Confidence: The main ingredient | Brittany Packnett | Talent Connect 2019 (CC)

hey y'all how you doing okay so if I ask you how you're doing and I get it I don't believe you how you doing it's a nice cool day in Dallas Texas what's there to complain about it's so fantastic to be with you all I'm thrilled to be here this is my first time at Thailand connect but I know that I've got some big shoes to fill because there are exciting speakers happening right now and all throughout the next few days so I'm really really humbled and honored that you chose to have this conversation with me on confidence so that picture right there was when I gave my very first official TED talk at the tech conference in Vancouver this past April and I followed a guy who helped discover a new part of a new galaxy and I was up there to give a talk on confidence suffice it to say the moment almost ruined my own confidence but you made entire scientific discoveries and I'm like let's talk about feeling good about yourself and when you're in the TED conference or when you're on the Ted stage you're on that famous red circle that everyone knows and loves and that's usually the perspective that we have that's the side that we see well you don't see as the perspective of the speaker so you're standing right in the middle of that big red dot and you're looking out on an amphitheater of a few hundred people in Vancouver but the first three rows are all billionaires so me the middle of the red dot talking about feeling good about yourself in front of three rows of billionaires and hundreds of other people following the guy who discovered another world the irony in the moment was definitely not lost on me and it was funny because I do a lot of public speaking I engage in conversations like this all the time and I felt so ready so excited to give this talk it was after a lot of work I often tell people that I have never in my life spent that much time and energy on 12 minutes worth of speaking than I did for that TED talk there were drafts and rewrites there were virtual practices and in-person practices and because that speech has to be memorized it's different from every other talk there are no slides there's no confidence monitor there's no script there are no note cards it's just you that big red dot the billionaires and your thoughts so I really had to get myself into the space where I was confident enough to give a talk on confidence and I got to Vancouver and I was ready and excited and I was centered in myself and then I started to see people and when I saw people they would walk up and they'd say oh my gosh I'm so excited for your talk are you nervous oh my gosh I cannot wait to hear you are you really scared thank you for that it's really helping me not be scared to hear how scare do you expect me to be and I realize that other people's anxieties were going to start to jump off on me so I quarantined myself I literally told all my friends who are at the conference I'm going to sit in my hotel room if I'm not practicing that I'm working if I'm not working that I'm eating if I'm not eating that I'm sleeping the only times I came out of the room I literally had on my giant over-the-ear noise stopping headphones and the people would know not to talk to me because I did not want anybody else's anxieties to become my own I had done so much work to recenter myself and get ready to talk about confidence confidently that I had to make sure that nothing else got in my way now I I did that qhorin to anything and it was thankfully successful because when I stepped out on that red dot and I hit my first mark and I said my first sentence I said okay I'm in the pocket right and when I got ready for that moment I had a couple of wardrobe options because I like clothes what girl doesn't I wanted to make sure that I felt my best when I walked up there and I had narrowed it down to two options one was a black dress and one was a pink power pantsuit I wore the pink power pantsuit because I figured if I looked confident then I could convince you that I am I had the credibility to have a conversation on confidence because if I could look good I would feel good and sure enough I did but again the irony is not lost on me that I got up in front of people to have a conversation on confidence and my own confidence was in crisis it turned out that when the speech was over and we released the talk a few months later 1 million people watched it in the first week alone we've had nearly 3 thank you thank you we've had nearly three million people watch it in in the weeks since and one of the things that I talked about up there which I'm excited to expand on with you all is why confidence is not a nice to have but it's a must have and not just when you have to give a speech that follows somebody who does something that you could never in your life dream of it's because we have to recognize that confidence is the spark before everything else we currently treat confidence like a soft skill that's why I was a little nervous to stand up in front of some billionaires who probably don't think about whether or not they're having a crisis of confidence too much but the truth of the matter is is that if everybody we interact with and work at play at home in our spaces of faith wherever it is if everyone that we interact with is lacking the confidence to be their best selves and to give their best ideas than all of us lose imagine leaning a team of franchise players utility players people who can do anything show up anywhere and be great and all of those people lacking the confidence to do exactly that if that is the case then it doesn't matter how awesome the team that you've assembled is because they're not ready to play at par they're not ready to show up in their button as their best selves they're not ready to give you their best ideas and they're not ready to help you achieve your outcomes in the best ways possible so confidence is the main ingredient it is the spark before everything else it is not a nice-to-have it is a must have the truth of the matter is lots of people go through a crisis of confidence all the time I was not the only person who thinks of these things as I walked on that stage my Angela said I have