EP 132: Authentic Leadership Starts Within — Identity, Confidence & Leading with Courage with Dr. Elizabeth Pritchard

In this episode of Thriving in Intersectionality, Dr. Lola Adeyemo sits down with leadership researcher, executive coach, and bestselling author Dr. Elizabeth Pritchard for a conversation about identity, authenticity, confidence, and what it truly means to lead from the inside out.

The conversation begins with an honest reflection on intersectionality itself. Elizabeth shares why she has a complicated relationship with labels and how years of personal growth helped her move beyond defining herself by roles and expectations. Together, she and Dr. Lola explore how our lived experiences—including culture, family, career, adversity, and personal history—shape the leaders we become.

Drawing on decades of experience across healthcare, education, neuroscience, and leadership development, Elizabeth explains why so many capable leaders continue to struggle with self-doubt despite their accomplishments. She introduces the BE → DO → HAVE framework, discusses the hidden patterns that keep leaders stuck, and shares practical ways individuals and organizations can build cultures grounded in authenticity, psychological safety, and courageous leadership.

Whether you're an emerging leader, an experienced executive, or someone navigating personal and professional growth, this conversation offers practical tools for leading with greater confidence and self-awareness.

In This Episode, We Discuss:

• Why intersectionality is about more than visible identities
• Moving beyond labels and discovering your authentic self
• How childhood experiences and limiting beliefs shape leadership
• The connection between neuroscience, self-awareness, and confidence
• Why capable leaders often struggle with self-doubt
• The BE → DO → HAVE framework for authentic leadership
• Creating psychologically safe workplaces where people can thrive
• How leaders can recognize and interrupt unhelpful behavioral patterns
• Why coaching accelerates personal and professional growth
• Practical ways organizations can build cultures of trust, courage, and belonging

About the Guest

Dr. Elizabeth Pritchard is an international keynote speaker, bestselling author, researcher, and Authentic Leadership coach based in Melbourne, Australia. Originally from Aotearoa (New Zealand), she is the Co-Founder and Director of WALT Institute and co-author of The Authentic Leadership Playbook. Her work combines neuroscience, leadership research, and positive psychology to help leaders close the gap between capability and confidence while building healthier, more effective workplace cultures.

Learn more about Elizabeth's work, leadership resources, and coaching through the links in the show notes.

Reflection Question

What roles or labels have you carried for years—and how might they be shaping the way you lead today?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hello and welcome to the Thriving in Intersectionality Podcast. A podcast that explores the real experiences of professionals navigating the workplace with layered, leaded identities. I'm your host, Dr. Lola Ateemo, the CEO of EQI Mindset and founder of the nonprofit Immigrants Incorporate, Inc. I'm also an author, speaker, and a workplace inclusion strategist. I work with organizations to build communities of belonging through strategy, storytelling, and systems change. This podcast amplifies the voices of professionals from intersectional backgrounds, immigrants, ethnic minorities, first-gen professionals, veterans, working parents, individuals with disabilities, and so many more. Through solo reflections and guest conversations, we'll uncover the eating challenges, celebrate the wins, and offer insights to help you thrive, not just survive, in the corporate world. Because in today's global workforce, belonging isn't just a bonus, it's the catalyst for real growth and impact. Let's dive in. Alright, welcome back everyone to another episode of the Thriving and Intersectionality Podcast. My guest today is Dr. Elizabeth Pritchard from Walt Institute. But before I bring her in, as always, I love to set the stage. What is intersectionality? Intersectionality is a word that I came across a few years ago through the work of Dr. Kimberly Crenshaw, where she did a lot of work around uh experiences of black women, so race and gender intersections. And she's still actively doing a lot of research around that. And so, you know, definitely worth checking out. I love to give that credit. Um, but here is the definition and the explanation that I really want to leave you all with. Intersectionality is a framework that recognizes how multiple aspects of identity, such as gender, culture, upbringing, lived experiences, profession, even personal history, how all of this context that each of us bring to the work we do, how they overlap and interact and create very unique experiences that shape how we all navigate the world and especially how we lead. And a lot of times, you know, we we look at people that are leading, we look at people that seem to have it all together. We we come into people's lives through their bio. And on this podcast, my goal is simply to bring the layers that everyone brings to their work. You know, a lot of times we read the show notes, we'll find the bio in the show notes, uh, but I love to look at this through the lens of how did you get here? What are some of the layers that bring you to the work you do today? And what can early career professionals or even corporate leaders who are listening learn from that on how to lead people well. So I think we have a great person to talk about this uh with us today, uh, because Dr. Elizabeth Pritchard's work really um I think it brings in all of those different layers that we talk about in the corporate workspace and for early career professional, and we'll touch on that a little bit about Dr. Pritchard. Dr. Elizabeth Pritchard is an international keynote speaker, a best-selling author, a researcher, and authentic leadership coach based in Melbourne, Australia. Originally from Alterora.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

