Leadership Tea
The Leadership Tea podcast is where powerful leaders share their journeys, insights, and triumphs through informal conversations about what it takes to reach the executive level. Join us every other Wednesday to be inspired by the unvarnished stories of amazing executives who know what it's like to be "the only" at the table and who have succeeded regardless. They have proven leadership experience in their respective fields, from international affairs to the private sector to academia, and want to help others create their own success stories.
Leadership Tea
When One Tea Bag Isn't Enough: The Value of Your Village
Have you ever felt the power of a personal and professional support network? Leadership isn't just about making the tough calls; it's about embracing vulnerability and fostering relationships while navigating competitive workplaces.
Join us as we chat with our friend and former colleague Perlita Mururi, who shares her secrets to building a robust "village" of friends and family capable of weathering any storm. We also discuss how these relationships help buoy leaders through career transitions, new beginnings, and professional challenges.
Whether you're building your village, transitioning through career phases, or striving to lead purposefully, this episode has something for you. Share your journey with us on Instagram or our website, and let's continue the dialogue together.
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You have to build that skill of being open to other people and to questioning yourself and your own experiences, and you build that skill hopefully early on in your career.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone, this is Shelby. Welcome to today's episode. When one teabag isn't enough the value of your village. I am hyped because we are sipping wisdom with our girl, perlita Morori, a former US diplomat who has a lot of experience working for the government, the private sector and with nonprofits. Perlita knows how to build and sustain strong relationships, having led multiple teams in multiple countries, but most of all, she is one of the most genuine, down-to-earth people that I know.
Speaker 2:Perlita Belinda and I met at the State Department and have maintained our friendship across continents for more than 20 years, and I am so proud to have Perlita as a member of my village. We have seen each other through a lot, through a lot of stuff behind the scenes, and we've depended on each other as we've risen through the ranks. So during this episode, you're going to hear us talk a little bit about a scarcity mindset, which is something that I think we as leaders can get trapped into when we allow our insecurities and limitations to block us from focusing on the possible. Perlita drops a lot of knowledge about building your village, how to create your own leadership blueprint, being expansive and wanting more for your team than just efficiency. So one quick disclaimer for me, just as a reminder, as a Foreign Service Officer, I am conducting this and all Leadership T interviews in my personal capacity.
Speaker 2:Any views expressed are my own or those of my co-host, belinda, and our guests, and not necessarily those of the US government. And so with that, let's jump right in and talk to Perlita about when one teabag isn't enough, the value of your village. Yeah, so let's just get into it. I'll start by asking you how did you build your village? And feel free to reflect on, state your current experience, whatever, but I think it's clear that the three of us share a bond and it would be useful for our listeners to hear from you how do you go about building your village and why is that important?
Speaker 1:I think it's incredibly important because, as I said, I think it's the experiences with people, the relationships that we build in the workplace and obviously outside of the workplace, that carry the most meaning. So, when I think about my experiences in the State Department in particular and I think that I did some very meaningful work and I'm glad to have had the opportunity to have helped people, to have served my country and to have engaged in any number of really exciting and adventurous experiences given all of that, it's really the people that I did it with and the people that I learned from and was able to engage with that I think had the most meaning, so that I can't really separate out the achievements from the relationships and wouldn't want to. So I think that's the for me, that's the importance of having, and intentionally building a village. I think it's a cliche. What do you think back on when you're, let's say, closer to the end of your life? The external achievements are not really what you're going to be focused on.
Speaker 1:It's the relationships that you build, and that's definitely been the case for me in the State Department, which, I would argue, as foreign service officers in particular because of the nature of the work and the way that we live with each other. Work leads very much into your personal life, and so I think it's even more important to be intentional about how you engage with your colleagues and nurturing those relationships. So for me, that's the important thing. Once I left State, I think I've had a very different experience of work, having gone into the private sector. Now I work for a nonprofit. I think there's a similar pursuit of meaning in the work. I work with a lot of people who are very dedicated to achieving objectives that have to do with service, helping other people. I'm involved in mainly technical assistance in the international development sphere, but I think there's a lot less intentional building of relationships within the workspace. So it's interesting.
