The Expedition podcast is now launched. Our launch Trilogy is complete. Now you know the WHY, the WHAT and how the WHO was formed.

Yvette Hopkins has spoken to every one of the 20 members of the expedition and says

“if these women can’t land an approach to leadership that resonates with women, none can!” I can hear the cries already ”If that’s what leadership is….I’m in”

And with this podcast you meet yet another expedition member Anna Kuk, who tells us what she saw at Warsaw station this week.

This is the third podcast. It's all about who's on the expedition. And no, no, no, if you've joined us today, because you think I'm gonna tell you who they all are, I'm not. You already know four. You know about Vidya, you know about Hinemoa. You know about Anna, and you know about Mona, and today you're going to find out about Yvette and you're going to find out about Anna, but I'm not going to tell you about anybody else. I just, I can't bear the thought that I get to give you a list of names and job titles and organisations. How boring that would be.

So you're going to meet all the members over time. The ones you've met already from the podcast — meeting them in this weird way, I think, might just capture the energy and the character for you. The laughter and the burns, the scars and the things, as I say, that make them burn. But I will tell you a bit about the group, I promise, I promise. Firstly, I'll tell you that the group has people from Canada, the US, Brazil, UK, Poland, Germany, Russia, Sierra Leone, Syria, Nigeria, Pakistan, India, Singapore, China, New Zealand, Australia. That doesn't really mean much does it? All of them, that's just one of the countries they come from. They all come from multiple countries. You've got people who've lived their lives on islands, on tiny islands, and who really understand really tiny communities. You've got people who are refugees who spent their lives moving around the world. And there are people from indigenous communities, there are people from cities — women from just about everywhere. They're from sports, from psychiatry, from tax from philanthropy, there are politicians, there are people from the financial sector, there are women in education, there are women who is a violinist, who's a student, an environmental expert, an engineer, there are army officers, there are bureaucrats, there are people in universities and there are people who are inventors, you got the lot.

It's a very, very strange group of women who are all members of this expedition. I'm the leader of the expedition. But I got two helpers. One, somebody whom we're calling the resident disrupter. If we start getting too nice to each other, or lazy in our thinking, she'll disrupt us. I have no doubt whatsoever that she will. And then we've got a resident enabler, so that all the members have got somebody to go to complain to, if I'm too outrageous, but also who will spot people who are more involved or less involved, and how the group is developing.

So it's an extraordinary group of women. They have in common? Well, there's a baseline that every single one of the members of the expedition have to speak more than one language. I deeply believe that if you speak two or more languages, your brain is wired up in a different way. And, we need that for this expedition. But also, we need that for the collection afterwards. We need to be able to express whatever we've learned in masses and masses of languages. And given the group of women, I know we will be able to express what we've learned in masses and masses of different languages. So that's the baseline. Second sort of key requirement is that the women haven't made their minds up already. And they're not just going on the expedition to prove that they were always right. They've got to be people, they got to be women who are open to thinking of things again, and to and to looking beyond the PowerPoint.

There are some remarkable women I've met who talk extraordinarily effectively about leadership but in the second conversation or after the first PowerPoint, I couldn't go deeper with them and so they're not on the expedition. These are people who have many layers of the onion skin you pull off. To me, they've still got another angle, another way of thinking about it. There's the baseline of course also, that these are women who are prepared to carve out the time to do the expedition, and often to carve out the time to do the expedition calls in the middle of the night, if that's necessary. And they also have to be basically, people who are generous with their knowledge. They're prepared and happy to share their IP, their instinct is open source, their instinct is to share. And at the moment, I'm spending an enormous amount of time now that the group of members is clear, in trying to figure out how to build the group before we actually launch on the expedition at the end of May. I created one group of, I think it's six members of the expedition who can all sing, and it's a Whatsapp group, and they're all singing to each other. They don't actually know who they all are, they just know each other's first name. But they've started singing to each other, and I love getting on that Whatsapp group. And then we've got some other WhatsApp groups forming, but again, it's a bit of a mystery to the members of the expedition, what the whole lot, the whole group, is, I have not sent them a piece of paper with column one, name, column two, job title, column three, organisation. I can't bear the thought of doing that. The only thing I've done is to ask one of the members of the expedition if she'll talk to all the others. So she's the only one who's on the in. To talk to all the others very quickly, but just to get a sense of them. And then to write something about each of us, to write it briefly. And then we'll we'll share it with all the members and that means Yvette is the person. She she was foolish enough to say to me a few weeks ago, 'can I volunteer to do anything useful?' I don't think she'll volunteer again, because I immediately jumped on her and said, 'Would you write this piece?' And she did. And I think she's loved doing it. But let's talk to Yvette first.