It was pretty good. Thank you. Is in New Zealand. I tried. You did well. I did well, yes, see, yes, yes, Dr.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Preachard is the co-founder and director of Walt Institute, and she's the co-author of the Authentic Leadership Playbook. A work spans over three decades across neuroscience, leadership, and research with a focus on closing the gap between capability and confidence for women leaders and the organizations they work in. And I love um the broad range of experience that she brings in today, but we are going to go ahead to the mid of this uh conversation, which is getting to know Dr. Elizabeth beyond the bio. So, welcome, Dr. Elizabeth. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Thank you so much. I'll say curako to everybody. Say hello and welcome, everyone. See you senior, uh led off with Autira. So, yes, I am born in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and now live, as you said, Dr. Lola, in Melbourne, Australia.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Yeah, so I'm getting ready to wrap up my day, and she's just starting her day. So the fun wonders of technology. Yes, in the future. I'm in the future. You are in the future, she's already in the next day. All right, so Dr. Elizabeth, uh, why don't you introduce yourself through through your own lens? When you hear the word intersectionality, what aspects of your own identity has most shaped who you are today?

SPEAKER_00 5:45

This is an interesting question because when I think of intersectionality, I think of labels. And one of the things I hate is labels because people then put the box around the label. Oh, so you're a woman. Oh, so you're in research. Oh, so you have children, or oh, you don't have children, oh, you don't have children, you're in that box. Oh, you're this, oh, you live in that suburb, oh, you're from here, and and all of these things to me come up with all of these biases, these unconscious and conscious biases that that we tend to shove people in. So I sort of struggle with that word, even though I totally get that we have layers. I have many, many layers of who I am and who I'm being. And I think in the last decade I've I have dedicated the work for myself to recognize what those layers are, to pull them apart, explore them, inquire around them for myself and go, so which parts of these things serve me and which don't.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yeah. I love it, and I hear you. I I think when I started hosting these conversations a while back, I I struggled with opening up my expectations to what my guests will say, and I I realized the same thing. So what so we can stay on this part of the conversation as much as needed because I actually think it's interesting uh the word intersectionality, because I think I I was around a lot of people that will put that word around visible identities, right? So we we say all those labels, and then I will bring some guests in and they'll talk about context, they'll talk about their roles. When I ask that question, people talk about their context, right? So I realized don't don't spend too much time on it. Let people present themselves the way you they choose to. I mean, and I'll see people answer that question with a response around their leadership style, their position in their family, you know, the the kind of family units they have, right? Like I think over phases of life, the way we think about our question might also look very different, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Yeah, I think I think that you're probably right there as well, because I was at a stage 15, 20 years ago when I was absolutely for myself, I was at rock bottom. And around that, I knew that I had to do life differently. I was completely burnt out. I was diagnosed with severe clinical depression. And this is this is as a health professional for 25 years working with people with brain injury, and and um I was the one that was helping them get their life back on track. I was the one who helped them manage fatigue and stress and sleep and return to a current and previous levels of occupations in their lives. That's what I did. I specialized in it, I loved it. That's I relished it, and I missed me. I missed me. I totally missed me. And yes, like you said, the roles. When I look at the roles, I was a mother, I was the youngest of nine children, I was working, I was studying, I was giving to the community, I was assisting with and helping support my my in-laws, all of these things, all of these things I see as roles. And I used to think that that was me. If I was to explain myself 20 years ago when you asked that question, Lola, I would have said, Oh, I'm a mother, I'm this, I'm this, I'm this, and I would have explained all the roles that I did in my life. In the last 10, 15 years, and this is the work that we do around authentic leadership, I have recognized and understood and grow and learn and developed me, who I am, and know that I'm not the body, I'm not the roles, I'm not my thoughts, I'm not my emotions, I am that that I am, and recognizing who that is, who is the soul of me, who is the essence of me, who do I show up as every single day? And every conversation, every meeting, every every training, every interaction down the road with the neighbor, who do I show up as? And it wasn't until I recognized and learned that I could regulate that, once I understood them, and then I could regulate them, and that I can show up being all of me, the authentic me, and dial up and dial down with regulation and awareness. My strengths, my abilities, my my curiosity, my learning, my growth, all of that. I can I can dial that up and down because I now understand those layers of all those things, like you said, that have been woven together, and they are me.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Um, all of ourselves, the discovery the journey, though. I know sometimes we're not aware of it, but we we live in different parts and different pieces, and we show up with different personas in different species, and maybe some parts of us haven't even been discovered yet.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Absolutely, that was definitely part of my journey. And I was I was quite expert at being a compartmentalizer, so I would be um like I developed this very strongly because I thought this was who I needed to be. I thought that I needed to be like, you know, the mother persona over here, and the worker over here, and this and the study student over here, and the supervisor over here, and the team leader here, and the the child over here to my parents, and the and the the mother over here to to my children, and and all of those things. And I and I used to compartmentalize those and shove them in different boxes, and I'd go, oh, okay, take that hat off now because I'm leaving work. Now I go back to being a mother, or I go back to standing on stage and talking to people, or I go into the department that I was working in and work with the people that I'm working with, or go into the university and do some lecturing, what whatever it is, I I would put different personas in place. And it took me hitting rock bottom to realize that when I did that, there was so much conflict inside me because I was constantly jumping from this to that to this to that, and thinking that all of those roles had the certain expectations, rules, beliefs for that. And so I was turning myself inside out to be the best mother, the best lecturer, the best therapist, the the you know, the best daughter. And I was I was turning myself inside out, trying, literally trying, and I hate that word, because we either do or do not do, but I was trying very unsuccessfully to be all of these things, and that's when the the incongruence happens between head and heart and body and soul, that's where the incongruence happens between what I know and what I do, because I'm trying to please everyone, and it just does not work.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

