Transformative Leadership Conversations with Winnie da Silva

Powerful insights often arise when exploring the intersection of imposter syndrome and organizational dynamics. In this episode of Transformative Leadership Conversations, host Winnie Da Silva dives deep into imposter syndrome with Carolyn Herfurth, co-founder of the Imposter Syndrome Institute. They discuss the origins of imposter syndrome, its impact on individuals and organizations, and practical strategies to overcome it.

Carolyn Herfurth, with a background in corporate sales and entrepreneurship, brings over 20 years of experience in advising entrepreneurs for strategic growth. As the co-founder of the Imposter Syndrome Institute, Carolyn works tirelessly to help both people and organizations identify imposter syndrome and understand the sources of it. She provides practical tools for self-awareness, and guides others to overcome self-doubt in their professional and personal lives.

Episode Highlights:

Introduction to Imposter Syndrome: Imposter syndrome is a common belief shared by many individuals that they are not as talented or capable as others perceive them to be, despite evidence of their success.

Background of Imposter Syndrome Institute: The Imposter Syndrome Institute was co-founded by Carolyn Herfurth and Dr. Valerie Young to address the impact of imposter syndrome on individuals and organizations.

Types of Imposter Syndrome: There are five types of imposter syndrome identified by Dr. Valerie Young, including perfectionists, experts, natural geniuses, soloists, and superhumans.

Gender and Imposter Syndrome: Imposter syndrome affects both men and women, with men also experiencing acute feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt.

Corporate Impact of Imposter Syndrome: Imposter syndrome can impact productivity, innovation, turnover, and overall organizational success, making it crucial for leaders to address.

Tools for Addressing Imposter Syndrome: Normalizing imposter syndrome, understanding its sources, and reframing negative thoughts are practical tools individuals can use to combat imposter feelings.

Connection to Psychological Safety: Imposter syndrome can be a barrier to psychological safety in organizations, highlighting the need for individual and organizational interventions.

Educational Interventions: Providing education on imposter syndrome during onboarding and partnering with experts in psychological safety and competency models can help organizations address imposter syndrome effectively.

Resources

Carolyn Herfurth on LinkedIn | Website

Winnie da Silva on LinkedIn

While imposter syndrome affects a wide variety of people, it can hit some groups harder than others. In this episode of Transformative Leadership Conversations, you'll gain insights into how imposter syndrome can impact your career journey, especially as a woman and an immigrant. Learn practical strategies, like journaling and understanding your sphere of control, to overcome imposter syndrome and step into your power authentically.

Daya Ketel-Fisher, the global head of internal communications and employee experience at Squarespace, brings over 20 years of experience in communications, change management, and people and culture leadership. With a background in journalism and a passion for building impactful cultures, Daya has led internal communications functions at major companies like Spotify and Pernod Ricard. Her expertise lies in fostering inclusive cultures, navigating change, and empowering individuals to embrace authenticity and self-awareness in their leadership journey.

Episode Highlights:

• Early Career Imposter: In the early stages of a career, imposter syndrome can manifest as overconfidence followed by a realization of the need to learn and grow, leading to a sense of inadequacy.
• Validation and Impact: Validation from others, especially from respected individuals, can have a profound impact on overcoming imposter syndrome and recognizing one's true abilities.
• Authenticity and Identity: Balancing authenticity with confidence is crucial, especially for women in leadership roles, as societal expectations and cultural backgrounds can influence feelings of imposter syndrome.
• Immigrant Influence: Immigrant backgrounds, like coming from families who fled challenging circumstances, can contribute to feelings of imposter syndrome due to the lack of a blueprint for success in a new environment.
• Self-Reflection Exercise: Using a journaling template to differentiate between facts and the story one tells themselves can help individuals train their brains to understand the difference and challenge negative narratives.
• Sphere of Control vs. Influence: Understanding what aspects of a situation are within one's control, influence, or neither can help in letting go of things that cannot be changed, leading to a sense of empowerment and acceptance.
• Importance of Letting Go: Finding a way to let go of things that cannot be changed is crucial for stepping into one's power and overcoming imposter syndrome, as acceptance of limitations can lead to personal growth and success.