Yvette, I've already introduced you, as the only person, to date, who has spoken to every single one of the expedition members.

That's me.

But you are an expedition member yourself. So before we start talking about all the others, let's just talk about you for a minute. And I've got this question I've been thinking about all night. And it goes as follows. Why is this so hard? Why do we need an approach to leadership that resonates with women? Why is the push back so hard? And I don't want to be anti-men. I love men, I married a man. You know, men are fabulous. But what is going on? What is going on? And I was thinking you're the perfect person to ask because you are somebody who's been in the sort of supercharged male world. For years, you've been in the army, you've been in cyber security. You've been in space. You've been in mega male world, so. So Yvette, why is it so hard?

I wish I had a one word response to that, or a simple sentence. But I think the way I think about it is leadership itself is hard. I mean, you don't wake up and become a leader. As I've said before, it's a lifelong pursuit of excellence. So it's hard, and you don't always get it right. And there's no textbook, we study it for years. So leadership within itself, I think, is very difficult. But then when you layer in the complexities of women, and well, not that women are... well, women are complex, as are all people complex. But when you layer in the fact that women have not been in the workplace for a very long time. Women take on additional burdens, jobs, tasks, if you will, in society. And because of that nature versus nurture, we think differently, you wrap in biases that are there, about women. I think we'll find that we look at the world through a different lens, right? And people look at us differently. And so what you're really layering in is an already complex topic, and then you're layering in more complexities. And I don't mean that in a negative way. It just means that we've got to journey through this and figure out how to do this better, how to make it resonate with more people. You know, leadership is an inclusive sport.

And if it's inclusive, why is it so hard to get men to recognise what you've just said, and to leave some space for a different approach to leadership from the one that has dominated and been reframed by them? Surely, intellectually, men must just see what you've just said and say, 'well, that's useful'. Why is it so hard to make that self evident?

So I think that's a fabulous question. Clearly there are people out there who are really trying to learn all aspects of leadership in a very pragmatic way. I'd say that, because leadership is seen through the lens of men right now, that's what they know. They're trying to learn, we're putting this in one big bubble. And I don't mean to make this a hand wave for all men. But I think men are brought up to have a very directive way of leadership. And I'm not sure and I think we'll discover on this journey, that that is the way that women necessarily do it. So they're too busy trying to survive in their own pocket, if you will. And so to see another way, or other ways, unless you're in the absolute lifelong pursuit of leadership excellence, you just may not see it, you may not be open to it, you may not understand how it benefits you. And I think that we'll discover that it benefits everybody in a particular way of leadership. You know, there's a study that was done. And this is a military study, a long time ago, that talked about when young men and young people are entering into a male dominated workforce, that the male form of leadership, which is very directive form of leadership at a young age is what is desired. But it's not until you get to a much senior position, that the feminine form of leadership is what is really required — collaborative, you know, the soft skills, if you will, where, CEOs, senior leaders, global leaders really need to tap into that, but unfortunately, we haven't trained people to do that. So yeah, I think there's a lot of intersectionality here and a lot of learning to do, but it's hard. Leadership's hard, and opening the aperture to see all forms of leadership, all forms of styles, and the lens through which you see it through, is hard. It's even harder.

You use that expression, soft skills. Do men really, really — sorry, forgive me, I'm in a silly mood today. But, do men really think they're soft skills? I mean, it just amazes me that people still talk about soft skills. Because whatever that comes under the heading of soft skills, in my mind, are the hardest things.

They are the hardest things. So, it's the relationship building, it's the treating your people right, it's looking beyond yourself, it's creating organisational tone, it's those things that really make us want to jackknife out of bed and go to work every morning. It's all the other stuff, which really makes us productive, makes us become the best versions of ourselves. Whether we use the textbook terminology of soft skills, hard skills, the bottom line is those skills are needed everywhere and every organisation, within families. within communities, those skills are needed and are critical to to leadership,

Has a male leader, who has never opened their aperture, and is completely blind to everything you've just said. Have you ever worked for one like that? You needn't tell us who but have you ever worked for one? I if I tried to reduce you to tears, I have no idea. You're one of the toughest women I've met. So has one of those men ever actually reduced you to tears?

