Full disclosure: I’m an acting coach, but I’m about to give you a phenomenally powerful business tip. My industry — entertainment — is as cutthroat as they come.

It’s intensely competitive and filled with risks and disappointments. From established and high-profile actors to those just starting out, my clients often face the same challenges as their counterparts in the business world. And as in any business, relationships play an enormous role in success.

Something I’ve seen over and over with my own clients is that it’s way too common to think of a business relationship as a friendship and assume a level of loyalty. Then they’re astonished to find that when it comes to that loyalty, business is business: nothing personal.

I’ll give you an example from the acting world that easily translates to business and entrepreneurship. A client of mine was talking about how great his relationship was with his new agent — as in, “We’re like best friends, she really looks out for me.” My radar was already going off: since he’d switched representation, this client, a gifted actor, had been chasing parts with little success. Granted, booking certain parts can feel like passing through the eye of a needle — with immense competition, the odds are pretty slim. But I wasn’t surprised when that client came to my studio soon after and said the agent had gone to bat for another actor she represented for the very same part he was vying for. He felt terribly betrayed.

The reality is abundantly clear, should you be willing to accept it. True loyalty has little value or place in business. It’s not that kindness and loyalty are nonexistent. We’ve all worked with people we felt we could count on, and people that are a pleasure to be around. But what makes a business relationship a good one isn’t loyalty. It’s whether or not that partner is performing up to your standards. If so, you should continue with them. If not, by all means, drop them and find someone better — which is exactly what I suggested my clients do. But it works both ways: If your performance becomes substandard, don’t be surprised if your partner drops you for someone else.

Why do we confuse professional and personal relationships? One key reason is that we forget the differences:

• Personal relationships are based on the quality of the bond you have with the other person and are based on intimacy, trust, and selflessness. One can trust these relationships because they are not always based on self-first thinking. The people who truly love us at times do things for our betterment before theirs. The relationship should be a mutually positive exchange built on love, support and care. The focus should be on each other’s well-being.

• Professional relationships may have some of the above positive qualities, but they are focused on the advancement of both parties’ careers and professional goals. What is usually at stake in these relationships is financial or reputation-based. Intimacy is not required — and perhaps not even wise. Trust is not given easily but earned over time.

Different Deceptions, Different Strategies

Both professional and personal relationships are fraught with the possibility of disappointment, exploitation and jealousy. But there’s a key difference. In personal relationships, revelations around poor performance and disloyalty tend to be easily spotted and addressed. Professional deceptions can be much harder to deal with and recognize.

I recommend that my clients never forget that the people with whom you do business are not your friends or family. They are your business associates. This doesn’t mean you should not appreciate genuine, well-intentioned behavior on their part. It just means you need to keep your eyes open. Don’t blindly or naively place your trust in a business associate. Know in your heart that they will always be looking out for themselves first.

Understanding this, you can move forward to manage these relationships with grace, dignity, and confidence.

3 Kinds of Friendships

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle noted that every relationship falls into one of three categories:

1. The relationship of advantage: This is a relationship where the other person is profitable to you in some way. And it’s very likely that you are profitable to them.
2. The relationship of comfort: This relationship is based on someone’s company or association you find pleasurable, as in fun friends.
3. The relationship of value: This is a relationship based on mutual appreciation and esteem. This type of relationship is based on agreed-upon ethics and takes longer to build.

According to Aristotle, the first two don’t last as long as the third kind of relationship. It’s worth keeping these categories in mind as you examine your own — both personal and professional. From a business standpoint, this also helps you stay clear on the realities of who you’re dealing with. And know that it’s fine to have a wonderful relationship with your business connections, just as long as you resolve to remain aware of the dynamics.

It’s always better to understand and know what kind of friend/ employee/employer your business associate is than to be surprised when their “just business” stance puts you at a disadvantage. And as long as you live within your own moral code, you can take whatever action you believe is best — and lower your risk of being caught vulnerable by someone you thought was your business BFF.

In order to succeed, managers and team members need to be genuine partners. This raises an important question: how can managers and their teams become effective partners?

As a team leader or team member, five qualities can provide you with a useful foundation for partnership. Empathy, respect, trust, alignment and partnership all relate to creating meaningful partnership between managers and teams. 

Empathy is a profound appreciation for the perspective of others — understanding their challenges, their goals, how they feel, and what’s important to them in the working relationship. The emotional capacity to feel for another on your team is a key underpinning of successful collaboration. Mutual empathy between the team leader and the team is a necessary start to creating meaningful partnership at work. 

Respect in a work context is when a person sees another as a valid and legitimate partner, deserving of rights we would expect ourselves, and someone with whom we need to cooperate in order to do our job. Respect includes valuing the other person, their skills and abilities, and the unique experiences and background they bring to the partnership. Once there is mutual empathy between the leader and the team, respect will naturally follow. Like empathy, respect is foundational. 

Trust in the workplace implies high confidence in other people at work. It means believing that they won’t speak ill of you or harm you in any way. It includes transparency, keeping commitments, reliability, and ethical conduct. Once you can understand others’ perspectives and value them as legitimate partners, trust will form over time in the relationship.  

Alignment is when a manager and all the members of a team are on the same page and moving in the same direction. It implies cohesion, coordination, connection, and vigorous team collaboration towards a common goal. It includes high agreement on goals, use of resources, processes, practices, and norms. Empathy, respect, and trust are required to help a team achieve alignment.  

