is joined by Sheila Bast, a leadership coach from the Cohen Leadership Group. Sheila shares her journey in financial services and her passion for leadership development. They delve deep into the essence of leadership as a way of being rather than a title, discussing the importance of influence, executive presence, and empathy. Sheila provides thoughtful distinctions between 'being' and 'doing' leadership and offers insights into navigating organizational politics, the glass cliff phenomenon, and the differences in male and female leadership styles. The conversation also touches on practical advice for leveling up in leadership roles and the significance of mentorship and sponsorship for women aiming to climb the corporate ladder.
Recommended Resources
Sheila suggests a few key books:
· Finding Time to Lead by Leslie Peters: A short, insightful read on the shifts necessary for leveled-up leadership.
· Dare to Lead by Brené Brown: A profound exploration of vulnerability and authentic leadership.
Plus: Sheila's favorite leadership-related quote:
Walt Whitman said, “We convince by our presence."
Recorded and produced by Muriel Network.
Graphic Design by John Gallagher.
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/let-good-times-roll License code: EV5ON7Y3CSESDSEU
Join our community
Instagram
My personal belief is that leadership is a state of being. It's who we are and it is influencing through interactions that we have day to day. So whether that is the person at Starbucks you go in to pick up your coffee and how you interact with them, to somebody at work. So the way I think about leadership is truly a way of being and not necessarily a title by itself or all those leadership tasks that people often talk about. This just becomes how you are and how you conduct yourself, and it's not an overnight switch. It takes intentionality, but you get to a point where, ideally, it's not a switch to be turned on, it's just part of who you are.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Shelby Nickel. Have you ever had a great conversation with a colleague or a girlfriend and you leave with an energy, boost of inspiration, ready to fight another day? Me too, and that feeling was the inspiration for this podcast. I'm a 25-year corporate veteran who climbed the corporate ladder to reach top levels at two broker-dealers and often I found myself being the only woman in the room. I saw women advisors and corporate leaders burned out, overlooked and generally wanting to have more impact. And it's not just about us who work within the wealth management industry. It's about the untapped potential of women as investors. In this podcast, we tell the stories of women who are winning clients, leading organizations, doing things differently and bringing new energy to their work. There's a quote that inspires me by Muriel Siebert, the first woman member of the NYSE. She said when a door is hard to open and nothing else works, sometimes we just have to rear back and kick it open. Welcome to the Muriel Network Kick it Open podcast.
Speaker 2:Welcome everyone to the Kick it Open podcast, where we kick the doors open on women's success. Today we're talking about leadership and what it means to lead ourselves, our team members and our clients. I'm joined today by Sheila Bast, a longtime friend and former colleague. We worked together for many years at Edward Jones and I have been so lucky to know her. People in the St Louis area know and love Sheila. She is known for her leadership and I'm delighted to have her on the podcast today. Sheila, tell us about your career journey and what you're up to now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so good to be here. Shelby and I am remembering one of the first times we worked on a project together when we were traveling for focus groups. That feels like forever ago, but oh how much has changed and it's so exciting. So a little bit about me. I, like you, have been in financial services for gosh probably up to 18 years, serving in various different business roles, a lot on the product management side, and continue to follow my passion for people development and leadership development, which is what I do I get to do now completely is something that started formulating really early on, before I was a people leader. When I became a people leader, I then applied it through specific change management work, working on enterprise level changes and now have the opportunity to be a consultant and a coach and in the space of leadership development at the Cohen Leadership Group.
Speaker 2:That's great and I think I remember that exact trip. I remember being at an airport restaurant was one of the strongest memories I have from that trip. Restaurant was one of the strongest memories I have from that trip, and you were always so dedicated to empowering your people to achieve their very best. Tell us what you think of as leadership.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so leadership is a topic that I think in the media and when people like read about it, hear about it, sometimes gravitate towards. It's a title Leadership means I'm the VP of something, I'm leading a team of people and of course, in those scenarios, absolutely you are leading people. But my personal belief is that leadership is a state of being, it's who we are and it is influencing through interactions that we have day to day. So, whether that is the person at Starbucks you go in and pick up your coffee and how you interact with them, to somebody at work. So the way I think about leadership is truly a way of being and not necessarily a title by itself or all those leadership tasks that people often talk about.
