Ep 5: Conversation with Dr. Lakeya Cherry

In this episode of The Feeling Leader, Kristen De Long speaks with Dr. Lakeya Cherry, a social worker, executive leadership coach, and former CEO of the Network for Social Work Management. Dr. Cherry shares her professional journey from studying psychology and law to pursuing social work, and the experiences that shaped her path through clinical practice, nonprofit leadership, and entrepreneurship.

Throughout the conversation, Dr. Cherry reflects on her work as a leadership coach and consultant, supporting leaders across organizations through executive coaching, leadership development workshops, and organizational consulting. She discusses the importance of self awareness, emotional intelligence, and personal growth in leadership, as well as how leaders can develop the skills needed to support their teams more effectively.

Dr. Cherry also speaks about the leadership inequities she observed in the nonprofit sector and how that work informed her doctoral research and current consulting practice. Together, Kristen and Dr. Cherry explore the many ways social workers move into leadership roles and the impact that intentional leadership can have within organizations and the communities they serve.

Please be sure to follow Dr. Lakeya Cherry:

https://lakeyacherry.com/

➡️ 📝 🎙️Please check out the Show Notes folder for transcripts, references, and materials for every episode of The Feeling Leader. 

            ✨The Feeling Leader Show Notes✨

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Speaker 2 0:04

The Feeling Leader Podcast, episode 5.

Speaker 1 0:13

This is the Feeling Leader Podcast with Kristen De Long, doctoral candidate and licensed master clinical social worker. The information shared in this podcast is not a replacement for therapy or support from a mental health provider. And now, here's your host, Kristen De Long, DSW(c) LMSW-CS.

Speaker 2 1:22

I'm especially glad that you are tuning in to this episode because it is a special one. Today I have a guest and I will be providing you that recording of our conversation, and she's just so impressive. So today the episode centers on my conversation with Dr. Lakeya Cherry, a social worker, an executive leadership coach, and former CEO of the Network for Social Work Management. And she brings a wealth of experience and knowledge and drive, and I am truly inspired by her. So in preparing for these episodes in this podcast, I began looking into the work that Brene Brown does. I've obviously followed her work for many years, uh, even prior to becoming a social worker myself. And I find a lot of similarities and alignment with the vulnerability, courage, shame, and empathy framework that Brene Brown's Dare to Lead facilitation centers on. And so I decided I would look on the Dare to Lead facilitator directory to see if I could find a social worker who had alignment with the work that I'm doing now. And Dr. Lakeya Cherry is a certified Dare to Lead facilitator. And I saw her and I saw that she was a doctorate of social work, so I immediately was interested. I read her entire bio and I thought, you know what? I am just going to reach out. And I assume she is incredibly busy after reviewing her website, her social media, um, and seeing her impact and the work that she does. But I thought I'd just send the message anyway. Sure enough, she responded. And what I came to find out about Dr. Cherry is that she is more than willing to support someone like me on their own journey. And I can't tell you how warm and supportive all of our conversations have felt. And so today I bring to you my conversation with Dr. Lakeya Cherry, and we touch on quite a few topics, but I probably could have talked with her for, I don't know, eight more hours. So I'm very excited for you to listen to Dr. Cherry get an understanding about who she is, her journey into social work, her journey through clinical spaces, nonprofit spaces, her previous experience as a CEO, and how she has landed in entrepreneurialship with her own leadership, consulting, and coaching business, where she does workshops, one-to-ones, she facilitates and she does speaking opportunities. So be sure to follow Dr. Lakeya Cherry. You can catch up with her on her website at lakeyacherry.com. You can also follow her on social media, on Instagram, Lakeya Cherry. Sign up for her mailing email list, check out her free materials on her website. And this is somebody who I am very motivated and very inspired by. And I'm so glad that you get to hear from her today. So without further ado, here is the Feeling Leader podcast with guest Dr. Lakeya Cherry. I'm so happy and I'm so grateful that you have taken some time in your busy day to talk with me. You know, a lot of the work that you're doing aligns deeply with the work that I'm trying to create around psychological safety, around leadership that includes neuroscience-based concepts and leadership styles that make people feel connected and safe while they are in workplace environments. And so I am so happy to have you, Dr. Lakeya Cherry, on my podcast today. I'd like to welcome you to the Feeling Leader. Thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 6:39

You are so welcome, Kristen. Thank you for the invitation.

