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
A Cup of Curiosity: Dismantling the Achievement Addiction
Curious about how to build a team that thrives on creativity and curiosity?
Join us on the Leadership Tea Podcast as we welcome Erika Bennett, founder and CEO of Conscious Culture Creative. Erika's unique leadership approach fosters deep relationships and encourages an environment where curiosity is valued. Drawing from her rich experiences, Erika shares how nurturing diverse talents can lead to substantial personal and professional growth for everyone on the team.
Have you ever wondered how personal insecurities can shape leadership styles? In this episode, Erika reflects on her journey from an intern to an executive, emphasizing the significance of embracing failure and maintaining accountability. By doing so, leaders can better support their teams, fostering a more honest and productive work environment.
Finally, we dive into the complex balance between professional success and personal fulfillment. Erika discusses her transition from high-profile roles to a more balanced life as an entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of mental health and personal fulfillment.
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Learn more about Erika's professional journey here.
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We, as leaders, are still human beings, and we still have our doubts and our insecurities. It's really important, though, to recognize and understand that your energy is the team's energy.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Leadership Tea Podcast. This is Belinda. Throughout this season, you have heard us talk about the importance of having a village around you, a village with a diverse range of gifts and talents and abilities. Well, every village needs a storyteller, a truth teller, so to speak. Someone who weaves the most complex narratives with expertise and nuance and creativity. Someone who weaves the most complex narratives with expertise and nuance and creativity. Someone who can build bridges across cultures and industries.
Speaker 2:Today's guest, erica Bennett, is exactly that person. She's the founder and CEO of her own culture forward consulting firm, conscious Culture Creative. She's a former chief marketing officer, a board member and a tech leader. She's an advocate for change, a board member and a tech leader. She's an advocate for change and I'm proud to call her my friend. I'll leave more details about her professional experience in the show notes. Erica is a dynamic and inspiring leader and in our conversation you will hear about her philosophy behind building incredibly successful teams, the importance of having curiosity and a positive attitude over skill sets, and her early career experiences, where curiosity led to significant contributions and career growth. We also will discuss the importance of being vulnerable and building community and having courage in professional and personal successes. We'll conclude with talking about the necessity to differentiate your identity from your career achievements.
Speaker 2:Look, this is a great episode and I can hardly wait for you to hear it. One more thing before we dive in. As you might have heard, we recently reached an important milestone here at the Leadership Tea. We've had over 5,000 downloads in just five months of existing. We're celebrating all month long, so feel free to stop by our Instagram page at leadership, underscore T to learn more about how we want to celebrate with you. Okay, it's time to jump into our next episode with Erica, so let's get into it.
Speaker 3:So, erica, you have a lot of experience working in the private sector and working for yourself, and we wanted to start this conversation by asking you how do you define the impact that you've?
Speaker 1:had. I think there's a few things I look at. I think one of the barometers of success for me in terms of the people I've led is my relationships with them as they move up and on into the world. And so I recently just had a reunion with one of my teams and almost everyone came and it was just a really amazing time to reminisce on where we were at but celebrate where we are all going.
Speaker 1:And I got really emotional because these are people that are executives at record labels, they're executives at major studios and streamers. They are entrepreneurs. They have held massive titles after they worked for me, so I'm very proud of that. But, more importantly, they're incredible human beings. They're generous with their time, they deeply care about the work that they do. They bring their whole self, their culture, their beliefs, their values into the job self, their culture, their beliefs, their values into the job, and that's not something that you can really teach people, but it's something you can help foster in your own work environment.
Speaker 1:So I'm like I've been asked in interviews like what's your proudest moment? My proudest moment is actually the people that I've led, and my proudest moments are those moments when we see you can literally see the growth in somebody, and I think that's been an important part of the impact story. I can point to a number of campaigns and box office successes or big launches at tech companies, but I think I'm most proud of, when I think about, my legacy professionally. I'm most proud of how I show up for people and how I continue to show up for them even after we're no longer working together.
Speaker 2:That sounds really interesting and, as you're talking about being part of these teams and what you're proud of, I think we're interested in your philosophy on building teams.
Speaker 1:What's the?
Speaker 2:secret sauce that brings it all together Building a team is like building a band.
Speaker 1:You have to really look at every instrument as important every sound, look at every instrument is important, every sound. And when things are not quite off, then what you can have is it throws the sound off. For example, on my middle school band we had a lot of clarinets and flutes because those are the sexy instruments. So if you think about the sound triangle, right like with the flutes at the top and the clarinet in the mid, a high middle, and then your tenor, like your saxes, and then your bass instruments nobody wanted to play bass. So what we had was an inverse triangle. And if you think about the function of a triangle inverse if you set it down it's top heavy and it can't sustain itself.