No, no, but I have been frustrated. beyond all belief, as I'm sure a lot of women have been. It's the age old — you're at a table. You come up with a fabulous idea. People look past you. The guy to your right or left says the exact same thing and all of a sudden, that's the greatest thing that's ever happened. Well, that hasn't reduced me to tears. What I personally do is turn that into the Moxie, if you will, to go back in. I personally don't have a problem of raising my hand and saying, 'Hey, I just said that', you know what I mean? But I have become really, really frustrated. So there have been tears of frustration, in my bathroom late at night where I'm just frustrated with a particular person or a particular set of circumstances. Yes, but that just makes me an even stronger, tougher, wilder fighter. And it makes me think of ways to win.

I was waiting for which word you'd choose there. So you didn't say to bring them down?

No, no, no, it's to win. I think that is also a skill that we all have to learn at some point. That's to get your point across, to have people see things your way or a new way. And that's part of leadership, right? You know, the ability to influence people. And sometimes, yeah, you come up across like a fly banging into a window. But there are always ways, there are always ways to get people to see things your way, and to win the argument or to win the respect, or to win for your organisation, or to do the right thing. Or to vote with your feet and leave. And so there are ways to get around it. It's just a tougher form of leadership.

Okay. So back to it. You've spoken to every member of the expedition, and when you finished talking to every member of the expedition, I remember that you phoned me up. And you said, ;I got it. I got it. I can see it now. I got it.' What What was it that you'd got?

Wow. So first and foremost, hats off to you, m'lady. I think that's a very Americanism, related to a movie. But hats off to you for the people that you have chosen for this expedition. Because first and foremost, they come from around the globe, they really are steeped in their local communities or local cultures, they come from all walks of life, the the age range, the experiences are very different. But there's a common thread — this is an expedition so there's this sense of, for everybody it's an adventure, everybody has been thinking about leadership, or in the practice of leadership for a while, so you have a cohort that's truly global. That's truly done some thinking on this. But the thing that I really enjoyed is everyone obviously comes at it from a different angle, a different thought, a different layering in and, I saw immediately, the connections between people and how I can immediately see that people are going to riff off of each other, or people are going to challenge each other. I can see that we're going to advance the thinking on the questions that you're asking. And I think that we won't have an answer going into this, but we will have some sort of response when we come out of this. It's clear to me, there's very, very thoughtful, expeditioners on this on this team. So, that's just on a professional level, but even on a personal level, the different personalities are so much fun. One of the questions I asked, a very simple question, 'What other hobbies do you have in the little bit of spare time that you have in your life?' and it's very interesting to hear people's hobbies. I don't know if you know this, but we have a couple of endurance athletes, people who run hundreds of kilometers. We have gardeners, we have historians. Everybody I did talk to there were absolute voracious readers. So you've got this commonality in the sense of women who, from around the globe, who have a sense of adventure, who have been thinking about leadership, who know that there's more to explore. But you're not going to get a pat answer with this group, you're going to get folks who will challenge each other. But Julia, the aha moment was something new and refreshing will come out of this. That I'm certain of.

So I spoke to a few that have spoken to you, Yvette, okay. And rumour has it that that you've you've given them some of them, I don't know, would you call them nicknames?

As I was trying to remember everybody, I just started putting in, you know, their nicknames so I can remember that.

Okay, come on. Come on Yvette, let's play a game. Give me a nickname, and I'll see if I can guess who it is.

Okay. All right. Here we go. I'm going to start off easy. The educator, the enthusiastic educator.

Folawe.

Boom. Good job. Okay, here's an easy one. You ready? The healer

They all are. Oh, Ayesha, Uma, Alia, Sara, Anna, Liz, Mona, Yvette, Laura, Fatima, Ana, Katya, Rouba, Ayesha, Isata, Folawe, Vidya, Uma, Aparna, Selvie, Hinemoa, Katrina…They all are.

They all are, but Hinemoa in particular.

Yeah. Fair point.

Yeah. One more for you. You ready?

Okay. Last one.

Okay. I've got two names for her right now. And it's the quiet storm. Or the North Star Politician.

Isata, Isata.

You got it baby. You got it.

I keep calling her Isata and she hates me. It's Isata. And yeah, she's a class act. Hey, this group is gonna be so much fun and various people are gonna never forgive me for not guessing. And I can't wait to hear all the other nicknames. But Yvette, thank you so much for doing this.

We move on next to Anna who's a wonderful and amazing violinist. She's Polish. And she's one of the youngest members of the expedition, a remarkable young woman whom I spoke to about leadership when she had just got home from the main station in Warsaw.

Anna, this is a sort of strange time to talk to somebody who's Polish. You must be very proud of being Polish at the moment, aren't you?

Yes, I am. I am very proud of being polished. I remember my parents used to tell me about the time of Commies, that people were very helpful. They were sharing all this stuff they have, what they don't have. Even they don't have the shirt. But I never seen in my eyes. I'm too young to remember. But now, I think I I know what they meant. I just saw people in Poland, so much open to strangers, to people they don't know, they know they're in need. I saw so many people open their houses, their private life for people they don't know. It's incredible.

I remember we used to talk about leading from the back. I will explain that more later. But it is a perfect example of leading from the back. In the back of the orchestra, you have violinists, you have also cellos, different sections. When you are leading from the back, it means that that even if you're one of the many violinists, you're important. Your your role is not only to follow, but also to give all what you have towards the common vision. When you have a concert and you have a conductor who is not as concentrated on his role as a leader, now you need to follow. So the last stands, there are many, many stands, like ten stands for example. And the last last stand is just like following the energy of the stand in front, so the energy is just coming less and less and less and less. And the last stand, sometimes it's very funny to observe — first stand, you're like that. The second like that... and the last one is like really, really laid back. And it's very often when we don't realise this, this leading from the back. And when you have, for example, I experienced this in orchestra of the European Youth Orchestra, where they really put an effort to made us understand why it's so important. And you can see, after the rehearsals when we were talking about this, you can see people very actively pushing the energy. And the connection between the last stand and the conductor is so strong. So the people in the middle, they forced from both sides and encouraged to give all what they have to participate, to be visible. Because when you have so many musicians, you can say, 'I'm just one of many. So what's my role?' And when you realise that your role, your active role in participation is actually also listening, because you know that you are listened as well. So it's just emphasising the participation feeling.

I remember you told me that leadership was no longer about somebody coming out and standing on a box and waving sticks at you. If it's it's not about standing on a box and waving sticks at you, what is it instead?

I want to call it being a server

Surfer or server?

Server. Both actually.

I was thinking you were going to surf the web, no, you're going to serve, you're going to be a servant.

Also, surfing on the waves of music. Because when you are a conductor, especially, I don't want to blame young conductors. But very often, it happens like that because they want to kind of prove the ability. So they kind of impose a lot of...they're controlling what they want to recreate from the head. But they forget that they have people in front, very good musicians. So instead of imposing the vision of the sound, they should listen what they can offer as a musician, because they have a lot of imagination. Also, we need to have a common vision, which, that's the role of the conductor, to have kind of long distance... the path. But the way we follow the path, it's a different thing. I remember when we played with Maestro Haitink, in Amsterdam. He was a marvelous genius. He was a marvelous conductor, and one of the features he had — he was treating everyone so respectfully, so involved in the music. So in the pause between the rehearsals, one of my friend asked him, 'Why are you doing this?' He didn't say 'you're old,' but after eighties, you can have a nice retirement and why do you bother to put your effort to conduct again, the same thing, the same music and that's not the same music for him because it's different. He plays with different musicians. He said, 'I will stop conducting if I will not get anything new from the musicians.' So he's really listening and giving a lot of freedom. When you see someone and you give a trust to someone, some miracles can happen because you can actually get more than you expected.

Thank you, Anna. He didn't say 'I'll stop conducting when I've nothing new to give.' He said 'I'll stop conducting when I get nothing new from musicians.' There's a lot of leadership learning from music and from orchestras. Thank you, Anna, very much.

So we now come to the end of this third Women Emerging Expedition podcast. You've now met six of the expedition members, but I hope you've got a real feel for the whole group. There'll be two more members next week. One, a politician from Sierra Leone, the other a child and adolescent psychiatrist from Pakistan. And they'll be talking about what's made them angry enough to actually join this expedition. And me, I think I leave you with a thought that a friend gave me last year. She said to me, 'Julia friends tend to go into three groups, there are the friends that you make that are for a chapter, or the friends that you make for a reason. And then there are the friends that you make for life. A chapter of your life, a particular purpose that you gather around, or the friends that you make for life. And I think maybe there's another category — the friends you make for an expedition, but I hope that those friends that I make for an expedition come into the life category. A remarkable group of women. Their success of course will cause many more women to say, 'If that's what leadership is, I’m in.'

Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please subscribe to the show and consider becoming a partner. You can join the Women Emerging LinkedIn group to meet a community of women thinking about approaches to leadership that resonate with them. Until next time. Thank you for listening.