Leading Through Uncertainty: Essential Resilience Skills for 2025.

“Adaptability is the number one skill set we need in 2025 and beyond. The ability to pivot, stay composed, and problem-solve in real time is what will separate strong leaders from the rest.” – Cynthia Pong

In this episode of It’s an Inside Job, I sit down with award-winning executive coach, speaker, and thought leader Cynthia Pong, founder and CEO of Embrace Change. Cynthia specializes in career advancement and leadership development, particularly for women of color. As a Forbes contributor and LinkedIn Top Voice, her expertise has been featured in Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic, NPR, and NBC.

We dive into leadership in uncertain times and explore the skills necessary to lead oneself and others through change, volatility, and complexity. Cynthia shares strategies for sharpening self-awareness, building adaptability, fostering resilience, and creating psychological safety in teams. If you’re navigating leadership challenges in 2025 and beyond, this episode is packed with insights and practical tools you can apply right away.

Key Topics Covered:

Adaptability as a Core Leadership Skill – How to pivot and respond effectively to change
The Power of Self-Leadership – Understanding your sphere of control (what you control, influence, and cannot control)
Managing Panic & Uncertainty – Overcoming the brain’s negativity bias and staying grounded in difficult moments
Deep Listening & Effective Questioning – Strengthening communication by asking the right questions and truly listening
The Role of Silence in Leadership – How intentional pauses can encourage reflection and deeper insights

Bio
Cynthia Pong, JD, is an award-winning executive coach and speaker who empowers women of color leaders to advance their careers into positions of power. A Forbes Contributor and LinkedIn Top Voice for Job Search and Career, she has been featured in HBR, The Atlantic, and on NBC, CBS, NPR, and more. As Founder and CEO of Embrace Change, Cynthia leads an elite, all-BIPOC team who provide specialized coaching and training programs for high-performing women of color up to the C-suite. Equipped with Cynthia’s strategic guidance, her clients break down barriers, lead with authenticity, and have collectively negotiated over $750K in salary increases. Her Anthem Award-winning Leadership Accelerator program has propelled women of color to prestigious fellowships, promotions, and top graduate program admissions. Cynthia’s book, Don’t Stay in Your Lane: The Career Change Guide for Women of Color, has cemented her as a foremost voice on career advancement, negotiation, and thought leadership.

Contact
LinkedIn:  https://linkedin.com/in/embracechangenyc/
Facebook:  https://facebook.com/cynthia.pong.7
Instagram:  https://instagram.com/embracechangenyc/   
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/embracechangenyc
Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/cynthiapong/ 
Website:  https://www.embracechange.nyc
Book:  https://www.embracechange.nyc/book

Chapters

• 0:16 Introduction to Resilience and Leadership
• 2:32 Adapting to Uncertain Times
• 2:46 Meet Cynthia Pong
• 4:30 Understanding Adaptability
• 9:54 Managing Panic and Uncertainty
• 18:48 Skills for Building Resilience
• 32:58 Shifting Focus to Team Dynamics
• 34:16 The Importance of Psychological Safety
• 41:22 Foundations of Leadership
• 45:48 Building Trust with Your Team
• 53:58 Advanced Coaching Techniques
• 1:03:05 Final Thoughts and Reflections

Transcript

[0:00] Music.

[0:06] Welcome to It's an Inside Job, the podcast where we equip you with actual skills to build resilience, enhance communication, foster well-being,

[0:14] and lead and coach with impact. I'm your host, Jason Lim, and every Monday we bring you expert insights and real-world stories to help you thrive and succeed. And with that said, let's slip into the stream.

[0:27] Music.

[0:35] Hey folks welcome back to the show i'm glad you could join me for another monday episode well we are several weeks into 2025 it's hard to believe that we're a quarter of a century into this new millennium and if you've been following the news the last few weeks, you've seen that the world is, well, it's a different place slightly than it was in 2024.