And lose ourselves in the process. Thank you for sharing that. Okay, so let's turn this back to leadership a little bit. How do you think all of those experiences that you had, you know, different roles, compatibilization, and the journey that you walked today, maybe how do you think some of that influence how you see leadership today?

SPEAKER_00 13:58

I see it in a much more open and inspiring way, in a way, because I see the I see the flaws that amazing people, good people are following the process, they're following the rules, the structures, the frameworks to be a good leader. But they're doing the do. They're doing this and doing that, and following this process and and uh uh running with this type of leadership, and they're not being who they be. So in it in our work in authentic leadership, we talk about be, do, have. And there are so many very, very skilled people who are doing and having, doing and having. I want to have a great team, so I do this, I do this, I do this, I do this, I do this, I do this, and they have enormous to-do lists and and they keep pushing themselves and driving themselves to 60 hours a week, 70 hours a week, because they can do it, and they keep pushing and pushing and pushing. And within that, I now can see through those things and through what the patterns are behind those. And so this is where the neuroscience comes in, and it's really valuable, and it's not to blame or shame or guilt or give judgment on anyone else, it's to recognize those patterns and the processes that people are stuck in because of everything that we've been through, all of our lived experiences, every conversation, every experience in our lives clocks up a little, ah, so that is blah. Ah, so that means I'm blah. And so we clock this up from the the moment we're born, and we create these beliefs within ourselves, and they can be coming from our families, our neighbors, the teachers that we've had at school, uncles, aunties, anybody that we've been in contact with, and also social interactions and social media, definitely. And so these shape what we believe about ourselves. And it's not until we go, oh, hang on, who's the me behind the doing and the having? Who is the authentic leader here? What does that mean? Who am I? And these might seem a bit existential, but we make them really specific and really concrete, so it's okay. And within that, it's like, who do I be to have a high performing team? Who do I be to get that promotion? Who do I be to move up to CEO? Who do I be to stay as CEO in this organization? Who do I be to whatever it is, create a multi-million dollar company that's on its way, but it keeps getting stuck and I keep self-sabotaging without knowing it? And as I said, it's these patterns that we have that have been built through no fault of anybody. They've just built and they're within us. And until we learn how to recognize them and look at them with inquiry and go, are they true? Is that true? Am I really not good enough to have a $40 million company because I've got a $5 million company, but I think that's as far as I can go. Is that really true? And we explore that. It might be I'm the simple beliefs like I'm always late. Oh, well, I'm just always late, and my team have got to live with it. That's just a belief that has become a pattern. And so when we explore what's behind that, we can then change that, shift that neural pattern, and you get to, you don't have to, you don't need to, but you get to, if you choose to, create a different pattern to become the authentic leader. So to answer your question in a very long way, how I see leadership now, I see I see the potential in the leaders that they don't realize yet. I see the patterns that keep playing out, that I know once they are aware of them, we can change them together. I see the people and the teams that have so much more inside them that could be explored and exploded and supported if their leader used different words, if their leader created a different type of culture and environment in the organization where people feel safe to speak up and have robust conversations with Canada and do it differently. So that's what I see.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Thank you. Thank you for wrapping it all together. I love it. And we'll get to talk about your work a little bit more in a bit. But I want to take you back to about you a little more, um, exploring your journey. You you kind of touched on a lot of the things, the roles that you have had. And so before we get to the work that you do today, could you walk us through your professional journey a little bit and some of the key transitions that uh led you to uh establishing the Walt Institute?