Speaker 3:That's really interesting. I think I've observed something similar and I agree with you, pralita, that this idea of chosen community and chosen family and being really intentional about that is really critical to your success at State and it's something you have to be really mindful and intentional about externally, but it's still necessary. I definitely have experienced that. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about a time in your career when you feel like you've called upon that village, that chosen community, and what was it that you asked for in terms of support?
Speaker 1:That's a good question. It's almost hard to choose one example because I feel like so many times I've turned to you all, to the people that I had experienced difficult times with, in order to draw strength to get through other challenging times. I think that I would say probably my tour in Kinshasa was really challenging and I leaned on other friends of ours who were there with me to get through that experience Again, just being open about the need for support and how difficult it got. Those types of experiences, I think, facilitate a deep connection. You get close, you get close.
Speaker 2:For better or for worse, people at their best or at their worst in those circumstances.
Speaker 1:And you have no choice but to reveal yourself right, what you're made of, and that's valuable.
Speaker 3:I think that as you go up the ranks in your career, there's the band of people who it's safe to talk to that becomes smaller and smaller.
Speaker 3:And so having these people who you can trust, who you can be your honest self with and your true self with, who've seen you, who you don't have to explain things to I may not have spoken to you in six months or a year or something, but somebody who you're so close to that it's been a year, but I can pick up the phone and we can just pick up from where we left off. But I know I certainly have felt in positions of like when I've had a lot of responsibility, really isolated by the job, and it's in those moments that you need your village, your team, your friends, this chosen community, even more. And I see people and I don't know if you've ever experienced this probably to where you can see a leader who's made decisions in a vacuum. I've seen people who they've like I've decided I'm taking on this new role during blah, blah, blah, you're like yo, that's a mistake. Yeah, did you talk to anybody?
Speaker 2:Where are your girls? Where are your people?
Speaker 3:Do you have people and that's really what I get from what you're saying Really, is that, in order to avoid that, especially when you're in places where you're isolated, it feels like the walls are closing in on you and it's hard to have safe, literally right, there are places where it's hard to have safe spaces to talk as well as safe people to talk to. It's critical that, throughout your career, you build this network people that you can tap into. Yeah, no, definitely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I think honestly that you have to build that skill of being open to other people and to questioning yourself and your own experiences. And you build that skill, hopefully early on in your career, because it will only serve you as you side building that, as you rise, as you become more isolated, as the stakes get higher, having identified those people that will tell you the truth, even if you don't want to hear it.
Speaker 2:Especially when you don't want to hear it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially when you don't want to hear it, and being open to that because you've established a relationship and an understanding of what they bring to the table that is valuable, and that you're open to hearing difficult truths, which.
Speaker 2:Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm.
Speaker 1:Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm. Some people don't ever get to that point. Particularly, if you even less open, the higher that they rise in an organization Right.
Speaker 2:That is so true.
Speaker 3:You start to make mistakes when you surround yourself with yes people.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like you really do. Probably, something you said just struck for me just a question of. I've encountered people who, in order, when they feel that pressure or they feel that sense of they don't know up from down, friend from foe, they begin to close in on themselves and not develop those relationships, like I hear frequently when I talk to people they'll say I just go into the office, I do my work, I leave at five, people go to happy hour, I don't go. Yeah, people talk in the lunch room around the water cooler and they grateful people don't even like. That's my opinion, but what are your thoughts?
Speaker 1:I've been thinking recently a lot about how we structure work in this country in particular, and unfortunately, I think the way that we structure work and the onus that we put on the employee to be right, the precarity of work fosters exactly what you're talking about. And yeah, we see it a lot.
Speaker 1:Because the system is structured in that way, you work in competitive environments, in extremely precarious environments where you're never sure who you can trust or how secure your job is and how can people work from their creative brain when they're constantly in a kind of their nervous system is constantly in this fight or flight mode. Right, totally. It just doesn't make any sense, particularly when we're talking about leadership.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because that's what you want. You want people to be innovative, creative, to come to think from a space of expansion. But we really foster this type of thinking. That's about contraction, that's about safety, that's about security in the pursuit of just kind of a CYA mentality. And yeah, you see it a lot and I don't blame people for having that attitude and that mindset at work. But it's a constant challenge to try to push yourself to go beyond that, to be open to other people, new ideas to not consistently exist in a space of insecurity and precarity and scarcity, scarcity.