Last, partnership is when leaders and their teams are fully aligned and able to work effectively together. They support each other, accept mutual accountability for the success of what they do together and for the health and welfare of the relationship. It is a state of high interdependence and shared fate. It implies a mutuality where both leaders and team members feel very supported and are able to succeed. 

The five components to meaningful partnership are somewhat sequential, at least at the start. Improving empathy leads to higher respect for the work that team members do, and the people themselves. Respectful relationships are ones where we can then continuously strengthen trust. When there’s trustworthiness and mutual trust, most working relationships will begin to experience alignment. And, alignment can lead to that feeling of close partnership. However, we recognize that this order is not rigid, because these factors are also mutually reinforcing. For example, as we strengthen trust, it’s likely that empathy will also increase.  

Over time, an effective partnership that continues to improve may become meaningful. The word meaningful is intentional. In common discourse, you might say a person like Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg lead a meaningful life; that it’s time for a meaningful change; or when there’s a conflict, we need to have a meaningful conversation. In all cases, it refers to something notably above and beyond, fulfilling a higher purpose, and having considerable impact. Meaningful partnership is a partnership that has impact and the power to transform an organization.  

Unfortunately, many employees at all levels often don’t feel appreciated, supported, or fully able to achieve because one or more of the five elements are missing. Team leaders can get frustrated with team members, and vice versa. And, team members can often become frustrated with other team members. For many in today’s organizations, it’s often a three-way intersection of frustration! Further, during the pandemic, many team members feel even more alienated, isolated, and anxious. This means that there’s yet more need for the strong team connection that comes with a good partnership.  

To form meaningful partnerships, here are five simple strategies: 

1. Practice empathy. The most important activity you can do to increase empathy is to employ active listening with your team members. Make sure to listen to them when they talk about work as well as when they talk about personal issues. If you show a sincere interest and are willing to help, you’re on your way to developing empathy. One other powerful way to increase empathy is to ask: What are your expectations of me? How can I help you to feel supported and to succeed? Then really listen to the responses, discuss areas where you may be confused or uncertain of what is said, and consider how you can fulfil these expectations. Next share your expectations of them and discuss how these expectations are the same or different as what they shared. 

2. Build respect. The most important actions for building respect are to leverage the strengths of others, value their time and workloads, and recognize their important contributions. Find opportunities for public praise and appreciation. And value who they are as unique individuals with special backgrounds, skills, and experiences. 

3. Develop trust. Trust is a reciprocal process. Thus, to build trust, you have to show trust, and also to demonstrate that you can be trusted. This requires acting with transparency, being honest, and behaving ethically in your relationships. 

4. Strive for alignment. This is when your team is working together and in strong agreement about goals, use of time and resources, practices and customs, and the best ways to get things done. Alignment is that secret sauce that makes teams win — they work as one with cohesion, coordination, and collaboration.  

5. Establish partnership. Alignment will, over time, lead to a healthy, successful, meaningful partnership with your team. When people work as partners, they feel supported, they do their best work, and they stay. They know that their partner has their back, understands their needs, and will do everything they can to make sure the team succeeds. When that’s all happening, success becomes inevitable.  

Timothy M. Franz, Ph.D., is an Organizational Psychologist, Professor of Psychology, and Chair at St. John Fisher College. In addition to his academic role, he also works as an organizational consultant through his firm, Franz Consulting. 

Seth R. Silver, Ed.D., is the principal of Silver Consulting, Inc., and has worked with hundreds of diverse clients on leadership, cultural change, employee engagement and workplace success. Dr. Silver was also an associate professor of Human Resource Development at St. John Fisher College. Their new book, Meaningful Partnership at Work: How the Workplace Covenant Ensures Mutual Accountability and Success between Leaders and Teams (Productivity Press, Aug. 27, 2021), provides a powerful model of how work partnerships can be created and sustained.

“There is a toxic culture developing in the team and we are losing people.”

I zoomed into the conversation – this was a completely unexpected comment. It was a familiar situation in larger companies which were not paying attention to the team dynamics, but to hear it at start-up, one that had a deep purpose, an accomplished team, stellar reputation, and a driven leader?

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and I am with another start-up, in their meeting room with a group of  Gen Z’s: their culture is driven my autonomy, mastery, innovation,  and passion and yet their spirit seems heavy. I don’t see or feel excitement and drive: I hear a lack of belonging, a feeling of being unheard, and musings on finding another fit.

Separately, sitting with a group of eight men on a team that are C-3 and who lead digital transformation in a large telecom, many of whom have been working together for years yet when we talk about roles, ‘who do you report to again?,’ asks one of the participants. Others also seem unsure but mostly they are surprised at the gaps in the knowledge they have for each other. When we talk about Covid, ‘I had no idea it’s been so tough for you’, is one of the comments.

At a different meeting I was observing, one of the executives interjected suddenly, ‘I have to leave this meeting for an hour’. There was no explanation. Suddenly it felt like was there was a secret in the room.

I suggested there was some tension at the departure of this executive and the CEO, who was also in the room, then explained in detail the urgent matter he was attending to. There was then a palpable sense of relief but what the CEO had not realised earlier was the fact that what was known to her required vocalising to others. 

And there are many more such anecdotes.

We talk about team work often, and most leaders – whether at  start-ups or established companies –   see it as a key to unlock success. Data shows us that 60% of new ventures fail due to problems with the team. Creating the right team culture is quoted as paramount. Culture lives within teams, and thus it spreads into an organisation. 