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Sure. So I hated school. I I never felt like I fitted in. I always felt like as an outsider because I thought differently and I I didn't want to follow the rules, but I knew I had to follow the rules, otherwise I'd get into trouble. But I didn't really want to, and I and that wasn't from a sense of anarchy, it was a sense of, but there's a better way to do it. Um, you know, I knew there were different ways of doing things within me. So I hated school. And people say, and you've got a PhD, yes, I did a degree, I did a master's, and I have a PhD. I learned to love school. And then I taught in school for many years as well. So I was like, you learned to create amazingness around it. But I I just never felt like I fitted in at school, and so I wanted to get out of school as fast as I could, and I went into a profession. I could I didn't want to be a nurse or a doctor because I thought, oh no, there's too many. I I didn't I don't do blood or needles. So that sort of threw that out. I didn't want to teach other people at that stage because that there were some teachers in my family, and I just thought I don't want to do that. And as I was growing up, there was sort of in my head, there was quite sort of limited options, and so I became an occupational therapist and and left home at 17 to go to another to go to a big city and go through training to become an occupational therapist, and part of my beliefs around that time was like I'll do it for a couple of years and then I'll um get married and have children, and and that was what I did, and I didn't expect to have a career. And then I had my first child, and I'll get to the work stuff. I had my first child, and and I th I was home with her for eight months, and I went, I can't be a full-time mum, this is not for me. This is not for me, I cannot do this, I'm going spare. And so I learned very sort of quickly that full-time motherhood for me was not was not my jam. It was not my thing, and so I worked part-time ever since from there and developed my um my career, so to speak, as an occupational therapist in neuro rehab for over 20, 25 years. And then I got to the sort of stage where I was like, oh, it was it was becoming a little bit the same same. And I had this, used to have this mantra. I love it love a challenge. I can't even say it now without stuttering. I love it was like it's no longer a belief. Because it got me into trouble, because then everything in life was a challenge, and I realized that I was setting myself up and attracting lots of hard things. So I no longer say that, but I used to then. And so I then moved into across into education from healthcare into education, where I uh developed and ran a leadership program for managers in health. And that was that was sensational. I loved that. It was growth on steroids for me, who had all who had been sort of come become a little bit comfortable in my career because I'd been there for so long and was well known in in New Zealand as well for what I did and her and how I did it. And then within that time of being in education, then I recognised I wanted to do a master's because I had this lovely limiting belief, which came from a young girl, that I was a dumb blonde because I always had really long blonde blonde hair as a child, and people treated me as a dumb blonde and said to me as a dumb blonde at school. And so I thought, well, I know what I'll do a master's and prove to them that I'm not dumb. So I did a master's, I proved to myself that I'm not dumb. Nobody else was really noticing and gave it gave a shit about it. But anyway, that's fine. That was what that was my motivation at the time that I did it. And then after that, I went, oh my gosh, I really like this extra learning stuff. I really love being absorbed in research and understanding things on a different level and questioning it a different way. And so I just put it on the backburn at that time. Lots of things happened. My marriage um we went through divorce. And then I looked at, I want to do my PhD, because often apparently the statistics say that when um husband and wife separate, then often the wife gets a new degree. The husband often gets a new partner, the wife often gets a new degree. And apparently there's statistics around that. It was like, damn, I'm a statistical uh fit in the norm. Never mind, they're all good. Anyway, and so within that I thought, okay, but if I learned in New Zealand and trained in New Zealand and worked in New Zealand for so long, I sort of knew the people in my field in New Ze in New Zealand because it's only a country of four and a half, five million people. And so I thought, I want to go further afield to to get other people's thoughts and ideas and and and understandings and things. And so I moved to Australia, which is three and a half hours across a ditch, and another another um another country which is similar in the antibodies, however, it has quite a different culture and underlying culture within it. And I moved to Melbourne, Australia, which was about four and a half to five million. So all of my country was now in the city, and I knew two people, and I'd only known them, I only met them um a few weeks earlier. So that for me was again part of my growth and development of setting up Welsh Institute because that was like, oh my gosh, I can do these things. Oh, I I do have resourcefulness within me. I wonder what else I have within me. And that didn't stop from the first day when I went to the university and did all the paperwork signing up things, and then I went onto the campus, and I remember sitting in front of this fountain thing on campus in the little lake thing. And I remember sitting there and I was bawling my eyes out, going, What have I done? I'm just moved to countries and I know no one, and I'm staying with these people I met like six weeks ago, and I have no idea. And the city's as big as my whole country. What have I done? What am I doing? Why am I here? And so I had those moments as well, definitely. And I think it's important to recognize those because those moments of ups and downs and ebbs and flows are what creates who we are, are what strengthens our layers along the way. And then I did my PhD and I worked in research, and part of that it was like I have things that I've learned that I can teach others, that I can show people and give to other people. And so about 10 years ago, Christine Burns and I co-founded Well Institute, which is Women Authentic Leadership Training Institute. And yeah, we just absolutely love being able to share the strategies that we've learned the hard way that other people learn from us and put in place. And the more that we go into neuroscience, neuroencoding, we know that these patterns that have been created in our childhood, these statements we say to ourselves, we can bust through them. We can bust through them quickly, and then we practice building the new pattern. Yeah, I love it. What was your master's in? And what was your uh PhD above? Um, my master's was in it was occupational therapy, so I did it by papers, so I had different papers learning about um learning about community practice and you know public health type community practice. I did some psychology papers, I did a paper around sleep hygiene um for people and and which also I was also part of the brain injury um international guidelines for brain injury rehab that were um brought out in 2009. So I was part of that with the Association of Um Occupational Therapy New Zealand, and and so there was a lot of lot of um papers around that sort of whole neuroscience type of thing, neurology as well. Oh, okay. And yeah, HD, I was looking at um more around the psychology of how and why some people with the same type of um injury or illness, some people get back to work quicker or back to their occupations faster than others. And what is that about? They might have the same type of diagnosis, however, this person thrives and blossoms over here and rocks it real fast, and this person stays in quite a sort of a sick, infirmed type role. And and why does that happen? So I was looking around those sorts of things.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Oh, I like that. Um, maybe that will be tied to my next question because I was just curious too about your move. I I was born and raised in Nigeria and I moved to the US. So um I have a non-profit actually called Immigrants Incorporate, and so we have a lot of people in our community uh who moved countries and cultures, and and so raising a different culture, but working professionally in a different culture. And I know you've also worked with clients across different parts of the world. So I'm just wondering if there's anything that stood out from from um from your work and and maybe from your perspective, which gets broadened when you get to live in different places, right? When we move out of our own bubble and explore uh people and research across countries. Anything that stood out for you around uh people's experiences?