written 11 books but each time I think oh oh they're gonna find out now if Maya Angelou could have a crisis of confidence then all of us should recognize that we are not the odd person out that actually this world continues to condition all of us to constantly question ourselves we are receiving messages all the time that I am not good enough that I am not smart enough but I do not have enough degrees that I don't have enough years work experience that I don't dress the right way that I'm not tall enough for short enough we're a big enough or small enough for a woman enough for a man enough for gender nonconforming enough they're all of the things that I am are simply not enough to be successful in the spaces that I enter we're hearing that conversation all the time 70% of Americans had experienced impostor syndrome at one point in their lives now impostor syndrome is something that we're all feeling I remember facilitating a leadership experience in New Mexico and we went around the circle it was about 70 people we went around the circle and everyone had to write down their biggest fear and then they put it in the middle they mixed up the bag where all of people's fears were and then people came and pulled out a rented in fear so that we could anonymize the process and the fears would be read out loud the hypothesis is that if you hear your fear out loud maybe you will stop putting your faith in it maybe you will start to realize just how ridiculous it is and most of the people in that room identified a fear of not being enough and being found out for it this was an incredibly diverse room we had folks as old as 70 and as young as 24 we had people from all racial backgrounds all ethnicities all gender identities we had people from all different parts of the country people who are not from America we had disabled folks and able-bodied folks in that room and still the vast majority of the fear was that I will not be enough we learned this idea it's not innate it's not natural comes from someplace and when we each endure a cycle of socialization we are met with those messages that tell us that not only are we not enough but if there's nothing we can really do to ever be enough because we'll se now R selves if I just get that next degree everything will be good and then we go get the next degree and then we say oh but now I need to join this board and then everything will be good and then you join that board and you say oh but I need to have worked in this place for a certain number of years and then you reach that year of service anniversary and then you say oh but I need to have this particular title and then you get that title and you say but I need this person to mentor me and to be my advocate and then you get that mentor and then you say that there's still something else that I need this idea that we are not enough is constant and consistent for so many of us irrespective of our background but if we keep it a book as I like to say that means keep it real just follow me if we keep it a book there are some things about all of us that can add to that feeling of impostor syndrome that can add to the challenges and difficulties that we may have with our confidence if all of us are feeling this way there are some of us that are feeling a little bit more and a little bit more often so that's me right oh I was so cute you know when each of us are born hopefully prayerfully we are born into a space of love space of encouragement we've got family and friends and people who love us doting on us saying all when they see our childhood pictures telling us that we are smart enough and that we are good enough and that we have everything we need in us to survive and to thrive but as you engage in your cycle of socialization as you get older and you consume more media and you meet different people and you start to go into places that are unfamiliar to you you start to unlearn that confidence that was inherent and if you possess a marginalized identity you're a woman you're a person of color you're a woman of color you are someone who does not sit on the gender binary but rather you said the spectrum you identify as LGBTQ you are disabled or you become disabled you are an immigrant English is in your first language etc etc etc all of these identities can mount that crisis of confidence I will I cannot tell you how many times I have walked into spaces where I knew I had the expertise I knew I had the skill I knew I was qualified but still I was questioned not because of the content of my character but because of the color of my skin because of the age that I have because of how I present I walked into a meeting with the University Dean when I was an executive director of an education program in my hometown of st. Louis and when I did I was excited to talk to her about how we could start retraining our teachers to be even more effective in the classroom this university partner was absolutely essential to our effectiveness in the community the nonprofit that I ran served twenty thousand students across st. Louis we had a budget of four to five million dollars a year I was 26 when I started that job and when I went in for this meeting with her when I got in there my hair wasn't like this I had braids that stuck maybe right about here she looked me up and down when I got in the meeting and she said and then the meeting commenced where you come from and who you are is inappropriate and unprofessional I will not take you seriously all I'll give you is a hmm and when you come back with straight hair in a style that I recognize in a way that makes me comfortable then I will offer you my approval I will tell you the third meeting that I had with her I came back with braids so long they almost dragged on the floor but this story is constant it is consistent for so many of us for some of us it is our hair for some of us it is how we dress for some of us it's the language that we use and the fact that we don't mean II know all of the jargon of the industry quite yet for some of us is the fact that we're coming in in a wheelchair and people feel frustrated by having to accommodate us even though that's the law there are so many ways in which we are constantly receiving messages that