Speaker 2:You took the words right out of my mouth. It's the scarcity mindset that, frankly, drives me bonkers and it's something that I try to combat every day in my current job in terms of, like, how do I want to show up for my team and how do I want to give them a different way, show them a different way of being, show them a different way of approaching work life. Back to our point of building a village and not being afraid. I don't want to say be afraid, not be afraid of being vulnerable, because it's really more than that. It's really taking time to invest in relationships that will help you, that will help each other, that will just help the overall mission and not just be focused on what's the bottom line.
Speaker 2:What are we trying to accomplish today? What do we do? What are we doing? What are we going to do? What are we not doing?
Speaker 3:And I think I've learned, like when you're in a leadership role, that if you are not finding that balance between like you said I love what you said Prelate about fighting what your nervous system is telling you to do. When I have failed to do that and build those kinds of relationships, it has had a negative impact on the team, and so, in order to achieve the mission, I have to figure out how to navigate that space and find that balance of vulnerability and connection, and it's really, along with all your other responsibilities, that can be a real challenge.
Speaker 1:It can be a real challenge, and that's where I think having people around you who are interested and engaged in the same exercise can be incredibly helpful. It's not just the support that you get, but engaging with other people who want to have a more expansive mindset, who want to have a creative mindset, who want to achieve the mission and the objectives, but not always thinking in terms of what is the most efficient way, like how do we build rather than maintain? And I think that having people around you who will engage in that way and who will reflect back to you the possibility of that is also important, and so you can influence other people and then they can reflect that back to you, which is it's difficult, because I'm not trying to minimize why people behave in that way. For a lot of people, the paycheck is the critical thing. Maintaining their job, survival Survival is a sunshade. We're all living with some aspect of that mindset, and so that's why I think the system itself fosters so much of those constraints.
Speaker 2:And so when we think about those constraints and the various roles we play, the various identities that we bring to our work, that was another reason why we really wanted to talk to you in terms of when you think of the word intersectionality, which is thrown out there all the time, but in our case it really means something, because you do bring multiple perletas to your work. Whether you're bringing the perspective of a mother, the perspective of a woman of color, a woman, your mixed heritage, there's just a lot that you bring to the table which shapes how you approach leadership, and so I was just wondering if you could talk to us a little bit we were chatting, before going live, about motherhood as an example of how we're trying to be better and to be our best selves, but just wondering if you could chat about what is it like to be perlita in playing all of these different roles that you have? Yeah, hi.
Speaker 1:Hi, it's interesting. I've been thinking quite a bit about leadership since you all said we were going to have this chat. Yeah, and I find that I think maybe all three of us have been in this unique situation in our careers, particularly in the State Department, where being women of color forced us to be our own role models for each other, and I think it's a scary space.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, that's a word.
Speaker 1:You feel on the edge All the time Because it would have been so much more comfortable to be able to have had other women of color to show us the way in a very explicit manner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I missed that, but at many points I really wanted that and I feel like it. For various reasons I didn't have that, but it also left us free to create an idea of leadership and how we wanted to engage with the institution. That was really unbounded in a really in an important way. So much opportunity to create ourselves. Exhilarating and terrifying, yeah, but I'm actually really I'm grateful for that opportunity now. I'm grateful that was our situation because I feel like we made a lot of it.
Speaker 2:We did. You're so right. I never, honestly, until you expressed it in that way just now, I never thought about it like that, but you're.
Speaker 1:At the time. I didn't see us doing that intentionally, but that's what we did. We co-created a vision of ourselves as leaders yes, in an institution that really had no template for us.
Speaker 2:Not at all. Not at all.
Speaker 1:And now we're sharing it with others. Wow, getting emotional, getting to do it in the way that was authentic to us, right, and it has been different, right. I know I definitely have gotten that. What is she doing? Why did she make those choices? Yes, but I'm so much happier with where I ended up and how I did it. Yeah, then maybe I would have been if I had followed a blueprint.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There had been a path, an explicit path laid out for me, but I did it with you all right, that was an important element of it. I thought I really feel like we co-created something at very kind of essential points in our careers. Yes, we do, we were all in touch.