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Yes, absolutely. Um I think what stands out for me, and I lead this in in New Zealand working with our um with Mori. So in New Zealand we have a bicultural um bicultural um partnership with called Tatiriti or Waitangi. So we have a treaty that's signed with indigenous people and um pakihar, white people. And so everything that we do in health and education, particularly, or everything really, but particularly health and education where I work have worked, you needed to be considerate of the other person and never assume that you knew what to do. Basically, the answer was okay, I'm here. This is me. I'm connected to these people because it's always about connections. What is your mountain, your your river, your land, your people that you're from? So it's your fucker papa, and what are your people that you're from? And then you have that connection and you build that rapport first before you get down to business, whatever that is. And what I learned really strongly in working in New Zealand, I'm so valuable, so valuable that I learned this is that to never assume that I know that because this person is from China, then I do it this way, or because this person is from Australia, I do it this way, because this person is Mori, I do this, because this person is from Cook Islands, I do that. I go in going, I'm respectful, and I respect that I don't know what you need from me. And so I ask. And I think that was such a fantastic learning that I learned because often people go, oh, okay, so that person's Mori, so they need this, that person's Samoan, so they need that, that person's Nigerian, so they need that. It was I I'm still putting a person in a box and saying, I know from my limited knowledge as a as a white Anglo-Saxon that they need this, which is BS, because again, I'm putting people in a box with a label and saying, you must fit that because that's what I know. Whereas if I go in going, I don't know what you need, let's work this out together. And so I think I do that in my work when I work with anybody. I mean, we coach and train across the world, as you said, and one of the things is language, so that that's one of the things that first shows up. Accents, of course. Some people don't understand my accent, that's fine. We get that, and so is is that is the language that when I say something about something, I constantly need to check what they've heard. Because apart from just the language meaning different things in different countries to different people, there's also the the important understanding that nothing has meaning except the meaning we give it. And so I can say purple to you, and you could go, Oh, I hate purple, it's revolting, it reminds me of blah blah blah blah blah. Don't ever mention that again. And when I go purple to me, I go, Yeah, I'm sort of neutral about purple, and then I'll say something to purple about somebody else, and they go, Oh, I love purple, it's my favorite colour, I always have purple everywhere in my house. And so nothing has meaning except the meaning we give it. The word is neutral, but we give it a meaning, and so I think that's important too.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