[0:59] And it looks like the change, the uncertainty, the volatility, the risk is only going to accelerate. And so today's episode, I'd like to dedicate it to understanding the skills that we need to lead ourselves and others through these uncertain times. And so today I have joining me Cynthia Palm. Now, Cynthia is an award-winning executive coach, speaker, and thought leader dedicated to empowering women of color to break barriers and to step into leadership. She's the founder and CEO of Embrace Change, and that's based out in New York City. Cynthia and her team specialize in career advancement and leadership development. She's a Forbes contributor and a LinkedIn top voice. And along with those accolades, Cynthia's expertise is also being featured in HBR, that's Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic, and major media outlets like NPR and NBC. Now, in this episode, we're going to dive into leadership in uncertain times, exploring the skills behind that. It's how to sharpen self-awareness, how we can build adaptability and what that actually means when it comes to building this internal resilience, this tenacity, this fortitude, this psychological strengths within ourselves. You're also going to learn if you manage or lead people or are part of a team or organization.

[2:20] Well, how to create this connective tissue resilience within the team, the people you work with, how to create psychological safety,

[2:28] and just importantly, How can we navigate uncertainty? How can we deal with the unknown? So with that said.

[2:36] Music.

[2:47] Back to It's an Inside Job. Today, all the way from New York City, I have Cynthia Pong. Cynthia, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Jason. I am really excited to be here. Could we kick off the conversation by you introducing who you are and briefly what you do and maybe what you specialize in? Of course. So my name is Cynthia Pong. I am the founder and CEO of Embrace Change, which is a career coaching and training firm. We do specialize in working with women of color or, you know, women who are from any sort of minority, marginalized background, mostly in the States, but we do have a bit of a growing global presence. And yeah, it is our mission to get all women of color the money, power, and respect that they deserve in the workplace.

[3:32] And I think in our interview or our pre-meeting per se, we talked about maybe exploring the necessary skills that leaders need managers need we all need whether it's managing ourselves or managing others when it comes to 2025 and beyond because as we talked about there is the volatility there's the uncertainty there's a risk of well there's de-risking there's more nationalism uh the woke culture is slowly moving away which is kind of good in my perspective uh we're talking about ai machine learning climate change a lot of things are coming at us relatively fast and that's what i'd like to explore with you today so perhaps we could talk about what do you see let's start quite general what do you see as the general skills or the needed skills we need moving into 2025 start where you may with that open question.

[4:30] Um, so this I think has been growing for some time, Jason, so it may not really be a surprise to those listening and such, but the skills around adaptability, being able to be nimble, being able to pivot, not being thrown off by a lot of things coming at you, a lot of changes. You know, I hear from people a lot that they're aiming for this, what I think is like that false arrival fallacy of like, I just need to get to this situation or these factors just need to get in place. And then, you know, as if we're going to arrive at some sort of stasis and then everything is going to be great, we're going to have security, we're going to have stability, things are going to be predictable. We have to understand that I don't think that that's what we're looking at in 2025 and beyond. There's a lot less of that sense of predictability. And so adaptability, particularly for leaders, and you do work with leaders from all kinds of backgrounds across industry and all of that. Adaptability is the number one skill set that we need. And that's going to help everyone de-risk their career and de-risk their leadership trajectory because things that used to be guaranteed, they're really not anymore. So let's open that up. Adaptability is a very interesting word. It talks about evolution, development, growth, learning, bending over backwards per se.

[5:54] Let's open it up. Let's get a little more nuts and bolts. How would you operationally define adaptability?

[6:02] I guess operationally, I would break it down to a couple of things. So your ability to.