Speaker 1:I remember my band teacher, mr Nimi, strongly encouraged a few of us to take up a different instrument, so I actually took up the tuba. When I think about teams, I think about the importance of those support staff and really nurturing, because they're the ones that have the richest sound. The two is the one that anchors the whole thing and I approach team building like a band. The number one thing I say I look for is curiosity in somebody I can coach you on skill sets you'll need for the job, but in the industries where I've worked in tech media the only constant has been change, and so I need someone curious enough to want to know just a little bit more than what I've asked them to know, so that they can get out ahead of problem solving and get out ahead of any pivots that we need to make. It's a curious band.
Speaker 2:Say actually oddly enough. My first year of high school, our band director, Mr Bim, encouraged me to switch to tuba. Yeah, so I played, I marched tuba.
Speaker 2:And then in concert band I played baritone, yeah, but for similar reasons there were too many clarinets and flutes, right. But I would say, on your comment about curiosity really strikes me, and I've always said that I look for a positive attitude, similar that we can teach skills, yeah, you can teach someone the skills they need to do the job, but if they don't have the attitude, if they don't. And so I really like your way of digging even deeper into that by saying curiosity, because we can teach a person how to write a memo, but if you don't want to do it, if you aren't curious, if you aren't hungry for it, it's really hard.
Speaker 1:One of my very first internships. It was a PR internship and if you know anything about public relations you know that clients love to get their clipbooks. It's basically a book with every single media placement and before we had really competent scanners and could do it all digitally, the interns had to do it manually. We literally had to cut their little section out of the New York Times and then cut the New York Times masthead with the date and glue it on a paper and then photocopy it so it looks like one cohesive thing. And then I had to go into Excel and manually enter it in New York Times, november 3rd 2000. And here's the article title, here's the author that wrote it. It was positive, negative or neutral. And here's how much real estate it took up, which gives you an equivalency in terms of if you had placed the ad. And it was the worst, if I can say that, so tedious. But I leaned into curiosity and I started to read the stories and I started to learn the reporters and I started to learn the themes and the things that they were interested in. And I'll never forget I was in a big meeting for that client and they were trying to figure out what they're going to do. I was mostly taking notes for a recap and I spoke up and I said actually Stone's River New York Times wrote this, but the Washington Post had this perspective and who hasn't covered this is the San Francisco Chronicle.
Speaker 1:My little tiny contribution became the foundation for a big strategy for the team. It made me when it was my time to pitch stories reporters. It made me stronger in pitching Because I could write them and go. I read your story two weeks ago. I know you've been thinking about this for a while. First three letter of news is news and, like reporters, love it when you actually read their stuff, when you're not just spamming them, you're actually calling them and saying I know this is important to your readers and here's what I can offer you to make sure you connect better with your readers. And so I tell that story a lot because I think people tend to. I tell that story a lot because I think people tend to overlook the value of the little tasks and they tend to overlook the value of being curious. But that one characteristic has single handedly changed my career we talk about that all the time, Belinda and I when we talk to our mentees do the work, Just do the work.
Speaker 3:And something else that I tell my mentees don't wait to be asked. Nobody told you to do what you did. You had a basic task in front of you, but you took it to the next level. You took the initiative to make sure that you knew the perspectives of all the different newspapers that you were covering, and you were able to identify the gaps and take advantage of that opportunity to point out something to your superiors that they would have missed had you not been on top of it.
Speaker 3:But the reason why Belinda and I were laughing is because you would be amazed to know that even at the State Department decades ago and we're dating ourselves but we had to do the same thing. If you worked in a press shop, your first task every day was to gather all the press clips from the local newspapers.
Speaker 2:Even in a front office, the bosses want to know how their issues are playing in the news.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is before Google was so massive that it was indexing everything Copying and pasting. But, I think where that application comes into play is like we have lots of tools now and I think we have AI, we have all sorts of tools, but I think still understanding at least the principles of how to do it manually helps you even use the tools that are meant to help us better. Absolutely yeah absolutely so.
Speaker 3:Transitioning from your role as an intern to a big time executive, we were wondering if you could reflect on some leadership lessons. As leaders, it's important to roll with the punches and make sure that you're accounting for your mistakes, Something that Belinda and I have talked about a lot like being accountable to yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And we're wondering what was a big aha moment that you had, especially as you were entering the space of being an executive for the first time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's one that really comes to mind. I think we, as leaders, are still human beings and we still have our doubts and our insecurities. It's really important, though, to recognize and understand that your energy is the team's energy, everything that you bring. When I remember the first time I became a VP, oh my gosh, I just couldn't even. I was so excited and I was fired up. I was energetic, but I was also insecure and I was worried because I felt like I had such a huge responsibility on my shoulders. Literally, I have this team of young, really smart, incredible marketers, and if we do well, everyone wins, and if we don't, I felt like it was on my shoulders, like I did not want to have to lay people off. I did not. I wanted to see everyone succeed, and so I think my doubts and my worries and my insecurities came along with my enthusiasm for the role, and I think it just made me hard to work with and hard to work for.