Speaker 2:That's interesting. We did a podcast recently on executive presence with Jackie Nolhoff. Executive presence is also a way of being. How do you think about executive presence versus leadership?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I don't think it's like an either, or I think it's an, and so when I think of leadership present, it really is, I think, bringing your fullest bell, to like how you're showing up, and that all starts with your belief, right, what you align to, and then how are you conducting yourself in that way? Executive present is a part of that. It's then how are you presenting yourself? And maybe some of the more traditional, like how you present, how you introduce yourself, but to me, leadership is like that umbrella in the broadest sense of how you make people feel. How do you make people feel and how do you influence?
Speaker 2:There is that kind of Venn diagram of the traits and as you just, and you just landed on it in the very last word. You said it's how do you influence? I think at executive presence, like the goal is to influence something and the goal as a leader is to influence something.
Speaker 1:And I think that's where that's something that I hope people take away too is that everyone can be a leader. It's choosing to be a leader, it's recognizing your ability to influence and doing it intentionally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that recognizing your ability to influence, because we do all have it and we just have to turn it on, sometimes Absolutely. You have to choose it. How did you decide that your gift to share with the world was leadership coaching?
Speaker 1:I did not know that I wanted to be a leadership coach.
Speaker 1:But as I think about my career early on to now, even how I am with my own circle and my friends, I've always been somebody who wants to learn about people, their lives, what's going well, what's not going well, and I either always wanted to be there for the support system if somebody was going through a hard time, both at work and with my friends, but also their biggest cheerleader.
Speaker 1:So anytime somebody I would talk to would talk about oh, I can't do that or that's never going to happen, and my instinct, my gut instinct, is, yes, you can do that. So I feel like I was doing that early on. And then I actually had a colleague of mine say to me who I didn't know super well at first, and they said you have this way about you when you talk to people, you make them feel like they're the most important person and to me that was probably the greatest compliment I've ever received and to me that is the type of leadership I like to embody and, as a result, have been applying it in a way that I hope helps others achieve their greatest leadership potential.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's. That is such a great compliment. Absolutely, and I can attest to that as well that you make people feel that way. I can only imagine how your team members felt that support and also what you just described. There was both support for them and cheerleading for them, but also a very high empathy Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I think empathy is so key when it comes to being a leader and don't get me wrong, it's not all one way or the other. I'm sure people listening, maybe thinking what about the results? And I think there's so many studies and research that now show that if you care for people and they feel they your result, they will come in and compound right. It's that innovation that happens as a result. It's that trust that then empowers people, that leads to those really strong results.
Speaker 2:That's great. So your full-time gig obviously is leadership coaching, and this podcast is all about women's success specifically. What are differences between men and women as leaders?
Speaker 1:There's so much on this topic isn't there. And I love this focus through this podcast because, yes, there are certain characteristics that tend to be a little bit more common with men. Women, for example. It is that empathy, it's that interpersonal relationships, it's women's desire to want to create a more cooperative, collaborative environment. On the flip side, when people think of male leaders, they often think of the assertiveness, the task orientation, the just focus on the results. The other way I think about it is I talked earlier about leadership as being. There's being leadership and there's doing leadership. And in thinking about this question between men and women, again I'm going to say there's always a caveat to this. Right, you have men that are also empathetic, but if you just think about it in this sense, there's being leadership, which is what we talked about earlier, and there's doing it, and those are some of the differences that I see pretty clearly through the work that I do now and how that then leads to, how they can lead themselves to then lead others and, ultimately, the business that they're in.
Speaker 2:I love that idea of being leadership and doing leadership. So being leadership is I'm showing up at the Starbucks as a leader. It's how I'm interacting all the time, because I'm just embodying and really feeling that leadership within me. Tell me about doing leadership.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the checklist of to-dos that people think of doing leadership. If you ignore the being leadership and you're just focused on the task of the doing you're, you are less likely able to influence in the way that you're looking to influence, whether it's an idea, an initiative or it's also people. Just checking the box and doing your performance review as an example or making the decision, is not necessarily going to. It doesn't enable you to embody the larger leadership presence that you're probably looking to embody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think this is really interesting something. I hadn't really thought about those distinctions until now.
