MURIEL WILKINS: I am Muriel Wilkins, and this is Coaching Real Leaders part of the HBR podcast network. I’m a long-time executive coach who works with highly successful leaders who’ve hit a bump in the road. My job is to help them get over that bump by clarifying their goals and figuring out a way to reach them so that hopefully they can lead with a little more ease. I typically work with clients over the course of several months, but on this show we have a one-time coaching meeting focusing on a specific leadership challenge they’re facing. Today’s guest is someone we’ll call Denise to protect her confidentiality. She spent much of her career in project-oriented roles and a few years ago made the move to an organization where she’s increasingly gaining more leadership responsibility.
DENISE: In the past year, I’ve had a lot of growth opportunities. I came in as an individual contributor, but especially in the past year, I’ve been given more leadership responsibilities and management and being able to showcase the work that we do to our executive teams, our board, our stakeholders. I’m still an individual contributor on the org chart, but unofficially I’ve been given more management, the kind of visionary leadership responsibilities, and the communication being that face and that creator to guide the direction of my team and gotten really great feedback from that.
MURIEL WILKINS: Denise feels like she’s on the way up the ladder, but there’s a bit of a catch: the culture of her organization.
DENISE: I’ve come to see and be outright told that to be seen as a leader here, you need to be personally close to top leadership, preferably with decades of personal relationships with them, which I do not have. This history of hiring and promoting friends based on personal relationships has evolved somewhat, but it’s still how do I thrive as an outsider in a more insular insider environment where relationships are often valued higher than experience or technical skill sets?
MURIEL WILKINS: So much about career advancement is not just about being able to do the job, but also building the right relationships—a ceiling that Denise is bumping right up against. So, to start the coaching session, we zeroed in on what she means by thrive. How is she defining growth in her career as it stands today?
DENISE: I think to be recognized for leadership responsibilities and work that I do, I think in an environment where leaders are often chosen years and years in advance to come in and to be doing the work often feels like it’s an uphill battle of, I’m an outsider and an insider environment. I do question, am I reading too much into this or just being more aware of the senses of equity and belonging? Am I not being seen as a leader because I’ve only been here for a short time compared to those around me? I’m trying to figure out how I can be seen more as a leader for the work that I’m putting in and showing up to do.
MURIEL WILKINS: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I hear two questions there. One is why am I not being seen as a leader? And then the second question being, how do I get seen as a leader?
DENISE: Yeah.
MURIEL WILKINS: Well, let me ask you, what do you think the commonality is between those two questions?
DENISE: I think maybe the sense that I’m like, “Oh, I’m not being seen as a leader,” and starting from there and how can I work on that? How can I build on that skill set?
MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. So there’s a assumption that I’m picking up that you’re not seen as a leader. The only way those two questions are valid is if indeed you’re not seen as a leader. And so, I would like to understand where is that assumption coming from? What evidence do you have of that assumption?
DENISE: Hearing it conversationally that another person was chosen as the next leader, let’s say, of a team that I’m working with or my team years ago, even before I got there. So hearing the comments like that and just seeing how people grow and move in the company. I am making assumptions, but it does seem that I’ve seen some of the inequities of how people are given opportunities in the company, and it seems like a lot of it is based on some personal relationships.
MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. And by no way am I by raising this assumption saying it doesn’t mean it’s not true. I’m just saying let’s make sure the assumption is right because it’s what we’re operating on. It’s just like if I put in the wrong assumption into a budget model, I’m going to get very different results than if I put in a different assumption. So you are basing it on what you’ve seen in terms of who has been chosen for particular roles. Is that right?
DENISE: That’s a part of it. Yeah.
MURIEL WILKINS: That’s a part of it. So tell me what the other parts of it are.
DENISE: I think it’s what started as a smaller organization over the past several decades has seen growth and has matured to a part where some of the founding members are retiring or moving on to other things. I think where I’m at is in this organization that’s at this transitional moment of hiring more people and bringing in more folks like myself that are maybe more outsider. I say in quotes. But I think it’s at this moment of not just being such an insular organization. So I feel fortunate and committed and really passionate about the team that I’m on and the organization that I’m in and the role that I’m in. I really want to work on coming in from a technical contributor and how can I build on some of the communication and some of the other skill sets to round out that leadership potential to hopefully be seen as that. But when do you be patient with those kind of things and when do you put yourself out there a little bit more? Or you said what does growth and thriving mean? I think it’s just kind of being valued and seen and recognized for the kind of leadership work that I’m doing, but not formally recognized for at the moment.
MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. So help me understand because I do think it’s important that we have a measure of success here. So, if a year from now I were to talk to you and I say, “Hey, do you feel recognized now?” And your answer was an enthusiastic, “Yes, I do.” What would need to be true for that to be true?
DENISE: Maybe moving into more of an official or changing the description of my role or the scope of responsibilities to accurate reflect some of the additional opportunities and leadership responsibilities that I’ve been doing.
MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. So for your role, the scope of the role to reflect what you’ve been doing. I just want you to put it all out there. You’re just talking to me. I have no bearing on all this. Is it also title? Is it compensation? Is it a promotion or is it really just look, I just want the scope of the role to match what I’m doing? It’s like my kids put together their holiday list. I tell them be specific or else I’m just going to go with what I think is right. So I want you to be specific. What would be your wish list here?
DENISE: Definitely I think it’s important that title and compensation matches the scope of the job so that you feel valued for the level of work that you’re putting in. So I think that’s a part of it, but it’s really, I think about the role and being recognized on my team. I think I’m already being recognized with executive leadership and being able to seen as a leader in my department, but I think just a more formal recognition of that. So job description. title is less important to me, but.
MURIEL WILKINS: I want to go back a little bit to what you shared before, which is the question is how can I be seen as a leader? But then when I asked you for evidence, you talked about who’s been chosen. And so is the question, is it about you being seen or is it about you being chosen because those are two different things?
DENISE: That’s a good point. And sometimes I feel like seeing when years in advance people have been chosen, I feel like, well, I should have gotten in line 20 years ago. It just highlights what I can be seen as a weakness that I’m fairly new in an organization that really values tenure and longevity. That that seems like something that’s not something I can automatically build on. I can’t go back in time and be here 20 years ago. So from this moment going forward, what can I do? I guess to be seen I think more. Certainly I want to be able to showcase the work that my team does and steer that vision and I feel like I’m showing up for that work and leading on those responsibilities. And so just to be able to be seen for that work.
MURIEL WILKINS: What has led you to be invited at the table, to take on the increased responsibilities, to interface with the board to get on the balcony as you stated before? What has led to being invited to do that if you had not been seen?
DENISE: I’m not sure. I show up and dig into the work using technical skills and building trust with my team, and I think having some of that vision of being able to take company direction and priorities and goals and be able to filter it down to lead the team with, okay, what are our pathways? What are our processes? What are our plans to map out our team wide goals? And then be able to communicate that upward and outward of being a face and that voice of the team. I think because I’m able to speak to some of the more technical side of as we’re embracing more systems that I think originally it was like, well, I can speak to the system so I can be that voice of advocating and showing the future vision of how we’re going to use them.
And then I think that translated into, I got really good feedback of like, “Oh wow, you’re really good at communicating and putting together a vision and a deck and collaborating with everyone and on the team and workshopping of those presentation skills.” And that’s something that I’ve wanted to work on too of knowing that of leaders and managers that I’ve respected in the past, really great communicators. So I took that opportunity to work on maybe a part of my working experience that I hadn’t had as much experience in. And I think that just snowballed into being able to communicate that vision that’s spread to other responsibilities within the team and being able to communicate that outward as well.
MURIEL WILKINS: And so how did that happen without you being seen though? It’s like if I said they didn’t see me, so they didn’t invite me to the dinner party, and yet I’m here at the dinner party and I did get the invitation. How was I not seen?
DENISE: I think I just showed up to the dinner party.
MURIEL WILKINS: So you invited yourself to do all those things? Nobody asked you to do them?
DENISE: No. I think I put myself forward of this is something that I’d love to take a stab at or this is something from a professional development that I want to work on, and I’d love to be able to do that and let in the door that way.
MURIEL WILKINS: Got it. And then once you were in the door, nobody kicked you out.
DENISE: Yeah.
MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. Got it. Listen, Denise, I think you’re being seen. Now, are you being seen in the way that you would like, which is with the formalization of it, or are you being chosen to fit the category that you’d like to be in, which is maybe it’s a more formalized role? That’s a different … But in terms of the value that you’re bringing to these different situations, whether it’s the board or the leadership conversations, you made the ask to be a part of it, somebody said yes. In order for them to say yes, they have to see you. I can’t invite anybody inside my house or I can’t tell somebody to come inside my house if I don’t see them. You’ve ever had that experience? Well, maybe it doesn’t happen that much these days. But people knock on the door and then run away and you’re like, “I don’t see them. I don’t see them. Where are they?” That’s not what’s happening here. You knocked, I opened the door and I see you and I tell you, come in. Okay. So you are seen. I think the question is more about why is that not translating into some formalization … If that’s even a word. Of the value that you bring.
