Neena Newberry  
Strength isn't showing that you're good at everything and you know all the answers to everything, it's creating that space to allow other people to come in and be part of the solution and to collaborate together and provide support to figure out, how do we solve for those things that feel unknown?

Hello and welcome to Love as a Business Strategy, a podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We're here to talk about business. We want to tackle topics that most business leaders shy away from and we believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. I'm your host, Jeff MA and as always, I'm here to have conversations and hear stories with real people about real business and real life. My guest today is Nina Newberry. And Nina launched Newberry solutions in 2008 to focus on her passion for developing strong leaders, especially women. A former Deloitte executive, her experience includes 14 years of strategy operations and human capital Consulting and a role on Deloitte us HR executive team that supported 34,000 employees. Nina is an award winning speaker, author and executive coach, and her insights are regularly featured in Fast Company and Forbes. In the past two years, Nina was named by D CEO Magazine as one of the Dallas 500 the most powerful business leaders in Dallas. She's an official member of the invitation only Forbes, coaches Council and teaches an executive education at SM us Cox School of Business. Nina is also active the community, serving on several non profit boards and committees, and I'm really honored to have her join me here today. Nina, how are you doing today?

Yeah, I'm doing fantastic. Thank you so much for having me on on the podcast. I am really looking forward to this conversation. Me

too. Me too. And your passion for developing strong leaders, especially women. Can you kick it off by helping me understand a bit of that story? Or where did you find that passion and where has it led you?

Yes, well, it started during my years at Deloitte. So I was part of Deloitte women's initiative from the very get go. So Deloitte was one of the leaders in this space. So it was back in 1993 when they launched their women's initiative. And so I had an opportunity to participate in that as a client service professional, but also later in my career, as you mentioned in your introduction, I was part of the HR executive committee. I had responsibility for taking some of that thought leadership that we were putting out in the marketplace and really looking at, how do we operationalize that? What does that really mean in terms of the conversations that we're going to be having with our employees, and what are some of the programs that we need to have in place to support that. So it's been there for a long time, but I'll tell you the the real thing behind it for me is that women tend to underestimate themselves all the time, all the time, and I will tell you from the executive coaching and leadership development work that we do when you help a woman see herself look out like when she sees herself her strengths and what she brings to the table, and can actually step into those It is incredible the things that women Do, and you see, the research and data out there about investing in women is not just about investing in women. It results in investing in much more broadly, in communities, because women tend to reinvest that way. So it's pretty powerful. So it's been a focal point for me for a long time. That is powerful.

And, you know, kind of jumping right into this, this concept of underestimating and that powerful statement you made. You know, women tend to underestimate themselves. Can you dig a little deeper into that, like maybe why that's the case, or how this trend or came to be uncovered and understood more,

yeah, well, and part of this, you know, certainly the experiences that we have working with leaders over time. But there's a bit of that, you know, that question of how much information, how much data, how much evidence do I need to have in order for me to be able to to really have a strong sense of conviction around something, right? So there's, there's a difference in the level of confidence that people just kind of bring right out of the gate. So I think, you know, just thinking about how we're socialized, you know. Men and women that there are absolute differences in terms of how we're socialized, and you see that carry forward into day to day conversations, into decisions. And sometimes what what happens is you see people focusing more on the gap versus what they're actually bringing to the table. But you know, there's, I don't know if you've ever heard of that HP study that was done years ago, but the data still still holds today, the the amount of knowledge that someone has to have or expertise, you know, before they will raise their hands for that next job you know, so what percentage would they have to have? And with women, they they feel like they have to have 100% of the capabilities and expertise to do that next job. Whereas men, I think the number was around 60% right? Wow. I mean, that says a lot. Yeah, that says a lot. And so some of this is helping people notice the track record that they have, you know, the evidence that shows the good decisions that they've been making, how they've been carrying that forward, the impact that they've been having. So one of the fun things about the leadership development space is that it's not just about looking at the gaps. It's helping people notice their strengths and amplify them. So if you truly want to have a bigger ripple effect, you can't just focus on the gaps. You have to think about what are those strengths that I bring, but also, how am I getting these results consistently? Because once you start breaking it down into your steps, your methodology, you can teach it, you can teach it to other people, and then you can create a much bigger impact, so that those are some of the things that we end up focusing on.

I love that, and that's that's a wild kind of study result to see such a drastic difference between men and men and women, and you mentioned that it was, I guess, socialized behavior. Is there any study or any evidence pointing to like, what elements actually contribute to such a difference in, in how, I guess, women view, I guess, specifically in that, in that test, it was about a promotion or a new job, I guess. But I have to imagine it applies to many other things in terms of just underestimating themselves.