Speaker 3:I think it can't be overemphasized how much we and a core group of friends were really that board of advisors for each other.
Speaker 3:To get ourselves from that early part of our career to the mid-level. I think if I were to look back, and particularly on my time at State, and think about if there's something with that I wish I'd done. I wish I'd been a little more. We as a group been a little more strategic in thinking about how we could best help the institution where we could be to best help the institution navigate this new reality. I think we did great at giving back to people across the board all three of us and many of the people we came through the system with. I think we had a lot of mentorship and guidance and sponsorship. Lots of people. I think we touched individuals. I wonder how we could have touched the institution but also wasn't honest to touch the institution. Also, I'm trying to survive and maybe I'm trying to work nine to five and just get my check now.
Speaker 2:Okay, how about that? That's never been, but that one's never really any of us, which is why that's another episode.
Speaker 1:There's another episode.
Speaker 3:So today we've talked a lot about this idea of having this community and this village. Let's have a whimsical moment here. If you're going to have a tea party because this is leadership tea and you were going to invite people that you have met along the way, who have been that support and that community for you, who would you invite to your tea party, and why are they an essential part of making your career experience, or leadership experience, whole?
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a good question.
Speaker 1:The two of you would definitely be there at the tea party, and I think it goes back to this point where we're just talking about supporting each other but also building a community that helped all of us get to where we wanted to be really as leaders in the State Department.
Speaker 1:I think I had a really important mentor in college who I would invite to that tea party a woman of color from the Caribbean who was a professor of mine and taught me so much about how to be powerful as a woman of color in whatever space I found myself, and I just admired her so much and I'm grateful for what she gave me, so I would definitely invite her. I had another mentor in the State Department who was not a Foreign Service officer and, as we know, this is a bit of a divide in Foreign Service, civil Service folks in the State Department. She was incredibly savvy about the institution but also gave me some really important advice about that incredibly complicated balance between work and personal life and particularly about motherhood, that I really found incredibly valuable. So I would include her, and there are a number of other folks that you all know that I saw some of them whom I served with in really challenging posts and who just enriched my life and carried helped me get through some really difficult experiences.
Speaker 3:And then, of course, there's.
Speaker 1:there's friends that I have from childhood who are incredibly close and I think that's maybe something we haven't talked about, but people who have no idea what your work situation is really, but who give you a perspective an important perspective about what matters outside of work. The fact that they're not enmeshed in the politics of your work is just so valuable. It allows you to take that step back, so those friends would be at that party too.
Speaker 2:So we've talked a lot about your experience as a former diplomat, but one of the other things we really wanted to dig into was the pivot that you made, because, as you mentioned, you spent a lot of time investing in yourself and your career at state. You built these relationships we've kept in touch. Over time, you get sucked into that life of the foreign service and it can be so hard to walk away, and so how did you make that transition and is there anything you would do differently?
Speaker 1:At the point where I was eligible for retirement, I was ready for a different environment, new challenges, focus, my life in a different way, and so I think it's just a matter of readiness.
Speaker 1:I also had gotten to a point where I was at least trying not to focus as much on external achievements as internal work. How do you achieve happiness? How do you achieve equanimity? How do you create a life that's purposeful and not just focused on the achievements, the accomplishments of work, the work that you do? So I was ready to move away from an institution and an environment where that was my whole focus, and I wanted a space where I could devote some time, effort and engage more fully with kind of a broader perspective on life, and so that's. I feel like I have been able to accomplish that Pivoting away from what was so important in that life, and so I had to just maintain that focus, and I was ready to do that. I think some people find it much more difficult to let go of the external, the achievements, because it's very rewarding. You do get a lot of instant gratification a lot of instant rewards for maintaining that focus.