Speaker 2 6:44

So I got to chat with you a little bit today. I've gotten to chat with you a little bit a couple of weeks ago. I got to hear a little bit about your background, your journey. I would really appreciate if you're able to spend a little bit of time telling us a little bit about yourself, about your educational background, your journey into this, you know, leadership consulting space, the work that you do now, the specialized training that you have.

Speaker 7:14

Yeah, definitely. So a little bit about my background. I am originally from San Bernardino, California. I was raised in a single parent household by a very hardworking woman, my mom. I'm a first-generation college student. I went to UC Santa Cruz. I'm a banana slug, and I received two bachelor's degrees, one in psychology and one in law. Originally going into Santa Cruz, I thought that I wanted to be a politician or go into politics or policy to some extent. When I was in high school, I was very involved with very various democratic campaigns. And I saw policy and being involved with politics as the way to influence and change the world. So I thought that would be my path. But around that time, it was Al Gore's election, and I wasn't satisfied with the outcome, so I changed my major, hence psychology and law. And it was psychology and law because I've always had an interest in human behavior, but I've always had an interest as well in systems. I didn't know what systems were then, but I was interested in how people interact with the law and what are the differences based on their background, their environment, their race, their identities. And so when I graduated from UC Santa Cruz, I got into law school and I moved to San Diego to go to law school. I chose a law school that had a joint JD and MSW program. It also had the Innocence Project because for me, I always felt that I was a change maker and I was going to be this big bad attorney with social work skills who was going to change the world. Got into law school, didn't like it. It wasn't what I thought I would be. Um, I was very unhappy and conflicted. Um for me, social work, when I first decided that I was going to get a JD in MSW, it was nothing, it wasn't something that I wanted to do fully. I saw law as a profession that had more power and more credibility than social work, yet I saw the social work tools as essential to me working with people in a humane um way and really meeting them where they're at. So when I was in law school and I realized this isn't what I thought it would be, and I don't want to be here, I outreached to some of my mentors from undergrad, as well as some of my friends. And I was encouraged to go to grad school to get my master's degree. Since I had an interest in social work, anyways, to some extent, and I had the background in psychology. One of my friends encouraged me to apply to Columbia University for their School of Social Work program because there was still time to apply in order to get in for the fall. I applied and fortunately I was accepted. So I moved to New York, never having been there. No family and friends there, completely cross-country, took a leave of absence from law school in order to chart a new path. At Columbia, I um studied um advanced generalist practice and programming with the focus on family, youth, and children. Immediately after school, I had the opportunity to work for Harlem Children's Zone as a senior case planner doing home visits with families where youth were truant. I did that for about a year, realized it wasn't what I wanted to do. Then I got my LMSW at that time, and I realized I wanted more clinical experience. So then I got a job at a child advocacy center. That was great. I was a therapist and forensic evaluator for about a year, really loved and appreciated and respected the work they were doing to support youth when there was allegations of any form of abuse, but I began to experience vicarious trauma and I never fully wanted to be a clinician, hence the advanced generalist practice and programming. So I ultimately decided it was time to try something different. And I was tired of New York's weather. So then I moved back to California. I ultimately got a job that I never thought I'd say yes to, but the salary bump was worth saying yes to it. And I got a job at the for the California Department of Corrections and UC San Diego's transitional case management program. So what this means is I was working in-house for a parole office, and it just so happened I was placed in my hometown, the San Bernardino, California, in a parole office, helping to support parolees as they're integrating back into my hometown. I never thought, which is this is very interesting. I never thought I'd work with parolees in this capacity, yet previously I wanted to be an attorney and at one point wanted to be a public defender.

Speaker 2 12:43

Right.