Resources

Dea Katel Fischer on LinkedIn

Winnie da Silva on LinkedIn

Winniedasilva.com

Powerful insights often occur when you least expect them. On Transformative Leadership Conversations, they're at the heart of every episode.

I’m your host, Winnie da Silva, and I’m driven by a passion to share the stories and strategies that shape effective leaders, teams, and organizations.

Since launching this podcast in December of 2020, we've delved deep into the individual stories of leaders, uncovering what makes their leadership stand out and the challenges they've overcome. In Season 4, Peter Axelson and I explored team effectiveness with the Team Development Masterclass, offering methodologies, tools, and exercises to enhance your ability to build effective teams.

This year, 2024, marks a fresh chapter. And I’m really excited about this new direction. Each month, we'll explore a different leadership theme from three angles: my reflections, a leader's journey, and an expert's viewpoint. What I love about this new approach is that you get a multifaceted and diverse experience from these three perspectives offering a prism of insights and strategies for each topic we explore together. And just like always – each episode will equip you with the inspiration, strategies, and tools to refine your own leadership and help you lead effective teams and thriving organizations.

Based on your feedback and my work with clients, I’ve picked themes relevant to you. They include topics like…

• The notorious Impostor Syndrome – what actually is it, how can you overcome it and even if you don’t have it, why should you as a leader care about it…
• Leading through change – I love this topic because it’s for everybody – we are all leading through some kind of change right now (and probably into the foreseeable future) – and I’m excited to go deep and practical here…
• Innovation – how important is it to be an innovative leader? What are the different ways in which innovation can manifest? And how do we get more of it?
• Building Your Leadership Brand – what does it mean to build a leadership brand, what elements might be included, and how do we do this so that it’s not just all about us and us selling ourselves?
• Hospitable Leadership – now, for those of you who know me well – I’m a bit of a foodie and our family absolutely loves making meals and hosting dinner parties at our home. And that’s got me thinking – could hospitality be a key ingredient for great leadership? We’re going to explore this topic and find out together!

...and there will be so much more. I’m so happy that you’ll be joining us and throughout this new year I want to invite you to join our community by sharing your thoughts, questions, and experiences. You can do that in so many ways! Subscribe and leave a comment on your podcast platform of choice, send me an email [email protected], listen to the podcast and leave a comment on my website atwww.winniedasilva.com, or find me on LinkedIn. Whether you’re engaging with us online, suggesting topics, or joining the conversation on social media, your voice is a vital part of this podcast.

You are always welcome to take a seat at the table where every conversation has the potential for transformative change.

Stay tuned for our first episode of 2024, where we'll dive into Imposter Syndrome, setting the stage for a year of transformative conversations.

“Leaders need to be sure that they're providing the right behavioral examples of what's needed to support the effectiveness of this team. And this is tricky because you're not always clear about what those things are.” - Peter Axelson

In this podcast episode, Winnie and Peter, wrap up their Team Development Masterclass by discussing nine universal best practices that apply across the Team Development Methodology, which was explored in the previous 10 episodes.



Episode Highlights:

Role Modeling

Leaders must serve as role models, setting examples for their teams. Asking for feedback regularly can help gauge whether they are providing the right examples.

Investing in Relationships

Sound interpersonal relationships are fundamental for collaboration and team effectiveness. They encourage making time to intentionally deepen work relationships.

Changing Mindsets and Behaviors

Increasing team effectiveness requires individuals to change their behavior. Behavioral change typically starts with a shift in mindset, which can be achieved by examining internal narratives.

Emphasizing the Process

Effective processes are differentiators in team performance. They emphasize the importance of paying attention to "how" work is done, as team expertise and intelligence are fixed at the start.

Grappling with Big Questions

It’s important to grapple with significant questions, such as defining team culture - “What do we want to be?” Addressing such questions can be time-consuming but fruitful in the long run.

Creating Room for Experimentation

Team development often involves establishing new processes to build effective teams. Teams should be open to experimentation, assessing results, and customizing processes that work best for them.

Making the Implicit Explicit

It’s critical to uncover and address assumptions that can lead to costly consequences. By making the implicit explicit, teams can avoid misunderstandings, missed deadlines, and damaged relationships.