Yeah, I think the other piece that comes up a lot when you when you think about women, is is just the environment itself, like what's acceptable behavior for a man versus a woman, and a woman just like being mega assertive and, you know, over the top confident, that's not typically what's acceptable behavior. It just isn't. And so I do think you know, people appreciate confidence and enthusiasm around things, but there is that fine line. So I think one of the things that women are constantly wrestling with is what's okay versus not okay? And you have to get to a certain point in your career where you feel a lot more confident. It's like, look, this is who I am Take it or leave it. You know, I've proven myself. I've gotten consistent results and and you start to see differences in how authentic or authentically you know that people are showing up, but authenticity comes up as a big thing in conversations with women all the time. You know, when I'm coaching men versus women, authenticity doesn't come up as much unless you know the person comes from, you know, maybe a different kind of cultural background, or they might be an immigrant, you know, to the United States. You know, other factors there when there are strong cultural influences that come into play.

So I know you do a lot of work to develop strong leaders, especially women, so you're working with women to find that strength in themselves and that confidence. I'm curious, though, with with kind of a problem, like, I wouldn't call it a problem, but with with the world the way it is right now, who is it on? Or what percentage would you say? Is it on when, in terms of actually getting to a better place? What I mean is there's this some level of onus for each individual person to find their own strength, find their own confidence. But like you said, there was a systemic piece of how all of this came to be like. For instance, what what role do I play as a man or as anybody else in the workplace to make it so that a strong, assertive woman is no longer not acceptable or seen a certain way? How do you view the entire kind of system? Yourself personally?

Well, I think the system is evolving. You know, it's definitely evolving. But, I mean, there's still so much, so much room to grow around all of this. And I think the the more women are in the workplace, and also, frankly, men who have, you know, daughters or other strong women as part of their families, who are trying to be successful in their careers. That's where you see some shifts happening as well. You know, I'm speaking later today to a group of women, but there will absolutely be male allies in the room. I actually had a couple of men reach out to me and say, you know, I'm specifically attending because there are women that are part of my family that really matter to me, and I want to understand how I can help them, like, what are the specific strategies? And so that's fantastic. I think there are plenty of allies that that are out there that when you look at the data, the data is that, I mean, the needle is not moving nearly fast enough, and so, you know, there's women have to be able to empower themselves, but we also have to keep challenging the way things are and and for people to be more and more willing to speak up, and for it To be a safe place for people to speak up. So you look at how workplaces have shifted over the past few years, it's such a mixed bag in terms of what's happening there, and that has absolutely affected relationships. So you know, are people in the same office or not, or are they constantly looking at a screen when they're talking to each other? How much time are they taking to get to know each other? Because I think some of it truly is that investment that happens upfront around developing those strong relationships and then continuing to maintain them and and leverage them as you continue to move forward in your career. So I don't know if I got to everything you wanted me to touch on, but no,

that's perfect and, and if you don't mind, I actually do want to move into more of the specifics. I know you're not going to cover it all in this one conversation, but can you, can you glean a little insight into what the approach is for people who are underestimating themselves, women or otherwise, to find that voice and that strength. What are the steps that you usually take, or what are the starting points?

Yeah, well, so it's interesting, like in in our approach with with any leader, regardless of what their goals are, we always start off by going through an exercise of helping them think about what do they truly want to be known for, as a leader, and that is such an important exercise. And it may sound like what's the big deal, but what we do in that exercise is help them identify those top three things, but then link it to Why should anybody care? Meaning, what kind of impact are you able to drive because of those three things? What are those consistent results that you get because of those three things? What ends up happening through that conversation is there's a connection back to strengths as valid as well as core values, and their purpose starts to really shine through in it as well. And so that allows people to start showing up with a heck of a lot more intention. It's like, oh yeah, I am doing all of these things, but are people really connecting the dots and understanding that? That's what this is really about? Because you typically end up seeing like a thread that kind of weaves through all of these elements, because it keeps saying some of the same things, and you just realize, like, what their purpose is and their orientation. So that's one piece of it, the other part of it as well, though, is making sure that you yourself are noticing your own results and impact. And that may sound, again, like a really simple thing, but I'll tell you, there are so many people who do not do this. So really, just pausing to say, what did I actually get done? Whether it's just this week, like whatever time frame you want to look at, what have I actually accomplished? And again, what is the so what? Why should anyone care that I accomplish that? But even if all you do is take five minutes a week, or even two minutes a week to just, just write down a few things that you're pretty excited about, that you got done, no matter how big or small, and link it to, what are the implications of this? What's the so? What and how is this really going to have a positive impact? It starts to keep that stuff swirling. Around in your head, you can bring it back into conversation much more quickly. It changes how you start to see yourself and how you show up. And that's one of the things I love to focus on, is to challenge people to really think about how do you want to show up in your next conversation, in your next meeting, and how can you do it in a way that reinforces those things you want to be known for as a leader, and to showcase some of those core strengths and impacts that you're having?