Speaker 12:44

And wow. And I never, that's funny, I never actually um realized that full circle moment until now. And so with this particular role, my job was to support them with treatment plans and to really, you know, help support them with integrating back into our community. But one of the things I realized is that not everyone was fully committed to them integrating back into the community, including some of the officers who was assigned, you know, to their caseload and um to supporting them. And there wasn't many community resources available to refer them to. And so it was very frustrating to support people who have served their time who are working towards rehabilitation, and there's nowhere you can send them. There's nowhere that they could go live, there's no monetary support, there's no job support. And so after doing this for a while, I began to just get tired and I realized that I wanted to be in a role where I could move up and grow, where I wasn't stagnant, but also where I had more access to um, you know, shift policies to um have an impact, to see actual change. And so at that point, I began looking for a new job. I knew I wanted to move back to the East Coast. I didn't want to get an LCSW because, again, I never wanted to really be a therapist and fully go all in as a therapist. And I realized, even being from California, to me, social work is more appreciated and recognized on the East Coast. And so at this point in my life and career to thrive, I needed to be back on the East Coast. Ultimately, I got a job at an ed tech company as a senior case planner. My first time working in corporate, first time working for a startup. And this was great exposure for me. I learned the importance of marketing, biz dev. It was my first time being a manager and managing people. In my social work program, while I loved it, I didn't necessarily learn much about leadership. And so I learned everything I know about leadership on the job by just being diligent about Googling and researching various things so that I could learn how to be a good manager and a good leader. I worked at this ed tech company for about two years, moved up, was promoted a couple times. Then I began to miss being back in the nonprofit sector, miss working with people who are really committed to mission-driven work. And I began to talk to some of the executives within the company for mentorship, for sponsorship about my interests, you know, about the fact that I wanted something different, something more. And then there was an opportunity to interview for the network for social work management. At this time, um, I wasn't familiar with the organization, um, had never heard of it. I Googled it, they had an old website. I asked other social workers about it. They didn't know anything about it, but I thought here's my opportunity to move into an executive leadership role to be the face of a national social work organization and to really rebuild it from the ground up, even though it's scary. Why wouldn't I want to take that risk? And why wouldn't I want to go for it? And so I was in that role for almost nine years, and then I transitioned out of it over three and a half years ago to start my own business. And so I've been on my own as a solopreneur for three and a half years in my coaching and consulting business, which is what I do now, is five and a half years old.

Speaker 2 16:56

That is um so impressive. And it really speaks to, and I'm gonna touch on this, you know, a little bit later as we keep talking, but it really speaks to how a social worker can fulfill and have so many different paths and wear so many hats and be in so many different roles in just one's career journey. And I I don't know, I'm just I'm very impressed with the different uh spaces that you've been in. I'm also I think it's very inspiring that you listened to yourself and made these changes, uh, you know, leave of absence in law school to move away to try so like I just am really impressed by that type of insight and listening to yourself and taking the chance.

Speaker 17:44

Yeah, thank you. It it's not easy. Um it was scary, yeah, but I remember being so unhappy in law school. And one of the reasons, when I think back to it, one of the reasons I went into law school was because people told me I would be a great attorney. People told me that I had the skill set and the ability to be a good representative, you know, someone who could represent other people and fight for other people, which is so important to me. So to be a first generation college student and to receive that type of feedback, it definitely stroked my ego. It was one of the core reasons I went into it. And looking back, I definitely could have thought about this, you know, more carefully, more thoughtfully. And I think that if I would have, I likely never would have gone to law school. And so it took a lot of courage to be able to face that and to leave. But then also at the end of the day, I realized I'm the person with these student loans. I'm the person who's going to have to pay it back. And you only get one life to live. And if I'm not happy and I'm only within the first semester and a half, I need to be willing to take control of my life and move towards a different path.

Speaker 2 19:16

Absolutely. And you have like a very successful consulting business. What type of uh services and offerings do you have? You have one-on-one coaching. You have actually a wealth of resources on your website as well.