Asking for Feedback

Winnie and Peter underscore the importance of asking for feedback, especially from fellow team members regarding collaboration. They emphasize that this is a vital habit to develop.

Pause and Reflect

Peter and Winnie advocate regularly slowing down and considering how the team is functioning. These continuous improvement practices are the "secret sauce" for increasing effectiveness over time.

Resources

Winnie da Silva on LinkedIn

Get the whole season and the companion guide at Winniedasilva.com

“Interpersonal issues should be dealt with by the individuals, and team issues should be dealt with by the team collectively… I think most team leaders and team members would absolutely agree with that because, as you say, issues that pop up with individuals on the team, they're going to spill over into the team. And so what we're offering here is that early detection tool to prevent this very thing from happening.” - Winnie da Silva

In this podcast episode, Winnie and Peter discuss the importance of continuous improvement mechanisms within teams. They highlight that, despite most teams wanting to continuously improve, they often struggle with how to do it. Peter and Winnie provide practical ways to implement mechanisms for ongoing improvement.

Episode Highlights:

Analogy from Manufacturing

Peter shares an analogy from his experience working with manufacturing teams that use sensors in equipment in order to detect problems early. This mindset is about monitoring and early detection, ensuring corrective action can be taken before issues escalate.

The Need for Continuous Improvement

Peter emphasizes the importance of continuous improvement mechanisms in maintaining and increasing team effectiveness over time. Teams that invest in these mechanisms become more effective, while those that don't tend to become less effective.

The Challenge of Time

Peter acknowledges that time is a common barrier to investing in continuous improvement mechanisms. Many teams may feel they don't need it or that their current processes are "good enough." Winnie and Peter argue that these mechanisms are crucial for building a truly effective team.

Three Continuous Improvement Mechanisms

Winnie introduces three important continuous improvement mechanisms:

• Ongoing exchange of honest feedback between team members.
• Regular evaluation of team meetings.
• Team effectiveness checkpoints.

Feedback Exchange

Winnie and Peter stress the importance of an ongoing exchange of honest feedback between team members. Regular feedback is critical for maintaining good interpersonal relationships in the face of changing workplace dynamics.

They share two favorite questions for requesting feedback: "What am I doing that you appreciate most, and why?" and "What would you like me to do differently, and why?" The benefits of regular feedback include faster problem-solving, improved job performance, better processes, increased trust, conflict reduction, and more.

Feedback's Impact

Peter mentions that their work on feedback skills has a lasting and substantial impact, with people sharing stories of how feedback has helped them even years after their engagement.

Separating Personal and Team Issues

Winnie emphasizes the importance of addressing interpersonal issues individually and team issues collectively. Feedback exchanges help resolve interpersonal issues effectively.



• Meeting Evaluations
• Peter discusses the significance of regular evaluations of team meetings, particularly during periods of change. Effective meetings can contribute to team success.
• He mentions various methods for conducting meeting evaluations, such as using Trello or Slack.
• Using Evaluation Input
• Winnie and Peter explain that the input collected from meeting evaluations can help meeting facilitators propose process tweaks to the team.
• They emphasize the importance of conducting evaluations frequently during periods of significant change in meeting processes.
• Team Effectiveness Checkpoints
• The third continuous improvement mechanism involves conducting team effectiveness checkpoints, once or twice a year. This "pause and reflect" exercise is intended for an overall assessment of the team's functioning.
• Questions Used
• Winnie describes the metrics used in team effectiveness checkpoints. Team members rate the team on five dimensions: quality, efficiency, satisfaction,individual learning, and team learning.
• Members are then asked specifically about what is supporting and reducing team effectiveness. This is followed by suggested changes to maintain or increase effectiveness.

Resistance to Continuous Improvement

Winnie acknowledges the resistance to investing in continuous improvement mechanisms is often due to a lack of time. They encourage teams to experiment with these practices and evaluate the return on investment.

Leaders' Role in Continuous Improvement

Peter suggests that leaders should prioritize open and honest discussions that help teams pause and reflect on their functioning. Such discussions are the secret sauce for team effectiveness.