continue to parse away at the confidence we've been working on building for so long and if I'm already questioning am I good enough am I ready enough for you to then confirm the idea that I'm not makes it even worse for some of us confidence is a truly revolutionary choice not just because people have been telling us not to have it for so long but also because when we show up with a little bit of confidence people tell us that we're wrong how many of you all have ever actually let me let me ask this question in a specific way how many of the women here who have been maybe assertive in a meeting or forthright in a conversation have been told that they were angry or bitter or that dreaded b-word look how many hands are raised some hands might not be raised because maybe you're sitting next to your manager and I want to get you in trouble how many of you all have received a message in some form or fashion that told you that even though you felt like you were good enough that somehow you weren't this is a crisis for all of us not just the people who raised their hands because our companies our businesses our nonprofits our communities the institutions that we lead and serve are all losing out when anybody who had their hand raised is not coming with their full self we are not getting the best of their ideas we are not getting the best of their contributions so just because you didn't raise your hand does mean it's not your problem it is the crisis of confidence is a crisis for all of us so how do we work on it how do we build spaces teams and communities and organizations that allow for compliments to flourish for ourselves and for other people if you manage someone or if you're just thinking about your peer group or even just yourself my hope is to give you some real tactical practical things to take with you before we open it up for questions and answers so the first thing is to give permission when I gave that TED talk I told a story about watching my parents buy cars we would walk into the car dealership and my brother and I would usually go like eat the free hotdogs that they have for the kids and play the games but every once in a while I would walk into the car dealers office just to watch what was happening and every single time I would see the same thing play out my parents would walk in they would browse they would pick a model that they liked and they'd go sit with the car dealer the car dealer usually was a man this is the late 80s early 90s in st. Louis Missouri they go in and they sit with the car dealer and our parents would sit down and the car dealer would direct all of his questions and his attentions to his attention rather to my dad my dad would just chuckle because they would start talking and start wheeling and dealing and start talking numbers and my dad would sit there quietly and when it was time to answer the question he would look at my mom he said hey this is who you need to deal with my mom was a chief negotiator in our family barn and when I tell you that she would negotiate deals that I think less had us getting cars at cost like I'm not exaggerating we were walking out with some of the best deals I've ever seen still to this day she would never be afraid to just get up and walk out and say thank you for your time she would never be afraid to say no no because if you can do this for me that I know you can do that for me it was masterful it was a master class in negotiating that I was watching but what she didn't realize she was teaching me was how to defy expectations but she didn't realize that she was giving me permission show up fully and my confidence no matter what the other person on the other side of the table assumes about me no matter what that car dealer assumed about who was wearing the pants in that family as we saw as we so say my mother had to defy expectations to get the best deal she could for our family and she couldn't let his assumptions shake her from her confidence that permission is central to our ability to be confident all the time we actually have to see it on somebody we have to know that somebody is opening the door for us to be our most confident selves in order to do that and to make that choice consistently so the first thing we can do when we lead teams where we're engaged in teams in order to get permission is to not start with that dreaded red pen when I was managing people and it be time to do our two by twos or our annual performance reviews my team would always want to jump to here's what I didn't do enough of this year here's what I need to fix here's what I need to do better and I would force us for the first 20 minutes of the call to talk about what went right because if you can't find permission for some some somebody else to give you that confidence then you need to find it in yourself and that permission may come from the successes that you have already experienced you can gain confidence knowing that you do some things well and distilling how you can actually continue to do those things well so I refuse to start with the red pen and I refuse to let other people who work with and for me to start with the red pen because if we don't Center on what goes well then we cannot operate from our strengths and that is what confidence is all about second thing is to provide equitable opportunities people need the chance to shine and it's the chance to shine all these are those two the same people for the same things than it is impossible for the folks who don't get those opportunities to build confidence in your space they will never come to fully understand the jargon they will never come to fully develop the skills those stretch opportunities you need to make sure that you're not just giving them to the people who are like you that like me bias if y'all heard of this that's actually one of the biggest barriers that we deal with not just racial bias not just gender bias that like me bias that says oh I'm gonna have so-and-so lead this project well probably because so-and-so leads just like you they are like you providing equitable opportunities gives people permission to start to stretch out in their skills and lets them know it is okay to make a mistake it is okay to fail because I'm giving you