Speaker 2:When you think about those distinctions, I think for many of us it's really easy to do the activities of a leader. I'm going to show up, I'm going to run this meeting, I'm going to do the performance reviews, like you mentioned. I'm going to give the salary increases, check all the assignments and make sure everybody is doing what they're supposed to be doing and that they've got the support they need. Those are the doing activities. Then there is the true influence. I wonder if sometimes, when women are being dinged for not having executive presence, if they're really not embodying full leadership yet.
Speaker 1:I wonder about that, and that's something that comes up when I work with individuals. As women, I would say not everybody, but a lot of us are like we got to get all the things done. We got to make sure we're there for our people. We're getting our work done. We're checklisting all over the place and sometimes the to-dos. We all talk about our mind racing all the time the to-dos overtake us, showing up, having a wider perspective of things, taking a step back. It's navigating uncertainty. There's other things that are in addition to just being. It's your authentic self plus. It's embracing those non-checklist items that come with true leadership.
Speaker 2:I think it's also that calming force of it, and then also knowing how to play the politics a little bit as well.
Speaker 1:right, it's navigating, not going to exist as humans, having any hierarchy anywhere. We know that politics is just sometimes it gets like that ugly bad word, but it's just like it is what it is when you have a structure. So to me and I think about my, what I do now and what I did as a business leader it's how do you navigate? How do you navigate relationships, how do you navigate an organizational structure? And for some it can feel really energy draining and depleting, and so it's easier to do some of those other checklist-y items.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. I like that reframe of politics to just navigating relationships, navigating the organization. That really makes it feel a lot less cumbersome and a lot less, maybe anti-person in some way, I would assume that a lot of people think of the word politics and they just feel like icky to them.
Speaker 1:I don't want to do that, I don't have time, I don't have energy. Now there's other people that will lean in and they love it. For women it becomes. It can be harder to go against the grain when you're already feeling like in the certain certainly in the financial services industry. You're not one of many in certain realms. That's right, so we can already feel difficult and have this connotation of what politics represents to people who are like I can't deal with that, I don't have the energy for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I talk about it on so many podcasts, but there's this idea of the double bind, of course, and we all know that for women, and we can't be too aggressive, we still have to have the high empathy, etc. And so it's interesting because there's a technique of framing where you can reframe your statement and present actually a framing statement around your point. So things like I feel really strongly about this because it's a matter of integrity. Therefore, I think we should do ABC right, but if you frame up that statement, you give yourself permission to speak more openly in those moments, and to me, that's kind of part of this navigating the organizational norms and navigating the relationships.
Speaker 2:It is a little political, but it's playing into this executive presence, leadership presence idea.
Speaker 1:Absolutely and I think probably somewhere in that framework. Right is it's giving yourself permission to acknowledging this, whatever feeling you're having, but then whatever it is that you're trying to say or contest or whatever, you're saying it in a pretty objective way, right? Whatever the thing is from an objective point of view is not working and it's not an emotional thing, it just is, it's an observable thing that's right and putting it in those observable terms will remove it from your point of view.
Speaker 2:and just to your point something that's happening, that's great.
Speaker 1:And it takes practice.
Speaker 2:but it does, it does and it tips on that Practice.
Speaker 1:I think the same thing with leadership too. I'll just add that it's not as if you decide you want to become a leader and you do all these things that you think you're supposed to do as a leader you read books, you take classes, you talk to people and all of a sudden you're there. I would encourage individuals to think about leadership. This is a lifelong practice and it will evolve based on the types of roles you're taking on, and practice is practice. It's going out there, it's trying a thing. It's not beating yourself up when it's not going as you thought, figuring out what you could do differently and going back at it. Sofa when it's not going as you thought, figuring out what you could do differently and going back at it.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I have seen many of my colleagues and peers in corporate land do is take on whole new challenges and they really are going to level up their leadership. What advice do you have for someone who is going through a kind of level up moment?
