60. Top Leadership Challenges Right Now

Hi everyone. I’m Saralyn Hodgkin, and this is the podcast to practice your leadership.

I’ve been talking with women about how they feel in their careers and their career path. Their career journey, and what their experience is and what they wanna work on, you know? And part of that comes from a place of trying to wield their own individual power of this is my path and how do I explore it, how do I navigate it?

What do I do here? Right? And part of that conversation, of course is understanding, well, what challenges are you facing? And you may relate to some of these, you may not. But the challenges that I’m hearing, that a vacation doesn’t fix, right, or the weekend doesn’t just suddenly cure, but that, that continues to stay in is number one, the way I relate with my manager, oh my gosh.

Or director. Or supervisor, what, whatever that looks like, my vp, whatever that looks like. Whatever the, the title descriptor is, it’s feeling like I have this place of my team keeps rotating. People are leaving and coming and or my manager keeps changing and coming and I now I’ve had four managers or directors in three months, or, you know, whatever the stories are.

But all in all, whatever it leads to is that no one’s leading me. No one is using the part of their job that hopefully they have time for to be able to come alongside me and walk with me and lead me or provide me with the elements that are gonna help me grow or who I don’t feel actually has my back, wants to be authentic, but models something totally different.

There’s this manager relationship that has tension. The other part that connects is around critical feedback, or more specifically, lack thereof. And being able to find the people and situations where I can, I can gather and garner the critical feedback that’s gonna help me grow, that’s gonna help me see the challenges before me, that I can, that I can navigate better next time.

That allows me to, figure out how to stick handle this area or just be able to find places of learning for myself. That lack of quality feedback, while people are really nervous to have confrontation, I don’t need your confrontation. I need your critical feedback. And then, another area is around just feeling that deflated, lack of learning, lack of inspiration. Like, yeah, these are all my strengths. I can do all of this, but I’m sure not waking up feeling jazzed and engaged and like I just wanna dive right in. And on the flip side of that, sometimes with, you know, going back to the manager part, there are barriers to me showcasing my work so that it’s hard for me to feel proud and to show those things or, um, I don’t have a manager who’s fighting for me to get me into these opportunities and I don’t know how else to do them.

And then of course there’s also lack of self-confidence and, uh, over identifying with imposter syndrome or however it comes up, the lack of confidence and starting to use that as some kind of identity. Like I, I have, imposter syndrome. Okay. Well, yes, you can feel like there’s, there’s degrees of what that looks like.

And when we start to take on that identity, for example, we erode our own confidence. And the stories I’m telling myself are just, you know, what will people think of me? People are judging me. Like that whole self-confidence, however it shows up for you, that that has, come into play. And then that connects with deprioritizing myself.

And prioritizing others over myself. So there, there are pieces here that you know, many people are being challenged by in the workplace right now that are, that are a, a deeper reflection than just am I hitting my KPIs right and that a vacation will just, if I just rest a little bit, I won’t feel so burnt out or whatever it is.

And so in, in talking with people who are feeling these challenges, I’m like, okay, so then what, what are you learning about what you need? And I’ve heard three or four things. Number one, I need to create my own personal board of directors. I need to come into a place where I think about what I need in my life to raise me up.

Whether it’s certain influences in my life, people who will give me feedback in the way that I need it. People who are just gonna pump me up and be on my side. People who are subject matter experts in my field, whatever it is, what’s the personal board of directors that I need to build?

My work isn’t gonna build it for me. And these people may not even be in in my, in my organization. Some might be, some might not be, but who? Who do I need in my personal board of directors as I try and navigate my career path with where it’s at now, number one. Number two is defining my leadership brand.

What is my leadership style? What is the brand when, when people think of Saralyn, right? What do they think of? What is it that I want them to associate my name with? What can people rely on me for? What is that? What is that leadership brand that I hold? What are the words that that describe it and what are they for me internally that maybe connect with my values? And what is the expression of those externally, right? What are the words that land for people? Where can I go and talk to others and say, what’s your experience of me? What does that look like? If you were to label my strengths, what would they be?