So it sounds like foundationally, people need to be developing a strong sense of purpose and identity, first and foremost, as a foundation and then bringing in kind of more self awareness of their own capabilities, results, impacts, yes. And build from there is that right?

Yes, yes. And then the next step from there is making sure you're sharing it right. It can't just be doing the exercises. You actually have to share it with others, because that's what's really going to start making shifts in terms of how you're viewed and how you think about yourself, because you need to be able to articulate it to others and and then it starts to change how people start engaging with you, and that confidence shifts, the kinds of opportunities you get pulled into, shifts, and it can happen pretty quickly. This is about just being consistent. So, you know, we're big on small steps lead to big results. So these are two pretty small steps that you can take, and you just did these two things, and nothing else. For the remainder of the year, it will make a difference. I

find this so interesting. I think in in the work that I do with leaders, so much of it is self awareness, but it's funny, because so often I'm I'm hyper fixated on a lack of self awareness, but not from the positive spectrum that you just kind of painted, more from a lack of self awareness of like how they're treating other people negatively, how they're making negative impacts, how they could be coming off not the way they they intend to or expect to. All these other pieces of self awareness are such a huge focus, and I haven't really paused to think about a lack of self awareness of, like, the good that you do, and the lack of self awareness of the positive impacts. And I think that's really, really powerful and important, and it creates a more holistic understanding of self awareness for me. So I appreciate you bringing that, that piece of the puzzle.

Yeah, no, it's, it's, well, we're all focused on those things that aren't working. But one of the, one of the things I'll tell you, even in those behaviors where you know you might not be showing up in the way that you you want to, right? So that lack of self awareness around some of those things, there's usually some real positive intent behind it. So that first exercise that I mentioned is a great way to understand some of that, because sometimes we get really pushy or assertive, or we communicate in certain ways, because there's something that matters so much to us and we're not pausing enough to think about, how am I actually coming across, and how I'm communicating this. So even those things where, you know, maybe you're saying I'm lacking self awareness around something that's not landing on people in the best way, there's usually something pretty important underlying it, you know. And in some cases, it may also just be stressed, right? When we're really stressed out it, we show up in different ways, but there's still usually some positive intent behind it. Most people don't go running around just trying to be mean, you know, and unkind to people they really don't. And you know, even even those who you know, can show up in a really rough way, there's still something that they're trying to get done that's positive.

Couldn't agree more. Just got to find out what that is. Yes, yes. So kind of on this, my curiosity goes to, I guess, let's just picture a very quote, unquote, accomplished leader, and I'll make it I make her female, just for this purpose, a strong, you know, kind of like the woman CEO that everybody looks up to. And I know that's very generic, but I'm using it as an example of my line of questioning, which is, what in your in your experience working with someone like this, do you find that they've already developed these strong senses and self awareness and kind of their, their their not underestimating themselves, or is it still possible that those things you know lurk beneath? Is this something that is apparent to all, or is it something that. People could be struggling with behind the scenes? No,

I think, I think a lot of people still struggle with it. So just as context, right? You, we coach VPs and up in Fortune, 100 companies primarily. And this still comes up. Everyone has their stuff. They just do. So there may be certain things that they've absolutely worked through, but this whole thing about noticing your strengths and noticing what truly differentiates you that doesn't always come out for people, and especially, you know, you think about these giant jobs that people have the amount of responsibility them going from one thing to the next, they're not necessarily always, you know, creating that time to reflect and pause and say, Okay, I need to be really intentional about some of these things. But you definitely see more confidence, more awareness around strengths. But you've gotten a lot of feedback, you know, by these later stages as well. But on the flip side, the higher up you go, the less feedback you get. So you may have gotten a lot of feedback leading up to where you are, but now are you getting any? Probably not very much. Yeah, you know is what is what ends up happening. So that I think the people who are more effective around some of this have created environments where people feel very open to share information with them, so if they ask for feedback, they'll get it. Or, you know they or they have certain people that they really trust and can go to and to just get a better sense of, like, how am I coming across? So those peer relationships tend to become even more important. Yeah,

and I've noticed, like so much about building strong leaders so far has been a lot of self work. It's been a lot of internal and, you know, personal work. But obviously, the role of a leader is to lead others. Can you talk a little bit about, I guess, the work in the in the focus areas when it comes to, I guess, leadership and like, the interpersonal pieces of the equation, like, what, what are leaders like, like you mentioned VPs and up in these fortune one hundreds, like, what are they needing to work on when it comes to other people?