So how do leadership teams build and sustain a successful team culture and then roll it out? 

Who leads this initiative?  

Some might argue it is the HR division. However, the skills required to unearth the patterns that hold teams back and then to address them in ways that feel safe yet courageous, objective and impactful are very distinctive – they rely on coaching, facilitation, group dynamics psychology, constellation work, conflict management and experience in sensing the room.  

If we are serious about creating teams that flourish and perform we need an expert in teams to support the organisation. We need a Team Guardian (TG). And clearly HR would be essential in its role to liaise with the TG.  

Start-up’s are particularly in need. Founders are driven by passion; dealing with daily challenges, external stakeholders and having to drive the business forward. They suddenly find themselves move from 3 people to 30 or 300 having at times never managed a team or had the time to think about culture. They often lead by instinct and at times this works well but at some point they have to sit down and – in addition to capital raising, hiring, strategy –  reflect and focus on the state of the team. How are they collectively performing? How are they connecting and communicating? What is being missed? What are the undercurrents? Are they clear and aligned on strategy and vision?  At some point this becomes an essential priority. Only, mostly, they have no time and/or experience to do this effectively.  

TG’s are professionals and their super power is to build, nurture and sustain high performing teams; to support key players in their goals, and to resolve conflict.

This support is vital for all leaders. And for start-up’s it can be the key to success – how the team works is make or break.  

So how can this work practically?

Can a TG be an EXCOM member? What is the scope and longevity of the role? How important is objectivity and the perception of objectivity? How is the TG to be renumerated?  And how is the success of TG’s to be measured – what are the KPIs?   

What is clearer to answer is how a TG’s impact can be measured: using dimensions connected to belonging, openness/communication, clarity/alignment, safety, and meeting dynamics is a very good start. Naturally within each team there may be specific and proprietary challenges that the TG will have to unearth, diagnose, address and assess.

Belonging and safety are key to us as humans. When we feel we belong our commitment is higher, as is our performance. Safety, includes the ability to speak up, to be controversial, to be vulnerable, and to be courageous.  In such an environment, communication flows, defences are down, we can hear each other and also feel heard leading to clarity between team members.  Clear and open communication, underpinned by trust is empowering and creates ownership and a sense of alignment. 

Like other executives, the tenure of a TG will depend on their scope, need and impact.

In my experience, TG’s need to work with most members of the leadership team both individually and as a team. Although this number can vary depending on contextual complexity and will be impacted by timespan, a team that invests 6-9 days initially (in a year) with their TG can see significant progress. This can then be supplemented with targeted individual coaching. 

The TG will typically work with multiple teams within an organisation assessing the larger relational dynamics and being able to interweave learnings from all the teams to create a shared language and alignment. 

Can it be full time role? Yes and no:  it would depend on size and complexity of the entity in question.  Another multifaceted question to answer is how will a TG be engaged? As an employee, consultant, and/or owner coach?

This is a role that is emerging as a necessity and as it is embraced will continue to evolve.

Time to get a TG?

The first potential issue with the traditional active listening model is that it creates the opportunity to appear as if we are attentively listening when we are not.

There is a huge difference between appearing to listen and actually listening. I would confidently wager that many readers are quite skilled at maintaining eye contact, smiling, nodding, occasionally paraphrasing what they hear, or at least repeating the last word they heard with a questioning tone. This all while ignoring their counter-parts, thinking about some other pressing issue in their world, or preparing their next response. We cannot fully focus on two conversations simultaneously. Our internal monologue wins anytime someone is talking to us while we are talking to ourselves. 

Another common example of active listening backfiring is when we fail to deliver on a set of directions and expectations we have received. Maybe our spouse, boss, teacher, or friend has asked us to take care of something for them. From their perspective, we appear to be attentive and engaged so they believe we acknowledge and understand the request. Fast-forward to when we fail to follow through, and they feel personally disrespected because we have led them to believe that they had our commitment when we hadn’t fully listened to what we had committed to. 

Appearing to attentively listen should encourage someone to share more information. However, you may end up damaging the relationship if the roles reverse during the conversation and that person asks you questions you can’t answer because your mind wandered. The same risk applies if people expect you to retain the information they shared, and you either never receive it, completely forget it, or must return to ask them again at a later time.

The second potential issue with active listening is the perceived authenticity of the listener. Listeners who robotically respond, interject at awkward times, or consistently rely on the exact same verbal and nonverbal prompts can appear insincere and damage relationships as a result. 

Many years ago, I went on a camping trip with another family. We were all sitting around the fire late one night when an unexpected argument erupted between another couple. The wife stormed off and I ended up sitting at the fire alone with the husband. He told me how he felt about the situation and asked me if I understood where he was coming from. I answered, “absolutely,” because I felt like I truly did. He immediately looked at me and asked, “Do you? Because you always say ‘absolutely.’” I was taken aback. I really did feel like I understood his position, and I definitely didn’t want to appear humoring. Thankfully, I was able to recover and give him a specific example. That night, my unconscious response almost created a real problem, even though it came from an authentic place.

A third issue with active listening involves the potential for our verbal reflections of the speaker’s perceived feelings harming the relationship. The overwhelming majority of adults do not enjoy being treated like children, especially when they are feeling vulnerable. Telling someone what you believe they are thinking or feeling, or what you believe they should be thinking or feeling, can be received as an assumptive and parental approach, which might shut your counterparts down. 