And and the the key part of it is listening, and and maybe it starts from before listening is acknowledging that hey, there's some things I believe about this group or this person, um, just being transparent with ourselves and and um will enough to listen. Thank you for sharing that. All right, before I go into kind of tying who you are to the work we do and asking for some advice here, I wanted to ask for specific uh specifically about women. Um, what are some of the patterns you see um repeatedly with high achieving women and are they holding themselves back without realizing it? Is there something in that group specifically because you work with um a lot of them?

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Yes, it's those little voices. The little voices about oh, can I really speak on stage to a thousand people? I've only spoken to a hundred before. It was like, oh, do I really know what I'm doing? It's those little secret voices that that keep cropping up and keep being niggles, and some people call it imposter syndrome. I don't because it's a that's a label. Some people call it that. Some people say I feel like a fraud when I'm talking with whatever. I'm I've got this sastin, this sastin. We're going really well here, and this is fantastic, and there's this little niggle over here, and so what I see is the patterns of the little niggles, and so the little niggles aren't about your capability because we all have amazing strengths and capabilities when we recognize them, not if, when, when we recognize them, and often if people go, Oh, but I've got nothing, it's because they haven't sat down and stacked their goodies and recognized what their amazing strengths are on the inside. It was like I've I'm only just we never say that sort of thing, because you're then putting yourself down, you're demeaning yourself and your accomplishments and who you are as a person. And so I recognize this often that we we do this thing where where we'll say, Okay, there's a there's a chair over there, okay, and that's your best friend, okay, your best friend ever, that you just absolutely love spending time with. Now think of the things you tell yourself and tell them to that best friend. And people go, uh I can't say that. I was like, why not? It was like, because it's really mean, or it's hard, or it's horrible, or it's harsh, or I can't tell them that they were stupid or that they they failed at that or they were dumb at that or they missed that, or why do they do that? Oh heck, you did it again. I can't tell them that. It was like, okay, so why are you telling that to yourselves? And so we explore that, and we explore that whole thing about language, self-talk, because it's just a pattern, and when people recognize it's just a pattern, then we can bust through it and put in a pattern and a thought process that supports and creates the thriving within them, and that's so exciting to do and see. So it's not about you know, do it this way, do it that way, blah blah blah blah blah. Yes, there's a lot of that in our book. There is some there's theories and formulas and methods because people need to have the understanding behind it, and then we go beneath that. It was like, who am I being when I show up to that? Who are you being as you walk into that room with the board around the table who are exploring something that you agree differently? Who are you being when you step up in front of your team and identify that there's gonna be restructures and redundancies? Who are you being when you disagree with a colleague about something that they're gonna do within their organization? Who are you being? And so we get to explore that, and it comes from thoughts, emotions, and then the actions that we do.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

I love it. Thank you so much. I think you're kind of already getting into the wrap-up session for me, which was going to be a little bit of putting it together and giving people, individuals, um, some actionable things to walk away with. So is there anyone that is kind of that relates with you, sort of at the beginning of the who are you, through the intersections, through the layers question? And then maybe they are on this journey right now, this leadership journey, this self-development, self-learning journey, um, what advice will you give to them? You know, people that you know are capable of doing more, of being so much more. Um what will be the one or two things that you will give them as takeaways right now if they're listening?

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Fantastic. I think the the one thing that I learned, and I learned it the hard way, is to always have a coach. And this might sound like a sales pitch, but it's not. I believe in it so much that I can't see things that are happening from the outside because I'm on the inside, and so I keep doing the repeat things, I keep doing the patterns that are tripping me up, and I don't know what I don't know. And so when I have a coach, and my coach is uh amazing, she's an international coach, she's worked in HR across the world, she's done all sorts of things, she works in um businesses everywhere, and she calls me on my shit, basically. She said she goes, ah, so we're going there again, are we? Because we have this really great relationship as well. And and so she will call me on my shit, and I go, Oh, I'm just jumped into that pattern. Okay, so I don't want that pattern anymore, so we change it, we shift it, we break it, and we move into a different pattern, and then I do what supports that. So I work out who I be first before I do stuff. And so for me, having that external coach who's incredibly skilled and amazing at what she does, and she's very agile. If I bring her a methods, formula type, framework-y type thing, we'll go through something and create it. If I bring through a, oh my gosh, everything's just starting to fall apart, we'll we'll pull it apart and look at it. And and she'll she'll work on the me first, she'll work on the be. Who am I being to have that? And so that is that is one of the things that I just have found so invaluable myself, and I really encourage people to look for that. And if you want to, you can come and look up me and I can point you into into other people as well. And then the second thing I think is to recognize that you have to start here first. We often go, yeah, but they won't let me, that company wants to do that, that person says that, they want this, they want that, and we give our power away to the external circumstances and situations and people, and we must come back to self first. It's not being selfish, it's being self-full. We must be self-full first, be full of knowing who we are, our strengths, our abilities, our self-awareness, our ability to be regulated and have a deep-seated belief in who we are, our self-efficacy of who we are being. And as we do that, and as we be that, then who we portray, the person we are in every situation in our lives will be different.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