permission to try something new and if somebody experiences that belief in them they can start to have that belief themselves the last thing is to share a diversity of models I used to be a teacher and one of the very early things that I learned as a teacher was that you have to give young people many different opportunities and ways to demonstrate their knowledge in their mastery of something so if every test is an essay then you are always going to have certain kids that don't do well because you've only given one you've only demonstrated one model of success the only way that you can communicate being effective and mastering what you know it's to write it down but when you open up that testing environment to include a diorama or a poem or a skit when you open up the opportunity for some students to write an essay and some students to answer short answer questions and some students should do multiple choice and some students to do group work so you actually can better assess whether or not young people have mastered the material the same goes for our teams if people do not have diverse models and many many different ways to demonstrate that they have the skill then we're asking people to always spit it they've said the person is not leadership material because they're introverted and you can guess who said that not let's that happily at people's confidence I hate decks I mean I know I have one but I hate them I hate making them I've never been very good at distilling all of my thoughts and he thinks I'm a talker I like to talk things out I had to master this skill because I had to and it's a good thing that I did because lots of people expect it the only way that I demonstrate my knowledge is like this it's the only if there is only one way for people to be successful in your company if there is only one type of success in your industry if there's only one way you can show up as excellent in your organization then you are doing it wrong it is impossible for people to gain confidence in that kind of environment I will tell you when I took over that organization when I was 26 the first large-scale presentation I did something like this I wore an orange blazer I didn't really think much of that blazer until years later one of the black woman who was sitting in the room said to me I will never forget that blazer because it gave me permission to show up as myself I was a fundamentally different model of leadership from any of the one she'd experienced before me not just because I was black and none of the people before me were not just because I was a woman and none of the people before me were not just because I was young and none of the people before me were but because I had the audacity to wear an orange blazer because I had the audacity to say this is how I'm feeling today and I'm not going to contort myself for your archetype of successes and excellence in order to stand before you she said ever since that day she started to lead differently and as an assistant principal she had to lead with authenticity and understanding and orange blazer helped do that not because I'm all that special but because I gave her a different model of what excellence looks like there has to be many many many different ways that people can demonstrate what they're good at so after you create the conditions for permission giving you have to build community and this is essential whether you're looking to be more confident yourself or you are looking to help create an environment so that others can be confident community and genders confidence you need folks to fall back on when you fail you need folks to help you know that you are safe and you're not going to lose everything when things don't quite go as planned you need people to both help you remember who you are remember you the baddest out here you also need people who are going to help you holds up the mirror when it's time to look at yourself and reassess what you're doing and how you're doing it those people have to be trusted advisors community is essential to confidence and I know we love employee resource groups and they are good you need to be able to build community with folks who share some life experience with you other people who are parents or who are I don't know dog lovers or who live on the opposite side of town or who are from the west coast or who went to these particular colleges those resource groups are good affinity groups are better they are different affinity groups recognize that there are certain social identities that are privileged and certain social identities that are marginalized and that the people who possess marginalized identity need safe and brave spaces if those do not exist it is impossible for those folks to work up the confidence to be their full selves at work I guarantee you this and it is important to recognize that your affinity groups should be focused they should be focused I got a question earlier because I had this conversation with with some of the attendees from lead I had this conversation earlier because people want to have a really big bucket for a diversity but if you are not clear about what you mean what you say won't mean anything at all sometimes we use diversity so much that it has completely lost its meaning so here we are in an organization working on educational and equity which meant that we had to be honest about the fact that there are some priorities that we have to create for our affinity spaces why because you do not have educational and equity in America without racial inequity and class inequity so if our affinity spaces are not directly addressing people's racial backgrounds of people socioeconomic backgrounds then we are simply not preparing people to solve a problem that was caused by racism and classism we were unapologetic about that focus about that priority we also recognize that there three other ways in which young people in classrooms are dealing with clear inequities one is the line of immigration another is sexual orientation and gender identity and the other is disability so those five focus areas are clear for us they're a priority area of us and everybody that works with us understands why those affinity spaces have more resources have different