This weeks podcast highlights a human approach to leadership and also introduces some of the women who are serving as Guides to the Expedition.

Guides are generous women leaders who will take calls from exploration members. They are generous, wise, informed, committed, thoughtful, inspiring. Above all they are totally honest with the replies they give members. Whether the questions are about collaboration or survival, decision making or dressing, balancing or prioritising.

Julia Middleton 0:01

Paola 3:00

I thought it was a brilliant idea that you had to be able to connect people, women and men around the world and whatever gender they choose to be nowadays, but and have like a little window to explore outside of the of being trapped in situations. It was a very refreshing feeling and the feeling of you are powerful enough to create new things.

Julia Middleton 3:29

We both are, Paola. We both know that. I've watched you create Matriaca, and I've watched you create Matriaca and handed over.

Paola 3:39

Yeah, that's an interesting process. No, because in fairness, I doubt that people create things on their own. I think that the innovation is in the encounter, in the meeting of other people. That sparkle, you cannot tell really, where an idea came from. It came from iterations and conversations. So honestly, we created this together with the women and it was good that they could practice their skills of leading their own company. So it was like a natural process.

Julia Middleton 4:09

So then when Women Emerging from isolation sort of burst this expedition, you immediately said yes, you would be a guide.

Paola 4:19

I had the possibility to interview, to be interviewed by Sarah Henry the other day from Stanford, that is a place of God in the edges of the new thinking, and to see what she's doing and proposing. And we talk about how important it is to make the ecosystem, to be able to with the tools and technologies we have nowadays to make possible the ecosystem to express themselves without needing the interpretation of a leader and unique view of things. How can you gather consensus in different iterations and rounds up a lot of people working together. And the innovation of the human processes now is impressive. You can hear a lot of voices in a very short period of time, and you can arrive to consensus. It's like the collective unconscious is open there and is reachable. So I want to make a point that this moment and this exploration is really going deep into the wider ecosystem of people.

Julia Middleton 5:25

It absolutely is. And thank you so much for talking to Sarah because she so wants to hear different voices on how collaboration works in different ways in different parts of the world. What have you learned through Matriaca?

Paola 5:42

I learned through Matriaca that it's very important to take the time to listen. When I first met the women, I always tell the story. I was asking question like crazy because I was curious about their culture. And this is a very untapped community in the middle of nowhere in a region. And here they were hundreds of women. And I asked questions, simple questions. And it took forever for them to reply. And they were talking between themselves. And I thought it's because I didn't make myself clear. So I started to speak louder and faster. And suddenly one of them said, I'm sorry, if you continue to ask questions, it would be very difficult for us to come to an answer, what we do is we talk between themselves some ideas, and the person who knows more about what you're asking is going to give you the answer. But you have to give us the time to think ourselves and to get a consensus. So that's the first thing I learned that really impacted my way of collaborating with them and others. And I realised that, yes, there are people that know a lot more about things than me. And it's nice to have them in the team be partners with them. Another thing I learned is that it's not about values, because I see many, many collaborative process start to try to agree upon values. And I think people value different things. But we all share a vision of what is better for humanity. We all can describe the picture like we all want to be happy and healthy, and want to get along with the neighbours. So we focus more on the vision than on the values because some people are in favour of abortion, some are not. Some people like organics, some people don't. So agreeing on all the values makes the process really impossible, because it's what people feel. And society is complex, and has different approaches to things. But it's very easy to agree upon the view, surprisingly, of what we expect for the future. We want our kids to be happy, healthy, to have nice relationships, you know?

Julia Middleton 7:49

And do you then come back to values afterwards? Or do you avoid them completely?

Paola 7:53

No, no, no, it's not that we avoid them because we operate on our mindset. That mindset is supported by the values you have. But you give some space to understand that we are talking about planting Chow where we don't need to agree on upon abortion rights, you know, let's do the chow thing. And we are agreeing that we need to belong to the word full of exchange. And we don't need to agree about being evangelist. We are commercialising goods. So I don't think you have to avoid them. Because there are many times we have a very interesting conversation and spiritual reach out between each other. But that doesn't mean my values were compromised in any way or not theirs.

