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
Sunday Scaries To Sunday Strategy | S4 EP15
In the newly launched Sunday Scaries to Sunday Strategy Series as part of the Leadership Tea Podcast, Belinda and Shelby help executives with tips to lean into the week and strategies for long-term professional growth. This episode highlights how to future-proof your career in an unpredictable world, focusing on four critical soft skills: digital fluency, influence without authority, cross-cultural communication, and purpose-driven career design. Not theory—practical habits, stories from Belinda and Shelby’s experience as diplomats and executives leading enterprise teams, and concrete steps to leverage your personal brand and network to stay ahead. Join the conversation and learn how to prepare for future challenges while building a legacy in your executive role.
00:00 Introduction to the Leadership Tea Podcast
00:21 Launching the Sunday Strategy Series
00:42 Future Proofing Your Career
01:50 Defining Future Proofing
03:16 Digital Fluency: Embracing Technology
07:04 Influence Without Authority
11:19 Cross-Cultural Communication
14:47 Purpose-Driven Career Design
20:47 Starting Your Future Proofing Journey
23:15 Conclusion and Call to Action
Leadership isn’t easy and sometimes, the podcast isn’t enough. That’s why we’re creating The Leadership Lounge, a members-only community designed for leaders who want to go deeper, reflect more, and stay grounded.
What do you get? A monthly group coaching session led by the Leadership Tea Podcast hosts and monthly virtual community connection sessions, as well as leadership resources and articles.
Find more information about the Leadership Lounge here.
For leaders who want more than surface-level advice.
What do you get?
- A virtual monthly group coaching session led by the Leadership Tea Podcast hosts.
- A monthly Community Connection virtual meet-up.
- Leadership resources and articles.
We publish new episodes every other Wednesday.
Follow us on Instagram @Leadership_Tea for more inspiration and insights.
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. Based on some of the feedback that we heard from you all as a result of the weekly shutdown series episodes that we launched starting in October, we have now decided to launch what we're calling the Sunday Scaries to Sunday Strategy series. And we're doing this with you all in mind, particularly executives who, you know, quite frankly, during the weekend, your anxiety builds up as you're thinking about what you have to walk into on Monday morning. And so we have designed this episode series with you all in mind. And tonight's episode, we're going to kick it off by discussing how to future-proof your career as an executive, as a leader in an unpredictable world. We are going to discuss four soft skills that anyone can use to prepare for the future and to just stay on top of your game. And we invite you to stay until the end when we are going to share our tips to kickstart your preparation for the future starting this week.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Shelby, if our listeners are, and I know they are, high-performing leaders, maybe they're dealing with burnout or just a chaotic situation, or they're really curious about what's next for them. I feel like this episode is for them.
SPEAKER_01:I agree, Belinda. And I would just underscore that every major leadership breakthrough in my life over the span of my career came from learning skills before I needed them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that makes sense. I feel the same way. And so maybe before we jump in with our soft skills that we think are critical, we should first define what future proof actually means to people? And I'm happy to start. I would offer that one thing that it's not is it doesn't mean that you have to be perfect or that you have to be invincible. Rather, perhaps it's about being prepared and adaptable and thinking strategically about how you can move forward.
SPEAKER_01:It's about being prepared. And I think it's also important to keep in mind that you don't necessarily have to wait for a magical moment to think about when it's time to pivot or to expand your skill set. Any moment is okay to pivot. And I often think that leaders can underestimate how much leadership skills that they already have from the time that you enter a career profession as you're progressing, you're already building the building blocks for what you need to advance and be ready for the future. And I would just reiterate that don't underestimate yourself as you're thinking about future-proofing yourself and as you reflect on the skills that we're about to share. So, do you want to go ahead and kick us off, Glenda? Sure.
