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
Navigating Career Pivots and Layoffs: What Got You Here Won't Get You There | S3 EP13
Are you navigating a career pivot or a layoff? It’s not uncommon these days. If you’re looking ahead to what’s next, Shelby and Belinda want to remind you that times have changed, so what worked for you before won't necessarily get you where you want to go. In other words, the tools and mindset that brought you success in the past might need a serious overhaul.
Whether you're facing a forced career pivot, adapting to a restructured team, or aspiring to higher levels of leadership, this episode is a call not just to let go of habits that no longer serve you, but also to uncouple your identity from your career.
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Hey everyone, welcome to the Leadership Tea podcast, where we talk about not only what it takes to reach the executive level, but how to thrive once you get there. My name is Shelby Smith-Wilson and I am joined by my co-host, belinda Jackson-Farrier, and today we are going to talk about a different type of subject. We are sensitive to some of the layoffs that are happening at the time of this recording. We know that some of our listeners are either bracing for some unfortunate news on their employment status, or you know others who have already faced layoffs, both in the public sector as well as the private sector. And, as Belinda and I were thinking about an appropriate topic to meet this moment, one of the things that we thought we would discuss is this theme of what got you here won't get you there.
Speaker 1:Whether you're in a current leadership position, aspiring to be in a leadership position facing a pivot, whether forced or voluntary, the types of tools that you may have relied on to be successful up until this point in your life may need some tweaking. You may need to exchange some of those tools for different ones. You may need to sharpen your toolkit. You may need to completely get rid of all the tools that you have in your current toolbox and buy a new one? How do you reframe, shift, adjust, deal with different waves of change, especially when they are unexpected and especially when they're happening against this backdrop of just a significant shift in the atmosphere, whether it's impacting you or the people around you?
Speaker 2:I agree with everything you've said and I would underscore this idea of separating as you're going through changes, whether it is that your team is now diminished and you are having to rethink roles and responsibilities I've been in that position and it's uncomfortable and it's difficult to lead through or whether you have been directly impacted and you are needing to reassess what your next steps are. I think it's really important to think about the ways in which your identity is tied to your role or tied to your organization and begin to separate that, especially for those who have left, and it takes time, but moving from a space of this has happened to me like a passive space to a forward leaning space of how am I about to happen to the world right, and so you have to come out of your box and look at your skills and think holistically about what got me here and where do I really want to go and are these the skills that I need to get there? I know that as I transitioned from different spaces and it took me a while to realize this, so I hope that this tip moves someone else along a bit faster that a lot of things that made me a great student, made me a great entry-level employee had, by inertia, continued with me. They were dragging behind me like weight right, thinking about other people's expectations for me. Oh, I should look at this, I should be doing this, I should be doing that.
Speaker 2:Now, what do I want to do? Right, people pleasing? How can I lead from a place of being worried about? Are people upset? Are they going to be angry? I'm making sound data-driven decisions with empathy and with honesty. It just is what it is and then letting fear and anxiety and shame drive the shift. Fear is a great motivator when you're trying to get an A Anxiety is a great motivator when you need to study for that big trust, but it is not a great motivator when you are trying to make a pivot or you're trying to lead through massive change.
Speaker 1:People-pleasing interferes with progress for people who are wanting to step up and be a leader. You know, leadership is lonely. It's not a popularity contest. It really tests your ability, as you said, to be brave and make tough. Calls are made by leaders who are not afraid, who are not paralyzed by what the reactions or thoughts or personal opinions of other people are going to be. It's this tug of war right between how do you maintain your values and not compromise those while at the same time adjusting yourself to grow into the situation that you've been placed into.
Speaker 1:And I'll give an example of a personal leadership challenge that I faced in managing other executives. It's something that I was not fully prepared for. I was more experienced at leading people who were new to the career or people who were at the mid-levels, but I had not had a lot of experience managing other executives who had the equivalent number of years on the job as me or, in some cases, were more senior than me, both in rank and in time spent on the job, and one of the things that I would like our listeners to be mindful of is sometimes the skills that get you to one level are not necessarily the skills that are going to get you to the next level, in the sense that what motivates that bright, starry-eyed new employee is not necessarily going to be the same thing that motivates someone who's been doing a job for 20 plus years, and you have to be cognizant of that. We've talked about self-awareness. We've talked about emotional intelligence. You have to be able and willing to shift how you approach people who are coming with different levels of experience, different life experience and different motivation levels, to ensure that you're getting the productivity and the results that you want to get out of people.
Speaker 1:And I think this point is particularly important right now, as different office environments in the public sector and in the private sector, as people are seeing the dynamics shift. What may have worked for you before may not work going forward. When you join a team and you're like, why do you do things this way? It's like, oh well, this is our procedure, we've always done it that way. Well, guess what we are living in a moment right now where we've always done it that way is not necessarily going to work. I just want to foot stomp that point as we think about, you know, the things that got us to where we are right now aren't necessarily the skills, the tools, everything. It just feels like we're witnessing cosmic shifts in how we operate and it's just not the same old, same old anymore.
Speaker 2:I think about it like your glove compartment in your car. My car is a bit older and there's stuff in there. There's stuff in there that I thought in the past I was going to need. You know, it's a hot sauce that I like to forget is there there's a little salt and pepper, there's some old bay, there's manuals, there's pens and pencils and all kinds of gadgets, and once in a while you need to go through your glove compartment and and say, like I don't, I don't need this anymore, like I don't need that anymore.