Julia Middleton 8:41

One day, I'm gonna come with you.

Paola 8:45

Well, actually, today they are in Rome because they organised a fashion show. I received the invitation like anyone else. So.

Julia Middleton 8:58

That's called success when they don't need you in Rome.

Paola 9:03

Exactly.

Julia Middleton 9:08

Thank you, Paola. That's very much got me thinking. Don't start with values focus on the vision and it's simpler than you think to find a common vision. I think that's something I need to really really think about. Thank you, Paola. Sarah clearly got a lot out of her call as well.

Sarah 9:33

Paola was super interesting. The way she challenged my thinking. She made me think about a few things completely differently.

Julia Middleton 9:40

COVID has required us to demonstrate a real different kind of leadership attributes. And that is empathy. That is the care for the people you work with. All of a sudden, I think we always knew it was there, but human needs has really surfaced to the fore. And I think as a leader, one of the critical attributes we are looking for, and when you look at, you know, whether it's the great resignation, or organisations trying to attract talent, and engage in all of that, I think it really highlights the need for leaders to be empathetic, to be able to relate to people and to acknowledge people in the organisation as real human beings and acknowledge their needs to be safe, both physically and psychologically. So if anything, I think that is the one aspect that really has become very pronounced in leadership. While it was always there, it's much more reinforced throughout the pandemic.

Help me with this, it was always there. Do you think it was always there, because people talked about it, but didn't do it?

I think it was always there because intellectually people knew. I always talk about, regardless of anything, one of the human needs, is the need to be acknowledged. And they need to be recognised for our individual uniqueness and our individual needs. We as human beings, we know it doesn't matter which culture you come from, that is one of the most fundamental needs, people need to be heard and need to be seen. So I think to your point, it was always there, people knew intellectually it was there. But I think throughout the pandemic, all the sudden, it was like a human race under attack, so to speak. And I think we just really came through like, you know, this is something that's just fundamentally important. And I think everybody felt nobody was exempt from that. That was truly a global phenomenon, because that was the global pandemic, everybody needed to feel a sense of safety from that standpoint.

Those are big words, human race under attack. Do you mean it as strongly as that?

We are two years in right, Julia, I think we have a much better perspective on what it is. But I remember the days the entire world went into a lockdown. We never saw this before. And it required us to deal with this very differently. Everybody was scrambling as to how we protect each other? And is that too strong a word, perhaps. But I do think that was something where you think through it, we've never behaved that way. It challenged some of the most fundamental assumptions we have about work.

You use the expression to me that I love, which was muscle memory. Tell me about that.

Yes, so I will start with an example. And it happened to me very often and I think it happened to different people. How often after an intense meeting, work, whatever it is, you get into your car and you start driving, and before you know it, you're at the destination, a lot of times it's your home. You don't really think about what you are doing, each turn you are making, you just sort of know what to do, right? We've all experienced that, I dare say. And that's what I call muscle memory, when you've done something enough time means that you could actually do it without putting a lot of thought into it. It becomes second nature, athletes do it, you know, because they are able to perform because they practice 1000s or hundreds of 1000s of times. So when they are there, they don't think about it. So that's what I mean by muscle memory.

And why did you use that expression in the context of COVID or post COVID?

I think we as human beings, we as individuals, we as leaders, we have a set of muscle memory in terms of what we do at work, how we interact with people, and how we lead and all of that. I think COVID fundamentally challenged us to develop a different set of muscle memory, right? You know, we all went through this, people have different difficulties, right? All the sudden, you see, you know, in our context, you see very senior people, you know, they are having a conducting a very important meeting and the dogs start barking, the dogs start coming in, that humanises people. And I think we have accepted, we have embraced in many ways, a lot more of those humanistic qualities in the workplace. And I think that's a set of muscles that we are going to continue to keep. I think that's one of the huge benefits of the pandemic, because it made all of us a lot more human.

You think this muscle change will last?