Hello, yeah, and I wanted to pause and let that land because um I work with a lot of people in in the corporate world, and then there's entrepreneurs, and and you know, we know there's systemic work that needs to be happened between some of these spaces, but we're gonna keep fighting that fight for a long time. Is that what we're depending on? And so just bringing it all back to self, um, knowing that we are all very different. I talk about, you know, people can share frustrations with you about something and you are not as bothered about that, but it might bother the other person. It doesn't, you know, you don't invalidate their feelings by saying you're not bothered about it, or you respect enough to know that hey, this bothers you, you know, that's important to you. Let's talk about that. Um, I love that. We definitely need a whole episode explanation around coaching, um, coaching, mentorship, the whole difference, even therapists, right? Because I think a lot of people get stuck into well, where do I start? There's so many different kinds of coaches, there's so many. Do I need a mentor? Um, who do you need to talk to? And and we had a previous conversation where we dived into all of that. Um, and but I love the way you described it. Who is the person? I live inside of this, so I can't see who is that person that is giving you a perspective from the outside, and you know, whatever level or title you call it, we all need that one person who can be very factual with us and and really reflect to us. Thank you. So, um, a little bit more final words for organizations. So, as we talk about leadership, um, people that have leadership roles within organizations, uh, people leadership roles, what is there something that you want to share for that audience, if there's anyone listening? Um, maybe something that you wish more organizations understood about creating environments where people can lead authentically, because there's two sides to these, right? There's the the organizational systems and the individuals. So, what can leaders understand better?

SPEAKER_00 43:45

Absolutely. So we work with a lot of organizations who say our leaders are great. And then when you explore and you go beneath the surface, their leaders are really great managers. They're managers of KPIs, the managers of FTE or EFT. Whichever you use in your country. And so within that, it's like, okay, they're great managers. And what is the culture that they're building within their organization? And so we go in there and help them recognize that and help them to build a culture that is actually open and transparent. People go, oh yes, our communication's open and transparent. But what they're doing is a whole lot of other things that is not open and transparent. And then they say, people feel, you know, people feel safe to speak up and everybody's in agreement. Well, if everybody's in agreement, then you have group think. You do not have an organization where people are safe to speak up. And so we look at these types of things because when you lead authentically, and so you start with the individuals, absolutely. And when the individuals lead themselves authentically, then they can lead their teams to high-performing teams. Ones that are absolutely open and honest, ones that admit mistakes and own up to things with with with ownership and accountability and responsibility. And nobody blames them for it. Nobody gives the little snide comments about, oh yeah, well, if they didn't do that, then we wouldn't would have been able to deliver this KPI on or project on time. And so they get the little snide comments in. And so what's happening on the informal level is so important to think about and recognize and understand because this has huge impact on productivity, retention, burnout in your team, mental health in your teams, and ultimately your bottom line in your corporation and business. And so it's super, super important to invest in developing each of your leaders, not in the change management process or the this or the that method or framework, in recognizing who they are being, in recognizing that my self-awareness, there's some research around where we're something like 78% of people think they're really self-aware in leadership. And when they actually did some analysis, they actually identified that the number was more like 32%. And so we think that we have a more self-awareness than we do. And then we're quite scared of getting feedback in case they all think I'm doing it wrong and I don't get my bonus or my or my or my promotion at the end of the year or whatever it is. And so it's all tied to these things within the system, which is setting us up to fail, which is setting the people and the teams up to not work together as a high-performing team where everyone has everybody's backs, where you have conversations with candor, where there's no such thing as a difficult or a tough conversation, the courageous conversations that happen every single day, because that's the way you have the openness and the safety, the psychological safety that you've built in the organization where people can speak up, where somebody, anybody, the cleaner, the admin person, anybody in the team, the next executive director can say to the CEO, actually, I think there might be a different way here. What if, blah, blah, blah? Actually, I have a different perspective on this. I'm thinking blah, and you have this robust open conversation where you respect each other as equals, as humans, not as hierarchy.