Speaker 2:The journey has changed and the things that I need for the journey need to change as well. That I can't emphasize enough. It's something that I really see, and you know my coaching practice and with my clients is that when you have this clarity of that happened, that was the past, it happened to me, but I'm bigger than that. But what I want, I've got a new North Star. I'm going to go for that and it just requires different stuff, you know. And so let's go build that. Let's go build the thing for the future.
Speaker 2:And what I'm saying don't bring anxiety and fear and people pleasing stuff for me is that, like you see, that that's your North Star. But you're like you know what, I'm just going to go for the little dipper because that's what everybody expects from me and like, yeah, it's over there and I kind of know where it is in the sky, but that's not what you want. You just left what you wanted. If we have to leave that thing, let's go to something great. But you can't get there unless you're clear and honest with yourself about what you're carrying with you and what you need to let go of.
Speaker 2:It's like checking your baggage at the airport and some airlines are like, look, if you've got a chicken in your bag, like we don't care, just to clear it, right, just tell us so we can deal with it. What's in your bag? Be honest. If you're not supposed to have it on the fly, take it out. But being able to take it out, it's really having to have a real look in the mirror about your identity and about what you want. That's hard, it takes a little time, but we got watching people lose their jobs.
Speaker 1:There are also people who are left behind, and that carries a different type of weight. You know how do you step up in this moment, how do you fill voids and how do you lead? How do you seize this moment? You know, if you're able, if you're willing, if you're up to it, how do you lead, how do you seize this moment? You know, if you're able, if you're willing, if you're up to it, how do you take this opportunity to lead from where you are? You know, for those who are left behind, I would just emphasize that it takes a different level of courage, it takes a different level of bravery to operate in moments like this that are uncertain and are gray.
Speaker 1:And sometimes, especially at times like this, there isn't going to be a playbook, as you have said, belinda, in the past, and so how are you going to calibrate?
Speaker 1:When is it worth you making a personal risk, a personal sacrifice to make a call, to make decisions in the absence of guidance, in the absence of instructions, as people are leaving and roles and responsibilities are shifting?
Speaker 1:How do you figure out your place in those crucible moments on a personal level and in terms of what your organization may require of you. Again, what got you here isn't necessarily going to get you there. How do you use the skills that you have acquired so far, especially on the interpersonal side, to read the room, to study the personality dynamics that you are being exposed to? We've always done it that way and we're going to keep doing it that way, and that's not going to work. But also the personalities of the people that you're working with, as well as those that you are reporting to, those, have also shifted, and so the manner in which you may have dealt with a previous supervisor or the manner in which you may have led a previous team, those mechanisms may not work going forward. How are you going to make that mental shift and that pivot? That is something that I would challenge our listeners to think about as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, shelby. I would only add to that by saying been that person, right, been that person that woke up and was like oh snap, I still have access to the system. Who doesn't? Now I know, but I did not rethink what was in my bag and I began to lead from this place of fear. Am I next right that what got me here isn't what's going to keep me safe? So I know from personal experience when this kind of change comes.
Speaker 2:If you leave from that place of fear and thinking about well, I need to make a decision, but which decision is going to make my bosses happy? Not which is the right decision. What is going to keep me off the chopping blocks? Do I even want to be off the chopping blocks? It doesn't serve your team. It doesn't get things done. It doesn't show how effective and valuable you are For me. I feel like it put me in this wheel of anxiety and shame and fear that was really hard to get off of. Anxiety and shame and fear that was really hard to get off of. When I look back on that, I wish that I had taken a deep breath and said okay, this has happened, I still have access. I guess.
Speaker 2:I'm not going. They have demonstrated that they're going to do this kind of thing, so I might as well lead in a way that's going to actually bring value and be good for my team than lead in ways that are going to keep us tripping over ourselves.
Speaker 1:I've been reading. I've been reading a lot, and I just wrapped up the book how we Learned to Be Brave, and there is a quote that I think is really powerful for the moments that we're in, the moments that we're witnessing right now.
Speaker 2:We must relinquish a past version of ourselves to become the person waiting for us on the other side.
Speaker 2:Before you even said that quote. Do you see how we're always on the same page? I wanted to say I wanted us to end on the note of knowing that actually it's hard to see right now, it's hard to see when you're in it, yeah, but there's actually something really amazing on the other side of this, and that's whatever you want, a hundred percent, and for the first time, you get to think about whatever you want, and the only thing standing between that and you is you. You that's like a. It's a lot, that's a huge weight, but what a great opportunity. I don't want to minimize the shock, the anger, the fear and get it we've there, but what I want to highlight is that there is a tomorrow. It will come, and when you get to it, know that there's a universe of options available. It's something that I marvel at every day in my journey, and so that is what I hope. Whether you are concerned about restructuring, you've been restructured, you're left behind. There is a tomorrow.
Speaker 1:And who do you want to show up as when you're facing that tomorrow?
Speaker 2:That's a word. It is, I'm there. I love it I love it, pleasure.
Speaker 1:Yes, likewise, likewise.
Speaker 2:Well for our listeners who are listening in the audio version of the podcast. Thank you, and please subscribe and leave us a comment in Apple or Spotify, but we would appreciate it if you would come and join us on YouTube and, as always, we look forward to your comments and we look forward to sipping wisdom and stirring success with you in the future.