Resources

Winnie da Silva on LinkedIn

Get the whole season and the companion guide at Winniedasilva.com



“‘The conversation is the relationship.’ Is a quote I come back to often from the book Fierce Conversations from Susan Scott. What this means to me… is that the quality of our relationships depend on the quality of our conversations, which of course then directly impacts the quality of our work together as a team.” - Winnie da Silva

In this episode, Winnie and Peter explore the concept of high-quality conversations and their importance within teams. They discuss the significant impact of conversation quality on relationships and team effectiveness, emphasizing that it is critical to all other building blocks in Peter’s methodology.

Episode Highlights:

"The Conversation is the Relationship"

• Winnie shares this quote from the book "Fierce Conversations" that underscores the idea that the quality of relationships depends on the quality of conversations. This, in turn, directly affects the quality of teamwork.

Survey on Conversation Dynamics

• Unequal participation, lack of candor, and poor understanding of others’ reasoning are common dynamics in meetings and discussions, and they stress that these are problematic.

Business Case for High-Quality Conversations

• Peter encourages the audience to consider the costs associated with low-quality conversations.
• Winnie and Peter assert that it's not enough to bring people together for work; it's essential to ensure the conversations are of high quality, with broad participation, candor, and the sharing of views and reasoning.

How to Work with Teams on High-Quality Conversations

• Winnie explains that working on high-quality conversations is a relatively straightforward process.
• They emphasize creating a climate for conversations where people feel psychologically safe to speak up and engage with others in open discussions.
• The aspiration is to achieve broad participation, candor, and mutual understanding within team conversations.

Three Steps to Implement High-Quality Conversations

• Describe the attributes of high-quality conversations, why they matter, and how they look.
• Identify barriers to these attributes, which can reveal hidden team dynamics.
• Encourage practice and the use of language and behavioral best practices to increase conversation quality.

Best Practices for High-Quality Conversations

• Winnie introduces six best practices that fall under three primary topics: Participation, Candor, and Understanding of Reasoning. For each practice, there are both "self" and "other" components to encourage improvement in conversations.
• Participation
• The objective is NOT that everyone speaks for the same duration.
• The objective is to ensurethat everyone has an equal opportunity to speak, and on important topics and decisions, everyone has been heard.
• Candor
• Winnie and Peter discuss the importance of managing self by speaking candidly and pushing one’s comfort zone on this.
• They explain that, when interacting with others, one can inquire about what others are thinking to encourage candid dialogue.
• Understanding of Reasoning
• Peter stresses the importance of sharing reasoning when stating opinions.
• In interactions with others, he encourages asking questions about the reasoning behind others' opinions.

Understanding of Reasoning

• Peter stresses the importance of sharing reasoning when stating opinions.
• In interactions with others, he encourages asking questions about the reasoning behind others' opinions.

Implementing Best Practices

• Winnie advises keeping these six best practices visible during meetings and on team agendas.
• The practices can serve as reminders for the team to work on their conversation quality.

Challenges in Implementing High-Quality Conversation

• Peter discusses the relative ease or difficulty of implementing changes in participation, candor, and understanding of reasoning within a team.
• He emphasizes that increasing candor is the most challenging, as it often requires a shift from historical norms of not expressing true thoughts.

Benefits of High-Quality Conversations

Winnie and Peter emphasize the significance of high-quality conversations in team effectiveness and describe the growing confidence and sense of accomplishment that teams experience when improving their conversations.

Resources

Winnie da Silva on LinkedIn

Get the whole season and the companion guide at Winniedasilva.com



Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott

“The word ‘culture’ gets thrown around a lot and sometimes it seems like people see it as something that teams don't have until they define it. However, every team has a culture, whether they recognize it or not.” - Winnie da Silva

In this episode, Winnie and Peter explore the importance of developing an aspirational culture with supporting norms. They emphasize that teams already have a culture, but it may not be explicit or aligned with their goals. Developing a shared vision for the team's culture and defining specific norms can significantly improve team effectiveness.

Episode Highlights:

Challenges in Developing Team Culture

Peter discusses how teams are often composed of individuals with diverse backgrounds, values, and experiences. This leads to the formation of a patchwork culture consisting of implicit norms, diverse expectations, and behaviors that can hinder team effectiveness.