Speaker 19:30

Yeah. So in many ways, thank you for saying that about my business. In many ways, I still feel very green and still new and still like I'm trying to figure out, you know, this entrepreneurship thing. Um, but I have learned a lot um since starting my business. So I do leadership coaching, executive coaching, team coaching, peer and group coaching. So I'm working with individuals across all levels. So for social workers listening, I'm definitely working with people at the micro level. So I'm working with people one-on-one. Um, then I'm working with people at the meso level, I'm working with teams. And teams, that work might be team coaching, it might be facilitation. I'm a Brene Brown certified Dare to Lead facilitator. So I do courage building workshops with individuals and teams. I also do leadership development workshops as well as keynotes and talks. And then I also work with people at the macro level, which tends to be um system-wide organizationally. And this is focused more on um consulting and or culture work. It can also look like facilitating a workshop for the entire company, it can look like um delivering, you know, a talk with follow-up sessions to the entire company, it can look like um leadership offsites and um team retreats. And so I have the privilege to work with leaders across micro, meso, and macro. Um, and I'm working with leaders across all sectors. So even though I have the social work degrees, the social work education, I've been fortunate to be trusted by people across all sectors and across various levels of um title and influence within the organization. Right. My primary clientele is senior leaver, senior leaders. Um, and women and BIPOC clients tend to be attracted to me, particularly for one on one work.

Speaker 2 21:51

Yeah, that's incredible. The the work that you're doing is so important, and it aligns with the work that I'm doing. I really want. Look at the influence that leaders have, the leadership journey itself, social workers in leadership positions. And when I was looking into some of the articles and podcasts that you've been featured on or a guest on, you speak a lot about your belief that empowering leaders to reach their full potential allows them to support teams more effectively. And I align with that concept. So, what have you found in the work that you're doing that shows you this? Uh, what does it mean to you that we have as leaders this ability to increase the effectiveness of the people around us by, you know, arriving to our greater potential?

Speaker 22:47

Yeah, good question. When I first decided that I was going to start my business, I was thinking of a tagline for my website. And what I was ruminating on as I was trying to think of the tagline was the leaders that I've had, you know, what stood out, what I liked, you know, what I didn't like, you know, what I learned from them. And the tagline I came up with is be the leader you envision, something like that. Um, and the whole idea for me, it corresponds to a saying that Brene has, which is who we are is how we lead. And so when you think about empowering leaders to reach their full potential, when you're supporting leaders to become self-aware, when you're supporting leaders to be emotionally intelligent, when you're supporting leaders to become conscientious of how they're feeling in their body, of their shame, of their reactive and avoidant tendencies, when they have that awareness, when you support them by holding up that mirror and coaching them through it, it allows them to show up in a more healthy manner for those that they are leading. You know, we as leaders, we are models for others within the workplace. And when you're doing your own work, you're going to show up differently and people are going to feel it. People are going to see it, and it's going to be a model for others of the work they should do and how they should show up. And so, again, supporting leaders to reach your full potential is super important to me. One, because I believe, you know, everyone has the potential to do great things, but we all need support and encouragement, but we also need awareness of the ways we're getting in our own way.

Speaker 2 24:42

I read something about you saying about even your own journey, how you know you experience kind of suppression and how leaders experience suppression of their voice, of their capabilities. And I think that that's essentially what you're touching on, right? Is that sometimes we we suppress for various reasons. And some of it's structural and in the systems and environments that we're in. But such an important concept, I think. So, how do you incorporate that into the work that you do in your leadership, executive coaching, and consulting?