[6:12] First, and I love because this is, it's an inside job, right? So to me, it all starts with the mindset and the mental first. Exactly. Right. So let's say you're, you know, you're executing on a plan. There's some sort of initiative or project that you're moving forward. You know, you get from A to B, and then all of a sudden there's a big wrench between B and C, whatever that is. So the first step is you got to win. I talk about this a lot too, Jason, in career and leadership. It's part mind game, part numbers game. So this is where the mind game comes in. We got to make sure we win that mind game at that first juncture where there's something that we didn't expect. You know, I don't know, the whole, the budget cup holds or such and such is going to cost 10 times more now. So we have to win the mind game of, okay, let me understand and be able to assess that this is the new reality. What are these parameters? How does that impact how we move forward? And how do I, as a team leader or whatnot, like keep this, you know, keep morale up, keep the team kind of moving, make sure that people are not freaking out, that they're not, you know, everybody is stressed and overwhelmed. So I think a little bit of a tinder in the tinderbox can go a long way these days. So leaders in particular really have to hold it down for their teams and ground their teams. So that's the first thing I think operationally. When that unexpected thing happens, the thing that your worst case scenario starts coming true, how do you make sure that you don't go to panic mode and that you actually can take a step back?

[7:40] Re-ground in what's important, actually assess things analytically, and then make sure that you move forward with the next steps. When, you know, your higher-ups are yelling at you, when, you know, accounting and the budget people are telling you this sort of thing, everybody wants something from you, how do you keep this still grounded and methodical? So that's really the first one. But I don't know what your thoughts are on this, too, because I bet you've got some really good gems. Yeah, I mean, my background, as my listeners know, is in clinical psychology and the cognitive sciences. And change, challenge, complexity is constantly coming at us. And I agree with you from the get-go of this conversation where there's no going back to some normal or some, it's, I think, change and complexity is just part of the ecosystem. And that's, that adaptability is a good word. For me, if a leader is not going to go into panic mode, he or she needs to have gone through the gauntlet themselves and experiences. Sometimes I think she's the best teacher to allow us to understand how we how we show up in stressful situations because we don't really know ourselves until we're put into such situation. And again, that's my particular opinion on this. Yeah.

[9:01] So let's rewind. For me, I think it's important that a leader or a person themselves, whether it's a colleague, a leader, a manager, whatever you want to put a title on them, they need to be able to lead themselves before they're able to lead others. This mind game, per se, to find that stability, that buoyancy and mindset. Because for me, panic or negative thinking is sort of the natural tendency or default of the brain because of negativity by survival and such. So how, from your experience, Cynthia, how does someone deal with panic, deal with uncertainty when it shows up on their doorstep uninvited? Oh, that is such a complex, multi-layered question, and I love it. So let me just start. Yeah, exactly. I'm just going to start where we will, and I think we'll kind of peel back the layers or whatnot as we go.

[9:54] But one of the things, and in my kind of executive coaching work, whether it's individual or with groups. We talk about this a lot because I do tend to work with people who have experienced, past, and I'm using this in a non, I would just say I'm using this in a non-clinical way. I'm not a therapist. I'm not a psychologist. I'm not trained in that. I'm very big fan. I'm very much a fan of those things and have had a lot of it myself. But I'll just say kind of a lot of our clients in our community have experienced things that have been traumatic to them in the workplace. So by that, I kind of just mean maybe they've experienced situations where...

[10:36] You know, they were kind of trained through going through this experience that they might be stabbed in the back around something. They might do something one way, but be accused of having screwed something up. They are often sort of the fall person when things get really hard. So that's just a couple of illustrations of an example of things that have left, I'll just say kind of very sharp memories and experiences. So the next time, if, and when something comes along and it's not what the plan was, what the plan was, then it's very easy for them to go immediately. And like you said, the negativity bias, like all of that fight or flight, that is all coming in. And then there's a tendency to go right to that. Oh my goodness, because a happened now the Z catastrophic worst case scenario that happened to me in the past is going to happen. And so I think that piece, figuring out how people can recognize that that might be a factor for them, working, of course, with, you know, their therapists, their healers, whoever it is that they have in their life to try to get them to unpack that and realize, okay, that happened to you in the past. How do you basically heal from that? How do you process that? How do you understand that that may not be the destination every single time you can choose a different response? You know, even if it is going to go from A to Z, you can choose to meet that set of circumstances differently than you did in the past.

