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
Infusing Resilience: Designing Your Destiny
Ambassador Aurelia Brazeal joins us for an inspiring conversation on leadership, resilience, and navigating life's adversities. Learn how growing up in the dynamic environment near Atlanta's Spelman and Morehouse Colleges instilled in her the timeless values of humility, compassion, and truth. These values have been her guiding compass through a distinguished career in diplomacy, equipping her with the tools to lead through challenging times with grace and audacity. Ambassador Brazeal’s anecdotes offer a window into her resilient mindset and risk-taking approach, painting a vivid picture of how history and upbringing can shape one's leadership journey.
We uncover the layers of strategic leadership and diplomacy as Ambassador Brazeal shares best practices from her adventures in the diplomatic arena. Her stories illustrate the power of proactive listening, cultural adaptability, and building alliances in addressing global challenges. By exploring the fine line between leadership and management, she highlights the profound impact of guiding people rather than merely managing tasks. Through her experiences, you'll discover the significance of asking the right questions, fostering teamwork, and leveraging collective insights to drive change and innovation.
As we wrap up, Ambassador Brazeal reflects on the essence of leadership—emphasizing joy, growth, and the transformative power of historical knowledge. From her favorite reads to her ideal places to live, she shares a glimpse into her personal life, offering inspiration beyond her professional achievements. As she celebrates a listener's graduation anniversary, we are reminded of the everlasting influence of history as a source of solace and hope. Join us for this engaging session that promises a wealth of wisdom and practical advice for leaders and aspiring leaders ready to make their mark.
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If you don't learn the system that you're in, you can't figure out how to go around it and under it and over it and through it, and therefore you always feel as if you're being acted upon and you don't you foreclose possibilities. So that if you learn the system that you're in, whatever that system happens to be, then I think you have more control. And I like to advise people and I tried to do this myself is that you have to run off of energy. Tried to do this myself. Is that you have to. You have to run off of energy. You can't run off of anxiety, if I'm making myself clear, because anxiety brings the fear. So you have to somehow find that energy to keep yourself moving forward.
Speaker 3:Hey everybody, it's Belinda and Shelby again, and we are doing something we don't normally do, which is we are both appearing in this intro because we want to intro someone who is very special to us.
Speaker 2:She is the amazing Ambassador. Aurelia, brazil and Belinda and I both have our own connections with her, but what we are so excited for you to hear is her tell stories about her experience as an ambassador. She was a career diplomat for the US Department of State for many years, and what we love about her is her audacity, her boldness, the way that she approaches various situations in a way that dares people to try her, that dares people to make her show them who she is.
Speaker 3:She said something that I think struck both of us, which is you manage things, but you lead people right, and I think that we just want to make sure that you understand how excited we are and how extraordinary she is.
Speaker 2:Yes, so, without further ado, we're just really excited for you to hear this wisdom directly from Ambassador Brazil. We hope you'll enjoy it as much as we really loved having the opportunity to speak with her.
Speaker 3:Ambassador, thank you very much for joining us today. Ambassador, thank you very much for joining us today. We're really excited to have you on the show and we're eager to hear how your extensive background and experience informs your value system and how you chose to show up as a leader. We want to start with a question along those lines what value systems helped you lead during unknown times?
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you. Thank you for the question. It's one that I think is going to make me dig deep. I think, fortunately, I grew up in Atlanta, georgia, around Morehouse and Spelman College, because my father was the dean of Morehouse College when there was only one dean, and my mother was the alumni secretary at Spelman. So the values that HBCUs have combined with community and church I sum it up in my mind is like the Beatitudes which you rarely hear about these days, but I think that humility and compassion and mercy and being meek and telling the truth and being a peacemaker, all of those things come out.
Speaker 1:And at the time I was growing up, which was back in the 50s and 60s, late 40s, 50s, 60s there were race men, if you know that term, and race women in terms of Black African Americans, meaning that you knew that you represented the race, because in the stereotypes of the majority people at that time in America, types of the majority people at that time in America, whatever you did represented what all Black people could do.
