As a senior leader, dealing with day-to-day events can be stressful. We can become so use to the stress that we automatically create coping mechanisms to survive the stress we feel, rather than manage it from the start.  In this episode Lillian Lartey shares her story of experiencing chronic stress and burnout, what she did to recover, and how she helps others to manage stress, particularly those who are introverted and highly sensitive.

This discussion will inform you of ways to manage stress, so that it doesn't cause harm, but rather develop a level of resilience to it.

About Lillian

Lillian Lartey helps ambitious, highly sensitive people who feel tired, stressed, overwhelmed or burnt out, reset their health and well-being, so that they can achieve their aspirations, goals, and passion projects with energy, calm, balance and resilience.

As a qualified Health and Wellbeing Specialist, and Transformation Coach, Lillian has experience in the industry stretching over 20 years.

Based in the U.K., Lillian’s work has led her to speak at conferences, workshops, online platforms, radio and television media. She does group trainings for organisations, community and social networks, and is a published writer in Healthy Woman Magazine.

Find out more about Lillian and her work here https://linktr.ee/lillian_lartey

We have seen thousands of people lose their jobs over the past year as a result of the pandemic, and for some people, staying motivated whilst looking for a job can be challenging. Inge Tyler is the co-founder of The Zurich Job Alliance, a non-profit organisation for job seekers and in this episode, she shares tips and advice on how to stay motivated if you are looking for a job, as well as strategies on how to set out your CV.

Find out more about Inge at https://deref-gmx.net/mail/client/nnJV5Ze7MW8/dereferrer/?redirectUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fapp.elify.com%2Fvbc%2F3ypjag5qff

In this episode I discuss reconciling cultural norms with introversion, and how introversion can be symptomatic of your environment with Andrea McLean. Born in Jamaica, Andrea's cultural upbringing was one where you respected those in authority (especially those more senior), to listen carefully before responding, and not to brag.

On relocating to the USA and working in extroverted environments, Andrea realised the need to get her voice heard and that self promotion was necessary, which did not reconcile with her cultural upbringing. She learnt to adapt in order to be seen and to be heard, whilst being her authentic self. 

Andrea is a corporate executive with over 25 years of experience leading globally diverse teams in consumer servicing and communications. She works for The Estee Lauder companies based in NYC. During her career she has managed global teams, led the startup of an Americas consumer care call centre, developed consumer feedback reporting and analytics for senior leaders, and created consumer communications strategies and global policies. 

She currently leads a Consumer Care Global Center of Excellence for Compliance. In this role she ensures that global consumer servicing operational processes and activities meet all privacy and regulatory compliance requirements. Prior to Estee Lauder she worked for American Express and Nestle USA. 

She is passionate about developing women and is actively involved in the Women’s Leadership Network and is a mentor for young women within her company and at a local University.  Andrea is pursuing her certification as a career and executive coach.. 

Imposter syndrome and perfectionism often go hand in hand, and something many introverted women leaders experience. Mel Stanley talks about turning them into a benefit, about women trying to act like men in order to be accepted as leaders, and more...

Mel Stanley is a specialist in Career, Leadership and Personal Brand Strategy working with aspiring professional women who want a fulfilling, purposeful career.

Mel has 25 years experience of Marketing and Brand building in large network agencies and blue-chip Corporates. She secured her first Advertising Agency Board position aged 33 and on the Corporate side has headed up the Consumer Retail team at BT and was latterly Head of Marketing and Brand at EDF in the UK and a Non -Executive Board Director of Smart Energy GB. She is also an Ambassador for Women on Boards (www.womenoneboards.net) and mentors’ future leaders as part of the Women’s Utilities Network (WUN) and Women and Communications Network London (WACL)

Mel started FirstWoman because she was frustrated by the lack of diversity at senior levels and was tired of seeing brilliant, talented women being overlooked for promotion and opportunities, with many including herself leaving the workplace to start their own ventures. In response she decided to use her years of Brand and Marketing experience to help other women overcome their barriers to progression by developing an authentic and consistent leadership brand, based on their own unique and very personal strengths.

Find out more about Mel at www.FirstWoman.rocks

We are all different, even with the common thread as introverts; we possess a variety of other skills and talents that we have gained through our careers. Our values and natural strengths drive our ability to operate effectively within a situation. Awareness of the values, natural strengths, skills and talents that make us unique is critical to leading ourselves and others.

Aree Bly shares how listeners can discover their own alignment landscape - where they are aligned, where they are learning, where they are able to support others, and where they need to avoid - so that they can navigate intentionally to find success more easily.