[12:03] And, you know, we have a lot of ingrained stuff, both from our upbringing, schooling, you know, all kinds of academic institutions can can leave a sort of mark that I think is hard, you know, and not always a positive thing.

[12:20] So, yeah, that that's the first thing kind of that that comes to mind. And we have to acknowledge, process, and then only once you do that, can you figure out how do you move forward in a different way. No, I think that's well said. I think, as you said, the past is not a predictor of the future. Just because something happened that way does not mean it will constantly play out that way. And what I hear is that self-awareness or self-insight is a very important skill to understand patterns, to understand how we react to situations or similar situations. But then to have the insight to understand that to walk ourselves back from the edge and saying that just because this happened yesterday or two days ago or two years ago does not mean it's going to play out like that again. Right. Right. And even if it does, it is always different. It's kind of like, you know, I think about the metaphor of a stream never flows over the rocks the same way. I'm totally butchering that. But, you know, you get the idea if you stare at a stream and never it never flows exactly the same way. And that's how we are too in our leadership. I love that you said earlier about you got to lead yourself before you lead others. I think that's 100% true. And the work really, whether we talk about it as, you know, professional development training, this sort of leadership, you know, accelerator, this, that, or the other, all of it is really about.

[13:41] Supporting each person to better know themselves, because that's the most important relationship, really. It's not you and your direct manager. It's not you and your direct reports. You have to know yourself so that you can then be the leader you want to be, be the colleague that you want to be. But a lot of it, I do think goes back to the stuff that I've personally learned through therapy of like locus of control, you know, understand what you control, what you don't. And then your agency always to choose your response. Yes. And so that would require you to catch yourself in the moment, to be more present in the here and now, to be able to catch yourself in the moment, right? Right, right. I think that fine distinction between what you control and what you don't control is something that is very important and it's the ability to delineate these two.

[14:36] Right, right. I have this sort of graphic that I talk about, you know, on YouTube and with clients and things, which is like a couple concentric circles. So there's inner circle, a middle circle, and then a wider one. And to preview it a bit before I break down what those circles mean, a lot of times the kind of pain that people are in as leaders or, you know, up and coming or even established leaders is because their circles are not calibrated to the reality. So keep that in mind The first inner circle Is the things that we actually do control So that is our responses What we do or we don't do Our behaviors, our conduct And to an extent, our thoughts Not like those necessarily automatic ones But after that, right? And then the middle circle Things that you do not influence But you can Sorry, that you do not control But you can influence So that might be things like, You know, you're you're trying to negotiate something with the CEO and you make your strongest case. You have a chance of influencing that, but you ultimately don't control what the CEO says or does. So that's that middle circle. And then beyond that is really the things.

[15:50] The global things, the systemic things, all of that, that we as individuals do not have any control over. So it's usually between those first two circles, folks are either thinking that they can control more than they can. And it's like, no, actually, the best you can do is try to influence that. But ultimately, you don't, you know, you may do your best to put your best foot forward for a certain promotion, but that's not within your control, whether you get it or not. You know same with interviewing all that sort of thing um or they think that they control less than what they actually do and that sense of disempowerment also causes a sort of kind of pain in the disconnect so that came to mind in case it's helpful for anyone of like you know check in with yourself are you really discerning where that line actually is or might your line be a little bit off from what is reality so just to clarify so there's three concentric circles the inner circle is what i control my thoughts my feelings my emotions per se my attitude what i say what i don't say then the second uh circle or ring around that is what i influence that's where maybe i can persuade or influence the situation but i do not control it i might be able to push it a little but there might be some pushback and then the third outer concentric circle is uncertainty.