SPEAKER_00:I think I want to start with this idea of digital fluency, because I think it speaks to the elephant in the room. Everyone's talking about AI, this and technology that. And they're we're coming to a point where hiding from the technology or saying you don't trust it or you don't like it or it's just a fad is going to keep you out of key rooms. And so something I think about a lot, and I've done, I actually am done, I do even right now. I will create test accounts with different platforms. I will try things out, right? So maybe I have a when Instagram really first started to kick on kick off, right? I created an Instagram account to see and experiment with what does it mean to be a creator? What does it mean to try to go viral in ways that are safe, right? I'm not saying give away all of your information or put all your stuff out there. In my case, I use my dog. So I'm not in the videos, my dog is in the videos, my dog has thousands of followers. I do not have thousands of followers, but my dog has thousands of followers because many of the experiments I've used have been successful. And so now I understand the platform better. The same with things like Substack or Reddit or whatever you hear people using. And even when it comes to AI, I've been experimenting a lot with building my own agents and bots. Like I am by no means a coder. But for just very simple things that I understand what people are talking about because it's such an important part of economy. So I'll stop with just saying that digital fluency to me means understanding where technology is driving the economy and making sure that I am my understanding and my ability to lead and manage it remains at the forefront.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love what you said about not being afraid of technology and not hiding from it. I think that's a pitfall that I've seen, at least with some of the executives that I coach, particularly when we're talking about AI tools and new technological tools that exist now that did not exist 20, 25 years ago or even five years ago. And it's just so important to stay open-minded and to be creative and to do a lot of the creative things that you're doing, which is one of the reasons why I love working with you because each day, each week, I'm like, okay, Melinda's using something new. She's over here creating chatbots. Let me get with the program and pick up some of these skills. But yes, totally foot stomp everything you just said on digital fluency. One of the skills that I want to, one of the skills that I want to highlight is what it means to have influence without authority. I think as you rise through the ranks and aspire to be an executive or if you're already at the executive level, one thing that is key, regardless of the industry, is the breadth of your relationships, the breadth and depth of your relationships, because that is going to carry the day when you don't have authority over other people. And this is something that I learned in one of my early executive roles when I was chief of staff to a senior level official at the State Department. And I was working with people who were at my rank or outranked me. And it was an interesting dynamic because it was a new administration and there was a lot of politicking that was going on, not just in terms of the political agenda that the White House was trying to implement, but a lot of political jockeying, which exists in every industry, whether you're in government or in corporate, there are always people who are jockeying for position. There are always people who are trying to impress the boss so that they can get ahead, so that they can be the person who carries the most weight in those meetings that take place just before a major decision is being made. And for me, it was a good lesson in real time in terms of how to make sure that I took care of my relationships, knowing that I didn't have authority over other people, knowing that my influence only went so far, and knowing that I needed to keep in mind that just because my boss was a powerful power broker, you know, in that moment, it didn't mean that he was going to be there forever. And so I couldn't smell myself. I couldn't let, you know, that that title, that position go to my head in such a way, whereas, okay, maybe I'm the big woman on campus right now, six months from now, nine months from now, a year from now, where am I going to be? And just knowing that you constantly have to politically recalibrate what's going on. You constantly have to be aware of the political environment within which you are working. And you have to be aware of what are the motives of the other people that you are working with. And how can you ensure that you are in a good place when it comes to developing those relationships, even with people who might be suspicious of you or aren't necessarily seeing eye to eye with you, especially with those people, you need to make sure that you are putting in the effort to build the relational capital that you need in order to maintain your own self-preservation, but also just to be successful in operating in those spaces.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, I agree with you, Shelby. I feel like there is power and strength in humility as well as silence. Yes. Warriors move in silence. How about that?
SPEAKER_01:One of my like go-to's throughout life.