Speaker 25:17

Yeah, well, many people don't recognize fully that they're suppressing. And so suppressing is definitely um a segment of the puzzle. Um, when I think about myself, um, I'll talk about myself first and then answer your question. But when I think about myself, I didn't realize until later on all of the ways that I was putting on armor and I was holding back and I was limiting my potential. In many ways, I thought I was just protecting myself. And so since childhood, growing up as a young black girl, when you think about systems and you think about structural barriers, I was raised to know that I was different. And I was raised to know that I would be treated differently. Um since childhood, I've always had an opinion and a perspective, and I've always wanted to state my point of view. But in many ways, it was either one, you're a kid, know your role, know your place. Um, but then two, it was people aren't going to like that, especially coming from you. You have to realize and recognize you're different. And so when I think about it now, I don't necessarily agree with that tactic. If I was, you know, a parent, I probably wouldn't use some of the same, you know, tactics and teachings that I received, but I understand where it came from. And so working with a coaching client who may suppress themselves, some of them they're fully aware. And it's a protection mechanism. It's a conscientious choice based on the barriers they face and what they're up against. And that's something different. But when you're suppressing yourself because you're fearful or scared or afraid, my job is to work with you to untackle some of that. Some of that work is the work of a therapist, but then some of the work is my work as a coach. It can be done in a variety of ways depending on the person and what the presenting issue is. Um, sometimes it can be, you know, doing an assessment. It could be an emotional intelligent assessment and or an Enneagram profile or a 360 review, and they're seeing the results, or they're receiving qualitative anonymous feedback about how they show up. And having that data in front of people tends to let them to see the truth and you know, recognize, you know, how they are showing up and how it's different from who they are or how they want to show up. And so I'd say it really starts with that. Also in the beginning of coaching engagements, for example, there's an intake where I'm asking questions about what people have been through in their life. Like what is your individual story? We all have different lived experience, we all have different professional and educational experience. And hearing one story is a big part of the equation. And then me as a social worker who was once a therapist, with my social work tools, it allows me to meet that person where they are to understand the root cause so that I can begin to help them learn tools and ways to stop suppressing and start showing up.

Speaker 2 28:58

You had mentioned earlier on that you're really not planning to be a therapist or in that clinical space for your whole career. And it's interesting because in the clinical therapy space, this relationship that we share with our clients, you know, I find it to be very sacred. It's very intimate and personal, and we're in it with that person. And I'm getting like the same feeling about the relationships that you must have with the leaders who seek you out for your services, that you're you're getting to know them in this very personal way where there's a lot of trust and there's you're creating safety around exploring these parts of their identity and how it shows up. So it it's I'm just hearing so many similarities in in the work that you're doing right now with with even some clinical work.

Speaker 29:49

I mean Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. Um part of it is the fact that I was a clinician. Right. And so I still have those skills. I can speak with even a prospective coaching client, and they can tell me something and I might say, Do you have a therapist? Because I can quickly recognize red flags andor other signs that might lean towards someone meeting needing greater support to unpack some of what they've gone through or what they're currently going through. And so in my coaching, I do lean on those skills while also having professional boundaries and recognizing that I'm no longer a therapist. And so I will go there to an extent to get the point to acknowledge that this is actually something that needs to be addressed. And then what I tend to do is say, you know, I know you have a therapist. I encourage you to remember this moment or to write it down and then to address it with your therapist in your next session. Or I might say, you know, I'm willing to support you as a coach, but one of your first homework assignments that I want to give you as your coach is to identify a therapist because the work that we do together, if there's all these other things that are still impacting you that you're not actively working and tackling, then the coaching work we do together is not going to be sustainable.

Speaker 2 31:24

Sure. Yeah.

Speaker 31:25

And so I love the engagements where I don't have to know your therapist, but I know you have one. And your therapist and your coach are working in tandem. We're working in unison to support you in a holistic way. That for me is like a wonderful engagement. So it definitely, definitely, definitely comes up.

Speaker 2 31:46

Uh, I mentioned this a little bit earlier, but you actually have a lot of offerings on your website. You have you have an email list and uh you send out really helpful information in the email list. You have downloadable content, you have information about upcoming workshops. One thing that I found a lot of alignment with you is that um it seems like connection, confidence, and vulnerability are important areas of this leadership development space. These are things that you also have like material for free on your website on. You also offer content that centers on creating supportive networks as a leader of color. When we talk about leadership, I it's so important not to assume that everyone gets access to the same leadership trajectory or that same leadership experience. We know, as we were just saying, there's structural barriers or inequities and challenges faced uniquely by women and specifically women of color and people with lived experiences are, and I'll even say, especially in the nonprofit settings or human serving settings, um, you actually touched on it a little bit ago that clients that attract you and your services tend to be leaders, women of color. Can you share a little bit about why this is really important to hone in on the fact that uh there are there are inequities in the leadership trajectory based off of lived experiences, structural barriers, etc.?