Speaker 1:I used Black, african-american, negro, all interchangeably. But so I think I also, through osmosis, became a race woman in my household as well, because of what my parents did and taught and how they maneuvered themselves. So all of those value systems, I think, came into play. My parents would recruit students for Spelman and Morehouse in Mississippi, alabama, florida. They would go on a road trip and meet students at high schools and things. Road trip and meet students at high schools and things, and I remember my father always saying that you can't judge people by how they talk and their educational level, because they might say electricity, but that meant they had enough brain power to learn how to say electricity correctly. So I guess not judging people became an approach that I like to follow as well.
Speaker 2:I was reflecting on what you said regarding the Beatitudes and the values of humility and compassion, truth and being a peacemaker, and just imagining what it must have been like for you and for your parents, even in being in a state like Georgia, particularly at the moment in time when you were growing up and just wondering about what it meant to be resilient in that moment and what we think about when we hear the word resilience it's a word that comes up a lot in just regular discourse, or when you think about how we have come out of the pandemic and how to manage transitions, et cetera. Resilience is one of those words that gets mentioned a lot, and so I'm wondering, as you think about your path to where you are now, what does the word resilience mean to you and how has your personal history enabled your resilience?
Speaker 1:I grew up under segregation. We didn't get to vote until 1965. I think the resilience to me meant perseverance. Spelman and Morehouse had white faculty, so there were white people around who were visible and friends. And then, of course, you're living in a world that's essentially African-American, living in a world that's essentially African-American, and like other places Atlanta, similar to Tulsa and Durham and other cities the Black community had its own building and loan association, its own bank, so that people were able to get credit, people were able to build their own houses and I think my parents in retrospect protected us from the worst parts of segregation and our lives didn't really touch on that too much as well.
Speaker 1:As my father again would have an expression if something would happen, he would say, oh, you have to take it in stride. And I'd say, oh, what does that mean, take it in stride? I thought about one, the. It was never quite defined, it was whatever was upsetting you at the time. But taking it in stride to mean, I thought eventually, as I was growing up, it meant, as you were still moving forward, as you were still striding forward, as you were still moving, you didn't let it stop you, you didn't let it turn you around, whatever it was, and simply keep moving towards your objective, and I followed that in my career, I think, in many ways. So people are resilient now because of COVID and other things, which to me just translate in that you have to persevere and, despite difficulties, you have to keep moving forward.
Speaker 3:And I am also curious, kind of building on that, can you reflect on a time when you've taken a big risk in your life or your career, and what did you learn from that experience?
Speaker 1:One advice I've always given to people is to learn the system that you're in.
Speaker 1:If you don't learn the system that you're in, you can't figure out how to go around it and under it and over it and through it, and therefore you always feel as if you're being acted upon and you don't have options. And if you feel you don't have options, then you don't feel. You feel anxiety and put upon and you don't you foreclose possibilities. So that if you learn the system that you're in, whatever that system happens to be, then I think you have more control. And I like to advise people and I tried to do this myself is that you have to, that you have to run off of energy. You can't run off of anxiety, if I'm making myself clear, because anxiety brings the fear. So you have to somehow find that energy to keep yourself moving forward. So risk it depends on what you mean. What's the risk? It depends on how you define risk. But I think you have to. You have to somewhere along the way. I really have thought about it and can't isolate when it happened, but somewhere along the way in my life, either growing up or at Spelman College where I attended, I gave up, worrying about why certain things happened. If I didn't get my position accepted, you could drive yourself crazy saying is it because I'm black? Is it because I'm a woman? Is it because I'm tall? Is it because I'm fat? You don't know. And you can drive yourself crazy. So I at some point made my decision not to worry about it. It was the other person's problem and my problem vis-a-vis them was to find a way to go around them or over them or whatever.
Speaker 1:If I wanted to get something done In Tokyo it was a combined commercial economic section, the commercial counselor. He was a male chauvinist. I didn't like how he treated his life in public. And I was in a new position and I went to him because he was in charge of who would get a newspaper subscription. And I went and said I'd like a newspaper subscription. He said you'll get exactly what your predecessor got.