attention to have more focus than some of the resource groups that people opt to be into those affinity groups matter because if you do not have the space where you can be yourself bravely where you can practice your confidence before you go out into mixed company then you're going to lack the skills and the safety to be your most confident self the last thing I'm not telling you all anything that you don't know bosses have to be vulnerable to and all of the teams that I've led they've gotten to know me not just through my successes not through my confidence necessarily but through all the other things that I've gotten wrong to help them give have permission to get things wrong too for all of the things that I didn't know them but I know better now so that they can see me as a part of their community not sitting in a seat of judgment but sitting in a seat of support lastly be curious I told this story at my TED talk I hosted in events when I was a fairly young staffer at my organization this time on the national team and the event was terrible like think of the worst thing you've ever done at work and then subtract ten that's how bad my thing was and the first question that my manager asked me the Monday after the event was what were your intentions and I was like is this super soul Sunday what's going on but when she was asking me to do was to be curious about what went wrong so that I can learn the lessons for myself and be responsible for my own learning she was also showing me I'm not here to punish you I'm here to help you grow asking people questions instead of giving directives and making accusations works in the workplace just like it works when you're in a facebook argument it helps people put down their defenses and engage in their own learning so the next time when they have to go enact that lesson its hard-earned they're invested in that lesson it wasn't just handed to them they learned it themselves so help people clarify their intentions and if you've got nobody to do that for you clarify your own and write people into their own learning we all know that we learn best not when other people give us a lesson but when we learn it ourselves and lastly and this is related to this idea of diversifying your models audit your measures of success my fourth year and that executive my third year rather than that executive director position I realized that we were asking our teachers to be culturally responsive leaders in the classroom but we were not ensuring that the staff that managed them and coached them was culturally responsive themselves so I raised some extra money I created a new role I met that equity officer that we hired was part-time chief of staff so that they could have the credibility with staff to do the second part of their job because the second part of their job was to create what we called a culturally responsive leadership rubric we all know that we communicate to other people what we value by what we measure and we were measuring everything else we were measuring if you met your student achievement goals we were measuring if you raise the money we were measuring how organized you are we were measuring how your peers felt about you and we were out there talking about creating equity in the world well we were not measuring whether or not you were helping make our workplace more equitable so we were sending a message that this thing only matters so much when we audited what our measures of success are when we audited what our performance evaluations look like what our professional development process looked like what our two-by-twos look like then we realized we had a void that we had to fill and that coach lee responsive leadership rubric was there to fill the void when I hired her the first thing she did was she got in touch with our customers if you will students parents other educators that we work with our teachers and our staff to help us co-create this thing so that they would be invested in that rubric from the very beginning then as we started to roll it out during two-by-twos and lower stakes professional development moments that were already worked into our year we had people respond in two ways one they said they were responsible to develop in certain ways on the rubric and we provided people resources to do that the second thing they had to do was to give us feedback on how the process went so that in an inner in an iterative process rather we could continue to refine the rubric that everybody helps create and that was a surprise to no one so by the end of the year when it came time to talk about your raise you already knew that your raise was as dependent on your outcomes as it is on your ability to be an equitable leader so we weren't playing games about this that there was no way we could try to create equity in the world and not be an equitable organization ourselves and if you are not measuring the things that you care about you say you care about if you are not holding a clear standard for the people who work with you if you are not giving them many opportunities and ways to show that they are excellent and successful within those measures of success then we're simply doing it wrong confidence is key not because it's it's cute not because it's a popular word not because Oprah told us to care about it confidence matters because it's the spark that leads to everything else building it for one another and giving ourselves the permission to show it ourselves is how we go after our greatest results how we face our greatest challenges and how we answer our most persistent questions thank you all so much I'm excited for your question so we've got two mics on either side and about ten minutes for questions now come on yeah it's right here if I'm like if you're able if you're not we can get you one yes hello yes hi so on my name is Shannon I'm from Cleveland Ohio and I am a campus recruiter at my company so a lot of the things I've run into are our interns I've run part of our intern program with our company and what would you suggest is a good way to maybe even help boost their confidence because you can kind of hear it you know whether through phone interviews or in-person how do you open up that communication to help them