SPEAKER_00:So it just like a key ingredient in the secret sauce here, I think, in being a leader, particularly when you're getting to that kind of C-suite or enterprise level kind of leadership, is knowing that there is power in taking a moment, taking a breath, assessing the landscape, and asking yourself how can you make sure that you're a step ahead, whatever political plays are being made, and denying that political plays are being made is a crucial mistake. And taking the political plays personally, yes, like just you gotta, yep, that happened. Gotta keep it rolling, gotta keep my eyes on the ball, and everything else has to be noise. That is really how you make it. So I know I completely agree with everything that you've mentioned there. I think the last point I would add is that is on kind of cross-cultural communication. And I don't know if it's the most popular thing right now, but the reality is many of our industries are international, and much of what we need to do has to happen across borders. And the AI is not necessarily at a place where it's going to help you or it's going to do that for you. It's going to manage your team in another country in a culturally sensitive way or in a way that motivates them. So having the knowledge to and the people skills to know how to get teams around the world to do things in ways that take into account cultural kind of nuances and language nuances while still doing it efficiently, right? And still keeping people focused on what kind of the mothership wants, right? Is a skill and is one that has to be practiced. And the way that you motivate your team in the country that you happen to be living in is unlikely to motivate your team halfway across the world. And I think this is really important as we look at there, there are some really critical industries that are going to require this skill. People have been talking a lot about critical minerals, or people have been talking about different mergers and acquisitions across industries. Like you're not going to get the bang for your buck. You're not going to deliver for shareholders if you don't know how to get your teams around the world to work together. So I just think that this idea of cross-cultural communication, and even if you know already what countries or regions you plan on working in the future and going ahead and investing in that knowledge, right? Taking classes, learning language skills, etc., it just will have put you at such an advantage over people who don't have those skills.
SPEAKER_01:100%. 100%. It's it to me, it's almost like common sense. Like the way in which you communicate with your daughter is not going to be the same way that you communicate with the team that you led at YouTube or the team that you led at the State Department's 911 equivalent, or the team that you led in Rwanda. Like you have to read the room. You have to read the room. You have to know your audience. You have to apply a certain level of cultural sensitivity in order to get the results that you want from that team that you're managing in India versus the team that you might be managing in West Virginia. I just think that you made some really critical points on the value of cross-cultural communication and knowing how to communicate. I think it's something that we're losing, quite frankly, in society. People don't know how to talk to each other and they don't know how to adjust their messaging in a way that's appropriate for the person that they're talking to.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And also how to listen to each other, right? Yeah. People will say things in ways that don't you have to ask yourself, like, what were they really communicating to me?
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. Or what's not being said. How about that? Just what's not being said sometimes is just as important as what is being said. I agree. So the last point, the fourth point that I want to raise is a skill that we're calling purpose-driven career design. What do I mean by that? In layman's terms, sometimes you can stay too long. Sometimes we overstay our welcome. And I think as executives, as an individual who's looking to really make their footprint or really establish a legacy in a position, I think it's very important for you to know at what moment have you done all that you can do in that role? And when is it time to move on? And I don't necessarily mean when is it time to retire or end a career, but at what point do you ask yourself, have I accomplished everything that I can do within my power, within my authority in this particular position? And is it time for me to take my skills elsewhere and spread my wings and accomplish even more things? And I experienced this in a role at the State Department when I was working at our Foreign Service Institute, and we were implementing a massive change management process in order to establish a new unit within the institute that would really take a hard look at adult learning and the rigor of our academic instruction and delivery. And it was a humongous effort in terms of building committees that would be focused on implementing the change and having what we called change champions because change is hard in the best of circumstances, and it can be difficult to bring people along, even when you're clear in your vision and clear in communicating what it is that the change is going to produce and why it's necessary to have that change in the first place. But we were very intentional and very thoughtful in creating an infrastructure to make sure that people understood the change, the how, what, when, where, and why of the change. And once we did all of that, I asked myself, okay, what else is there for me to do? How can I have my personal footprint or thumbprint on other things that the institute does going forward? Or have I exhausted my influence, my skills, my talents? Have I gone as far as I need to go in this particular role? And I think that's just a critical question to ask yourself, especially as you're trying to align where you are with where the institution you're working at is going or where they are in their maturity level. And this is just a natural, to me, it's not a bad thing. It's a natural progression as you are continuing to build your leadership skills and continuing to find your footing as an executive. If you're not asking yourself, where am I in relation to my organization, my team, et cetera, then you're probably missing some critical intel in terms of your own professional growth journey. And so I think that is that's a very important aspect and component of really future-proofing your career, just knowing when is it time to move on? And that's not to say that you want to take any sort of premature knee-jerk decisions. Okay, I don't like how this is going. So it's time for me to be out. That's not what I'm saying at all. But really look at have I accomplished my goals, the objectives that I set for myself, the objectives that my team and I have decided were important for this institution. And then ask yourself: is there more that I can do? Is there more that I can contribute? Is there more that this organization needs from me before I move on? And yeah, I think that's just that's an important skill as you think.
