What does it mean to be an authentic and inclusive leader? Voted “Most Supportive Leader” by her employees and colleagues, Zoe Mitchell shares her story and her advice for becoming an authentic and inclusive leader with host Timothy R. Clark. Here are a few takeaways from this conversation.
Look to help others succeed.
If you're leading a team ask yourself "How can I help somebody get to where they want?" or "How can I help this group of people get to what they want?". The deepest satisfaction in leadership is helping others succeed and watching it happen.
Leaders create the cultures of the team.
If you choose to be a true leader, you have to understand your impacts, the things that you say, some things that you don't say, what you're working on and what you're doing. You are setting up a culture for your team, you control it because you're the one holding everybody accountable, including yourself.
Getting real feedback as a leader requires rewarded vulnerability.
Be vulnerable with your team to let them see that you don't always have the answers and you are open to feedback. It takes time to build the trust and transparency with your team so they feel safe to give you feedback. You build the safety and trust by rewarding the act of vulnerability that is giving feedback to someone with a title. How you respond and what you do with the feedback makes the difference.
Be vulnerable with your team.
What works is being vulnerable. So being able to be vulnerable with my team to let them see that I don't always have the answers. Sometimes I make mistakes just like you do. And so when you give feedback, it lets people know that you're talking to a human being.
Do not ignore your employees.
There's other companies that are constantly ignoring employees and it's huge consequences. There's a bigger impact or trickle down when people are ignored in an organization. It can lead to major problems, scandals, security breaches or worse.
About Zoe Mitchell
Voted “Most Supportive Leader” by her employees and colleagues, Zoe Mitchell is an award-winning Inclusive Leader with over 20 years of corporate experience building, leading, and maintaining successful high-performing diverse teams. As a former finance senior leader, she is experienced at driving business deliverables and performance metrics while building an inclusive work culture. Her results as a leader speak for themselves and she owes it all to her inclusive leadership style.
Zoe is also the author of the book “Inclusive Leadership Now” where she takes a day in the life of a leader (or someone who wants to be) and layers in practical guidance and real examples of how to incorporate inclusion. She spends her spare time mentoring and coaching University students and young professionals, loves traveling the world (now planning for countries 26 & 27), playing soccer, and eating foods from around the world. Did you hear her say “Ay”... well she is Canadian, so you may hear her slip in one or two of them!