Aree spent 25 years in a successful actuarial career, much of which was spent as a senior leader. She has led large projects to assist clients with meeting government regulatory requirements and to forecast the impact of healthcare policy changes for state governments. She has directly managed teams of actuaries and non-actuaries, as well as partnered with human resources leadership to develop key training initiatives and design programs to increase soft skills.

Her career took her through both consulting firms and health insurance companies. In each of these environments, she honed both her technical skills as an actuary, and more importantly her ability to work with many different people to support them in their careers and personal growth. In both formal and informal leadership roles, Aree has coached her colleagues in business and life. She helped to develop internal mentoring and coaching programs to support the broader teams, teaching others how to be a heart-led leader that leans on listening to identify the best paths forward.

Today, as an alignment coach, she focuses on helping others lead and succeed by identifying and navigating through their values, strengths, and skills.

Find out more about Aree at https://AlignmentAlly.com 

In this episode, amongst other things, Jennifer Blake discusses introversion through the lens of MBTI and why it can help women leaders with a preference for introversion to show up more authentically.

Jennifer is passionate about the positive impact that great leadership can have in the world and focuses her work and energy on building leadership capacity, capability and confidence; working in partnership with individuals, teams, organisations and communities.

She has held a number of leadership roles within the public and community sectors, over the last 30 years, and has worked for a number of organisations within the voluntary/community sector, local government, the NHS, and further and higher education across the UK. She provides expertise to clients through Consultancy, Coaching and Interim Management to support organisations in the areas of Organisational Development, Business Change Management and Management/Leadership Development.

She utilises a range of concepts and models in her work ranging from the simple such as JOHARI Window to psychometric profiling including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

Jennifer has co-authored/contributed to 3 books in 2 genres; British/black history and women’s leadership.

Find out more about Jennifer and her work at http://changepartnershipuk.com/.

Alexandra Bond Burnett is a speaking and impact coach for finance professionals. She started out her career in corporate finance and worked her way up. A car crash in her mid 20s, woke her up to the fact that she was not doing what she really wanted to do with her life, and she made some big changes. She went to drama school to pursue a career in the performing arts.

Armed with both industry and practice experience (including founding her own accounting practice) and professional acting training, Alexandra delivers a potent mix for any finance professional wanting to expand their presence and impact.

Whether it is speaking up in board meetings, or public speaking in front of a larger audience, speaking up confidently and being influential and impactful with it, is something many introverted women find challenging. Alexandra shares some golden nuggets that will help you to speak up confidently, influentially, and impactfully.

Find out more about Alexandra at https://www.speakingambition.com/

Karen Dwyer is the founder of MS to Success and is passionate about supporting and guiding people living with Multiple Sclerosis. Karen is keen to share with others what she discovered on her own journey back to health having overcome MS. Her mission is to guide women with MS on how you can use a disease diagnosis as a catalyst to transform every area of your life. Several years ago Karen had a successful corporate world and whilst her career was succeeding, her health hit rock bottom, struggling with living with MS. It was a really difficult decision to give up a thriving career and be dependent financially on someone else.

Going from managing a team in a radio station and having forged a career to suddenly stop was not something that was planned.

The next couple of years were very confronting, with pressure on managing her physical health as well as the psychological aspect of losing an identity and not knowing what was on the health cards - it took a WTF moment to set herself the goals of making herself happy and healing herself of MS. Everything began to change from there.

Karen shares aspects of her journey and how she rebuilt her confidence after 2 significant periods of adversity in her life.

Find out more about Karen and here work here.

In a survey I did when carrying out research for my book Quietly Visible: Leading With Influence and Impact as an Introverted Woman, 53% of introverted women who were senior leaders said that they experienced imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is not exclusive to introverted women, extroverts and men experience it too. Some reports say that 70% of people experience it. In this episode I talk about steps to take to overcome it.

If you are an introverted women and a senior leader and want to identify what you can do to increase your confidence, influence and impact, take my Confidence, Influence and Impact Assessment for Introverted Women Who are Senior Leaders here.

Subscribe to my Quietly Visible newsletter on LinkedIn here.

Being in certain overly stimulating environments can be energy draining for introverts so knowing how to manage your energy levels is important if you are to be at your best. If you are introverted, here are some tips that will help you to stay energised in energy draining environments.

If you are an introverted women and a senior leader and want to identify what you can do to increase your confidence, influence and impact, take my Confidence, Influence and Impact Assessment for Introverted Women Who are Senior Leaders here.

Subscribe to my Quietly Visible newsletter on LinkedIn here.