Speaker 1:That meant nothing because I had no predecessor. So I went to my office and thought about it how to deal with them, because some of the other women officers would wind up in shouting matches with them and stuff and that's not my style. So we had a little box where all the newspapers were slotted in people's names every day. So I just made it a point to get to the embassy before he got to the embassy and I took his newspaper for the next two years. That solved that problem. I had my newspaper. I was quite happy, and I don't know if he knew or not, I could care less, but I solved that problem. These little things are going to come up.
Speaker 2:Belinda and I are here in our little amen corner on everything you said, particularly your point on learning the system that you're in so that you can work around it if you need to, or go over it under it, whatever. That is something that I think people miss. And your point about don't foreclose the possibilities and don't be powerless be creative come up with your own solutions to working around things.
Speaker 1:I think to me again. As a diplomat and I would encourage anyone who's in that profession or not you fall into a trap frequently in America because of the way our news is dispensed and distributed and whatever it's. Either or People get into this, either or business, and it's a diplomat. You have to think about and also and slash also. That's more expensive. That's when you're negotiating. You can come up with win situations when you think of and also.
Speaker 1:But if you think of either, or you're in a trap again you can't really get an objective, particularly negotiating, unless you think about and also so that's the posture that I encourage people to work on it takes practice, you have to try it, you have to keep trying and see if you succeed.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I like this concept of not letting the system happen, the benefits Even when things are bad.
Speaker 1:You're still taking some lessons from that. I had a boss one of my bosses in Japan. He would come back from a meeting and give me his notes and ask me to write the cable reporting cable, and I hated that because I wasn't in the meeting. I couldn't see the body language, I couldn't see who was frowning or not or in what context things were said, and instead of just saying how horrible it is and complaining, I just said well, the lesson is, if I'm ever in a position of supervising people, I'm not going to ever ask them to do that, and I never did. That was my lesson there.
Speaker 1:The other lesson throughout my career I was attracted to new positions here and there, and the reason for that is that to me it was exciting. I could devise my own position and job description, and in Japan I mentioned, I was in a new position. So I went to my colleagues and I talked to them and I said look, I'm not trying to take any issue off of your table, but are there issues that you think should have been covered? But nobody. You didn't have time to do it, and so I interviewed all my colleagues and came up with a list of issues that people thought should have been covered but weren't wasn't. They were not being covered and that's how I came up with my job description.
Speaker 1:When I became an ambassador, I would have people work for me who were what I call conservators. They only wanted to conserve the position while they were in it. They didn't want to change the status quo, they didn't want to change the job description, they just wanted to conserve everything and not have anything happen and leave. And then there were the people who were action-oriented and of course I was always attracted to them because they would challenge you, they would think of new things, and that's who I wanted working for me. Otherwise it was boring as heck because people weren't really I don't know enthusiastic, otherwise why be in the business? So I always looked for action-oriented people who would and you can feel that way even if the job exists look at your job description, change it, change the emphasis, highlight something, move it up to the top as opposed to having it at the bottom there's always things or add a new thing and talk to your boss about it. Proactive, at whatever level you are, anyway.
Speaker 2:No, your answers are so spot on as we're thinking about the theme for this season of strategic leadership with a startup mindset, and the creative ways that you approached problem solving as a diplomat, and always thinking and as opposed to either or. All of the anecdotes that you just shared are so applicable to the theme of leading strategically but thinking outside the box and, as you said, not limiting yourself. And as we think about your esteemed career as a diplomat and a multi-time ambassador, we're wondering what are some of the other best practices from diplomacy that you think politicians or CEOs or others could learn from diplomats.
Speaker 1:I think they might benefit from learning to listen Learning to listen in a proactive way of really hearing what people are saying, and also the ability to articulate your own thinking and your own position and, of course, cultural adaptability. And so you have to really listen. I think Articulating your own thinking is something I had to relearn when I reached the senior levels, because my first post in Argentina, I was asked by the embassy officers and families to talk about the Black, the civil rights movement and what was going on in the United States this is 69, 70, 71, 69, actually and I said, sure, I'll be happy to. So I talked about Dr King and SCLC and SNCC and Malcolm X and the Black Panthers and everything, and afterwards people came up and patted me on the shoulder and said, oh, you shouldn't think that way.
