Ep. 1: What do they say about you?

Have you ever caught a glimpse of yourself through someone else's eyes and been surprised by what you saw? That's exactly what happened to me, as I uncovered the candid perspectives of my colleagues during a personal leadership survey. On this episode of Graced to Lead, we venture into the heart of authentic leadership, guided by the compass of self-reflection. I opened up about my response to the feedback I received,  including a pivotal moment when a senior leader's perception of me was not what I thought about myself.  

This episode is designed to introduce you to our next few weeks of conversation. I  invite you to continue this journey with me. Upcoming episodes promise to shed light on the empowering themes of confidence and leadership identity, which are crucial for any Christian woman in leadership. I encourage you to join our growing community by subscribing, following, and sharing the Graced to Lead podcast.  Thank you for listening today, and may God be with you as you lead with grace.

Please subscribe to our mailing list to stay connected and get updates! Thanks for listening to the Graced to Lead Podcast.

Chapters

• 0:05 Authentic Leadership and Self-Reflection
• 10:36 Grace to Lead Podcast Topics

Transcript

Belinda Gaston: 0:05

Welcome to the Graced to Lead podcast. I'm Belinda Gaston, your host, and listen, if you are a Christian woman who leads at work, at home, in ministry, or your own business, you are in the right place. Here, you'll find encouragement, practical advice, and even a little humor too. We'll have some real conversations that will challenge you and inspire you in all areas of your life. So join me for this journey to become better leaders, God's way. It's a call for us to embrace God's grace to lead even when we feel unqualified. So if that's you, you are in the right place. Welcome and let the journey begin. Welcome to the Graced to Lead podcast. I'm Belinda Gaston, your host, and welcome to our very first episode! This is our first episode. I'm so excited, I'm so glad that you are here today, and I want to just get started with asking you a question as a leader: who do people say you are? It's a simple question, right? As a leader, who do people say you are? If you walked into a room full of people that you lead or that you work alongside in your business, or on your job, or in your ministry, or even in your household and asked them to describe you, what would they say? I asked this question because I had an opportunity to ask this question in a survey to some folks that I work with, some people that I work alongside, some people that I lead, and some people that lead me in the area of business and in ministry and in my corporate work setting. So I sent it out randomly to some folks, and there was an opportunity for people to put their names in or they could be anonymous. Overall, there were some key things that came out of that.

Belinda Gaston: 1:56

People described me as a woman of faith. That's not surprising, right? They described me as funny, which I don't think I'm that funny, but other people think I'm funny. They describe me as able to manage difficult, like...A couple people call me the client whisperer. Apparently, that's my nickname, the client whisperer. I can manage difficult clients, difficult situations. People said I was peaceful, that I was wise, I had a lot of wisdom. A couple of people said I need to say no to things and that I take on too much. A nd one person specifically said that causes me to miss deadlines. So these are the words that people use to describe me, based on how they have experienced my leadership, right, and I would say that, yeah, that's probably pretty accurate.

Belinda Gaston: 2:46

But there was this one person, y'all, and she put her name down and she happens to be one of my leaders, so she's someone who So she put her name in, that's how I know it was her, and she said that I was a pushover. has leadership over me in the corporate space and somebody that I admire too, and she placed in her survey. She said I didn't speak up enough, that I wasn't direct. She said that I was way too nice. She said that I wasn't strategic enough and I mean I tell you those were things that I don't associate with at all. Okay, I'll give her nice right, and I think that a lot of times people mistake kindness as a weakness. I am kind and I also choose my words very carefully because I understand the power of words, but some of this other stuff, I mean I am extremely strategic, I think in outline form, like I understand strategy. That's one of my gifts, and so for her to say that and we've worked together y'all for a very long time so I was taken aback by that comment and I have to admit I was a bit frustrated by.

Belinda Gaston: 3:55

I was angry about it and you know how you like you, you, you have an experience like I read it and I was like, oh OK, that's what she said. That's not true. I don't really like it. But then you keep replaying it in your mind. Anybody do that? The more you replay it, the worse it gets, the more upset you get. So I have worked myself up like who does she think she is talking? Like that, that's not who I am Like. That's how I felt Right, and so I went into prayer. I was like, okay, I pray, but you know, if we're real, if we, if we are real and this is a transparent conversation here I pray. But I was still angry about it.

Belinda Gaston: 4:34

So I decided to call my personal advisory group, my, my, my tribe, my, my accountability crew, my girlfriends and, um, I started calling them one by one. I should have put it in a group, we should do that group thing. But I ended up talking to one person who was available at the time and I told them you know, very dramatically, I might add, what I had just experienced I had this survey done and this is what she said and all of that, and there was a bunch of silence after I finished talking. I was like did you hear me? Is the phone on? What's going on? And she said I'm going to ask you one question, belinda what have you agreed with? And I was like what do you mean? What have I agreed? That doesn't make any sense. Did you just hear what I said? You're asking me what I have agreed with.