In fact, the word “you” is among the most dangerous words in the English language. The more a listener responds with the word “you,” the more the speaker may feel his or her self-image is being attacked, which risks putting them on the defensive. We will discuss this idea in greater detail in chapter 13. This trap can be avoided by framing your response around the issue, not the person. For example, don’t say: “I can see that you’re angry.” Say: “Being treated that way can easily make people angry.” Don’t say: “You’re clearly upset.” Say: “People can only take being ignored for so long before they become upset.” Or “Feeling upset is a valid response.”

Finally, there are two opportunities that active listening doesn’t expressly address: What should we be specifically looking for during our critical conversations, and what do we do with our observations? Active listening illustrates how to convince our audiences that we are intently listening. Active listening focuses on evaluating the words spoken, observing body language, and emphasizing the importance of responding empathetically. However, the process doesn’t go into great detail on how to increase the power and accuracy of our observations, or how to activate the valuable intelligence we focus on picking up.

1) Keep Continuous Eye Contact. Distractions come in a variety of ways: thoughts about not liking the speaker, finding them dull, not liking their voice, noise coming from outside the room, noise coming from outside the window, feeling hungry, thinking about how your date with the girl in accounting is going to go later tonight, etc. As Tony Robbins says, “Where attention goes, energy flows.” During this team meeting, your job is to give the speaker 100% of your energy, not your thoughts about them (or tonight’s date). Do so by keeping continuous eye contact with them, not bringing your attention anywhere else.

2) Avoid Reframing Responses While Others Speak. Another place your thoughts may go is to formulate answers while the meeting leader speaks. Perhaps you are simply inspired and want to excitedly answer or disagree and are bursting to interject. To actively listen, our brains need to be silent and focused. If we’re thinking about how we will answer, it’s physiologically impossible for our brain to fully listen. This puts us in danger of missing what the speaker is saying. At meetings, when someone is speaking, practice actively focus on them and every word they are saying. When the speaker is done with their point, pause for a few seconds, then begin to formulate your response.

3) Pay Attention to Sense-Based Language. Some of us learn visually, others auditorily or kinesthetically; generally, we have a preference. But did you know people will give away their learning preferences as they talk? For example, they might say, “Can you picture that?” or “It’s not so black and white” (visual); “Like music to my ears” or “That rings a Bell” (auditory); “I feel that” or “Working hand in hand” (kinesthetic). Make a point to really listen for these sense-based predicate phrases, as the speaker is unconsciously giving away how they learn and want to be spoken to! How can you use this to your advantage? In your conversation after the meeting, use similar sense-based language to create unconscious rapport with them!

4) Connect, Detail, Construct, Invent? Like with sense-based language, you can listen even more deeply for the methodology behind how the speaker communicates their message. Are they focusing on the big picture? (Connect). Are they statistic/fact-oriented? (Detail). Are they talking about the actual physical actions to be done? (Construct). Are they brainstorming possibilities? (Invent). I call these four profile types one’s “Processing Power.” They’re four main ways people synthesize or “process” the information they take in. Just like with sense-based language, they’re giving you an unconscious hint about themselves, so pay attention to which of these four profiles they’re coming from. When you formulate a response, you’re much more apt to be “speaking their language” when you hit a “Connect” personality with a “Connect” response! You can learn more about sense-based language and processing power profiles in my book “Unlock Inner Genius.”

5) If You Don’t Understand, Ask for Clarification. Even if you’re listening very clearly and attentively, you still may not fully understand. If this is the case, it is absolutely on you to let go of the wallflower routine and respectfully ask for clarification during a break or pause. This will help clear things up for you and show the speaker that you are listening attentively and care about getting their message accurately. Plus, it will help you avoid that awkward post-talk conversation in which you’re suddenly asked your opinion on something you didn’t fully understand!

The business world, like the world at large, is more complex than ever before. While that’s largely due to the pandemic, other factors have come into play. There is the influx of those in Generation Z into the workforce. There is ongoing evolution of technology. There is the tilt toward environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG).

In short, the entire landscape has changed, and it is incumbent upon business leaders to do the same, lest they fail to negotiate their new surroundings. They must have a greater understanding of their reports, a great understanding of what it takes to motivate them – and, increasingly, retain them. Leaders must be more aware, more agile, more adaptable. Failure to do so means failure, period.

The Gen-Z factor alone has led executives to rethink their leadership styles. The Pew Research Center considers anyone born after 1997 to be part of that age group, and it has reached a point where Gen-Zers comprise nearly a quarter of the workforce. 

While it is always dangerous to over-generalize, those in this demographic grew up under tougher economic circumstances than Millennials, having seen nationwide economic slumps in 2001 and 2008-09. As a result they are more likely to hang onto a job than their predecessors, who tend to hop from one to another after two years. And certainly Gen-Zers are no less driven to succeed. They expect to earn a promotion after a single year in a job, and believe that in time they will earn six figures.

For those reasons, they have no qualms about working outside the parameters of a 9-to-5 workday, and welcome an employer who provides flexibility, in addition to opportunities for professional growth. Moreover, they prefer a collaborative environment, not one featuring a traditional top-down structure.

Finally, they want to make a difference. They yearn for things like greater diversity, social justice and sustainability, for a company that strives to meet ESG goals. The best companies understand and embrace that, knowing that it is in their best interests as well. A 2020 McKinsey study concluded that diverse enterprises are more profitable than those that are not.