Speaker 1:First of all, when it's in those situations where somebody's raised their hand to do it, congratulations, because it takes a certain amount of vulnerability, courage, strength, all those things to say, hey, I'm going to do this bigger role here. And even when it's not right either way, you're getting into a situation where you don't know what all you're getting into and there's high stakes and it feel chaotic. I don't know how much some of the listeners are thinking about. There's also this thing called the last cliff phenomenon. It's the situation where, in times of crisis, something's going awry. Oftentimes women are getting put into these leadership positions to navigate through it. Yes, and so not another version of what you're saying, whether you choose it or you don't. But what I would say is I go back to being versus doing.
Speaker 1:Regardless of how big the role field, how chaotic things are, how high stakes it is, give yourself permission to be intentional when you get in, recognize the scenario. What's the environment of this role? The good, the bad, the in-between, if this is even a possibility. It's asking what is the expectation here, and I know it's hard to do that. I know it feels hard because there may be people who feel like I should know what I'm supposed to do. I know what the role is, but especially when we talk about women, not maybe getting that first leadership role or whatever next leadership role Sometimes, was that performance evaluation criteria even clearer to begin with?
Speaker 1:What does good look like? What does success look like? It's asking the question, getting really clear. It's leaning on your support system, if you have one. So maybe this is a brand new company and you can still have a support system right outside of the company you're in, or it's your existing and it's not being afraid to ask for help. I know that is hard to do, but we are all human and taking on these really big roles is not of the faint of heart. It takes a lot of mental and physical energy.
Speaker 2:That's right. I think of a couple of things. Come to my mind with it, too, is when the negotiation podcasts that we recently launched. There was a lot of talk there around the academic research for women as we negotiate and what was interesting about it is that, as long as we framed it up and made it part of the bigger picture, that we were really successful. But the other thing was that we could and we should make our best performance level and the conditions that enable us to best perform part of the negotiation. So we are negotiating for the items or the resources or the whatever that will enable us to be performing at our highest level with the lowest stress, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Which I just never thought of in that terminology.
Speaker 1:And I don't want to speak for everyone out there, but I can speak for myself. Whenever I was put into a new and different role which happened often my natural instinct was to get in and start doing. When I reflect back, I wanted nothing more than to get in there and immediately start adding value, without taking that pause to recognize the scenario and to your point. It's negotiating for what you know you need, because what happens when you don't have the resources? It's negotiating for what you know you need, because what happens when you don't have the resources? Now you start doing things yes, because it's needed that you probably shouldn't be doing. That is not necessarily forwarding your level of leadership right and whatever initiative or team that needs to be propelled forward there yeah, and it can be really to your point earlier about asking for help.
Speaker 2:It can be difficult to ask for help. To your point earlier about asking for help it can be difficult to ask for help, but the point is you're asking for help in order to do something bigger for the organization. That's for the organization's benefit, not your own.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if we can remind ourselves that is what that is, maybe it'll be easier for everyone to be able to ask that question more freely.
Speaker 2:I do think, as we continue to go up the ladder, we see these jumps in our leadership, and a jump might be, for example, leading a team of, say, 10 to then leading a team of 100 or 400. And we have to make significant changes in, maybe, how we manage. Maybe it's not how we lead, but it's how we manage. What do you think about that?
Speaker 1:It's funny the word manage, like when we were talking earlier about being and doing. I also think a synonym to doing is managing and leading are two different things. They're related. They do need to go together in some way. Given your role, you might have been somebody who was what you call a player coach. You're engaged in some parts of the work and you're leading a team, inherent in that you're doing some of the stuff. When you're then leading from 10 to you said, 500, whatever it is, that really has to be thought about in a totally different way.