SPEAKER_01 47:46

Yeah. So the ideal emerging state that we all seek to get to. But it's doable. It's doable. It is doable. It is doable. It is doable. So as we um wrap up before the final question, this is the question before the final question. This is the final, final, final. This is the final, final, final. Um back to the theme of the conversation. So thriving in intersectionality, and bring it back to you, Dr. Elizabeth. So when you think about your own journey, your own career path, your own life journey, how do you think your intersections, your different experiences, how do you think it shapes or continues to shape the way you live today?

SPEAKER_00 48:35

It shapes enormously because I when I think about all the experiences I've had in my life, and some of them I've shared in detail in the in the book as well, and they've ranged from sexual abuse as a child to not feeling part of the crew, to believing I didn't have a voice, to feeling like I was overlooked, to grief and loss and and personal trauma along the way, and dealing with a partner who had cancer and all of these different things within my life. Now, for me, that's another reason why I don't like having a label because I don't want to be labelled as a survivor or a victim or a this or a that. I'm me, I'm Elizabeth, I am me. And me comes with all of these beautiful layers and strengths that have been my experiences. If I choose to see it that way. So this is part of our work in a lot of ways. It's like if we have that experience where we worked for that narcissistic boss and they actually demeaned our work and and we we got totally screwed up about it. We can either stay back in that past and and sit in it and keep replaying it and feeling that effect of that traumatic response that we had, or we can recognize it is what it is, it happened, these things happened, doesn't excuse them, they happened. And I get to choose my response. Every single day.

SPEAKER_01 50:49

But I have to get my my signature question in. My last question, thank you. Uh, that was definitely a good way to wrap up our conversation. But I ask like my food question in uh because I like to end on a light note, especially when you've dropped a lot of really good stuff for us here today, um, that even I will be like thinking about myself um as I prepare to share this episode. But when if you were to pick to share a meal with your co-workers, what would you pick and why did you pick what you picked?

SPEAKER_00 51:25

The food, the actual food? Yeah, maybe, yeah. What what would you pick? Okay. Okay, I would have like a six-course degustation meal with um each course accompanied by a different beverage, and some of them, some of my amazing people drink and some people don't, so they would be amazing cocktails or amazing mocktails or whatever wines or whatever would fit with each of these things. I would have a sixth-course meal. I love food, I love fresh things, I love seafood, I love things that explode in your mouth, and I would have little tiny six courses of mortals with an amazing type of meat dish, second to last, with a beautiful dessert, which looked stunning as well as tasted divine, and everything would be gluten and dairy-free because I'm celiac and I can't eat dairy. And so everything is gluten and dairy-free and stunningly prepared by the bestest, bestest chefs that just create this moment of connection, engagement, and fun and laughter, and just a beautiful experience for everyone around the table.

SPEAKER_01 52:44

I love it. You know, I always love thinking about how people respond to this question and tying it into everything we just talked about. And I think that just sums you up so well. It's like I want to, you know, I want to make sure I can eat it. So it's definitely not going to have the stuff I'm not gonna have, but I'm also going to make sure that people have options and that the presentation is beautiful, and then you know, it's got an option for a lot of different people, and I think that that definitely speaks to the art of what you just shared and and what you do with your work at the World Institute. So thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_00 53:21

Thank you, Dr. Laula. That has just been an absolute pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 53:25

All right, well, for anyone listening, uh, please share. We you have an option to also engage through your podcast platform once you get on the page. So I would love to hear your thoughts about this episode. What was your biggest takeaway? And of course, on the show notes, you're gonna see how to follow up with Dr. Elizabeth, and you'll get a link to our book as well, and to um a way to connect with her if you choose to. I would love to hear what you're thinking about this episode, what was your biggest takeaway, and uh any question that you have. Please share, rate, and review wherever you get your podcast. Thank you for joining us. Thank you so much. Thank you for being part of today's conversation on thriving in intersectionality. If you're an HR or DEI leader and you need employer resource group or business resource group resources, let's connect and LinkedIn and help organizations build inclusive cultures through inclusive workplace communities, strategy, and storytelling. Immigrants and first-gen professionals, join our free community at www.immigrantsincorporate.org for career support, networking, and resources in community with peers who understand your journey. Tag our podcast page on LinkedIn or connect with me directly to continue the conversation. Please don't forget to rate and review to help others discover these discussions. Keep thriving in your intersections. Your story matters. I'm Dr. Lola Adeyemo, and this has been Thriving in Intersectionality Podcast.