The best leaders fully embrace that, and meet their employees halfway, creating an environment characterized by transparency and collaboration. John Hall, co-founder and president of a company known as Calendar, writes for Inc. that leaders would do well to understand what they don’t know, and learn from those on their teams:

Those who have not been humbled by recent world events are doomed to fail. Leaders should be OK with acknowledging mistakes, identifying lessons learned, and getting back to work. Employees who watch it happen will become more resilient and be willing to take greater risks as well.

This speaks to the necessity of having emotionally intelligent leaders – i.e., those who are self-aware, socially aware, empathetic and capable of managing themselves and their relationships. Central to that is having excellent communication skills, especially in an era where the workforce is often scattered (with hints that that might continue, even after the pandemic is over). 

A recent Gallup poll showed, however, that only 19 percent of U.S. employees believed that management communicated effectively after the pandemic broke out, up from 13 percent beforehand – a strong indication that leaders still have miles to go before they fully engage their reports.

Indeed, such engagement is crucial for establishing a company’s vision for the future – for making clear something like its ESG action plan, how it hopes to incorporate cutting-edge technology like artificial intelligence and quantum computing and how, exactly, it hopes to foster greater trust with customers. The 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer, a measure by the U.S. consultancy and public relations firm of the public’s belief in different institution, showed that while 61 percent of respondents trust in business – more than non-governmental organizations (59 percent), government (52 percent) and media (50 percent) – the overall results are seen as being disappointingly low for all concerned.

That trust needs to be rebuilt, from the inside out, as opposed to the top down. An example would be the Clif Bar and Company, which lists among its five aspirations sustaining people, sustaining the planet and sustaining its business. The company’s leadership seeks to do that by paying employees a living wage, and by trying to make possible a healthy work-life balance. Additionally the business produces a plant-based product, and aspires to develop zero-waste packaging.

The ultimate goal, as executive vice president Roma McCaig told Katherine Klein of the Wharton Social Impact Initiative, is to create a “virtuous cycle where productive growth allows us to deliver positive impact, and positive impact allows us to continue delivering productive growth.”

It is a noble goal in this day and age, when the needs of the workforce have changed dramatically, to say nothing of the world at large. But that is the mission that business leaders must embrace, as they forge ahead.

Leaders can activate their teams by helping them capture and share their stories in ways that acknowledge their superpowers.

I remember so clearly the morning that I stood at the bottom of the stone staircase, staring up at the larger-than-life building before me. I had just walked through a massive iron gate that wound around the perimeter of my new workplace, and I could feel my chest slowly tightening with uncertainty. It was September 2001 and my first day working on Parliament Hill for a political office in my home country of Canada.

The lead-up to this day had been three months in the making. I bought the right outfit, researched my new boss, read up about the history of the building. I tried to be ready. But there are some moments that you can never truly be prepared for. And this was one of them. Because there I was, walking into one of the most fiercely competitive places in the country with a coffee in one hand and my arts degree in the other. I had never taken a political science class in my life. I didn’t know what the various parties stood for. I didn’t know how any of this would work. But somehow, I had landed there. And I felt like an alien that had been dropped on the wrong planet.

It’s been said that it takes a few months to get your bearings in a new job. When I left politics three and a half years after that day in September, I still felt completely out of place. And looking back, 20 years later, that feeling of not belonging ended up giving me one of the best gifts I could hope for: the gift of starting to understand my own story and realizing the benefits of sharing that story with others.

Getting to Know Our Authentic Stories 

As I navigated my way through the political landscape of Parliament Hill, I came to learn about the nuances of a universe I had previously known nothing about. Committee meetings, legislative agendas, and the House of Commons became part of my day-to-day routine. I dressed the part, talked the part, and walked the part. And yet, I always felt like an outsider there. My lack of political background seemed to haunt me, like the shadows that followed me through the underground tunnels connecting the three main parliament buildings.

On my last day working for the member of Parliament who first hired me, I knocked on the thick wooden door to his office and asked if I could come in to say goodbye. He’d always been an incredibly kind man, and I needed to tell him how grateful I was for the opportunity to step into his world. We sat on the oversized couches next to his desk and talked for a bit about what would come next for me.

As our conversation came to a close, I knew this was my last chance to ask him the question that had been on my mind since the day I first stepped foot in the building. “Why, of all the people who applied for this job, did you hire me?”

A puzzled yet delighted look spread across his face, and he leaned back in his seat as though to ponder the question a bit longer. “Nearly everyone here has a master’s degree in political science, Gen,” he replied, boldly stating the very words that seemed to cage me in isolation. “They know everything about politics.”

“But here’s the thing,” he continued. “I can teach you politics, but I can’t teach you how to communicate with other people effectively. You either have it, or you don’t. And you have it. Your arts degree and your ability to connect gave our office something that most other offices didn’t have: the ability to demonstrate our love of people — not just our love of politics.”

It took everything in me to hold back my tears at that moment.

He smiled. We hugged. He thanked me for my time serving his office. And I walked out of that building, understanding something I had never understood before: Not only did my own authentic story matter, but it mattered to other people. Furthermore, my story became intricately woven into a much bigger story in the workplace. And it’s a story I feel so thankful to have been a part of.

We each have these kinds of superpowers that we bring into our workplaces. So the question is: Do we know what those superpowers are?

Unleashing the Heroes on Our Teams With Storytelling

Humans are natural storytellers; we’re constantly seeking to complete a picture or connect the dots. And in the instances where we lack the appropriate information to do so, our brains automatically fill in the blanks with our own stories. Sometimes, those stories are rich and empowering, leaving people filled with a sense of belonging. Other times, they become detrimental to ourselves and those around us, leaving people feeling isolated and irrelevant. This raises a specific question: What would be the benefit of sharing our story and exploring it more intentionally?