feel comfortable yes fantastic question are the interns mostly college students got it so I spent a lot of time with college students and the thing about confidence is that nobody is having the explicit conversation with them so all of us right now are walking around with experiences that made us more confident or that challenged our confidence and for a lot of those those moments are secrets that nobody has ever asked us the question how confident do you feel it feel in doing this thing well why do you feel so confident or why don't you feel so confident is it because you've never had the opportunity to do this okay well then we can create the opportunity is it because somebody told you you weren't good enough okay well let's look at all of the ways in life that you are good enough that you prove that person wrong and now let's get to work so often no one is having the explicit conversation especially with college students who most likely were the top of their class student body president captain of the football team when they left high school and then they walked on a campus where everybody else was - so that is a real challenge to their confidence so I would say whether it's an interview setting or its professional development or coaching once they've got the internship simply have the conversation because them knowing that there is space to actually talk through and work through those things will not only help them be more confident it will in in your workplace it will help them be more confident moving on thanks for that question thank you so much for answering thanks hello hi my name is Stephanie washington-dc I'm an internal recruiter a Clint you're talking about how confidence can come up as abrasive or you know being angry um do you ever feel like you have to defend your confidence or do you think that we do have to defend our confidence to people or is it just like let them deal with it you know this is just more like trying to get them on yeah and Paige I'm glad you asked that question there was a point in my life and it took me a second to get there and sometimes I have to remind myself to stay there but there was a point of my life where I realized that simply for being Who I am no matter how I say it no matter what I say somebody is always going to think I'm angry bitter abrasive whatever so if you're going to think that anyway then I might as well be just who I am right like I actually don't have energy to convince you that I belong because you're going to get these results they speak for themselves I don't have energy to defend why I deserve to believe in myself because the results are right they're telling you the same story right I think that it is wasted energy to carry anybody else's baggage I have gotten the response from someone someone who used to work for me we operated across many lines of difference age race etc and she said to me well you're intimidating my response was am i intimidating or are you intimidated it was a sincere question right perhaps I need to reflect on how I'm communicating with you but perhaps you need to reflect on the biases you may be walking around with let's say that the guy who came before me who was a 40 year old white man said the same thing to you in a much harsher tone and you never told him he was intimidating right so I'm not willing to carry somebody's water for them they got to work through their own stuff themselves while I work through my own I hope that answers your question thank you thank you hi hi Heather with Disney oh sorry I see you over here thank you yes go ahead I'll come over here next go ahead Heather with Disney I probably have a similar question to the persons before me but let's say you're sitting in a meeting with a manager and a manager does say you know you were in a meeting or in the meeting you came off very hostile angry and how do you respond to that in the moment and do you try to convince that manager that that was not your intent like how do you have that when when you're confident it is looked at as angry you're hostile so there are a couple of ways to get after this one first thing you have to do is you you have to assess your risk to be very honest right where are we who else is in the meeting what is what is the topic of this meeting is this the right place to do this the second thing if it is not the right place right is to really be thoughtful about how you have that conversation I often write things down before I say them because I want to make sure that I'm abundantly clear with people and again we'll often approach people with questions right so I need help me understand I want to grow I want to be better help me understand how what I said was hostile help me understand how what I communicated was angry sometimes people will have a real answer for you and you can have that conversation sometimes the question alone will help people unravel something that they said that was irrational right and they will realize it for themselves the other thing and this goes back to building your community is I have pre meetings when I know there's going to be a difficult conversation in a meeting those pre meetings consist of the folks in my community right my allies the folks on my team us walking through all the things that we anticipate that could happen in that meeting so that we are prepared to have the conversation and the proper people are prepared to say what they need to say because if you're the one who got called hostile maybe you're not the one who needs to respond maybe it's your friend that you had the pre meeting with that says hey actually so-and-so actually just said the same thing and they didn't get the same response so I don't think that that went down the right way right or when I've seen it happen all the time when people get cut off I have folks that in on certain things that I work on we're on the same team and I will watch the women get cut off over and over and over again and there are men who are ready to say actually I don't think that Cheryl was done with her point right or to go back and say hey AJ I hear what you say Cheryl said that 20 minutes ago right having that community ready to tag-team and you can just give the look or you know when they