Belinda Gaston: 5:15

And let me preface this by saying that this particular friend happens to be a therapist. So you know, whenever you have friends that are therapists, every session can be a therapy session. Whenever you have friends that are therapists, every session can be a therapy session. But she asked me what I have agreed with and she said listen, I don't agree with this person's assessment of you, but there's clearly some kind of evidence that she has been given that supports her idea. Otherwise she wouldn't think that. So maybe you've acted that way around her, perhaps you've acquiesced at a time that you shouldn't, or maybe you weren't as direct with her as you usually are with others. Could it be that this is what she's seeing, because this is how you are? And then she asked me are you bringing your authentic self to work in every space? And I had to really like real talk.

Belinda Gaston: 6:03

I was mad with her about that. I was like, really, I call you as a friend, this is what you're doing with me, girl, okay, but fine, fine, this is what happens, y'all, when you have truth tellers in your circle. Every woman needs in her circle, her accountability group, her personal advisory board, a truth teller, and hopefully all of them are truth tellers. But you do have that one person. You need to be like girl, you got this, it don't matter if you can't fly, you can fly, like all that, but you need truth tellers. So what happens when the truth teller tells you the truth is? Sometimes it hurts, sometimes you get upset about it.

Belinda Gaston: 6:36

So after I kind of processed what she said, I started really thinking about this thing. And here's the thing I realized that when I am around her, specifically, I shift my behavior. Well, I can say this in past tense, because I don't do this anymore. I shifted my behavior, I dimmed my light, I didn't speak up as much. I changed my response because of her and I had to really kind of dig deep Like why is that? Was it her position? What was I intimidated by?

Belinda Gaston: 7:08

What made me not show up as me in her presence, but by doing so, by me not showing up as myself, by me not using, not being who I really am in her presence, I agreed with her assessment of me, unknowingly. What have you unknowingly come into agreement with? Because you haven't been your authentic self, because you haven't shown up as you? That's the question for today. Are you coming into agreement with false assessments of yourself because you're not showing up as the leader that you should be, if you're not showing up authentically in your leadership spaces, no matter who's around? Listen, it's possible. I would say that if you ask, most people they'll say I am who I am. I show up as I show up, am who I am, I show up as I show up.

Belinda Gaston: 8:19

But in this particular case I wasn't. I wasn't showing up authentically and by doing so, I came into agreement with those things that I was not. I came into agreement that I was not direct. I came into agreement that I wasn't strategic. I came into agreement that I didn't speak up in the room because I didn't show up in the space, in her spaces, like that. So if you can relate to this in any way and there's no judgment here, I'm just, I share my story so we can connect a little bit here. But listen, if you can relate, then you really are in the right place, because over the next few weeks, we're going to be talking about leadership, identity and confidence. The other thing so I'll tell you what I realized with this particular woman is, because of her leadership stature, her position, I lacked confidence in her presence because I felt as if I didn't belong in that space, and so we're going to talk all about that.

Belinda Gaston: 9:14

I have some amazing guests who are going to join me over the next few weeks to talk about confidence, to talk about leadership, identity and authenticity and actually give tips, because I don't believe we just need to discuss this. I feel like we need to have practical application, some tips on how we address these things right, how we address our feelings of lack of confidence or how we bolster our confidence, how we identify who we are as leaders and show up as that person consistently right. So that's what we're gonna talk about over the next few weeks. I do hope that you will come back and join us.

Belinda Gaston: 9:52

Listen, because we are Christian, know we? We are Christian women who lead, and so we know that God created us with everything that we need to do, what he's purposed for us right. We know that in our weakness he's strong. We know that he says to be of good courage when we're afraid. We know that he has a plan for us, a plan to prosper. We know all of that. That's the basics. We know that. But the truth is, walking in that confidence and leading with that confidence is easier said than done, and so my hope is that these conversations will help to spark some things for you and help empower you and encourage you as you lead in those spaces.

Belinda Gaston: 10:36

So come back, listen to our next few episodes. I've set this up for you so you know exactly what we're going to be talking about over the next few weeks. Make sure you subscribe and share so that we can get this out. I'm looking to grow here, so I appreciate you subscribing and sharing and come back as we dive deeper in the topics of confidence and leadership identity over the next few weeks. After we finish with this topic, we'll move on to another topic and I'll do a similar intro as I'm doing now. But come back. Come back and join in the conversation with us. Okay, so until next time, next time you come back to the Grace to Lead podcast. Thank you so much for joining, and may God be with you as you continue to lead with grace. Bye.