Defining Culture and Norms

• Winnie and Peter provide definitions for culture and norms.
• Culture is described as the result of implicit and explicit rules guiding behavior within a group. It is learned from the environment and reflects a shared mindset and common language.
• Norms are specific behavioral agreements or rules intended to help the team “live into” their aspirational culture.

Process of Defining Culture and Norms

• Peter and Winnie explain how they help teams define their culture and norms.
• New teams have a blank slate to define their culture, while existing teams will need to shift from their implicit culture to an explicit, agreed-upon culture.
• They introduce five key questions that serve as a framework for this work:
• Why bother?
• Describe the culture you'd like to see in this team a year from now.
• What challenges do you expect in living into this culture?
• What agreements should be made to address these challenges (team norms)?
• How will departures from team norms be handled?

Importance of the "Why Bother" Question

Winnie explains the significance of the "why bother" question. Teams need a clear motivation to invest time and effort in defining their culture and norms. The aspirational culture should be reflective of the five metrics for team effectiveness.

Defining the Aspirational Culture

• Winnie and Peter walk through the first two prompts used to define the aspirational culture:
• Describe the team's desired culture
• Provide details on what the team should be doing or not doing, what patterns should emerge, and what experiences team members should have.
• They emphasize that this description should reflect an inside perspective and should focus on the most important elements.

Anticipating Challenges

Teams are encouraged to think about potential challenges in "living into" their aspirational culture. This prepares them for the journey ahead, ensuring they are not surprised or discouraged when obstacles arise.

Defining Team Norms

• Peter explains the next step of defining team norms based on the aspirational culture and expected challenges. These norms are specific, behavioral agreements.
• Teams are advised to focus on a short list of norms, usually around 5-8, that address the most important anticipated challenges.

Dynamic Nature of Team Norms

Winnie and Peter emphasize that team norms are not static and should evolve over time. As teams overcome challenges, they can drop old norms and adopt new ones as new challenges emerge.

Anecdote on Team Culture and Norms

Peter shares an example of a team's aspirational culture statement and associated norms to illustrate how the process works. The example highlights a transformation from an unhappy team with friction to one with shared values and norms.

Dealing with Departures from Norms

Winnie and Peter discuss the importance of team members not adhering to agreed upon team norms through feedback and accountability. They explain that it is natural for teams to struggle to stick to their norms but feedback mechanisms help address this.

Benefits of Defining Team Culture and Norms

• Peter and Winnie underline the substantial benefits of this work, noting that it serves as a standard for measuring progress.
• Winnie discusses how team culture and norms differ from shared goals and joint work, as they are more personal and about the people on the team, which can benefit cohesion and team identity.

Resources

Winnie da Silva on LinkedIn

Get the whole season and the companion guide at Winniedasilva.com



Geert Hofstede

“Clients have told me, ‘I wish my people would think more like a CEO’...And I think what my clients mean is that they want their people to see things more strategically, to take more ownership for not just their own responsibilities, but for that of the overall enterprise or the whole company.” - Winnie da Silva

In this episode, Winnie and Peter explore the concept of a "shared responsibility mindset" in teams. They discuss how this mindset contributes to team effectiveness. They emphasize that responsibility for a team's effectiveness should not solely rest on the leader but should be distributed among all team members. This shared responsibility mindset encourages individuals to think more strategically and take ownership of both their individual roles and the team's overall success.

Episode Highlights:

Introduction to Shared Responsibility Mindset

Winnie introduces the episode's focus on cultivating a shared responsibility mindset within teams. She highlights the common desire among leaders for their team members to think more strategically and take more ownership of the organization's success.

Defining Responsibility in Teams

Peter explains their approach to clients by starting with the question of who is responsible for the team's effectiveness. He encourages clients to think about the specific responsibilities of the team leader and of the team members.

Responsibilities for Team Effectiveness

• Winnie and Peter outline the responsibilities in two categories: mindset and behaviors related to self, and mindset and behaviors related to the team.
• Self-reflection and self-management, seeking feedback, and experimenting with new behaviors are essential for individual growth.
• At the team level, members can help by observing and assessing the team's processes, supporting the aspirational culture, adhering to agreed-upon norms, and actively participating in assessments of the team effectiveness.