Speaker 1:If I'm being honest, I was so focused on us getting it right because I felt like every project it was on the line, but instead of embracing failure a little bit more and that is such an important concept for not only leaders to understand but to implement, and that's why the accountability you talked about is very important, because we don't learn if we're not failing often.
Speaker 1:Failing often but I didn't leave enough room for people to make errors and feel like it was safe. The great news is, thank God for black women therapists who get you right together, and I started going to therapy and I started to realize how I was showing up at work was a direct reflection of just how I felt about myself and the confidence I had in myself. And as soon as I started to to be more generous with myself and better embrace failure, that's, I think, when my leadership style really turned a corner and I'm really grateful that the people that I managed at that time we are all still really close and they've come to my house and we've hung out recently. But yeah, that is the biggest probably mistake is, I think we can't bring any of our other workplace trauma and our childhood trauma into the job. It's really our job to manage that outside of the work environment so that we can focus on what's really important, which is growing and nurturing the people behind us and delivering business impact.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think there's really something to be said for this idea of knowing when you're bringing your baggage and your trauma. I used to have this joke with friends about there was this airline that flew into El Salvador when I lived there and they pretty much let you take what you wanted on the plane, as long as you acknowledged it. Oh, the lesson being like we can handle your baggage if you just tell us what you really have, just be honest.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that.
Speaker 2:You've got a chicken. We'll work with it. You still don't know how to bring it on.
Speaker 1:I've been watching happen once in the airport. I am dying, not a chicken from sitting in the airport claim your chicken is.
Speaker 2:They were like just tell us what you got.
Speaker 3:You see that duffel bag is moving we know there's a small animal in there if you talk to us about it, we can probably come to some middle ground.
Speaker 2:and so we used to say just acknowledge your baggage, yeah, and that's just so clarifying and it lifts. There's just such a weight when you bring trauma into the workplace. You really, you see it and, as you said, your energy is the energy that everyone else has, totally.
Speaker 1:When I'm frantic and oh my God, it's everybody else's. I was just like I can't. I'm not showing up the best that I can for myself and that's going to impact how everyone else can show up. I love this idea also, belinda, of you acknowledging that you have a chicken in your duffel bag.
Speaker 2:It also works for dating as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, we'll have to discuss that next. What are you putting at the table? Do you have a chicken in your duffel bag?
Speaker 2:When I was young, on these streets.
Speaker 3:I would like to know if you have a chicken in your duffel bag.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, but I don't think we can come to a middle ground, but still.
Speaker 1:But I do think a lot of times as leaders, we conflate respect with fear. Yeah, and so what happens is we're afraid to be vulnerable about where we're at as leaders because we're worried that's going to change the respect dynamic on the team. And I have found the leaders that I have gravitated to the most are pretty open about what is and what isn't in their bag, what they do and don't bring to the table. I know what I'm really good at and I know what could be better at, and I hire for my weaknesses, I hire for my blind spots and my gaps and I hire the best.
Speaker 2:I feel like for the three of us it feels intuitive. I feel like for so many people it feels very vulnerable and I, just as you were talking, I was thinking to myself. I feel like 2024 started, the word of the year was manifest, but as the year goes on, the word of the year is actually vulnerability.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would add one more word to that, and that's community and my dear friend, lavia Jai Jones. She and my other dear friend, angela Rye, who has Native Land Podcast. They did a live podcast at an event. Lavia Jai Jones talked about asking for help from your community and being vulnerable enough to do it, and that being such an important point and such a brilliant expression of self-awareness and leadership, I was grateful for that moment. The clip went viral. It's incredible.
Speaker 3:It's so powerful.
Speaker 1:Yes, vulnerability is the word.
Speaker 3:Community is the other part of it Knowing that you're not alone in it and that we aren't meant to go alone in it to go alone in it, Even though sometimes the structures that we work in impose this false narrative that you are supposed to go it alone and I feel like you said this year for me as well I'm beginning to realize more and more like I don't need to go it alone, Like having this community. You are now part of my community.