Speaker 33:20

Yeah, definitely. So to go back a little bit, a lot of the resources and things you see on the website, when I decided I wanted to become a coach, I thought about what did I need as a professional, as a leader, you know, what are what are the resources that would have been very helpful for me? What am I, when you think about um social work, I often think about like need assessment, you know, what am I seeing? What am I hearing from other leaders like me? What are they saying they wish they had, they want, or they currently need? And so I listened. I listened to myself. I paid attention to what I was seeing and hearing from others, especially social workers, because that was my primary network at that time. Again, I was leading a national network of social workers. So I would have a lot of people coming to me with their challenges of the workplace and telling me different things. And so I saw it as like breadcrumbs. I began to accumulate the breadcrumbs until I had the big aha. And I'd say the big aha was I realized there was a racial leadership gap within the nonprofit sector. And so when I was leading the organization that I was leading, I recognized that that particular organization, prior to me coming on, wasn't racially diverse in its leadership, its board of directors, andor its membership. It wasn't until me, a black leader, came in and was leading the organization that other people saw themselves in me and saw that this could be a welcome place. And so the more the organization began to um become known, you know, through a lot of marketing and promotion efforts. And the more visible I was, a lot of people would come to me, particularly of color, telling me about the challenges they were navigating in nonprofit, um, as well as in academia, um, even you know, in social work programs and whatnot. And so I began doing research because our organization had an international mentoring program, a policy fellowship program. We had a variety of resources to support social work professionals and other professionals in health and human services. And one of the things that I saw when I began to do research is that the nonprofit sector, in terms of its leadership, is not racially diverse. The nonprofit sector, in terms of its board of directors, is not racially diverse. And so I received um reports from board source, the building movement project, and I began to do more digging. And I saw that this has been a known fact for well over 20 plus years, but nothing was happening and no one was doing anything to move the needle. So when I was in my doctoral program, I decided my focus was going to be addressing racial leadership gaps, particularly in the nonprofit sector, but across all sectors. And so my end capstone was change makers of color, a model for racial equity in the nonprofit sector. And so what you see on my website is a lot of years of observation, focus groups, research, intakes, needs assessments, et cetera, that basically confirm that women and leaders of color, people with various identities, people who of the global majority, um, people who are viewed differently, who are marginalized, that we're oftentimes not invested in, we're oftentimes not supported and encouraged to move into the leadership and/or given access or opportunity to do so. And it's something that I wanted to really figure out how I could address while knowing that our systems weren't designed to be fair or equal. And so I knew I wouldn't be able to completely disrupt any systems, but I wanted to create a space where I could support women and leaders of color to navigate the barriers they're facing and feel supported and feel whole and authentic, even while navigating, you know, those challenging times and these challenging barriers. So important.

Speaker 2 38:18

So important. So obviously, this podcast is for all leaders, uh, but this content is geared towards those in the social work and even specifically nonprofit or human serving spaces. And you and I are both social workers. You have a doctorate in social work, you bring all of your experience from systems perspective, executive leadership, CEO yourself, experience in the nonprofit spaces, consulting coaching, your clinical work. I want listeners to understand who they're hearing from because as social workers, we can find ourselves in a lot of different spaces and in a lot of different roles. And we end up supporting organizations in a variety of ways, regardless of whether we have a leadership quote unquote role in the org chart or not. Um when we talk about things like being intentional, effective communication, being vulnerable, some social workers listening might not think like this all includes them because they're not in a leadership role. Social workers find themselves in leadership capacities due to our skill sets and the way that we view problems, systems from all layers, and solutions and innovations. I also feel like sometimes, and you touched on this a little bit when you said as at one point you viewed law as more powerful and more credible than social work because it it can feel like social workers are not really encouraged to become entrepreneurs or even leaders. There's a lot of messaging sometimes around our role, you know, that that classic in it for the outcome, not the income thing that we've all heard. I remember being on the receiving end of that messaging. And at the time I have the university I was going to was offering an entrepreneurial social work uh program. And I I was like, oh wait, what does what does that mean? And I saw myself as a leader in the nonprofit space, but I didn't see myself yet as an entrepreneur. The reality is I feel like social entrepreneurialship offers an immense opportunity for professional growth as well as producing really significant change and impact through these, you know, unique and innovative pathways such as the one that you're on right now. So can you share a little bit about like your impact? And there's a ripple effect here, right? What you offer leaders, what they in turn offer their teams, the outcomes and their organizations, the experiences of uh psychological safety in those working environments, the clients that their staff have contact with has that big ripple effect.