How different would my political experience have been had I thought to ask my haunting question much sooner? How different might all of our work experiences be if we understood what special superpower we bring to the table?

The reality is that the workplace is changing along with our relationship with our work. Employees are seeking more purpose, connection, and well-being. They want to belong to something bigger than a bottom line and a profit margin — they want to be a part of something they believe in. Leaders are the key to making that happen. By helping your employees become part of an authentic story, you help them become heroes within your team. Here are a couple of ways to make this happen:

1. Share your own story with others.

It always starts with you. As the leader of your company, you have the opportunity to build a foundation of truth, authenticity, and vulnerability. The example you set will pave the way for all those who work with you. And part of that example is being honest about your own authentic story. What led you to where you are now? What obstacles have you faced along the way? What do you stand for as a leader? What do you feel really good about as a leader? What are areas you would like to work on? How you go about sharing your story with others can vary, be it through internal newsletters, team meetings, or one-on-one check-ins. All of these stories give your team a doorway into the bigger story of you and the company, not to mention imparting a sense of belonging.

2. Encourage your team to uncover their authentic stories.

Now that you’ve shared pieces of your story with others on your team, it’s time to start weaving the thread of everyone else’s story. Each person you work with has walked their own road to get to where they are. That road has likely been filled with trials, victories, and rewards that have all shaped the person they are today. That road has also gifted them with the unique strengths that they bring to your team. Leveraging honest storytelling to unearth your team’s superpowers is a powerful way to help team members recognize their unique contributions to the goals that you’re all trying to accomplish.

3. Allow your team members to see the heroic nature in each other.

It’s one thing to recognize the heroic nature in yourself, but it’s a far more impactful experience to see the heroic nature in those around you. Bringing your people together to share their stories with others on the team will reveal the humanity and courage that might not be naturally visible within a workplace setting. Seeing the superpowers of those around you — and hearing about the dragons that had to be slain to get those superpowers — is an incredible way to build high-performing teams. It provides team members with a sense of trust, psychological safety, and humanity, reminding people that they’ve all had their own battles to overcome.

Sharing our authentic stories and the challenges we’ve all faced along the way will bring your teams closer and create a foundational anchor for moving forward as the workplace changes. Because once we see the hero in one another, we start to ask: “What can we heroically accomplish together?”

Female ‘techpreneurs’ are taking their place in Africa’s male-dominated fintech boom, but gender bias makes it harder for them to access finance and grow their businesses.

When financial analyst Oluwatosin Olaseinde moved back home to Nigeria in 2013 after a decade studying and working abroad, she decided it was time to tackle her own finances, so started reading up on stocks and mutual funds.

Shocked at how little guidance was available for young professionals like herself, Olaseinde began sharing her learnings in fun, bite-sized tutorials on Instagram, and much to her surprise, her posts went viral.

“I had no idea my page would just blow up,” said the 34-year-old by phone from Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos.

“Just like me, there were young people who wanted to know how to manage their finances, but needed information in an easy-to-understand way.”

Almost four years on, Olaseinde heads MoneyAfrica, an online financial literacy portal providing courses from budgeting and currency risk to inflation and treasury bills, and more recently also founded Ladda, an app-based one-stop investment platform.

Collectively, the platforms have a 300,000-strong social media community and more than 15,000 active users. MoneyAfrica is projected to earn $1 million in revenue this year, said Olaseinde, and Ladda has $700,000 in assets under management.

From digital payments, loans and insurance to share trading and cryptocurrency, Olaseinde is among a growing number of female entrepreneurs in nations such as South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Egypt taking a lead in Africa’s fintech revolution.

Since pioneering mobile money services in the late 2000s, Africa has become a hotbed for fintech – financial technology – innovation with an explosion of startups vying to tap the region’s unbanked millions.

Last year, fintech companies attracted more than 60% of the nearly $5 billion in investments to African startups, according to market intelligence and research firm Briter Bridges.

For female entrepreneurs, however, getting their innovations off the ground is often hampered by gender biases that stifle their ability to access finance, gain exposure and grow their businesses, industry experts and women founders said.

From 2013 to 2021, less than 5% of the total $12.6 billion in funding to Africa’s tech startups went to all-female founding teams compared with 82% to all male-ones, data shared by Briter Bridges showed.

BREAKING INTO THE ‘BOYS’ CLUB’

But while the sector is very much a “boys’ club”, research shows Africa’s fintech sector fares better than other regions when it comes to women at the top.

Around 3.2% of fintech firms in Africa are founded solely by women – double the global average of 1.6%, according to Findexable, a market research company that tracks gender diversity.

The continent’s fintechs also have more female board members compared with other regions, Findexable’s 2021 data shows.

Trailblazers include Kenya’s Jihan Abass who founded Nairobi-based Lami Technologies in 2018, aiming to boost almost non-existent insurance coverage among Africans.

“I became interested in insurance after having a conversation with a waiter who told me how he didn’t have medical insurance,” said Abass, 28, a former commodity futures trader at a London trading house.

Lami’s application programming interface, or API, enables businesses to offer flexible digital insurance products such as vehicle and health insurance to customers.

Through its API, users can get a quotation for motor, medical, or other insurance products in seconds, then customize the benefits and adjust the premium to suit their needs and get their policy documents instantly.