DENISE: Maybe I have to be patient with that.
MURIEL WILKINS: I don’t know. We haven’t explored that yet.
DENISE: Yeah.
MURIEL WILKINS: But I think it’s important to make the distinction because not being seen is really nobody is seeing the value that I bring. Then it’s like, okay, is that value being translated into something tangible? They’re tied together, but they’re two different steps. Before we move on, I want to ask, how much do you see yourself as the leader that you want other people to see you as?
DENISE: I think I’ve tried to be realistic of coming into a more insular environment of okay, that there’s a lot of institutional knowledge here, which is great. And sought out mentors to really learn from that and understand maybe the context. I’ve seen come in past roles in other organizations that I’ve been in that come in hot and want to change everything from the outside. And I think I’ve come in maybe more realistic of understanding okay, this is a more insular organization, sometimes resistant to change. How can I understand the history and the context by seeking out mentors that have more tenure there to build on my knowledge base if I am given that or earn that or get to a place of more leadership responsibilities that I’m not coming in hot to make broad sweeping changes as a newcomer to be disruptive. So I think I’ve tried to be more observant in the time that I’ve been here and learn and try to speak to what I can based on technical background and my outside experience and how I can add value to that. And I think maybe change comes more slowly in the working environment that I’m in.
MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. Understood. And I appreciate the fact that you said, look, you don’t have as long as a tenure as some of these other individuals who’ve been there and we can’t change that. There’s nothing that is within our control where we could accelerate the time and then make everybody else stop. We’re not in a vortex. This isn’t wrinkle in time where I could make everyone else slow down and you speed up and all of a sudden you guys have the same tenure. Not happening. And there’s a reframing for me around what would make you feel like you were an insider in spite of not having as long a tenure as everyone else.
DENISE: I think it’s just this sense of this uphill battle. I can only listen to others’ experiences of what happened decades ago and take that in and learn from that and try to incorporate that context into what I am speaking to. So I don’t know what would make me feel like an insider. Is that just something that builds with years of tenure? I’m not sure. I certainly feel like an outsider and have definitely been referred to as such.
MURIEL WILKINS: In what ways have you been referred to as such?
DENISE: Just being an unfamiliar face to the working environment. It sometimes feels like a pretty tight-knit local community here in the workplace. And having people with tenure at an organization, there’s a lot to learn from that. But sometimes it can feel alienating to someone coming in from the outside not being extended that sense of belonging, that invitation in that type of way.
MURIEL WILKINS: At the start of any coaching conversation, it’s important to level set. Someone might come in with a clearly articulated problem, but I need to dig a bit deeper and understand their line of reasoning before we can really figure out what challenge to tackle and how. In DENISE’s case, she wanted to be seen as a leader at her organization but believed that she wasn’t being seen because of the company’s culture around long tenure and relationship building. Now, reality of the work culture aside, I wanted to get a better sense of the assumptions DENISE was making. Was she really not being seen and what evidence did she have? Not because I didn’t believe her. It actually doesn’t matter what I believe when I coach someone. But more for her to get clear on what her pain point is. Once we were able to parse through whether or not she was being seen as a leader, we could then circle back to the questions around belonging. It’s time to break that problem down a bit. How much is in your control around cultivating a sense of belonging at this organization?
DENISE: I think I’ve made peace that of course I can’t be here in the past and all I can really control is the work that I show up to do and that consistency of showing up and digging into the work and using my skills and building trust with my team to be able to help guide us where we’re going in the future. That I can learn from the past and respect and honor that, but really try to keep the focus on going forward.
MURIEL WILKINS: And what is your measure of belonging? What is it based on or feeling like you’re on the inside? What is that based on?
DENISE: I don’t know. Maybe there’s some of my own bias coming into that, but I think just looking to your left, looking to your right and seeing a much different picture of people who have been there for a really long time compared to someone coming in newer in the grand scheme of things. I think I just try to focus on the work.
MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. So you focus on the work. Okay. And I understand what your strategy has been. I’m just trying to get a sense of what drives the sense of belonging for you. Because what