Speaker 41:05

Yeah, definitely. So I'm going to comment on something that you said before entering. You said that oftentimes we're told that we should be in it for the outcome, not the income. I was fed that messaging as well. And it's not sustainable, and we can no longer buy into that. As much money as we pay for our degrees, as much time, effort, as much skill set that we have, we deserve to have an income too. Um and I think it's really important for social workers to realize that the way we advocate for our clients, we also need to get in the habit of advocating for ourselves. We need to be able to um live and survive and thrive. And there's a growing need for social workers, but if we're burnt out and if we're underpaid and we're feeling unappreciated, that's not going to be good for us and it's not going to be good for society. So I just wanted to comment on that.

Speaker 2 42:11

And we need that. We need to hear this, yes.

Speaker 42:14

Yeah. So, in terms of my impact, um, I mean, at the like most tangible level, like I'm helping to build confidence. I'm helping people to become more self-aware. I'm supporting people with emotional intelligence. I'm supporting people with learning what their strengths are, learning, you know, where there's room for improvement. Um, I'm helping them to become better communicators. I'm helping them to create psychologically safe spaces. I'm helping them to build trust with other people and give and receive feedback and live in greater alignment with themselves and their values to have integrity. So when you think about leadership skills and leadership styles and competencies, I know wholeheartedly that me in my role, I'm supporting leaders with that. Um, if we go back to something I talked about in the beginning, it's empowering leaders to reach their full potential and the fact that that can allow them to support their teams more effectively. So working with the leaders, particularly one-on-one, to again know their strengths, know their skills, and work through, you know, some of their challenges, it's helping them to show up differently. It's helping them to model to other future leaders, you know, better ways to communicate and handle challenges and delegate and bring people in, um, which then leads to healthier organizational cultures. We spend one third of our lives at work. And my hope and my goal is that people could go to work happy, you know. Excited to see their colleagues, excited to collaborate, you know, pleased with the impact that they're having and the work that they're doing, and not feeling frustrated, not feeling unsafe to speak up, not feeling as if they're not, you know, included and as if they don't belong, feeling as if people care about them and people want to provide opportunities. And there are opportunities for them to be who they are and be in alignment with their values. Like these are things that are incredibly important to me. And I have seen through my work as a coach, an advisor, and a facilitator, I have seen this happen through the couple the clients that I've had the opportunity to support.

Speaker 2 44:45

That ripple effect, I mean, you said a while ago that you thought about be the leader that you envision and you think about the other leaders that you've had. The people who have access to this work that you are doing through your leadership consulting and coaching, through the facilitation that you do, the leaders who are developing themselves in this way, you're actively changing the experiences for generations of leaders to come, essentially, having a ripple effect on that culture of the organization that they're working on, the outcomes that the people who the communities that the organization serves. It's fascinating and it's powerful. Um, and we have our cameras off, but I'm I'm smiling ear to ear just listening to you talk because these are the things that I also feel so strongly about. I am so appreciative of your time. I want to be mindful of the time that we agreed to. And I am motivated by you. I am inspired by you. I am grateful for you to spend part of your day with me so we can create this content for all social workers and leaders. I am so grateful for you. Thank you so much for spending time with me.

Speaker 45:54

Yeah, no, thank you for the invitation. Thank you for the opportunity. I'm smiling as well. Um, it's always nice to meet a kindred spirit, a fellow social worker, a fellow change maker who has like-minded views and perspectives. And so if there's ever anything I can do to support you in your journey with your business, um, definitely feel free to outreach because again, each one teach one, and the more we lean in and support each other, the better we all will be.