Leadership Tea
On Leadership Tea, we talk about what it takes to reach the executive level, and how to thrive when you get there. Powerful leaders share their journeys, insights, and triumphs in conversations with hosts Shelby Smith-Wilson and Belinda Jackson Farrier.
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
Facing Your Fears, Leading with Love | S3 EP2
Belinda and Shelby address how leaders can navigate the current climate of fear. They emphasize the importance of grounding yourself in your core values, maintaining personal integrity, and fostering a culture of empathy and love.
The conversation highlights the crucial role of community support. They stress that this process is a marathon, not a sprint, and that consistent self-reflection and adherence to personal principles are vital for long-term success.
In this episode:
- Fear does not have to dictate your actions
- Directly confronting your fears is a first step to feeling more empowered
- Knowing and standing by your personal values is essential
- Leading with love is a radical but powerful approach
- Community support is clutch!
Thank you for listening! Remember, we’re also on YouTube, so please join us there. And we’d love for you to share what are the values that will use to navigate through this period of fear.
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Learn more about us at stirringsuccess.com
Hey everyone, welcome to the Leadership Tea Podcast with Belinda and Shelby. Thanks for tuning in. If you are not already listening to us on YouTube, I would encourage you to check us out at the Leadership Tea Podcast. We'd love it if you would comment and like our videos. We'd appreciate it and, if you like what you see, subscribe. So the theme that we've been seeing in many of the conversations that we've had with friends and acquaintances and colleagues in many different spaces and sectors over the last few weeks and months is this idea of managing fear or operating from a space of fear. There's a lot that's happening, and it's happening quickly, and there are things that are happening that are unprecedented, and it can make us freeze and operate and make decisions from a place of weakness, allowing life to happen to us rather than us thinking about how we can happen to the things around us. And so today we delve into that topic and talk about how we're experiencing it and what we've learned and just what we've been thinking about along with this issue.
Shelby:Thanks, belinda. So we thought we would approach this topic of fear thinking about it from a corporate level versus individually, because, as Belinda said, things have been so topsy-turvy in the first few months of the year for so many of our colleagues and it's interesting in some of the conversations that we've had to see how fear is manifesting itself organizationally and individually. And, as I think about organizational culture and the type of culture, the type of environment that I try to facilitate from a leadership perspective, I've always found that a culture of fear doesn't align with my leadership values and usually backfires, in the sense that it causes people to feel off kilter. It causes people to question themselves, even when they know how to do their jobs, because they are crippled essentially by the fear that's being imposed on them. It creates a sense of manufactured chaos, and what's interesting to me at this moment in time is how this culture of fear is manifesting itself across sectors. One of the things that I want to remind our listeners of is, even if you're dealing with people who perceive themselves to be in positions of power, who perceive themselves as facilitating this culture of fear, do these individuals actually have authority over you? What they are trying to impose on you. Is that something that they can actually do when it comes to what expertise you bring to your role, who you are as an individual, what your personal values are? Even if these individuals or the corporation where you work is trying to drive something that is fundamentally against who you are and what you stand for, do they really have the authority over who you are as an individual? And something else that I'm reminded of as I think about. You know how organizations are imposing this culture of fear.
Shelby:In many circumstances is an old saying that knowledge is power, and so, even if you are facing a situation where you feel as though things are being imposed on you that you didn't ask for, remember how it is that you were before this new current was forced on you. What are the skills that you have that have allowed you to get to the place where you are? Your knowledge of systems, your knowledge of bureaucracy. That knowledge is power. Remember that knowledge and put it to use, especially as things are being thrown at you and in some instances the chaos is intentional. How can you stand in your power and push back against that organizational culture of fear that might be generating itself around you? So I'll pause there and see what you have to say. Belinda, how does that strike you?
Belinda:I can't emphasize enough that this idea of knowing what you stand for can help guide you when organizations or individuals who may not have full power over you try to interject themselves into your life. It is that bedrock of guiding principles that will get you through, and it's often the people who are using fear to try to control you who will then try to dangle things over you or get you to do things that are just not aligned with you, maybe as tests or to push you or to intimidate you. So it's really critical to know where your red lines are and what you stand for. What's your reaction to that?