Speaker 3:Like having a community of people who have my back, who I can be completely vulnerable with and they won't judge me, but they will cheer me on and prop me up. It's critical, but I feel like we aren't necessarily raised in that way, not in a familial sense, but like society does not teach you that, particularly with women, right?
Speaker 1:The most poignant example I can think of is the salary discussion. We're taught not to disclose any of that, but that's a way of controlling us and ensuring that we're not getting everything. Controlling us and ensuring that we're not getting everything. Every time I have called someone in my community and vulnerably said this is what I'm making or this is what this company is offering, that woman has completely blown, knocked my socks off. I remember that first conversation. I was like I'm making this and my friend was like you are $50,000 off, girl.
Speaker 1:Wow, I was leaving $50,000 on the table and I went back and I got all my money that's life-changing money Totally. And then when I moved into tech and made friends in tech, and then when I moved into tech and made friends in tech, I'd say, okay, every tech company has levels. They all pay the same. This is the level, this is a scope, this is what they're offering. Oh, no, if you're an L, whatever five, this is what they pay. Oh, I didn't know that. And then, stepping into my first ever CMO roles, I called two people. I called a woman that I deeply trust, who is a CMO. She told me what all of her first time CMO offers had been.
Speaker 2:And then I called another person in the C-suite that already worked there. Isn't that crazy. So maybe another word is courage, right? Which kind of brings me to our next question, which is sometimes so you've had these great roles, right, you've had these great opportunities. But sometimes you get there and that shiny object just isn't enough or it isn't what you expected, and we're wondering how did you find the courage to walk away from that shiny object? What did you gain?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Sometimes we don't just walk away. Sometimes we're dragged, kicking and screaming. I have shared with a few people I'm in the middle of a great divorce and, even though I've never been like married to a human being, when I say I'm in the middle of a divorce, what I actually mean is that I am divorcing the idea that my identity is wrapped up in what I do, and growing up I grew up in an achievement household. We know what those look like. You get straight A's good job. You're good on the basketball team good job.
Speaker 1:So the praise and the attention and the love came out of how well we were doing things, and that's not a slight of my parents, who are awesome and did the very best they could, who knew no different. But I think what it did to me is that I started to place value on what I could produce and I made that my whole world. I had to be good at everything and I had to get great grades and I had to be the best at this and that and the other, and that was really out of a desire, because I had been programmed to believe that your worth is what you can produce. And I think there have been two really big moments in my life recently. First is that I was in a really bad car crash in 2019 at the hands of a drunk driver, and obviously I survived, which is incredible, but I came out of it with injuries that prevented me from doing basic tasks. I could not shower alone, I couldn't get dressed by myself, I couldn't chop veggies, I could not do any of that sort of thing, hardly get out of bed by myself. So you start to really contemplate who are you in a world where you can't even put your own shirt on by yourself? What does that mean? Eric was different, and I remember getting my first and only not the greatest review at Google which it was still a great review as an overachiever, and my boss said you didn't have enough impact, but I wasn't busy enough for them, and so I didn't have enough impact, but I wasn't busy enough for them, and so I didn't have enough impact.
Speaker 1:And that's when I realized that I had hit a ceiling. And then I would say, in more recent roles, very shiny, there was the carpets and the press and the celebrities and the mission of uplifting people of color, all so important to me, but the environment wasn't conducive, with me thriving and with me flourishing, and that moment is when you really have it's a tough ego pill to swallow, and that moment is when you really have it's a tough ego pill to swallow. It still is a little bit of a tough ego pill, but I'll tell you, being an entrepreneur has not been easy, but I don't wake up in a panic in the morning. I work out three to four times a week but that's because that's important to my own health. My mom has Parkinson's. I've spent more time with her and my other friends and family than I have in a decade. I just have the flexibility and I don't want to romanticize entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1:I really thought I had made it and now, looking at my life, I really believe I've made it. I have reframed and redefined my definition of success and sure, I'm not on as many carpets, if at all. I have not been to a red carpet event since December and I'm okay with it. I'm like so happy right now. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go walk my dog and work out and do this thing. So you have to change the definition of success and that will lead you to what is actually gonna fulfill you and help you understand who you actually are as a person and help you divorce yourself, your identity and who you are, and your value and your worth from all that you do. It's a very capitalistic way of looking at life.
Speaker 3:Instead of a human way. Yeah, peace.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:We've been talking about this concept of the great divorce. It resonates so much. I feel like we talk about it All the time, all the time, literally all the time. We're so much more than our resumes our titles our achievements, our accomplishments.
Speaker 3:And I do think we get caught up in this achievement addiction. We don't know how to function, we don't know how to just be. We're so busy. Like you said, there's this busyness, this busy narrative, where you're so wrapped up in doing and showing and accomplishing that you forget to walk your dog or whatever it is that brings you peace and joy.