Speaker 1:Some other shifts that I think about with leadership is if we go from doing to being. Another shift would be from knowing to understanding, from knowing to understanding. Oftentimes, individuals who continue to get promoted into leadership because they're good at something right, they've demonstrated success but continuing to be the doer and then also being able to level up leadership can become at odds with each other. So how can you go from like knowing all the things all the time to understanding what's the amount that you need to know in order to help, enable and guide your large organization? So that's another shift, and then the other one that comes to mind and, by the way, this comes from this book called Finding Time to Lead. It's by Ludley Peters short book and so many good nuggets in it and they talk about these three shifts, and the third one is from being reactive to being responsive.
Speaker 1:And so, in this context and the reason why I love these shifts so much is it is that, leveled up leader, you are at a much higher level. You're a CEO, you're overseeing hundreds of people. Whatever it may be, you have to get comfortable. What does that look like? How are you being different? What are you doing? That's different.
Speaker 2:So I want to go back to what you were saying a moment ago about managing and leading, because I know in my corporate career I did get dinged on this at one point and it was incredibly frustrating to me because my leader at the time was asking me really detailed questions about the work that was underway by the team and I was expected to have an answer Right, and so I was. I made care to know everything that was happening. I was meeting with people once a week to just make sure I was up to date. It's not like I was in their details every day, but when it came time for reviews and such, I was dinged for managing and being too in the weeds versus leading and not being out of the weeds, and so I was on this cusp of that next level up, that next jump up, but I was being judged against the future standard while also having to deliver on the current standard of knowing everything that was going on.
Speaker 2:Any advice for people navigating that middle shift.
Speaker 1:So it's tough. First of all, let me just acknowledge that it's very tough and there isn't any one way to just eliminate it, because, at the end of the day, there is this we talk about FOMO fear of missing out which, when you apply that to the professional setting, it's like this feeling that, no matter how high up a leader is, they always like need to know the information. But that can be at the detriment of progress and enabling individuals to feel empowered. So how can we again, going back to that second shift, go from knowing to understanding shift, go from knowing to understanding? How can we go from the day-to-day every nit and nat detail to, if we know what the expected results are, the outcomes we're trying to achieve? How is that going at a higher level, as opposed to did we do this XYZ thing last week, In terms of how to navigate it, and this can be really tough.
Speaker 1:I think it's some of it is a matter of how comfortable can you be having a difficult conversation with your leader and, to your point, it can actually come back and affect you in a way that your team is saying, oh my gosh, so-and-so is just always asking me exactly what I'm doing. I don't feel like they trust me. So it has that negative effect that we don't want to have on our people, and so I think the biggest thing that I would recommend and I know it's not the easy route is having the courage to have a difficult conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have to go back to that leader and I didn't do this at the time and say hey, you're asking me for all these details over here. I know you also want me and my team to step up in leadership. How do you want us to navigate these two things that?
Speaker 1:are really at odds. Yes, and it's a little bit, and this is where the coaching side is going to come out of me. It's helped me understand. Say more about whatever the detail is. What is it about that that you feel like you need to know? And so, who knows? Maybe that person's leader is asking Maybe there's some type of like distrust somewhere, maybe that there's all kinds of reasons as to why that transpires. But even asking the question of help me understand what information you're needing that you're not getting, and then let's figure out a way to do it in a way that still makes the teams, the team of people, feel enabled and empowered to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like that, those lines, those very specific questions that you just shared. So let's talk a little bit about advisors too, because advisors, I think, have a really interesting leadership place right. They are leading themselves because they are usually tasked with growing a business. They might be leading big teams of people as well, depending on how their practice is structured, and they're certainly leading clients. Their practice is structured and they're certainly leading clients. What do you think of when you think about those different types or maybe manifestations of leadership?
Speaker 1:All leading, as we talked about before, and it is wearing different hats. However, I think the goal here is to show up as a leader in a way that not all of these things feel additive, if you will. It's just a way of being that, regardless of what interaction you're in whether it's sitting down with a client to talk about their account, or it's a team member, or it's yourself it doesn't feel like okay, I have to shift gears. I think, with leadership, connecting with people, regardless of who that is your peers, your clients, those who you're responsible to is always going to be something that's important as a leader. So if you're someone who grows, develops and how you can connect with people, you can apply that in most settings.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think of leadership a little bit as this. Like armor I'm putting on, though, and what you're really saying is it's not armor, it's just who you are and how you show up every day, all the time. So it's a growth orientation, it's this you've grown into a leader and now, therefore, you are leader lead and that is that of how you're showing up.