Shelby:Yeah, yeah, it goes back to something that we've said in previous episodes in terms of knowing what your values are and writing them down, having them on sticky notes. You know, we started the year by talking about your words for the year what are your three words for the year? And I have mine posted in my office and in my bedroom as visual reminders of what it is that I want to get out of 2025. But I also wrote down my values this week just to make sure that I'm in touch with myself Again. Whatever situation you may be in where it feels like the walls are closing in on you and you feel powerless, at the end of the day, no one has power over your mind. No one has power over your mind, no one has power over your emotions and how you react to external stimuli, and so sometimes it's important to just remind yourself of who it is that you are, what it is that you stand for, what it is that you don't stand for, regardless of what's happening around you at an organizational level.
Belinda:I agree and I think it's a really good idea, like you said, to have those key principles, your words of the year and those core values available for you to see at a lot. Yeah, right now we need to see them a lot, A lot.
Shelby:And to have people around you who are like-minded, kindred spirits. To remind you, belinda, that's not who you are, that's not who you stand for.
Belinda:In these moments where there's this cloud of fear around us, community has just been, as you would say, clutch.
Shelby:That is one of my favorite words.
Belinda:Clutch clutch that is one of my favorite words clutch. I've been so proud of our friends and colleagues for just being able to see people who need a little courage behind them and and offering that and offering that. Yes, a community is an unspoken hero right now, for sure, for sure. When we're just reacting to the fear, it clouds our ability to make plans for the future or how to get through it. I find myself having a lot of conversations with folks where, before we can move forward, I'm having to ask what are you really afraid of? Write that down, and then let's address those fears so that we know what's realistic and what's not, and we can then move forward beyond that.
Belinda:If you're writing for work, you know you're writing a memo. Your boss doesn't want you to write it in passive voice. You shouldn't be living life in passive voice. The circumstances around you are unlikely to change quickly, but you must have a mindset change very quickly. Yeah, and the mindset change is linked to being honest with yourself about many things, but part of that honesty is what is holding me back and how am I holding myself back From what I need and what I deserve? Then we can get to other questions like are your dreams possible? What can we move forward? What do we really want? But first we need to know what are you afraid of? Should you be afraid of that?
Shelby:What's holding you back and how can we get over that hurdle? What are your thoughts Shelby? It's also important because, again, no one can control your mind. You may not be able to control what's happening around you, but you can control your reactions and your mindset and, as you said, a mindset change right now, in many instances, is all you have control over. And so what are you going to do to overcome everything that's being thrown at you? How are you going to pivot and that's not to say that you have to pivot from your job, from your career Perhaps that's part of the equation but the mental pivot is critical. How are you going to adjust your mental state of being to be able to get on the other side of what you're dealing with right now? That's actually a good segue to the second point that I wanted to make on this topic of fear, and it's not something revolutionary, but it is something that occurred to me this week.
Shelby:Everyone right now is afraid. Everyone is afraid. There is an environment of instability and insecurity that I believe is enveloping the nation, no matter where you live, and even across the globe, as leaders or as people who are in positions of power or believe that they're in positions of authority, you can lead from a place of fear because you yourself may be dealing with your own fear and insecurities, and we've seen this play out in some corporate settings and in various sectors where we have colleagues and friends working, where the people who are in positions of authority are also afraid. In many instances they're afraid of you because they've come into these positions with preconceived notions about what they think you do, where they think you're from, what they think you're capable of or incapable of, and then, when they're confronting you for the first time, and then when they're confronting you for the first time, it's like oh, hold on a second. What Shelby is presenting, what Belinda is presenting, is actually counter to the prejudices that I made. And now I'm really afraid because I underestimated what I was going to be getting when I encountered Belinda and Shelby.
Shelby:And so, in this cycle of fear, both from the people who are receiving it and, in some cases, feeling like victims of what is being imposed on them, but also from people in positions of authority and power who are also afraid, the question for me is where are you going to lead from? Are you leading from a place of fear, the scarcity mindset that we've spoken about before, or are you going to choose a different path and lead from a place of love, which again goes back to one of my leadership principles? I have a list of 13 leadership principles, and one of them is to lead with love. Operating and leading from a place of love and empathy feels like a very radical position to take right now, but it's actually something that I am embracing because that's who I am, that's who we are.