Since inception, Lami has raised more than $1.8 million in seed funding and partnered with companies including Kenya Commercial Bank and e-commerce platform Jumia to sell more than 72,000 policies.

Lami now operates in Malawi and the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as Kenya, and also runs Griffin, a car insurance app fully built on the startup’s API.

Another female-led API fintech company is Lagos-based Okra, co-founded by Fara Ashiru Jituboh.

Launched in 2020, Okra aims to digitise financial services for Africa. Okra has built an open finance platform that enables developers and businesses to build personalised digital services and fintech products for customers.

“Essentially, we play the ‘middleman’ by enabling individuals and businesses to connect their bank accounts directly with third-party applications in real-time,” said Jituboh, 33, a former software engineer.

In less than two years, the startup has drawn more than 400 clients, including more than 20 banks in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, and has raised $4.5 million in venture capital.

But despite such success stories, many female fintech entrepreneurs struggle to attract investment.

Funding Gap

The stark funding gap between male- and female-led startups in the sector is often attributed to the shortage of female “techpreneurs”, but some industry experts disputed this.

“It’s nonsense for investors to claim that there aren’t any women entrepreneurs in fintech to invest in,” said Martha Mghendi-Fisher, founder of African Women in Fintech and Payments, a non-profit with a network of thousands of members.

“Investors are simply not looking hard enough.”

Female fintech founders said that even when they do have the opportunity to pitch to venture capital (VC) firms, gender biases mean they often raise less and receive lower valuations.

“I don’t think it helps that the majority of VC panels tend to be men who are white and much older,” said Faith Mokgalaka, founder of Johannesburg-based Puno, a digital platform enabling farmers to sell shares, or a portion of their next harvest.

“They aren’t openly sexist, but you do feel there is more scrutiny on you compared to men. More questions are asked, additional documentation and due diligence is required,” added 22-year-old Mokgalaka.

A recent study cited by Findexable estimates that white men control 93% of venture capital dollars.

An increasing number of accelerators – which provide early-stage companies with training, mentorship and financing – and venture capital firms are now shifting focus to women-led businesses.

The Catalyst Fund, an accelerator working with inclusive tech innovators, has supported 61 companies – more than one-third of them founded by women.

Maelis Carraro, the fund’s managing director, said investors need to rethink how they interact with female entrepreneurs.

“The whole setup in the VC space such as the Q&A, the aggressive pitching, the need to demonstrate over-confidence has to change,” said Carraro. “We need to make the whole conversation more inclusive.”

More diverse VC boards, programmes to encourage girls to pursue STEM careers and initiatives celebrating successful women founders would inspire others and foster a more supportive environment, entrepreneurs said.

“It’s a ‘tech bro’ environment, for sure,” said Delila Kidanu, 26, co-founder of Koa, an app-based savings and investment platform in Nairobi.

“It would be important to have some training on gender biases so that people can realize how their actions and decisions can adversely affect women entrepreneurs.”

By Nita Bhalla, Editing by Helen Popper.

To bring back women who have left the workforce, it’s up to employers to create an environment where women can prosper and meet their family obligations with no resistance.

A shocking number of women have exited the workforce since 2020 — as many as 3.5 million, all told — but we can reverse this disturbing trend if those of us in leadership positions operate with purpose, compassion, and creativity. Hiring more dynamic women on our teams and into deserved leadership roles means better business, after all.

But before we can encourage women to come back to work, we need to understand why they left. For far too many, the choice wasn’t made by them. Instead, the daunting and unrealistic expectations thrust upon them by a society coping with a global pandemic decided for them. Women historically have tended to carry the load at home, as noted in a piece from the Brookings Institution, and that load has only gotten heavier during the pandemic. 

According to a 2021 survey from MetLife, almost half of women say their career paths have been disrupted due to COVID. About one-fifth told MetLife they couldn’t continue working for reasons outside their control, yet two-thirds vowed that they were planning to come back.

Those promised returns haven’t happened. In September 2021 alone, more than a quarter-million additional women left the workforce, per CNBC reporting. By contrast, the World Economic Forum suggests that men are globally on a trajectory to return to 2019 work levels any day now.

Meeting the Needs of Women at Work

Look through today’s headlines, and you’ll find plenty of worrisome pieces discussing the current labor shortage fallout. While employers across the country have gone on record saying that they can’t find qualified candidates, many talented women are at home contemplating whether rejoining the workforce is even worth it. 

So what can be done to reengage this latent talent pool? It’s up to employers to create an environment where women can prosper and meet their family obligations with no resistance. Empowering and supporting women to shine as brightly as possible might mean thinking outside conventional working constructs.

It’s a lot to unpack, but the process to clear a path for women to start submitting résumés en masse is worth it:

1. Teach leaders how to manage with empathy

Admittedly, I was a less than sympathetic leader to the mothers on my team when I took my first management position. Why? I hadn’t become a parent yet. I had no comprehension of what it was like to have real priorities outside of work. It’s not that I didn’t care; I just couldn’t relate to what it was like to have so little downtime. After all, being a parent is a 24/7 endeavor that always takes precedence.

Businesses must train their leaders to acknowledge and respect the personal lives of working women. I have a great example of how this can play out, too. When I was the mother of a 2-year-old and pregnant with my second child, my male boss offered me the role of company president. He understood what far too many leaders don’t: Just because I was juggling family and work didn’t mean I couldn’t be a bigger asset to the organization or even take up the helm. Once in this role, I made it a deliberate practice to tell my team when I was leaving early or taking a personal day to be present with my children. Sharing this explicitly with my team set the tone that it was acceptable for them to do the same when needed. 