Speaker 1:And I'm thinking what is wrong with these people? They had been out of the United States, many of them since maybe the late 50s, so they were sorely out of date. Number one, Number two caught up in their own view of what. Number two, caught up in their own view of what Black people could do or should do. And so I became the resident radical in the embassy and so I stopped talking about politics and my views because I didn't want to be pigeonholed. I didn't want to just be allowed to know what that particular pigeonhole was supposed to know. I wanted to know everything. That said, when I became a more senior officer, I had to learn how to actually tell people what I was thinking, as opposed to keeping it to myself, and I'm not sure I ever successfully succeeded, but that's something that people should be aware of along the way.
Speaker 3:One, not to be in a pigeonhole, but two, how to articulate what you actually are thinking, and politics in America might come into play yeah, we're just up here, yes, right, because I I know, as I have gone up the ranks and had greater responsibility, really understanding how my words land that they are, they take a different import and therefore I need to be very clear on not only what I say, but in what I want and in what I'm thinking, because, also, people don't know what direction they should be going in. Right, I don't get the results that I need unless I am clear on what I need and what I need to say. I think I've had a lot of lessons in that over the years, so I definitely can see that Maybe that's a good move to our next question, which is what are some of the other must-haves that you carry in your arsenal of particularly managing change?
Speaker 1:I think you have to make sure that the right questions are being asked, because off of that, actions are taken. So you have to. I think you have to have a team to me a team approach preferably not all of the people who want to just preserve the status quo but are able to think a little broadly about the question that has been identified, making sure that is the right question. And then you have to seek allies, either in the interagency process back here in Washington or even with other countries overseas. In Ethiopia we had an ambassadorial-level committee of donors, donor countries, and I found that very useful because then you could try to align, see where people were thinking and work with both the Ethiopian side and other donor countries back to those 13 million people who needed food in Ethiopia when I arrived. One, I had to be educated on the right question Is it a famine or not? And the technical things that went along with each definition and what it should be called. Two, I suggested to the Ethiopian government that they needed to get donor ambassadors out around the country to see for themselves, because that would build a consensus. Thirdly, we got USAID to fund a US academic study a quick study, but still an academic study, because that too provided information to donor countries that they could rely on in terms of what was needed and we were able to get food and non-traditional donor countries, because we were required to ship food in US ships and that became expensive, so we wanted to find countries that could ship, bring the food over but not be as expensive.
Speaker 1:Working with that, there was a skill that I observed in that committee by my colleague from the United Nations that I admired and I recommend to every foreign service officer and to everyone at any level, even in college or or below, and that's what I call the skill of summarization, because we would have these meetings and everybody would talk and everything.
Speaker 1:He would wait till toward the end and he would say what I think I heard people say was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and he essentially, by that skill of summarization, he was able to create the consensus that we wanted, if I'm making myself clear. And so that skill of summarization you can use it anywhere in your college classes, in your sororities, in your club meetings, in your work. The skill of summarization, I think, can go a long way in moving issues to a conclusion, and I encourage people to start practicing that as early as possible in their life. It's not manipulation. It's summarization of what people said and you pick out the things that were of common interest and concern and you create the consensus that you need to move things along.
Speaker 2:That makes complete sense.
Speaker 2:It goes back the skill of summarization goes back to your point previously about active listening as something that we as diplomats do that others could learn from.
Speaker 2:I wanted to ask a different question, since this is the leadership tea, and we want to take advantage of your leadership experience. I know that you were a pioneer at the State Department when it comes to teaching diplomats on leadership and management. We were fortunate to have Secretary Powell lobby and advocate for additional resources and to create a system where we have mandatory leadership and management courses for promotion. But what a lot of people don't realize is that it was actually you who had this vision and everything kind of collided in a great way when he came on to take over as Secretary of State. But you were really the driving force behind creating the Leadership and Management School at the Foreign Service Institute, and so we wanted to ask you your thoughts on leadership and management, because the two words are often used together, but they can mean different things, and it would be great for our listeners to hear from you. How do you define leadership versus management?
Speaker 1:versus management. Wow. Thank you also for recognizing the role I played in the leadership management school. It was a lot of fun, but I had to visit everybody's executive office, every bureau, and talk them into agreement and that was interesting. I think, just as you manage to me, you manage things and you, but you lead people, and I know that's a rough shorthand way of putting it. But you're managing things, but you're leading people and you have to lead people in how to manage the budgets or manage programs or manage their portfolio or whatever it is. You have to, but essentially I guess I would put it that way, and it's a it's the content of the courses is key and we were able to come up with a continuum approach and we were able to come up with a continuum approach, a continuum of, I guess I'd say, manage things and lead people and get those skills.
Speaker 1:I think we're going to move into our lightning round you ready?
Speaker 3:I hope so.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So our first question is what are you reading right now? I just finished Medgar and Murley by Joy Ann Reid, medgar Evers and his wife, and it's a well-written book that I found emotional at certain points, because it really is. It reflects what I lived through. He was working in Mississippi and then, of course, all of the civil rights, the freedom riders, the picketing, the demonstrations, all of those things going on. So that's a book I recommend to people because it highlights what people actually had to go through, particularly in Mississippi, and my mother was from Jackson, mississippi, but we did not go to Mississippi very often when I was a child, I think in part because of the fact that it was Mississippi. So Nina Simone's song was quite correct. Yeah, agreed For sure. Oh, I'm sorry, this is supposed to be the lightning round. I'm not used to doing that, so I'll keep just real quick. That's fine, we're good.
Speaker 2:We're hanging on your every word, absolutely. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
Speaker 1:I think the US, because it's worth fighting for, but also Kenya and Africa. Yes, kenya's great, yes, yeah, yeah, yes it's. I like to ask students American students I used to ask if would you get in a car that you knew was going to break down and still get in the car and start a new trip anyway, lot of hands would go up. Nowadays most people's hands do not go up I I see that as a gauge of risk taking, how people want to take risks, but I also see it as, uh, we're too far over in the continuum toward individualism versus community, because people in in africa you get in the car because you knew when it would break down. You knew the community would come out and help Either repair the car, feed you put you up for the night, but somewhere along the way you would get help. So you get in the car and you start because the community side of the continuum is strong still, and that was, I found in Kenya. The people were quite interesting.
Speaker 3:Yes, I agree, I experienced that as well when I visited. Who is your favorite musical artist?
Speaker 1:I could not isolate anybody. All of the 60s and 70s people Aretha Franklin, ray Charles, sam Cooke, nina Simone, marvin Gaye all those people and others. I also like opera, and I like Cuccini's operas because they're grand opera. And I like opera because, when you think about it, when they were written they were the common people's way of entertaining themselves, so it wasn't particularly highbrow at the time. It became that way. But opera also has some. Particularly the new operas by Black people have inspirational aspects.
Speaker 2:Yeah, All right. Our final question and you can answer however you want, fill in the blank Leadership is.
Speaker 1:Fun Leadership is getting people to agree to proceed along a road that you would like to go.
Speaker 3:I like that and fun. Yes, if you're not having fun, why do it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Exactly, Exactly. I would choose my assignments on three things. One was to work for somebody who I felt could teach me something. Two, to make sure I didn't work for a bigot and you could figure that out through the grapevine. And the third thing was to have fun. Because you're living your life. You can't wait until you're my age now and say I'm going to do this, that and the other thing. You got to do it along the way. So I hope you all are having fun. It looks that way.
Speaker 3:We are yeah this is good times. I want to thank you so much, ambassador. You have been in my life since I was a student at Spelman many years ago. This year actually is the 25th anniversary of my graduation, yeah, but many congratulations, congratulations for so long and it's just really an honor to get these insights from you today and it just means so much to have you with us.
Speaker 2:For sure. What a treat, what a treasure, and one of the things that we wanted to emphasize with this episode is that you have to know your history, to know where you're going.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. History is solace, the history is hope. Thank you,