[17:16] Is what we don't control and those are the as you said the system uh systemic or the more global issues things that are far beyond what we can influence or control is that what i understand yes exactly so by having self-awareness by having insight about what we control and teasing apart what we actually do control if we can focus on that i guess the that inner circle would increase right would you say are more of our focus is there yes in that sense um if we're talking about the increase being sort of like the the amount of focus and attention and amount of emotional energy let's say that we're investing there that's right that's what i'm sense of agency or autonomy maybe exactly yes and also i think what flows from that is a sense of fulfillment, because you understand, yeah, I can try my best at this thing, but the ultimate result of that has actually nothing to do with me in the sense that someone else is a decision maker, some other entity is a decision maker. I don't need to internalize what happened there, but I can look and focus on, what I did and then like analyze that and figure out how to better lead yourself.

[18:30] So yeah, 100%. I think that's a great visual model to describe what you've talked about, the overarching skill of adaptability moving into 2025. And those three concentric circles, you might write it on a post-it or an A4

[18:46] piece of paper, just scratch down some of your thoughts. And through that clarity of seeing your abstract thoughts and emotions on paper of what you control or what you influence or what you don't control, that can give us a sense of agency and where we should focus our efforts and our energies. So I think that's a great tip towards adaptability. Yes, 100%. And that's how we kind of build that muscle so that, you know, and I love the way that you made it into an exercise because I think the visual externalizing of it will help people see, okay.

[19:17] You know, random check-in points during the day, nine times out of 10, I'm thinking about climate crisis or something and then you see like where it's landing in this which is kind of like a bullseye in a way it's like a target right the way that the circles look um and then understand you can reroute your thoughts back to the things that you do control and focus on that through which i do think most of us find more meaning versus feeling like things are out of control, you know like they are out of control but like that's that's the adaptableness that we have to we have to accept that certain things are but you know well it's part of the human condition right i mean it is just that's what we're wired and there's a lot of things beyond our control and it's maybe trying to hopefully to some degree find peace with that yeah and isn't that the lifelong journey really oh it is from cradle to grave yeah i totally agree yeah i know but if we come back to other skills or maybe should we open a little more up on adaptability? Are there other aspects or is there another skill sets within adaptability or outside of adaptability you think are key for 2025 and moving forward?

[20:32] I think we're very related to what we've talked about, but kind of the next level thing is building up our, and we kind of talked earlier about like the resilience, the set of skills around resilience. So building up our individual tolerance for change, continuing to expand and push our ability to accept, you know, and not just that whole human condition thing of like the knowing yourself better, accepting that there are many things that are unpredictable, and then also just making peace with how you can move forward. So as we increase our bandwidth and capacity to deal with things that are.

[21:13] Perhaps not ideal. And like, as we do this too, the sort of flip side of this, I think, Jason, is that we get better at our problem solving skills, our analytical thinking skills, things like that, because you can then start to see more of, okay, let me, we have XYZ plan, but let me figure out these three contingencies now that I know that there may be more things that I've got to adapt to. In case this is helpful, in my mind right now is this image. I don't know if the listeners or anybody will have gone through this, but it also works if anyone is like a surfer. I'm not a surfer, but I use this analogy a lot. But growing up in school, in physical education, in gym, when we had to like do these tests on things like that, one of the agility tests was you had to stand on a wooden board that was like on a cylinder, a wooden cylinder okay and then the balance yeah yeah the balance board right so you have to stand on it and then like maintain your balance and they time you and they see how long can you do that right i think about that a lot nowadays because that's kind of what we're going through all the time in the workplace and in life and the question is can you keep you know your knees soft and like know that you kind of always have to be in motion because things are constantly dynamic.

[22:36] And, you know, not fall off this thing. Or really, the thing to me is that you not give up, you know, because I'm okay even if you, like, have to stop and you fall to one side for a while. But are you able to then get back on and give it another shot? That's the metaphor that I think about a lot when I see people going through a lot of tumultuous situations, you know, reorganization, they just went through a riff, you know, things like that. How are you going to move through this and still stay on that balance board or get back on?