Speaker 1:and when you talked about armor, actually it reminded me of Brene Brown's Dare to Lead book, and there's that whole conversation about armored and unarmored, which is so interesting. To take a step back and even as an individual as that, how am I showing up? And is the way that I'm showing up through either the tasks I'm doing, how I'm addressing people, whatever it may be, the characteristics that I'm showing? Is that me? Is that actually who I am? Or am I putting on a quote, unquote armor and you're right, that is how I think of that is it's unarmored.
Speaker 1:You're an unarmored leader regardless of the setting that you're in. Sometimes it's hard to put tactical tangibility to it, but just think about anyone, any think about any leader out there, public figure, somebody you worked with. What was it about them that, like, really made them stand out to you as a leader? Putting a title aside, those characteristics, how they showed up, how they responded versus reacted, this just becomes how you are and how you conduct yourself, and it's not an overnight switch. It takes intentionality, but you get to a point where, ideally, it's not a switch to be turned on, it's just part of who you are.
Speaker 2:I like that a lot and I think that if we can get to a place of unarmored leadership, it also means that you have that confidence and worthiness to where you are comfortable with that role.
Speaker 1:Yes, confidence is a big one that comes up a lot, doesn't it? I think it's really easy for anyone whether it's a new leadership role, you're in something different you're taking on to all of a sudden start questioning your own competence, your ability to do something, and that all impacts how you show up. So confidence is such a big factor in your present.
Speaker 2:I've been reading the Jamie Kern Lima's book Worthy and she was the creator of it Cosmetics he talks about, and there's many sort of public figures that feel this way, where they may have high confidence but low self-worth, and so I think being able to turn up that self-worth and to get past some of that baggage that you have and then also then bring that confidence further forward and really help you embody I think this embodiment is something that I struggled with for a long time of just embodying whatever it was that I felt.
Speaker 1:Myself included and it. Also I have not read that book, although I'll add it to my list. When I think of worthiness, too, I wonder. I think you were alluding to this. It's like I'm questioning if I deserve this. Yeah, I'm questioning if this contentment or happiness that I feel is going to stay, or is this like a fleeting thing and I shouldn't get too attached to things going? Well, right, it's this. We do that as humans. We catastrophize a lot of things and we always are like what's the worst? This can't last, it's too good, that's right, or it can't be this good for me and absolutely that is going to take a toll on confidence I talk a lot about it and that I had a career I could never have dreamt of as a child.
Speaker 2:And I think many of us have because, as children, our dreams are relatively benign as well and we don't realize, sort of the scope of the world and the scope of our own competence and where our hard work might take us. We have the audacious goal of closing the gap, or helping to close the gap, on women and senior leadership in the wealth management industry.
Speaker 1:What do women need to do differently to make it inside of the corporate ranks if that's where they choose to stay. I would say first ask yourself what you really want. What is it that you really want and why and I know that seems really simple, but at least in my case, I was so busy in the doing. I was so busy in the doing on top of having, like many of us, a very busy household and life that I didn't create the space and time to reflect on what is it that I want and why do I want it. So then, what happened in my case was I got to a point where my North Star what I thought was my North Star became very fuzzy and everything became started to feel very draining. So that's my very first thing. Take a minute. You may be feeling frustrated. Whatever it is that you're feeling is valid. Ask yourself why and ask yourself what you really want. If it is to continue to progress in the organization, that's great. And so then, how do you go about doing that?
Speaker 1:In sponsorship and also mentorship, and those two are different things, right? So who is it that really can sponsor you? And sponsoring means they're talking about you when you don't even know it in a real positive way. They're figuring out ways to give you stretch opportunities, to give you roles or to influence that. They're also in your corner. They're folks that are maybe spending their time with you, giving you advice on what worked for them, what didn't, but also leaning into your story. There's also sometimes what gets in the way too is when you have individuals, women, who might be so status driven. When I say status means like title right, Like you're going for a certain role. That's okay. But when a status driven, it inherently comes this feeling of but there's only so many roles for that, there's only this one role, there's only this, so much space. Then what starts to happen is this growing competitiveness and the way you start showing up, and is this growing competitiveness and the way you start showing up? It takes away from your leadership.