Speaker 2:I find peace in walking the dog. What's that? When you're on the treadmill of life and you're worried about bosses who walking the dog is a chore, yes, being able to walk the dog and say to yourself like it's a nice day. The flowers are blooming. To the birds chirping in the trees, there are birds, and I'm gonna tell you I mean I have dora the furry explorer.
Speaker 1:These are the conversations we have. People think I'm nuts because I'm out there just like to my dog, but I never stopped and did that. I never noticed. I have a neighbor on the corner and seasonally she'll change the flowers and change the colors and it's so beautiful. I never noticed that and I've lived in my place for several years. I never noticed it till recently, because she recently just changed it and walking has become this great mental. I don't even do it. I could care less. I actually started it when I was in my last role because I found that I couldn't sleep at night. My brain was racing and I'd wake up in the morning or I'd wake up in the middle of the night. I would have to write things down and the walking just helped me organize and reconnect with myself and think through things, and so it became a mental health game changer for me.
Speaker 3:I love it. Yeah, so I think we're ready to shift into our lightning round.
Speaker 2:Okay, we'll start with the first lightning round question, which is what is your favorite tea?
Speaker 1:Even though I'm a West Coast girl, like West Side till I die. There's a black-owned tea company called Brooklyn Tea and someone gifted me a bunch of tea from them and that turmeric ginger is a game changer. Shout out to my IBS girlies After dinner. It just hits. It hits different.
Speaker 2:And Brooklyn Tea is, I believe, owned by a Spelman graduate.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then we did an event with Kolkata Chai when I was at Instagram. They also have wonderful chai and I'm just really proud of them. They have three locations now and I think it's really cool that these neighborhoods are starting to really embrace South Asian flavors. Yeah, so those are my two, both New York. Come on, la, get it together LA.
Speaker 3:Cool. So what is a recent leadership related book, article or a podcast that you'd like to share with our audience?
Speaker 1:article or a podcast that you'd like to share with our audience? Yes, so, dear friend, kibi Anderson, who is an executive coach and a leadership coach and partners with organizations to help their leaders design better and healthier environments for teams to thrive, just wrote a book called Point Taken brilliant to business advice from women at the top. It's her and several other really incredible women who've gotten together to help people navigate the ever evolving business world, and what I love so much about Kibi and her philosophy on leadership is it's just, she's really about nurturing the whole person. So this is what we talked about Understanding where, how, where you came from and what your insecurity, how that can show up in the world. I think it's on Amazon, it just dropped.
Speaker 2:It just came out. Okay, we'll check it out. Yes, and then our last lightning round question is a fill in the blank.
Speaker 1:Leadership is Leadership is rewarding.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's a great way to end. I really want to thank you so much for joining us today. I feel like I've learned a lot. I've taken notes Me too. There's just so many great gems in here and I know that our audience is going to get so much out of this, so just thank you so much, thank you.
Speaker 1:What an incredible honor to be here. You ladies are brilliant and I thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Y'all, this episode with Erica was so inspiring and has left me reexamining my leadership style. Anyone who knows me knows that I love having a good theme song to get my mind right for various work situations and especially if I'm anticipating a tough day. So Erica's comments about building a team is like building a band. That struck a chord, because I like to think of my teams as jazz ensembles and, like Erica said, every player has a role. There are moments when a player has an opportunity to improvise individually and other moments where the group or the team is playing together through soft moments or crescendos, but ultimately it's all a blend that the conductor leads to a destination.
Speaker 3:I'm also reflecting on a different question that Erica posed what is or isn't in your bag and can you acknowledge your baggage without allowing it to interfere with the leader you're aspiring to be? Are you self-aware of the impact that you're having on other people? Are you conflating respect with fear? How are you building community? What are you leaving on the table and why? Listen, erica is such a sage. Listen, erica is such a sage.
Speaker 3:I took notes on all these questions and her comments on walking away from the shiny object and our dialogue on the great and being busy and achieving something that can warp how you define success. Truth be told, these are some themes that I'm wrestling with right now, but I'm thankful for folks like Erica and Belinda, who are part of my village, part of my community, pushing me to be better. So here's what we need from you. If you like what you heard today, or if you like what you've heard in previous episodes, please leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts and share this podcast with at least three friends. Help us to continue expanding our reach beyond the 100 plus countries and more than 600 cities where we've been trending in just five months since launching the Leadership Tea podcast and you can also DM us on our Instagram page at leadership underscore tea. But until the next time, we look forward to sipping wisdom and stirring success with you again soon. Bye.
