Shameless Leadership

How do you feel when someone exerts authority over you? And how does that influence the way you exercise your own authority as a leader?

For many women, authority comes with baggage. If you’ve experienced someone abusing their power, dismissing you in some way, or making decisions that impact you without including you, stepping into your own authority can feel complicated. You might hesitate to set expectations because you don’t want to be controlling. Or you might get self-protective and defensive, perhaps doubling down on your autonomy when your authority is challenged, like me!

These patterns deserve our attention because they shape how we make decisions, communicate boundaries, and support the people we lead.

In this episode, we explore the three components of your perspective on authority: Relationship, Responsibility, and Resourcing. We’ll examine how your experiences with power influence your leadership, where you have a responsibility to take up more space, and how holding boundaries protects you and your team’s capacity to do meaningful work.

We’ll also explore five authority aspirations that can help you create the necessary space to develop a more commanding presence, communicate with conviction, and create opportunities for others to grow their own leadership.

Listen in to hear:

Why you might resist other people’s authority while feeling uncomfortable exercising your own.

How to recognize when you’re relinquishing your power or becoming defensive to protect it.

What it means to use ethical authority in service of your values, your team, and your mission.

What gets lost when you undermine your expertise, avoid difficult decisions, or hesitate to take up space.

Why owning your authority includes deciding what gets access to your time, energy, expertise, and team.

How to invite disagreement and reconsider your position while remaining grounded in your leadership.

A commanding presence helps people understand where you stand, what matters, and what you expect. It also makes room for their voices, judgment, and contributions.

As you listen in, I invite you to consider: Where would owning your authority more fully change how you lead — and what would your team see or hear you doing differently?

Links Mentioned:

Hire Sara to speak: saradean.com/speaking

Coach with Sara: https://saradean.com/executive-coaching-services

Connect with Sara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saradeanspeaks

Watch Shameless Leadership episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@saradeanspeaks

Take my Leadership Archetype Quiz: saradean.com/quiz

Thank you to our sponsor, Ironwall. Stop online threats before they become real-world attacks. Visit ironwall.com/SHAMELESS and request a free Risk Assessment to see exactly how exposed your executives are.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I have followed Paul Ladipo’s work on LinkedIn for the last few years. Every time he posts, I can’t “like” his post fast enough. His expertise and ability to distill down tough topics related to race and inclusion are superb. Paul just released his book, It Was Never About That: Going Beyond Hate to Dismantle Everyday Racism in America, which is a must-read.

Paul has a combined fifteen years of experience in academia, non-profits, and faith communities, becoming well-versed in the DEI challenges and needs of each sector. In higher ed, he has facilitated bystander intervention and sexual misconduct trainings with athletic teams, discussed systemic racism with faculty, and led full-day workshops on building inclusive cultures with student leaders. For non-profits, Paul has developed curriculum to center the needs of persons with disabilities, survivors of intimate partner violence, and survivors of sexual assault. Within faith communities, he has given presentations and led discussions on breaking racial barriers to create multi-ethnic ministries.

Listen in to hear Paul share:

How our unconscious bias shows up and how our ego and need to be seen as “good” hold us back from acknowledging this bias

The importance of removing binary thinking when it comes to inclusion

The serious consequences when we uphold a culture of silence - and how we recently saw this play out for Macklemore and Ed Sheeran

What the shift in organizational commitments to DEI has really shown us over the last two years

The 3 questions to ask yourself when you're feeling uncomfortable talking about race, discrimination, and inclusion

How curiosity and openness to critical conversations can open our eyes to rich historical context and deeply personal stories

The steps you can take to uphold inclusive practices even if your organization doesn't have (or has cancelled its) DEI initiatives and policies

Links Mentioned:

Learn more about Paul and his work: paul-ladipo.com

Get Paul’s book: It Was Never About That: Going Beyond Hate to Dismantle Everyday Racism in America

Connect with Paul on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-ladipo/

Watch Shameless Leadership episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@saradeanspeaks

Thank you to our sponsor, Ironwall. Stop online threats before they become real-world attacks. Visit ironwall.com/SHAMELESS and request a free Risk Assessment to see exactly how exposed your executives are.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Very few women are looking for their opportunity to shatter glass ceilings from the time they are little girls. Wanda J. Herndon was one of the few. Raised in Flint, Michigan, in a working-class family shaped by the Great Migration, she became one of the first in her family to attend college, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism and an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from Michigan State University. She built a groundbreaking career at Dow Chemical, DuPont, and Starbucks.

Wanda is an award-winning corporate communications trailblazer, author, speaker, mentor, entrepreneur, Broadway producer, and the first Senior Vice President of Global Communications for Starbucks, from 1995 to 2006. Howard Schultz, Starbucks founder and CEO, asked her to return to the role in 2008 for a one-year engagement to help execute the company’s turnaround strategy.

Wanda’s new memoir, Working Class to Breaking Glass, chronicles her journey from Flint to corporate leadership, exploring race, gender, class, family legacy, belonging, and the courage to lead without compromising one’s true self while opening doors for others.