Yes, I do. I do. I was gonna say, I hope so. But I'm optimistic. I think now, people, I think we see what people are demanding. I think that's why, you know, from a research perspective, there's so much research and leadership model that talks about human centric leadership. And when you look at transformation, you need to start from the needs of the people, whether it's your customers, whether it's your employees. But I think it is a just huge recognition. And also, I think another aspect is I think we're also dealing with a whole generation where they are going to demand, that they are not going to relent, they're going to make it clear. And I think for organisations, if you want to tap into that pool of talent, you are going to have to show that you care about them, you're going to show that you care about the causes that they care about, genuinely. Because otherwise, they will vote with their feet. They won't stick around.

Do you see a gender element in this change of muscles?

The gender element I see. And again, that's a generalisation. Right, so I got to be a little bit careful. But with that caveat, what I do see from a gender perspective, is female leaders tend to be better at being more empathetic. And I do think there's research to show that, but I think this is one of those things that actually really, I'm gonna say works to the advantage of female leaders. And I think, you know, what I would love to see is all of our female leaders really leaning in and really claim that space. I mean, again, I think once upon a time, when there are discussions about emotions, and empathy and emotions, I think there was a time, it's something to shy away from. Because that is seen as soft, and you know, you want to be tough. And I think, again, I'm generalising things. But I do think there was a time that was, you know, wehre it was seen as more of a weakness, but I actually think that has changed. And I don't think that change is going to go away. I think that change is here to stay. And I think that will really serve well, for a lot of our female leaders.

Bin, right from the beginning, you said yes, when I asked you to be a guide on the expedition, and I know that's about supporting the other women, the members of the expedition, but let's make this like you're a guide to me, as the leader of the expedition, there's so much about leadership out there. And some of it is pretty flaky stuff. And I don't know, if you feel like it, you sort of think, you know, for every five new brilliant ideas, probably there's only one that I'm particularly interested in. And a lot of it is noise. How have you developed a detector that distinguishes the one from the four and tell me how does that speak to the expedition because we don't want the outcome, you know, we're not going on this expedition, spending nine months on it just to produce stuff that'll get put on a pile of more stuff about leadership. Guide me through this.

First of all, I think it's a great piece of work you're leading and I'm just so proud and privileged to be associated with that. So thank you, Julia, for the opportunity. So the question I asked is, is that going to impact real change? Is that going to generate real change, right? Forget the theoretical stuff you have. And, you know, and also, I think another thing is, when you look at a lot of leadership models and all of that, they're more similar than different, genuinly. I mean, we're running out of stuff, new concepts. Having said that, the one thing I do look at is how much it is about helping people to understand other people, and helping people to look and behave in a way that they can be more empathetic, effective in relating to other people and understand other people's needs. For me, that's such a critical component of leadership, the level one stuff, it's the self awareness, understand your your paradigm, your needs, your frame of reference, and how you relate to other people. Because in the end, it's about how you inspire and how you motivate and how you relate to your fellow team members, your fellow colleagues and all of them.

So it will be a lasting shift. You've heard that hear, from one of the most powerful people in the leadership development world, Bin. Thank you. I so hope you are right, that it is both lasting and also broad based, because it matters so much that we do get a more human based approach to leadership, for many, many reasons. But one of them is without doubt that it would be to women's benefit. But also Bin, I hear you hard and well and clear. We can't be too theoretical in February, when the 24 members get together, we have to really produce practical real, workable ideas, solutions on an approach to leadership that resonates with women. Of course, it needs to be rooted in deep and proper thought, but also practical, real and workable.

So you've met two guides now there are hundreds of them coming in. And I'm beginning to see more and more of the calls happening with the expedition members. If you would like to be a guide to, I would be utterly delighted. Best way to go about it is simply to send me a message or in the LinkedIn group, the Women Emerging LinkedIn group that hangs off my profile. It's a closed group, send me a message written if needs be recorded even more because then I get the delight when I wake up in the morning of listening to all your messages and all your ideas. It is a joyful way to start a day. I love them. So do be a guide if you can. It's not a huge commitment, but I think it's one that both Paola and Bin would recommend.

Thank you for listening to the podcast. We would love you to follow the expedition and provide your own stories and perspectives. You can do this by subscribing to this podcast and joining the women emerging group on LinkedIn where you can have your say.