Shelby:We don't lead from a place of fear. We don't lead from a place of scarcity. I want to be in a position where I'm leading from abundance, where I am generating positivity, where I am generating positivity, where I am generating growth, where I am encouraging people to do and give their best. And so, for me, my answer to this culture of fear and people who are afraid and people who may assume that I'm a threat to them, is to respond with love, not to necessarily love what's happening around me, but to be in tune with who I am as an individual and the principles on which I stand.
Belinda:Who are we if we're not our integrity? Right when I have made people just lose their mind with anger is when I have been living in full joy and happiness, right Like the most miserable people don't want to see you happy.
Shelby:They don't want to see you happy.
Belinda:And look at me, I'm over here, thriving, right, genuinely thriving. Not thriving as a reaction to you or as an act of revenge, just genuinely. I'm good, right. And so that's where we need to be moving, because darkness, it just it doesn't win. It doesn't win in the long term. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. So let us be the sun Right, let us shine a light on all of this that's happening, and let's just the more we can operate from a positive space where we are genuinely attempting to do what's right. That's the long-term checkmate.
Shelby:That is the long-term checkmate Girl. You just dropped a word.
Belinda:I was trying to be like you when I grow up.
Shelby:I'm trying to be like you, Belinda.
Belinda:And I'm not saying it's easy, and I'm not saying it in a passive way either. I'm just saying like, as you said, it can be rather radical to be kind, especially right now. Especially right now. I just see so many things happening where people are like, let's say, I'm on social media, right, and someone says, oh, this difficult thing happened to me, I'm sad, and you'll see all of these comments that are like well, now you see how I feel, or you know what the real world's like, or that's what you get. You're probably a bad person.
Shelby:Like where's all that coming from?
Belinda:bad person like where's all that coming from? Why, what? No? And that's like the norm in the comments, and so it's radical to say I'm so sorry that happened to you. Let me know how I can help you. Right, and people are like wait what you're gonna help me.
Shelby:What are you talking about?
Belinda:how can I help you? What happened to you does not seem right. Let me acknowledge that, yeah, yeah, we shouldn't be finding joy in others' pain.
Shelby:No.
Belinda:Mm-mm, mm-mm, no, no. Well, that feels like we've given folks something to think about.
Shelby:I think so, this idea of not letting life happen to you, and I want to emphasize that Belinda and I totally get that people are going through a lot right now and I don't want to sound like a broken record, but we also just want to acknowledge the moment and the times that we're in right now. We are not trying to be flippant. We do not have magical answers. We are trying to have real conversations with you all in reflecting on how we are managing and hopeful that you will glean something positive in what we're sharing in a way that you can apply it to your own life, because things are not easy.
Shelby:There have been moments where there have been tears and there have been shouts behind closed doors, in the comfort of our families and friends and community, as Belinda said, but at the end of the day, at the end of the day, as long as you are in touch with who you are and what you stand for, despite the chaos, despite the crazy, despite the fear that is trying to consume your life, what matters most is what you stand on. What are you 10 toes deep on? What are your values on? What are you 10 toes deep on? What are your values? How are you going to overcome the fear within and the fear that's being imposed upon you? And just taking things day by day, this is a marathon.
Belinda:It is a marathon. Building on that, Shelby, I would ask our audience to tell us, like share in the comments, what are the values that you're going to use to navigate through this period of fear. Share your thoughts and what you're doing to get through this moment. I have a feeling it will help people you don't even know. Right, Pass it on and let's help each other. So if you can leave something in the comments that may be a beacon, that would really help.
Shelby:Yeah, we're here for the dialogue. We're here for the community, as we said at the top of the episode. We hope you're looking at us on YouTube, but if you're not, please consider subscribing to our YouTube channel, the Leadership Tea Podcast. We hope you're continuing to listen wherever you get your podcasts, and check out information on our website, stirringsuccesscom. We're just grateful for this community. We look forward to being in touch with you and we can't wait to sip wisdom and stir success with you again real soon.