2. Empower women to control their schedules

Ambitious women, particularly those with younger children, have hectic calendars. From sports practices and recitals to doctor’s office visits and early school dismissals, moms often feel like they have to be in two places at once. Of course, this is impossible, as everyone knows. But plenty of companies can allow their employees to adjust their schedules as needed.

For example, your organization might not be able to offer remote work all the time. However, you could potentially offer it as an alternative a few times per week. Remote work is hugely empowering. A Catalyst survey found that having access to virtual work arrangements made moms about one-third less apt to say goodbye to a job. Consequently, consider bringing this and other types of flexibility into your working procedures. Just make sure that women who take advantage of scheduling freedom aren’t penalized by being passed over for promotions or salary raises just because they occasionally work from home.

3. Refresh outdated hiring and mentoring practices

When sourcing new talent and looking over résumés, rethink what employment gaps may mean. Historically, employers have seen gaps in a negative light. Don’t fall into the trap of assuming that a temporary employment pause means that the applicant is flighty or irresponsible. It’s likely quite the opposite. I’ve found that mothers who leave the workforce temporarily and are ready to come back often have much greater productivity than the average worker. 

Being a mother breeds efficiency, problem-solving, and leadership. If you can get a toddler or a teenager to follow directions, leading a team of adults feels like a walk in the park. And once you’ve found great women to bring aboard, help them avoid stress and burnout by giving them access to formal or informal mentorships so they understand that they can pave their paths and be rewarded for leaning into their novel skill sets.

Women still want to climb the corporate ladder and make their mark. And research shows that when they do, businesses are more profitable as a result. So the onus is on the current leaders to lend them a hand. You’ll be amazed at how quickly a determined woman will blaze an impressive trail after receiving a bit of encouragement and support.

The companies and businesses that survive have leaders who model the kind of resilience that makes them change proof. They are undaunted by events and so are the companies that they lead.

I often wonder why some people are more resilient than others. What particular set of circumstances makes them able to withstand the slings and arrows that life rains down upon them with dignity, humor, and grace? 

The truth is, nobody knows for sure if resilience is something you are born with or something you just learn. But we know resilience when we see it. We know resilience leaders when we meet them. Take Monty Williams (pictured above), for example. You may not know that name offhand, but he’s a recent example of someone who embodies resilient leadership. 

Monty Williams was a journeyman NBA player where he bounced from team to team until he landed with the San Antonio Spurs organization, who helped him transition from playing to coaching. Today, he’s the NBA head coach for the Phoenix Suns. By all accounts a wildly successful life. It was, until everything in Monty Williams’s world changed forever. 

In 2016, when he was a coach with the Oklahoma City Thunder, his wife, Ingrid, mother of his five children, was killed when a woman with meth in her system and a dog in her lap crossed the median on a highway in downtown Oklahoma City, going over 90 miles an hour colliding with the Williams family van. The dog owner, Susannah Donaldson, died on impact along with her pet. The three children who were in the vehicle with Ingrid survived, but she succumbed to her injuries the next day.

In less than a week, Monty Williams was delivering the eulogy at Ingrid’s funeral in front of his five children and almost a thousand members of the NBA community. With almost superhuman control Monty spoke for just over seven minutes without referring to his notes or losing his composure. In calm measured tones, he spoke about forgiveness and about the need to move on. He was, in his own inimitable way, saying you have to love your life. No matter what. Even at his lowest moment, he was living out his resilience. In a dark and lonely valley, Monty Williams could have chosen despair. But he didn’t. He chose to be resilient. 

When I think about resilience I think about people who aren’t undaunted by events but no matter what happens, they maintain some fundamental core of what makes them who they are.  Like most resilient people, Monty Williams chose to be moved to grow. How did he do that? And how can we do the same thing for our organizations?

The American Psychological Association defines resilience as “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or even significant sources of threat.” 

Dennis Charney of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai New York and Steven Southwick at the Yale School of Medicine performed an analysis of resilience by talking to people who had experienced traumatic events like war, sexual abuse, acts of terror, or natural disasters and asked them simply how they dealt with the awful things that happened to them. What they found was that some folks who had experienced tragedy eventually began to suffer from depression and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), others had mild symptoms of trauma that went away after a period of time, and still others had no symptoms of psychological distress or depression. Their research identified the main factors marked for resilience: 

• Attention to health and good cardiovascular fitness
• Capacity to rapidly recover from stress
• A history of mastering challenges
• High coping self-efficacy—our belief in our own ability to succeed
• Disciplined focus on skill development
• Cognitive flexibility—the ability to reframe adversity in a positive light
• Positive emotion and optimism
• Loving caretakers and sturdy role models
• The ability to regulate emotions
• Strong social support
• Altruism—service
• Commitment to a valued cause or purpose
• Capacity to extract meaning from adverse situations
• Support from religion and spirituality 

Based on what I’ve observed, Monty Williams likely would have some if not all the preceding markers for resilience, perhaps almost all of them.

We’re going to be unpacking each of these markers. We’ll be addressing them from a holistic perspective. That means that they’ll be applicable markers for you and your performance, but if you’re a leader it will also help you diagnose and help your teams and organizations  

Resilient people are the ones who don’t just bounce back, but are able to bounce forward. It’s not just about getting back to where you were, it’s about getting further than you were. It’s about letting change change you.