SPEAKER_00:No, that's brilliant. Calling it purpose-driven, right? And really framing around that, I think is really helpful. It's something I wish I had done earlier in my career because you reach points where you're like, I have worked really hard to get to this space, but it's still not fulfilling. It's still not, something's not right. I'm not happy, but I should be. And I wish I had had the language of saying, yes, I've achieved this, but if I'm living in my purpose and moving forward in my purpose, it is okay to make a shift elsewhere. My purpose is drawing me elsewhere. Yeah. I'm I'm going to achieve those same heights. I'm going to get the promotions. I'm going to be in the right rooms. I'm going to lead the types of teams that I want to lead. But I think sometimes we get stuck in feeling like we should be thankful for what we have, even when it's not fulfilling our purpose or feeding us anymore.
SPEAKER_01:Or sometimes we get scared to name our purpose. It's like we know within us, we know within our heart and our soul, this is what I'm meant to do. Yeah. And we get distracted by the outside voices saying, Oh, but you're supposed to be doing this, you're supposed to be doing that, instead of really being attuned to what's what's within us and what that thing is calling us to do.
SPEAKER_00:I completely agree. So, with that said, Shelby, we've given folks our four kind of soft skills that we think are really critical to this process, whether it's having a purpose-driven career, being prepared for cross-cultural communication, influencing without authority, and also having that digital fluency that's going to be critical in the years ahead. I think the next question is: how should people begin to start this future-proofing process? Like, how do you start building those types of skills like right now this week?
SPEAKER_01:So we call on you to identify at least one skill, one of these four skills that we just discussed, something that you can begin working on right now to begin future-proofing your career between now and the end of the year. And you can also do that by taking a look at your LinkedIn profile. Is there something within your personal brand, something that is included on your LinkedIn profile that doesn't necessarily align with the skill that you have identified to work on?
SPEAKER_00:And is there a way that you can invest in yourself? We spoke a little bit earlier about perhaps it means taking a class or getting a particular certification or experimenting with different platforms and different tools. Perhaps it's spending some time in a different business unit and seeing how other things are done, if you're able to do that. Does it also mean perhaps investing in yourself in terms of working with a coach to outline, plan forward, or investing in communities? We've talked a lot recently, Shelby, about joining professional organizations, right? To help stay abreast of news and information in our industry, but also to meet people and to network. And I know that many of our listeners know that we have a version of that here in the Leadership Tea with our leadership lounge, which we'll link to in the show notes. I think that our first few sessions have been really successful in helping people build a community and start to talk about some of these challenges.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I agree, Belinda. The one thing I would emphasize to our audience is you don't have to start big. Start small. You don't have to overhaul your entire life. You just need to start somewhere. Start small with one of the skills that we've discussed tonight, perhaps by joining the leadership lounge. If you really want to build the skills for your future self, which your future self will thank you for.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, your future self will definitely be proud of the choices that you're making today. So, with that, I just want to thank our audience for spending time with us. Tell us in the chat, what are you going to start working on this week? Let us be your accountability partners. We're happy to do that. And for those of you who are listening in on Spotify or Apple, come join us on YouTube and subscribe. We'd love to see you over here. And I just want to say I want to thank you as always for sipping wisdom and stirring success with us each week.