see you rubbing that cross and her like oh she's trying to stay close to Jesus and not say the wrong thing now it's time for me to help route they know your signals having that team can really matter in those moments I hope that answered your question thank you yes so I heard a few things throughout your talk in terms of addressing imposter syndrome yes and I wondered you know with isolating yourself with getting your allies with you know all the prep that you do and not carrying everyone's baggage are there any other tips that you feel have been successful for you to address that time imposter syndrome comes up and creeps up on you yeah I'm real I was I really meant what I said about having the people in your community who remind you of who you are one of my he's now a good friend but he was a manager for me is one of the most genuine generous rather people that I know Kwame he was my manager when I first started that executive director job and I was in a really precarious position I can't tell you why for AJ reasons but there were circumstances that I walked into there were precarious and I just kept he would he would coach me on things and then he when it was done he would look in my face and he would just stop and he was say okay would explain the face tell me what you're feeling I'm one of those people who like my face always tells on me so he's like tell me tell me what's going on and usually it was that I was having some crisis of confidence that I just did not feel up to what he was coaching me on and he was somebody who consistently held up their mirror for me right and so he I call him like a coach who doesn't mind going through your greatest plays like he'll playback the highlights and be like no that was you you made that touchdown pass like you got this done you got here you I interviewed with seven different people for that job and had to go through a battery of psychological tests he was it was weird he was like he was like Dean see all the hoops that you successfully jumped over to get here right this you sexually jumped through rather so having that person that has your back to say remember who you are remember that you are the only you and that is your power remember that no one else is coming to the table with what you have to offer you need that angel on your shoulder willing to give you that pump up talk whenever you need it and going back to that person whether it's a partner or a spouse a co-worker a manager a former manager or a mentor whomever it is let them know that they are that person for you so that they know when to pick up that ball when it's necessary I hope that answers your question thank you so much good luck yes Chris Fannie Mae DC I had a quote you mentioned having been in an environment where it's Mike Mattek right where it's like minded yes I mean how do you navigate yourself just being a confident person how do you navigate yourself in tomorrow like that I mean I will tell you this is part of the reason why I was executive director when the Ferguson uprising happened I was a very active member of that movement still AM and a lot of people were like well why don't you quit your job right and just do this full-time and I was like eh because me activists don't pay nothing and I got bills but B because being the boss means I get to get certain things done so I could do that culturally responsive leadership robery didn't have to ask anybody's permission I'd have to worry about anybody paying for it I'd have to worry about whether or not it fits somebody strategic plan because I created the strategic plan and I recognize the positional privilege in that but there is something to making sure that you are both so good at what you're doing and that you carve out the space for you to be able to do what you do that people really can't push back on it right so I created a level of safety and I will say what I will call internal credibility that allowed me to maneuver in certain and still does but it came from me keeping my head down and doing such good work that there were just certain things that weren't really questionable that people would go with me on a new idea or a new venture because they knew I did all these other things well and so I can do this too and again it really does come back to making sure that you are just not carrying anybody else's water and you can ask people certain questions that make them reflect on their own behavior so that they can get out of your way thank you very much last question yes perfect timing hi Lily hi Lily I'm from abacus group and my question is more about the part of your talk about inspiring confidence in the organization sure you talked a lot about in a leadership position during yeah how as a non manager or leadership how do you do that as an individual contributor in a company sure I get this question all the time from people in lots of different positions my mother always said you can show people better than you can tell them it was the black mama version if you build it they will come it's the same thing which really is true sometimes we can get so busy writing the perfect memo or crafting the perfect email or creating the perfect pitch could to convince someone that what people need to be successful needs to be done but often they're not in your position or don't share your story or identities to fully grasp it so sometimes you just have to go build it right and it won't look the exact way that you want because you don't have all the funding from the organization or whatever but figure out what elements you can actually go and create on your own and create essentially a pilot so you can come back with the data from that pilot and that can do the storytelling for you instead of you having to convince someone who just may not get it sometimes you have to build it so that they can come and show people better than you can tell them thank you so much thank you so much to all of you thanks for being here I hope you go out and be your most confident selves god bless you [Applause]

Channel: LinkedIn Talent Solutions

Views: 6,173

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Id: hA1d-F6v3i0

Length: 45min 27sec (2727 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 02 2019