The Importance of a Shared Responsibility Mindset

• Winnie discusses the common issue where team members tend to focus solely on their role and responsibilities, while responsibility for team processes rests with the team leader.
• She explains that effective teams require active participation from everyone, not just the leader, in managing processes.

Challenges for Team Members and Leaders

• Winnie points out the challenges team members face, such as thinking, "That's not my job," while leaders sometimes struggle with creating space to allow others to contribute to managing team processes.
• She emphasizes that shared responsibility is essential for team effectiveness and encourages leaders to make space for team members’ perspectives and assistance.

Practical Ways to Develop a Shared Responsibility Mindset

Peter explains how to help teams develop a shared responsibility mindset:

• Start by discussing the importance of shared responsibility.
• Explore existing team mindsets and assumptions.
• Introduce shared language, like "balcony" and "dance floor," to differentiate between content and process focus.
• Normalize making interventions on team processes.
• Establish the role for secondary facilitators* in meetings.

Establish formal "pause and reflect" discussions to assess team functioning.

Experimentation and Results

After experimenting with shared responsibility, teams often experience positive results, including improved output, efficiency, satisfaction, and learning. This helps them see the business case for developing this mindset.

Resources

Winnie da Silva on LinkedIn

Get the whole season and the companion guide at Winniedasilva.com



Mining Group Gold by Thomas A. Kayser

“What we find is that teams that have a process mindset, and what we mean by that is they're explicitly and deliberately focusing on building and refining lean processes, these teams tend to be more effective.” - Peter Axelson

In this episode, Winnie and Peter discuss the importance of creating robust work processes for teams to enhance their effectiveness. They emphasize how this topic is interconnected with previous episodes, where they discussed business objectives and joint work. This episode focuses on how teams can efficiently work together to achieve their business objectives by developing lean and robust work processes.

Episode Highlights:

Definition of Team Processes

Peter begins by distinguishing between "content" (WHAT a team does) and "process" (HOW a team does its work). He highlights that teams with a "process mindset" that explicitly focus on refining their processes tend to be more effective. Process is a key differentiator in team effectiveness.

Types of Team Processes

• Work Processes: Focused on accomplishing the tasks of the team, including setting goals, planning meetings, making decisions, and measuring progress.
• Interpersonal Processes: Focused on building collaborative relationships, developing team norms, offering and receiving feedback, and addressing conflicts.

Business Case for Attention to Process

Winnie discusses the business case for paying attention to team processes. Teams with many talented individuals can underperform if they neglect the importance of HOW they work together. "Process loss" is the term for this phenomenon. Content expertise is often valued and rewarded more than process skills in organizations, which contributes to the lack of investment in team processes.

Approach to Building Robust Work Processes

Peter explains that the approach to improving work processes varies from team to team, depending on their specific needs. An initial assessment helps identify process strengths and weaknesses. They address several common areas where teams may have gaps in their processes - setting priorities, meetings, making decisions, and managing interfaces with stakeholders.

Setting Priorities

Winnie emphasizes the importance of teams developing a process for setting and regularly updating priorities. Teams must understand what's truly important and communicate this to avoid unnecessary stress and inefficiencies.

Effective Meetings

Peter highlights the widespread problem of ineffective meetings and discusses what "good" meeting processes look like. He emphasizes the need for detailed agendas, clear outcomes, realistic time allocation, skilled facilitation, and active involvement from all participants.

• Decision Making: Winnie explains the challenges of decision making in teams and how unclear decision processes can lead to frustration and wasted time. She suggests providing a common language for different decision-making options and making the chosen method clear in each situation.
• Managing Interfaces with Stakeholders: Winnie discusses the need for teams to proactively define processes for working with key stakeholders. She uses the example of a newly formed team she was working with at a pharmaceutical company. As a result of major restructuring at the enterprise level, this team was heavily reliant on other teams in the company for their own team to be successful. They needed to identify clear processes for transparent collaboration with various stakeholders.

The Importance of Lean Processes

Peter emphasizes the need to keep processes as lean as possible and avoid unnecessary administrative work. Striking a balance between "tight" and "loose" processes that suit the team's needs is vital.



Resources

Winnie da Silva on LinkedIn

Get the whole season and the companion guide at Winniedasilva.com