And to be able to hear from others what they are. Wouldn’t that be lovely? Right? Wouldn’t that be lovely? And not that they define me, but that that what people share back with me is a great piece of input. Oh, you think of me as being detail oriented. I don’t want you to think of me as detailed oriented.

I don’t want jobs that are detailed oriented. I don’t wanna be, I know that I can do detailed oriented, but I don’t wanna be detailed oriented. So, okay, what do I need to shift in my brand? And it also curls into a conversation of what is my intentional leadership style, presence, agency? How do I wanna show up?

Why? What does that look like? What’s important to me? What can my team members expect of me? Right? In, again, leadership, not necessarily being, uh, some words on a business card, but leadership, being the agency from within, and how I come out into the world and express myself in this team meeting or whatever it is.

What does that look like around what my brand is? And we can all use similar words for brand like authenticity, but what that means to me, what that means to you, what that means to you, it’s different expression, right? So some of what is shared with me is that I need to really learn about what the heck is my leadership brand?

What does that style look like? What is, what is leadership to me? What does that mean to me? And then, um, real practical one is, where do I spend my time? Because what I value, what I put my time into is an expression of what I value and what am I valuing? What does that look like? Why? Why am I putting my time there?

And it could be, why am I putting my time into everything else that everybody else wants of me, but not the stuff that I’m working on? Could be, why am I always over-indexed in how much time I’m putting into this particular project? What does my time look like and how much drama I’m creating in my head and the stories that I’m telling myself that are energy vampires, oh my goodness, my 13 year old just pulled that out on me.

The other day, energy vampires, mom, it’s like, oh yeah, you gotta watch out for them, right? So, where am I spending my time? Where do I wanna be spending my time? And how intentional is that because it is my time. And then, um, on, on a curl to that, what are my limitations? Because my battery is not at 150% and it shouldn’t be.

You have a battery life of a hundred percent. How are you using that and where are you plugging it in to bring it back up? Are you always waiting until it’s at 5%? Do you start charging it again at 75% for a moment? Like what does that look like? Limits are real and wow, am I ever just in a place right now of saying, What are my limits?

And using my answer to that as a way of empowering myself of where I’m showing up, where I’m not showing up versus feeling like crap because, oh god, I have limits. You’re damn right I have limits. I feel good about that. Thank you very much. And so how am I spending my time, is an indicator of my values and what I’m valuing and what that curls into is what am I limiting?

What are my limits? What are my boundaries? Which curls right into saying no. Where am I saying no and can I take two days and just saying no to everything that comes across my desk just to try it? Who is it that? Somebody put a challenge down, like Tim Ferris or somebody like that just said, say no to everything for two days or for a week, or I, I don’t remember what he said, to say a day, say no to everything.

Just see how it feels, because wow. Do we ever have a lot of practice saying yes to everything? Let’s try and flip that script and try to say no to everything. Right? What would that feel like? A lot of people say, well, that’s not me. Learn from that. What is you or have you lost yourself? Whew. That would be a hard one.

So the last one for me, um, and what I’m hearing about the learning is around joy and connection, and people can fast forward through those words pretty quickly, and I’m being deliberate in the words joy and connection because I know for me it’s a place that I really need to practice is around standing in a place of not just all the micro slices into my confidence or the pressures on my time, or, you know, whatever that situation looks like. It’s like, whoa, whoa. What about gratitude, joy, connecting with others, connecting with self, that those are levers and learnings for me to help me show up the way that I want to show up. What does it mean to take a moment and breathe in the joy?

What does that look like? Right? For some people it’s gratitude journals. For other people, it’s having some drinks with friends to connect. But what are your ways of connecting with others, connecting with self, connecting with source, whatever that looks like, connecting with community. Just to connect and to put a smile on your face, a real joyful smile.

Real key, real key tools in a, in a leadership practice toolbox, boundaries, board of directors, leadership brand, joy and connection. These are things that help us move forward with intentionality. Stay in the practice, all.

Thanks all. I’m Saralyn you can find me at holonleadership.org. I walk alongside you as you practice your leadership.