Well, I will tell you, most of the coaching work that we're doing at the senior levels. There's a lot of it around, how do you collaborate and influence and work across different parts of the business, right? So it's there's a whole lot of influencing without authority that comes into play. You can't make someone go do something you want them to go do, yet you're on the hook for delivering things that require involvement from a lot of different people in the organization. So there's a there's a lot of focus on, you know, developing those relationships, making sure that you're really helping people feel like they're being heard and their perspectives are being considered. But, you know, so that that comes up a lot, you know, it's like, how do I, how do I move people forward? And especially when all these matrix, structured organizations, it's not simple. It's definitely not simple. So, and you know, power comes up a lot, May as you might expect, when influence is in the mix. You know, power is, is a key piece of that. And so there's informal power, formal power and and also how to navigate through that when people are really using their power to try to get their way. So there, there's a lot of that that's happening.

It seems more complicated than we'll be able to cover for the rest of the few minutes that we have. What? Let me ask you this, and I love this question for many people, but I'm curious for you, what's one behavior that you see every great leader do? What's a behavior that you'll see every great leader do?

Yeah, I the first word that popped into my head was vulnerability, really, and I think that's such an important one, like showing vulnerability, meaning recognizing that that is a way to demonstrate strength. Strength isn't showing that you're good at everything and you know all the answers to everything, it's creating that space to allow other people to come in and be part of the solution and to collaborate together and provide support to figure out how. Do we solve for those things that feel unknown, right? And to surround themselves with really smart people to help do that? So I think that that's a really important one, and there are a lot of leaders that never learn that lesson like ever and and it's tough because we live in an environment where there's so much uncertainty, and people need to know that it's okay not to know, but together, we can figure it out. You know, there if we each bring if we notice our own strengths, we step into those, and we can bring them and combine them with other people's strengths, we absolutely can figure it out. But if it doesn't feel safe to even admit that you don't know that's a you're starting from a totally different place, you've already kind of eliminated the possibility of certain things coming together.

Does, does the power of vulnerability tie into our conversation around underestimated underestimating ourselves? Like, can you connect those dots?

Yeah, I think, well, what's interesting is, I think people do feel the very vulnerable, right? So they're sitting there underestimating themselves, but and then people aren't necessarily talking about it, right? It's like I may be hiding out with my stuff, and you may be hiding out with your stuff. And so the need to be able to start noticing, okay, what's the stuff we do have versus that gap? And even just starting with, well, what can we do, even if we don't know the full answers, right? I mean, all of this is about latching on to a couple of things that start to give us forward momentum, whether that's on an individual level or whether that's in a broader team. You know, as as an executive within an organization. It's like, How can I create that space for people to start looking at what they do bring so we can fill in those gaps? I love it.

Last question, it's just something you said earlier that made me very curious, because you said one of the starting places for any leader is to answer the question, what do you want to be known for as a leader? So you know, what do you want to be known for as a leader?

Oh, my gosh. Well, I will tell you, one of my biggest passions is around helping people see themselves and really step into who they are, right? So our, I didn't mention this, we have a leadership development platform called new lens. But the reason it's called new lens, like the tagline with it, is it's about helping you see yourself, helping others see you, and leading through a new lens. So it that's what I'd like to be known for, is that I've helped people really see themselves and step into it. I

love that. And for people who do want to get to know you more, how can they reach out, find out, learn more, connect. So

our website is Newberry solutions.com, and and I am all over LinkedIn. I would say, please follow me on on LinkedIn. I am constantly sharing information out there as well. So between the website and LinkedIn, I you know you will definitely be able to connect with me. Awesome.

Jeff Ma  
Well, Nina, I really appreciate the time you spent today, sharing with us and taking the time to really drop that wisdom on us. I really, really, really enjoyed the time today.

Neena Newberry  
All right. Me too. Thanks so much. 

And to our listeners, we hope you enjoyed this conversation with Nina, and there's many more to come. This year. We've got a lot of great guests. So we hope you continue tuning in and checking out the book Love is a business strategy, if you haven't, and we have a new edition of love of his business strategy coming out. It should be coming out right around the time this airs, so please do check that out, and we'll be seeing everybody in about two weeks on the next episode. Have a great one you.