Speaker 1:It takes away from the result. But if you're focused on more, I'll say wealth, and wealth isn't necessarily compensation, but it's like the whole package. What am I doing all this for? What is this affording me to do? All through other parts of my life, I think it starts to help tilt people towards maybe more that abundant mindset. What are these win opportunities? And I also think that lends itself to women lifting up other women.
Speaker 2:And I agree fully with what you've just said. You mentioned sponsorship and mentorship, and the story that popped into my head as you talked about that was that when Muriel Siebert went to get her seat on the New York Stock Exchange, you had to literally be sponsored by another member, and so she had to go ask for sponsorship, and she had to ask nine people before somebody said yes. But what I think is interesting is I remember being in corporate that we at times weren't supposed to ask for what we wanted, and so I think your first point of being really clear about what you want, and then the second point around sponsorship, I think we really have to find the right line inside of our organizations, but at times we have to be more bold than we think we should be or can be and ask for that help too.
Speaker 1:We got to figure out a way to do it. Yeah, we're going to. Yeah, and in some organizations that may not be as welcome, like you said, but we have to push on that because we won't see the difference that we're trying to like affect with having more women in leadership roles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if we continue the way where we are right now.
Speaker 2:Exactly and the numbers haven't moved in like a decade. They're just not changing and there's some data that's saying that in the next coming years we're going to see C-suite even decline because the next level isn't there currently and I think some of it is a little bit of blowback on asking it's some folks dropping out of corporate ranks just feeling like it's too hard now. The last point I wanted to mention was that and you alluded to it as well is that I think we have an opportunity to stop the competition with each other. We have an opportunity to get loud for each other too, to really support and promote women and let's celebrate each other.
Speaker 1:And just because we are acknowledging and celebrating somebody else doesn't mean that takes away opportunity for us. And how much stronger could we be when we are going at it together as opposed to against each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the last thing, and related to that, is noticing our own accomplishments and saying that one person said when you're running into someone in the hallway, right, you could be at an advisor office and or you could be in a corporate ranks. If somebody asks you how you're doing, you should have a line that says some big accomplishment that you've just done, oh I'm doing great. Did you hear I won that 20 million dollar client? Oh, I'm doing great. Did you hear I won that $20 million client? Oh, I'm doing great. Kelsey on our team got funding for a new tool, whatever it might be. So I think, maybe normalizing a little bit of that bragging-ness too Women don't tend to do that we're never going to be over the line on this stuff. People.
Speaker 1:We're just never. We brag a little more than we have been and we'll still be open. Acknowledgement and celebrating. Celebrating accomplishment helps fuel progression. It helps you show up as a leader.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. This has been such a great conversation.
Speaker 1:What would you identify as some really key resources for people to learn about leadership and perhaps to get to that embodied state yeah, there's so many leadership books out there the one that I referenced earlier about the shifts, especially for those who are leveling up in leaders. They're going from being the player coach, leader to now they need to level up even more. I definitely recommend the Finding Time to Lead book that I mentioned. I also love Dare to Lead for Brene Brown. I think there's a lot that comes from being vulnerable, which I know feels hard. That then leads you to a place where you're okay. It is okay. It's normalizing, asking for things and showing up in a certain way, and that not only helps you, but it's going to help empower many people that you're going to be leading in some way if you can embrace that.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love those as well. To wrap us up, one question I want to start asking all my podcast guests is to share with us a favorite quote.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love this one. There's so many quotes that, when I think about the topic at hand and leadership, there's a quote that Walt Whitman said we convinced by our presence. If there's one theme that people hopefully heard throughout our conversation is that leadership is being, and by being we're convincing and with that we're leading, and so to me, that quote really hits home and speaks to leadership present oh, I love that, sheila.
Speaker 2:Thank you again so much for joining us today yeah, so fun.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me All right, bye.