Listen in to hear Wanda share:

What growing up in Flint, Michigan, a working-class General Motors town, taught her about ambition, survival, and possibility

Her first executive decision at a very young age, in her self-declared role as the “CEO of Me”, that paved the way for a lifetime of success and shattering glass ceilings

Her experience being the "first" and an "only" in many rooms and the accompanying emotional cost and the responsibility that came with those titles

The significance of bringing people up with you as you grow in your career

How to define yourself before others define you

How building the Starbucks brand over the course of 11 years impacted the development of her own personal brand

Her message of hope for people wanting to break glass ceilings

Links Mentioned:

Visit Wanda’s Website: www.wcommgroup.com

Wanda’s Book: Working Class to Breaking Glass: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H82W9ZHB

Connect with Wanda on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wandajherndon

Connect with Wanda on Facebook: https://facebook.com/wandajherndon

Connect with Wanda on Instagram: https://instagram.com/wandajherndon

Hire Sara to speak: saradean.com/speaking

Coach with Sara: https://saradean.com/executive-coaching-services

Connect with Sara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saradeanspeaks

Watch Shameless Leadership episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@saradeanspeaks

Thank you to our sponsor, Ironwall. Stop online threats before they become real-world attacks. Visit ironwall.com/SHAMELESS and request a free Risk Assessment to see exactly how exposed your executives are.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Integrity in leadership is easy to talk about when the stakes are low. The real test comes when living your values costs you something: approval, belonging, comfort, status, or social capital.

In this episode of Shameless Leadership, we’re talking about what leadership character actually looks like in practice. It’s one thing to say you support women, value inclusion, or believe in ethical leadership. It’s another to examine whether your actions consistently reflect those values, especially in rooms where speaking up might be uncomfortable, inconvenient, or risky.

We’ll explore the gaps that can emerge between our stated values and our behavior, from speaking poorly about another woman while claiming to support women, to staying silent when harmful behavior happens in front of us. This is about what it looks like to build character consistently over time, through leadership, self-awareness, personal accountability, and a willingness to notice when our integrity becomes conditional.

If you want to strengthen your leadership character, live your values more consistently, and contribute to a workplace culture where people are willing to stand up for what they say they believe in, this episode will give you practical questions and tools to start.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

What integrity in leadership looks like when there is a real social or professional cost

How to recognize gaps between your actions and values

Why leadership character is revealed through everyday choices, not just your stated values

How personal accountability strengthens ethical leadership

How to practice courageous communication when you witness behavior that conflicts with your values

Ways to approach difficult workplace conversations without immediately creating blame or defensiveness

How speaking up, supporting women, and addressing harmful behavior contribute to healthier workplace culture

Questions to strengthen your leadership self-awareness and help you decide what you want to do differently next time

Leadership isn’t simply about what we believe or the values you say you hold near and dear. It’s about the choices we make when those beliefs and values are tested.

Links Mentioned:

Hire Sara to speak: saradean.com/speaking

Coach with Sara: https://saradean.com/executive-coaching-services

Connect with Sara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saradeanspeaks

Watch Shameless Leadership episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@saradeanspeaks

Take my Leadership Archetype Quiz: saradean.com/quiz

Thank you to our sponsor, Ironwall. Stop online threats before they become real-world attacks. Visit ironwall.com/SHAMELESS and request a free Risk Assessment to see exactly how exposed your executives are.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Communication breaks down between senior and mid-level leaders even when everyone is really hustling to do the very best they can in their respective roles.

In the work I’ve done with leaders and teams, I’ve had the opportunity to take a close look at what people are thinking and feeling behind the scenes - and how their thinking and feelings impact their behavior. In this episode, I share some of the patterns I consistently see and what leaders on both sides can do to communicate more effectively.

We’ll look at what happens when senior leaders pass down decisions without enough context, leaving mid-level leaders to explain the what without understanding the why. We’ll also talk about why well-intended mid-level leaders sometimes hold back difficult and pertinent information until a problem becomes urgent. We will also dig into how this can erode the trust they were hoping to protect by holding back.

We will address the very real pressure of leading in the middle. This typically includes trying to meet senior leaders’ expectations while taking care of your team, often with limited resources and conflicting priorities. I share how a propensity toward people-pleasing can make that squeeze harder. This leads us into the critical importance of being solution-oriented rather than problem-focused. It’s easy to find 27 problems on any given day. It’s the leaders who are finding and creating solutions, staying in momentum, and able to make strategic recommendations who are typically building more credibility, authority, and trust in their roles.

Finally, we’ll consider pace. When senior leaders move from one decision to the next too quickly, the people responsible for implementation may struggle to keep up. Before setting another priority or timeline, it helps to ask: Who is most likely to be negatively impacted by this decision?

If you recognize these dynamics on your team, I’d love to talk about how I can help you strengthen communication and strategic thinking across levels of leadership.

Links Mentioned:

Hire Sara to speak: saradean.com/speaking

Coach with Sara: https://saradean.com/executive-coaching-services

Connect with Sara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saradeanspeaks

Watch Shameless Leadership episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@saradeanspeaks

Take my Leadership Archetype Quiz: saradean.com/quiz

[UNTIL 10/31] Thank you to our sponsor, Ironwall. Stop online threats before they become real-world attacks. Visit ironwall.com/SHAMELESS and request a free Risk Assessment to see exactly how exposed your executives are.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices