Cross-Cultural Communication in Leadership
Episode 446 | Host: Emilie Aries | Guest: Hawa Kombian
Listening is a core leadership skill necessary for growth.
Whether an organization’s teams are centered in a single city or distributed across the world, cultural differences inevitably emerge. For more than 10 years, Hawa Kombian has worked within and alongside companies in Canada, West Africa, and beyond, assisting in their business scaling strategies and organizational and workforce development, particularly in health technology organizations and for humanitarian causes.
Hawa’s expertise helps her clients achieve operational sustainability and social vibrancy throughout their companies through cultivating results-driven cultures of connection. Cross-cultural competency is the core leadership skill she has honed and now teaches, developed from over a decade working in North American companies and organizations in her ancestral home of Ghana.
Perspectives that create positive change
“Our humanity is always what’s at stake and at the core,” Hawa explains. At the end of the day, it’s not about reactionary processes put in place when crisis mode kicks in, but about ensuring the holistic health of the organization. At the root of it, every organization is an organism just like the humans working within it. If there’s disease in one part, Hawa points out, it’s going to spread.
Hawa’s experience has given her clear views into different perspectives—from within organizations as an employee and as an outside consultant—and these provide her with a well-rounded picture of what leaders are dealing with as they progress toward fully embracing the cross-cultural communication and change she helps them build.
As a former employee, she can commiserate with the doubts and hesitations her clients are feeling as they undertake this important and challenging work. As a consultant, she can guide them, without judgment, into the conversations that will help them “authentically and honestly discover what is going wrong.”
Overcoming the barriers of traditional leadership
The ego inherent in much of our society's leadership can stand in the way of innovation and positive change. When leaders charge in to enact “fixes” derived from their own experiences and assumptions, rather than built from in-depth conversations with their employees, approaches that resonate remain out of reach. This becomes even more apparent when leaders are trying to affect change across varied cultures and lived experiences that differ vastly from their own.
Part of Hawa’s role is helping her clients see these many layers and tap into mindsets and tools that will facilitate these fresh processes. Building a community-centered understanding of what practices and policies will resonate with the team not only helps them enact these changes but grow in their leadership capabilities as well.
Leadership today means leaning into listening
Hawa recognizes that active listening can be hard to practice, but leaders don’t need to be perfect to be powerful. Today’s business model, whatever the industry, seems to be steeped in hustle, in a sense of scarcity and lack that drives a harried push and leaves little time for true connection. But while all this makes scheduling impactful conversations that much harder, it also makes it them much more essential.
“I get excited when I see leaders stepping outside their comfort zones and doing things that might not be easy,” Hawa says. That’s “putting marbles in the trust jar for the rest of the team,” and it shows they have the desire and capability to grow and change. And leaders showcasing their own growth journey further encourage and empower their teams to do the same.
Listening must go hand in hand with working to understand. Ego, again, can intercede even with the best of intentions, prompting leaders—whose power traditionally comes from being the ones who know, the ones who have the say—to feign understanding. But leaning into genuine open-mindedness and authentically digging deeper into the inevitable misunderstandings that come from disparate lived experiences and cultures—that’s what will ultimately pave the road to true cross-cultural organizations and workforces that feel seen, supported, and set up to succeed.
In my conversation with Hawa, we delve even deeper into the topics surrounding cross-cultural communication. Hawa’s vision and experience are endlessly evident in her insightful and compassionate approach to the struggles facing both leadership and their teams in this important work.
How have you been practicing cross-cultural communication and centering listening in your leadership? What have you found challenging about this process? Join our Courage Community on Facebook or our group on LinkedIn to share your experiences.
Related Links from today’s episode:
Hawa’s LinkedIn article, Hey Founder... How To Collaborate With Your Team
Episode 2 of Hawa’s Compass Audiocast, Choose Friends With Care
Join Hawa’s Journey Alignment Mastermind
Hidden Brain Podcast Episode, US 2.0: What We Have In Common
Level Up: a Leadership Accelerator for Women on the Rise
TAKE YOUR LISTENING AND LEADERSHIP TO THE NEXT LEVEL:
-
[INTRO MUSIC IN]
EMILIE: Hey, and welcome to the Bossed Up podcast, episode 446. I'm your host, Emilie Aries, the founder and CEO of Bossed Up. And today I am so delighted to be sitting down with Hawa Kombian.
[INTRO MUSIC FADES]
A career coach and business growth consultant with over ten years of experience, she's managed a successful track record in business scaling strategies and organizational development. Her career spans across Canada, West Africa, and the broader continent and has exposed her to diverse humanitarian causes, health tech companies, and workforce development industries. And I'm so excited to really dig in with Hawa today about how that cross-cultural competency is such a core leadership skill that she not only practices herself, but also helps other leaders develop within. Hawa has impacted organizational founders and their teams to achieve operational sustainability and social vibrancy by building results driven cultures of connection. Whether she served in in-house change leadership positions or through founding her own company, Hawa Kombian Consulting, she's really driven by creating the future of work, a future where we can all experience the type of professional growth that we can use in different settings to have a greater impact. Hawa, welcome to the Bossed Up podcast. I'm so excited to chat with you.
HAWA: Thank you, thank you so much for having me, Emilie. Happy to be here.
EMILIE: I'm so excited to dive into this conversation, because you were actually someone who I got connected with via one of our incredible community members at, Bossed Up, Sophia, who was singing your praises when it came to your approach to leadership development with a global lens. So, you write that the inspiration behind how Hawa Kombian Consulting is to ensure that essential experiences like journey alignment, systems integrations, strategy realization, and relational wealth are addressed at the personal and organizational levels. And it sounds like you're also thinking globally. How does this all relate regionally and beyond? So, I just wonder, give us a sense of how you are informed by your background and how that shows up in the kind of consulting and leadership development work that you do in your day to day.
HAWA: Yeah, absolutely. So, I was born in Canada. I am the daughter of two very proud Ghanaians, and I spent most of my formative years living in the Middle East. So kind of by design. I was very internationally exposed and internationally minded growing up from having my entire extended family live oceans away from me and being brought up in a culture that was so beyond the narrative that is pushed in the media or that is shared in the media, especially of the Middle East. I really was raised with this mindset and attitude around going deeper to understand people, places, things and myself in that context as well. So I think from that kind of original foundation, it put me in a very global headspace when I was thinking about the work I wanted to do and when I was thinking about the cultures that were core to my identity. So, I kind of kicked off working in Canada after finishing off my first degree. However, after that point, my mind, body, and soul was really just speaking to me and calling to me. That coming back to Ghana, being in Africa, being where my parents were from, where I had such deep roots and lineage, was an important part of my story and an important part of my professional journey. So I'll just pause there.
EMILIE: Yeah, and had you lived in Ghana previously before that move?
HAWA: So I hadn't. And interestingly, my older brother was born in Ghana and I was born in Canada. And then in adulthood, we kind of passed the baton to each other. And I kind of said, you know what? I really want to sink my teeth in and get grounded and cement myself in understanding Ghana, West Africa, and the continent more fully. And my brother has been like, leading the charge in doing like, men's mental health work in Canada. And so it's also been interesting to see how we have intertwined and kind of switched spaces and sat in each other's shoes and switched perspective on the kind of work that we want to do. But growing up, we visited Ghana a lot, and I'm very grateful for that. To have had the opportunity to go home and meet people and understand my culture at the same time, it's very different when in your mind, you're temporary and you're transient somewhere, versus when you're like, no, this is my home. I am planting seeds, roots are being seeded. I'm creating family. I'm creating community in this space. The mindset is a little bit different when you make that decision and that choice.
EMILIE: Yeah, I can imagine. I feel like that kind of a professional culture shock or culture change at the very least, is probably easy to gloss over. But maybe worth going deeper on, because just imagining the mostly western business climate listeners who are tuning into this podcast, you know, we can talk in lofty terms about cross cultural communication, but paint us a picture of that transition from working full time, building your career in tech in Canada, to then experiencing a whole different business environment in Ghana. What were the biggest differences that stood out to you right away?
HAWA: So, I originally started in Sierra Leone actually. This was around 2015, after the Ebola crisis that kind of swept West Africa. I had the opportunity and the privilege, honestly, to be in Sierra Leone around the time that, that crisis was being wrapped up and I was working with incredibly technical people in that space. And it was just amazing to see what was being done in environments and communities that had really suffered a health humanitarian crisis and yet being able to see how resilient people could be. But I mean, if I really had to break it down, Emilie, like the three biggest things, I think that kind of popped up when that change was being made and I was moving to come and work in Africa was like, the variance in the technical, the relational and the experiential dynamic of working with people, right? And it can be as simple as knowing that for many communities in West Africa, having consistent electricity is not something that we can adequately depend on and take for granted the way that you might in Canada or the US, right? It's appreciating that culture and the ways that the norms and customs that people have is actually such a huge strategic lever to the way that you implement projects, right? So, even here in West Africa right now, we're gearing up for, uh, Ramadan to happen in many parts of Africa and the Middle East and globally, right? And being able to appreciate that cultural and religious nuance and how it plays into not just what people do at that time of year, what people are capable of doing at that time of year, things of that nature. It's quite different from in the west, where we tend to be quite secular and there's that really clear separation of church and state, right? So, a lot of these things sound very simple. However, when you come into these environments, having that awareness makes the difference between being able to set yourself up in a way that is sustainable and mindful of the environment that you're in versus kind of coming in with your preconceived notions of how things are going to work and what you're going to get done and how fast it's going to move. There really needs to be an appreciation for what approach is going to be built to last.
EMILIE: I can see that being so relevant for leaders everywhere, too, right? It's to not come charging in and welcome everybody. Here I come with my new degree from Canada, let me tell you how it's done. It's like there's a humility in the leadership approach that you're describing that really involves listening and understanding cultural context is that right?
HAWA: Exactly, yeah.
EMLIE: And honestly, you know, I see that on a smaller scale, through my work at Bossed Up, I recently gave a keynote address to a conference full of parking professionals, and it took Irene and I, my phenomenal programs manager, quite a while to try to wrap our hands around this audience. We're like, who is a parking professional? And it turns out there's a lot of municipal city workers, a lot of urban planners, a lot of university leaders, a lot of architects, engineers, and construction leaders. And there are just so many different nuances to the subsets of that population that if I'm going to give even a 45 minute long keynote, I better make sure I understand the day to day realities that those folks are navigating. Because if everyone's on their smartphone and not at their desk, to your earlier point about technical norms, right? Like, we need to present options that meet them where they're at. Is that what I'm hearing?
HAWA: Oh, absolutely. And I have the biggest smile on my face when you shared that, because I was like, oh, that like, technicality is so juicy to me. I love it, because that's exactly as you said, where we start to see the layers and the levels to all of this, right? And especially when you're doing work where in your heart the fundamental goal is change. And I feel like the value that I add, and I know, based off of the feedback from my dear friend Sophia, I know that the value that you add as well from your work, Emilie, through Bossed Up, is in really helping people tap into mindsets, strategies, tools that are going to help them change. That's the crux of it, and that's the value that we add. Being able to not just rush in and do, do, do, and hustle, hustle, hustle, and come with all the fireworks and the glitter and the showmanship of it all, but with the actual understanding of what is going to help connect to people, help them resonate and help them, make those step changes towards growth and improvement in their own leadership.
EMILIE: Totally. I mean, it feels like you're hitting on the key leadership skill of influence, which so many women come through our doors at Bossed Up and think, how can I be a more influential leader? And this is a big part of it, right? Cultural competency and cultural communication is such a huge part of it. Unfortunately, being right isn't the only thing that matters. Otherwise, I think women would already be ruling the world, right? We've got the right answers. We know what the change management process should look like. But that doesn't mean we get buy in. That doesn't mean we can create real change when it involves winning over hearts and minds, right? And so…
HAWA: Oh, absolutely.
EMILIE: …I can imagine operating in different parts of the world, which you do on a regular basis, kind of code switching almost, and kind of making sure you're grounding yourself in. Where is my audience coming from? What does their appetite for change look like? What are their hopes and fears? And how do I build, not just like a movement, but what is the word, it's like you want to build buy in, you want to build consensus so that you can actually make things happen. Is that often what you find yourself doing cross culturally?
HAWA: Yeah, absolutely. And what's been helpful, too, is the experience and the years being part of an organization. Because sometimes when you're sitting in the consulting world, you're a level removed from the organizations you're working with, right? And that is a beautiful thing because it gives you a perspective that not everyone else has. And again, hopefully that's the value that we're able to bring through. When you're sitting in an organization the stakes are just as high for you, whatever your role is, right? And I've sat in organizations and have been the change management ambassador or held roles like that. And in those moments, I'm motivated by, yes, what I'm doing in the organization. And I'm acutely aware that whatever I'm doing, I'm also going to be impacted by, as are the people who sit next to and across from me. And I feel like that is such a powerful experience to capture. Because when you can look at the people next to you and say, I've had the doubts that you're having, I have the hesitations that you have. I'm also asking myself some of the questions that you're asking. I think that is a very powerful mechanism and approach to start having some of these conversations that draw out what is really going on for people in an honest and authentic way. Because I've also sat in organizations where the employee satisfaction score is at like 100%. But when you ask people how they feel, they're silenced. And to me, those two things are a mismatch. Right. Because if employees feel super satisfied, that doesn't necessarily mean that they feel safe. That they feel safe enough to talk about the elephants in the room and the uncomfortable things that are getting in the way of change and growth and development and innovation and profitability, and all of these beautiful buzzwords we talk about that are associated with positivity and growth and good vibes in a business, right? Like, it's deeper than that. Our humanity is always what's at stake, and it's always what's at the core. So I really value and encourage people who are listening and anyone who considers themselves a professional to really consider things from that perspective. I would say business is a team sport.
EMILIE: I love that
HAWA: We go together, we grow together, and we need to ensure the health of the system of the organism, right. The word organization comes from the word organism, and if there's disease in one part, it is going to spread to the other parts as well. So I'm so passionate about just kind of culture and leadership and these, like, connecting these dots and not having them feel like they are a side conversation that only comes up when we're in crisis mode.
EMILIE: Yeah. Or like, change in name only. Like, this is our change initiative, but it's not actually sinking in. It's not actually impacting the day to day like it's supposed to. So, I want to ask about the internal versus external perspective, because you've been in house and you have a consulting firm and are creating organizational transformation as an external vendor. What's the difference in approach? And you've alluded to some benefits, but which do you think is easier? I'm wondering, like, sometimes when folks are entrenched within an organization, it can feel like change is harder to bring about. But I'm curious what your take is.
HAWA: This is a great question, Emilie, and I'm reflecting as you, as we speak, as we're on air,
EMILIE: That's how we like to do it here, no I love it, yeah.
HAWA: Yeah. There are enjoyable sides to both realities. And the thing that pops in my head, and that's on my heart when you ask this question is, I think it always comes down to the leadership, regardless. And again, I'll speak from my experience where I've been inside teams like change initiatives, organizational management. Heck, even just getting through the day is so heavily influenced by the leaders you surround yourself with their ability to lean into compassion, curiosity, and adaptability. That is usually what stops and starts that motion. It's usually what creates any sense of traction or a sense of stagnancy. And it can be a challenge when you're in an organization, because, and again, I'll speak for myself. I have definitely had moments where I have felt stuck and stunted based on the capacity of the leaders that I find myself with. And I think many people have. I think we all have. That's why we're on a learning journey through this thing called life, to learn how to overcome that and become better in the step change. Whereas on the consulting side, it's such a precious thing for businesses and organizations to open themselves up to the vulnerability of working with external people. And that is such sacred ground to walk on and tread with people.
At the same time, leaders need to be ready to do that kind of work because, where a consultant, and it depends situation to situation. But most consultants are not in your organization 24/7. And most do not necessarily have an intention to work with your organization 24/7 for the next 5-10 years. Right. So you have someone's support and advisory for a limited amount of time, and it is meant to bolster what already exists in the organization, right? To build up a capacity in the organization. And sometimes leaders, as much as they want the change, they themselves are not always ready to participate in the transformation that goes along with that in order to reap the outcomes.
EMILIE: Yeah, totally. It's like you need an internal champion either way. You need a leader who's ready to champion change either way, whether you're internal or external. And I hear that in a big way when it comes to the leader's role in this, particularly when it comes to a leader who might be working with a global team across cultures, right. In a cross cultural capacity in some way. What are some of the common challenges you see common mistakes people make in terms of how leaders can miss the mark?
HAWA: Yeah, great question. I think the foundation for this one is communication. Honestly, the who, what, when, where, how, and why of communication. And firstly, not even asking those questions, not being aware that those are questions to ask when you're leading a team, there's a lot that we take for granted, and it can be easy to do that. When it feels like you're constantly against the wire, you're constantly behind. There's always too much to do. You know, we're human. There's a cap at how much energy we have and how well we can multitask. So, absolutely having compassion for where that can stem from. At the same time, when you are given the privilege and the position to lead and guide and build other people, I think communication is such an important pillar to build that foundation on.
EMILIE: What I kind of hear in what you're saying is when we assume things, right, we all know what we say about assumptions, right? It's like, if you don't take the time to make explicit what you might be thinking implicitly, right? To make the subtext, the know information is going to be misconstrued. Is that what I hear?
HAWA: Absolutely. Brené Brown says Clear is Kind. And I think that's a great ethos that it's like, when you can even take the time to prioritize clarity, you are being kind to yourself and the people you work with, right. And that's maybe even more on the proactive, active side of leadership, right. I would say the other side of that coin is where are you creating the space to be silent and to listen and to really observe, to hear what's going on, to hear what's not going on with your team, so that again, it can become a catalyst for conversation and inquiry and curiosity.
EMILIE: When you can't just walk the factory floor because you've got 40,000 employees globally dispersed, what does active listening look like, when it's done right?
HAWA: Yeah, this is a great question. And I mean, I've spent a lot of my career in Africa, in Ghana, most of it in fact working remotely. So, I've had a lot of time to sit in virtual meetings, even pre-COVID, and have these mini interactions actually roll up to become a very meaningful part of my career and my growth. And I would say active listening is asking open ended questions, right? I want to know more than your yes or your no. I want to know, again, bring it back to the who, what, when, where, how and why people are doing what they do, thinking what they think, assuming what they assume, right? And as a leader, believe people when they say it. You'll always have the benefit of being able to filter it through your experience, your purview and your perspective as a leader, which the rest of your team might not have. However, when people share things with you and they're leaning into the honesty and the vulnerability of the questions you're asking them, listen, take note of them, document them if you need to, you know, and make some sort of effort to be consistent in revisiting that. And again, I get it, leaders are busy. You don’t have, like you're not going to carve out necessarily 2 hours every week to come back to these conversations. However, performance management is also something that many teams struggle with. And when it comes to those conversations, most people are like, yeah, we actually never have those conversations. Or it's only when the performance review cycle is coming around that people want to discuss things that are pain points for the team. So as a leader, what does bridging that gap look like? Absolutely. It doesn't need to look like 2 hours out of your week every week, but it also doesn't need to look like that 1 hour of performance review a year. Where's that happy medium? Right? That would be my homework to anyone listening that I'm going to have a check in once a month with various team members so that we can chat about what is or isn't working, how they're growing maybe, and when it's not.
EMILIE: And when it's not just performance review time.
HAWA: Yeah, exactly. We can get creative and use the tools we have in our tool basket, the context, we have to say, what are ways that we can do this in a manner that is going to continue to foster this meaningful relationship and connection, right. Because that's also the legacy you're leaving as a leader. And I've been reflecting on this in the last year, Emilie, that in the world that we live in, with the hype, with the accolades, with the followers, all of that, it's very easy to hang your hat on the legacy of your leadership based on what you accomplished, what you did, what people can look at and check off. At the same time, your legacy as a leader is also the people who you've impacted. And I think it's imperative that, uh, leaders are looking for balance in that.
EMILIE: I love that. I'm reminded of this distinction we make in the opening session of LEVEL UP, our six month leadership accelerator for new and aspiring first time women managers, in which we talk about the leader mindset versus the manager mindset. And one key distinction is a manager wakes up every day and says, what do I need to accomplish today? And a leader wakes up every day and says, who do I need to talk to today? And it's sort of that constant people orientation and that opportunity for listening, that is the job of a leader that rarely feels like a massive accomplishment, but rather, it's an ongoing dedication to that legacy you leave behind in the relationships that you leave behind. That's really what I'm hearing from you.
HAWA: That's beautiful, Emilie. And, honestly, management, leadership, they are not mutually exclusive, right? Like, who's to say that this 1 hour check in can't be 30 minutes of you bringing me up to speed on your KPIs and what's working and what's not working. And then we can use another 20 minutes where you talk about some areas you want to grow in. You talk about ideas that you want to pitch me. Like, let's create space to have these inclusive, plural conversations, right? Where you don't have to just have your mindset and your energy in one camp or the other? And I think that might sometimes be something that makes people hesitant to like, even want to step into leadership. This sense that, oh, well, I'm going to have to go hard on solely just being in the people experience piece of it, because not everybody's comfortable with that, too, right? Like, a lot of us weren't necessarily raised to be open minded and the types of people that can have conversations that draw out what people are thinking or feeling or need. And so, again, I think it's important to say, this is about learning skill sets and being complementary in the way that we're approaching work in general and personally. For me, this is what I mean when I talk about the future of work, that there's going to be so much more space for all of us to feel like we can tap into these different areas and that it's also safe for us to grow. So on day one, as a manager or a leader, you don't necessarily have to have it all figured out. However, for anyone who has ever been great at anything, they work on it. It takes practice, it takes discipline. So even for you to say, you know what? I really struggle to feel like I'm listening to my team and hearing them, you know what? I am going to commit myself to one act this month with each of the team members. That steers me in that direction a little bit more, one step outside of my comfort zone, that puts me in that direction, and that also communicates the effort that I'm making because I'll speak for myself. I get excited when I see leaders stepping outside of their comfort zone and doing things that I know might not be easy for them, but is just putting marbles in the trust jar for the rest of the team. Like, that to me, is inspiring in a leader because you're showing me that you have the capacity to grow and change as much as you're probably trying to lead and manage other people to grow and change, right? We're all just mirroring each other, and so it's like, great. If my manager wants me to stretch and grow in my job, how is my manager stretching and growing in their relationship and dynamic with me?
EMILIE: I love it. Like modeling that ongoing learning and remembering that leaders don't need to be perfect to be powerful. You've already alluded to such great best practices, but I want to just offer a final question around what advice would you give to any leaders who are listening, or aspiring leaders, who might be working across cultures with a population of people who they don't share their lived experiences? I had an older white gentleman come up to me after my parking keynote is what I'm lovingly referring to it as, which is all about an allyship conversation. And he admitted, he said, look, you know, I get nervous when it comes to giving any direction or feedback to folks who I know don't share my lived experiences because I'm afraid of saying the wrong thing. He goes, do you have a podcast on that? And I said, not explicitly, but great question. Let me see if I can kind of meet you where you're at, dude. Because he was so vulnerable in just admitting, like, I feel like I'm going to offend people. So what advice do you have? Whether we're talking about just different lived experiences or a totally different part of the world, in terms of how leaders should approach working across cultures.
HAWA: Beautiful question, and it warms my heart that this gentleman came and shared that with you. That's really beautiful.
EMILIE: This is why we do what we do, right?
HAWA: Yeah. Like, such a nice depiction of the impact that your work is having, Emilie. So, I think we talked about this a little bit before, but I think listening is so fundamental. Again, let's bring it back to this world where we're constantly late, we're constantly behind. You know, people needed our deliverables yesterday. There is such a sense of lack and scarcity in the world today, and it is such a beautiful act of attention and focus and care when someone can say, speak to me. I'm here to listen to you. I want to listen to you. Just that act in and of itself, carving out the time for people, is so powerful. And again, yes, you might say the wrong thing. You might stumble over your words if you're a little bit nervous or flustered. But again, the people that want to collaborate and progress, and move forward, and change things for the better, will recognize that and appreciate that then.
Secondly, I think there's having gratitude, right? There's having gratitude and appreciation that people are willing to come to the table and sit next to you and have this dialogue and talk and share and let you into their lived experience, because some communities have had really difficult, painful experiences, and it isn't easy to share. And so I think it's about kind of, mirroring to each other that I'm open and I'm here and I want to share, and I want to listen, and I appreciate that you're here, and I appreciate that you've shared. I think creating that foundation is key. And then leaning into your open mindedness and being genuine and authentic in that, like, if something is still confusing to you, you don't have to say you understand it. You can express gratitude and say, you know what? Thank you for helping me learn something new today. Thank you for opening up my mind to that. Because it's something I hadn't thought of, or it's something that I didn't realize affected people or affected you in that kind of way. But that open mindedness to keep having conversations, to listen, and to start building a bridge towards something, an experience that is going to be more whole, more loving, more productive, more constructive, more positive for people is a really great way to start leaning into that. And it's difficult. It can be difficult because we live in divisive times. But I also think we live in a time where we have more tools than we've ever had before. So there is a level of leaning into it and connecting with your own discernment to say, okay, great, and treat it as an experiment every time you go in. Hey, this time, I'm going to ask these kinds of questions. I'm going to approach someone in this kind of way and learn it's all data, and the default is only for you to improve the more that you do it.
EMILIE: I feel like you're making the intention, understanding, right? Your intention is to come to a better understanding about this person's experience and to create empathy, which is different than the intention is to get things right, or to be right, or to show them you're right, or to persuade. And it's really interesting. I, um, am sort of reacting to this based off of listening to a recent excellent series that I recommend on the Hidden Brain Podcast with Shankar Vedantam by NPR. He's been doing a series called, US 2.0, all about talking across political divides and talking across very intense divisions that exist primarily in US politics but are replicated abroad as well.
And you know, he kind of pointed out in his series that we are often just listening in order to persuade and how that just prevents connection as opposed to listening in order to understand. And like, what would it look like to detach our sense of worth from being right or from effectively winning over somebody right? Like, whether we're talking about political debates or workplace conversations, which hopefully shouldn't be happening one and the same all the time. But mutual understanding is the core of what I'm hearing you say here. The goal of the leader is to really get a sense of where your people are and not to persuade them to see it from your perspective, yeah?
HAWA: Yeah. And I so love that you share this, Emilie, because there's this whole rabbit hole we can go down, right, about wanting to be right and how that's connected to ego and how ego is connected to power and how in most organizations, if you are a leader, you have that hierarchical power over, right. And so it's so interesting to think about what it would look like to be somebody who is in a structure where you have power and to connect with people in a way where you say, you know what? That aspect doesn't matter right now. The point of this interaction is truly to hear you out and understand you, right. And so it's actually quite a curious thing that even in spaces where people have literally a label that communicates to people that they have power, there isn't a willingness to say, well, actually, I'm so comfortable and secure in the power that I have that I only stand to gain by coming to a place of understanding with people. You don't even really need to wield it in a way like that if it's already been bestowed upon you with that title, you know? So I think there's a lot of ego and shadow work when it comes to this and when it comes to people's resistance at times.
Again, in my humble opinion, I feel like you only stand to gain and learn more. I think it can become a scary thing for leaders who are maybe not genuine and authentic in this whole exercise because it can also be disruptive to the trust building process. If you go down this whole road of having these conversations to build trust and understand and create these mutually beneficial relationships, and then you're not willing to take action. And so I think that's also where leaders need to be honest with themselves. That as you go into this conversation, are you committed to some sort of change process? Are you committed to taking some sort of action that is going to help everyone move forward together? Or do you want to have the conversation to be seen having the conversation and taking on whatever clout that gives your name and your reputation and the accolades?
EMILIE: I think we could do a whole podcast on insecure leaders and how they manifest disastrously in the workplace. But Hawa, I could talk with you forever. Clearly got such a font of brilliance to share. Where can our listeners learn more about you and your great work?
HAWA: Thank you, Emilie. So my Linktree has all the things that our organization is doing. We work with individuals as well as, you know, we're really excited about transforming the narrative and the practice around leadership across Africa as well as, throughout the diaspora. So yeah, that's really where you can find more about us. And across this year, we will be launching group coaching experiences focused on personal branding, team management, career strategy, well-being. There's so much more to come. I'm so excited and would be absolutely pleased and privileged to have you follow along with us.
EMILIE: I love it. I'll drop that LinkTree link in our show notes. Hawa, thank you so much again for joining me here.
HAWA: Thank you so much, Emilie. Appreciate you and all the great work you're doing.
EMILIE: For more details and links to everything Hawa and I discussed on today's episode, head to bossedup.org/episode446 that's bossedup.org/episode446 and now I want to hear from you. How have you been practicing cross cultural communication or leadership? That involves listening to understand, listening with empathy, not just to persuade or to force change upon other people. What's worked well for you and what's been a challenge? As always, let's keep the conversation going in the Bossed Up Courage Community on Facebook or in the Bossed Up LinkedIn Group.
[OUTRO MUSIC IN]
I'll drop links to both those resources in today's show notes and until next time, let's keep bossin’ in pursuit of our purpose and together let's lift as we climb.
[OUTRO MUSIC ENDS]