[23:07] I mean, if we moved it from sort of that analogy or metaphor, which I think is good, this balancing board on trying to stay supple, but to sustain our energy over the long time, regardless of the tumultuous or the turmoil that's hitting us. I mean, if we got more specific, I mean, what do you do or how do you help your clients find that, I don't know if balance is the right word or that, whatever word, that harmony, that balance? What are some specific skills that our listeners could benefit from? Mm hmm. Right. So I think the first practice that is helpful to think about is making sure that you have periodic, especially for the leaders, that you have periodic time when you're actually thinking about the bigger picture issues, because it's so easy to get caught up in the day to day of the operations. Right. That is always the temptation. And there are always five thousand fires to be put out. If folks are familiar with that Eisenhower matrix, I know it has a couple other names and things like that, too. But we need to make sure that they're spending enough time in that second quadrant on the top in that top row. Just to clarify. So it's it's important, urgent versus not important, not urgent. Right.

[24:25] So the way I usually think of it is the, let's see, the top row is the important things. The bottom row is not important, but then the left column is urgent and then the right column is not urgent. Great. And so we often spend all of our time or the bulk of our time in important and urgent, which makes sense. But where we often then neglect to spend a lot of time and, you know, energy is the important but not urgent. So those are the things that we are talking about here, like your long term career leadership development, maybe the bigger picture strategic thinking for the team or the particular project.

[25:08] Those kinds of things can fall to the wayside so the first concrete skill or practice I would encourage people to do is to work on that the the skill of having the discipline to block time periodically to be in that second second quadrant even though the temptation is always to be in the first one and again it's both mind game and numbers game right because the mind game is resisting the temptation the numbers game is putting in those hours and the minutes regularly over time, because you are building that muscle to do the bigger picture thinking. So that's one set of things. Another set of, you know, skills or practical to do that I, you know, recommend for folks is building up their... Okay, so I think in leadership, there's often this...

[25:57] Another myth of like leaders do it alone or like if you're really a strong leader, you're pretty self-sufficient and you could just do all the things and take care of everything um i think there's a specific twist on that for the folks that we tend to work with um because there is a lot um you know through culture uh kind of generational traumas that may reenact like you have to carry it all and if you ask for help that's weakness there's a lot of that to unpack. But the second set of things really has to do with, are you strategically putting together your own personal advisory board, your own community of people who can support you along the way?

[26:38] It's not only mentors. A lot of people are like immediately Jews and they're like, okay, I just need more mentors. And I'm like, it's not, it's not as straightforward as that mentors can be great, but like, you also need to think more carefully about this. Who are the people that are, you know, in serve different functions that are positioned in different places that are relevant to your where you ultimately want to go, the mission you're trying to achieve with your career, you know, who are those people? Who do you need to become visible to in this world of constant noise in this world that is so saturated? And then how can you become visible to them and build those relationships? So you have that community support piece. I think along the way in our modern workplace yeah we've sort of lost a lot of that sense of collectivity especially with how fractured the workplace is too you know like if you have a distributed team um if you're if you're back in the office but still i think we've lost something these last couple years of how to how to talk to each other how to relate to each other um against all the productivity demands as well so I know that's a lot and it's a big jumble it's not like super clear um but I would say those two things are our major skill sets we got to build that that strategic protected time to think um.

[28:00] About these things. And then also the, um, the skill I would say of, of building that network that you need. So let me just rewind. So the first major skill is to invest is not a cost, but it's an investment in time for those leaders, whether we're leading ourselves or leading others is to calendar that time in and to, so we can pre manage situations. So it's not cost of the tactical moves from day to day but it's the strategic big blocks that we need to get in place but as you said these are important things but at the moment they are not urgent of course part of that there's always going to be putting out fires that things that are urgent and important that's just right that's the reality of the situation right have to be 100 the second thing as you said is to find communities to build our tribe doesn't always have to be mentors but they It could be a sparring partner. It could be an external or internal coach. It could be someone who can support us. Because at the end of the day, I think that is a great piece of not just philosophy, but I think that's a great piece of actionable insight. Because if you look at any CEO of a company, he or she is constantly bringing in consultants to help them, right? To distribute the work. It's not a sign of weakness that, okay, we don't know this. This is a special legal matter. We need to bring in this law firm, right?