Speaker 1:So the challenge for me in my work now has been to avoid falling back into that trap. But that could be any organization and unless you're ready to set that aside and to very purposefully choose something else, you will just fall back into that trap. So I've had that's been my struggle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's real. That's real, Even though, personally, for me, when you left, it was hard. It was hard Because I lost a friend. At least I didn't lose a friend because clearly we're still in touch in terms of the proximity to you and being able to just yeah. I can't pick up the phone or email you as quickly as I used to be able to. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I can't go to the cafeteria and get a hot chocolate with you.
Speaker 1:Exactly it changes.
Speaker 3:It changes things. Hey, as we've reflected on the past, one thing I'm curious, Perlita, is if you had advice to give yourself, like your 30 year old self, what advice would that be?
Speaker 1:Wow, there's probably a lot Advise my 30 year old self. I think the most fundamental thing that I would tell my 30 year old self is to not give away so much of my authentic voice to the institution that I think we, particularly when we're early in our careers, we don't want to rock the boat. We're finding our way. I just remember so many occasions where I had ideas I had, I think, what would probably have been valuable contributions to make, but I think I took the institution that we worked for Shelby, you're still at state.
Speaker 1:I would not encourage people who are early in their career to speak up. I think we lose a lot of innovation, creativity and the benefits of that intersectionality in the process. Now I think probably diplomacy is not necessarily the most cutting edge profession to explore, opening that up more, but I think probably we could have gotten away with contributing more and being more vocal, more explicit about what we thought earlier at least for me, earlier in my career, I think I would have. I tell myself to just to be bolder, a little bit bolder.
Speaker 3:So, Pralina, we are going to move into our lightning round. You just give whatever comes to mind quickly.
Speaker 1:Oh no.
Speaker 3:This is easy, Easy stuff, Easy questions, Easy questions. So what's your theme song or playlist for a tough day?
Speaker 1:That's a tough one, but I would say, maybe Jill Scott Golden, I'm trying to live my life back to school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's on at least two or three of my playlists. That's insane.
Speaker 3:That's definitely my mix, definitely my mix.
Speaker 2:What time of day is your sacred time?
Speaker 1:Definitely the morning. I never thought that I would be a morning person, but after I have sent my kids off to school and make sure that I have some knee time, meditation, walking tea before I jump into work, yeah, that's really nice. I love that time.
Speaker 3:Our final lightning round question is simple Jill in the blank leadership is.
Speaker 1:I think leadership is being vulnerable, questioning and ultimately choosing a direction.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Pralita. I can't thank you enough for joining us. You have shared a lot of great wisdom today. It just really means a lot to us that you would join us and you really just embody what that spirit of community is. So thank you.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you. I am so honored and happy to have had this opportunity to talk to you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. It's been so much fun catching up with you and just hearing how you're continuing to thrive and shine like we knew that you would Thank you it's just been great that we are still able to maintain our friendship and relationships even post your State Department career. It's been wonderful For me too, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, hi everyone. This is Belinda.
Speaker 3:Pralita is amazing, right. I'm so honored to call her a friend. Pralita said many things during this episode that continue to resonate with me. One comment in particular really stuck with me. It's Pralita's observation that we work in competitive environments where we feel as if our place is extremely precarious and sometimes we aren't sure who we can trust or how secure our jobs are. Boom, I've been mulling over that comment for days. I've seen leaders begin to make bad decisions for themselves and their teams once they're stuck in a fight or flight mode.
Speaker 3:Just as Pralita said, we want to foster an environment for ourselves and for our teams where we can exist in a space of expansion, where innovation and creativity can thrive. Co-creating the spaces we want and need to see as leaders is vital to our success. Who is part of your co-creation squad? How are you creating a life that is purposeful and not solely focused on external achievements? Pralita left us with a lot to think about, as always, shelby and I are very grateful for all of you who listen to each episode of the Leadership Tea. We appreciate your messages, comments and suggestions. If you're wondering how you can get in touch with us, feel free to reach out to us on Instagram at Leadership underscore T, or send us a message through our website, wwwstirringsuccesscom. Don't forget to rate and review our podcast wherever you're listening to us. We have a lot more in store for you. Please keep coming back every other Wednesday for more episodes of the Leadership Tea podcast, where we are sipping wisdom and stirring success.