[29:28] It's a sign that you're investing in the know-how, the knowledge, and the experience to help you through whatever conundrum. Is that what I understand? So those are the two blocks, right? Yes. Okay, I just want to make sure I'm clear on that. Yeah. Yes.

[29:43] And I think to kind of continue what you're saying about the CEO, it's not a sign of weakness at all. It's being smart. It's showing that you care about outcomes. You know what I mean? Because everything has got to be collaborative these days. Everyone has their own blind spots. And even a really well-staffed team, they're still going to have their blind spots. So you know and to me that's not i don't think in terms of super binary zero or 100 it's never going to be 100 but are you doing enough due diligence to make sure that yes all the bases are covered but then i also am a person who believes that the sum is greater than the parts you know so like everyone can win from this when it's done well when it's done thoughtfully which goes back to that first bucket are you spending enough time with that big picture thinking and like looking at the numbers and understanding what is what is coming down the pipeline what are the possibilities how do you continue to you know stay agile supple with all that you know so to me it's all it's all very related.

[30:49] Adaptability is a simple word, but there is complexity within it. And when we open it up, we see there's a lot of granular detail. It requires a number of different skills that we can build, that we can develop. But that's not something that just comes with a flick of the switch. It takes time and we have to go through the gauntlet of complexity, change, and challenge to learn about ourselves. And as Cynthia said, it's the ability to pivot when we are faced with uncertainty. We may feel panic we may feel anxiety and worries and concerns but how do we move beyond that we can't stop those emotions but we can address those emotions and it's through experience understanding how we show up in those situations that we can learn and adapt and pivot and that's understanding our personal behavior our mindsets the things that we tell ourselves the stories the narrative that we tell ourselves about the situation and it's only through self-awareness and self-reflection that we can see where we are strong and maybe where we need to improve. And maybe those insights are not always what we want to see. They might reveal cracks in our armor, but that's okay.

[32:00] It's through those cracks in our armor that we can be better at regulating our emotions, making more thoughtful decisions, and set an example for our teams and the people around us. Now, Cynthia also talked about three concentric rings as a tool that we can use. The inner ring is what we can control, such as our behavior, our emotions, what we think, how we react, how we show up to the game. The second ring is what we influence, to understand that we can't control everything, but we can influence and persuade the situation around us. And the outer ring, well, that's being at peace with things that we can't control. And if we can come to terms and recognize this sphere of control, well, we can avoid unnecessary stress and frustration. And this mindset, well, it fosters resilience, prevents burnout, and we can direct our efforts and invest our actions towards meaningful actions.

[32:52] Then rather than worrying about the uncontrollable, getting lost in rumination and overthinking. So let's slip back in the stream with part two of my conversation.

[33:01] Music.

[33:13] So far in our conversation, we've talked about self-leadership, managing self, and you've given us a lot of practical tools that we can use in times of volatility and in risk and in uncertainty. So if we shift the conversation, if you don't mind, if I segue over to how do leaders or managers or project heads help their teams when facing the same volatility? So now they've, they've worked with themselves. They found some level of buoyancy, some level of stability, but their team is, is fractured. It's, it's, there's dissension in the ranks due to uncertainty due to whatever cutbacks or what have you is coming at them. Right. What are some of the primary skills that you feel leaders need to create that cohesion in chaos as we move into 2025 or further into 2025? Right.

[34:10] Right. So I have so many thoughts about this, but I guess, again, we'll start where we are and then get into it.

[34:17] So one thing that I think we mentioned earlier was on my mind when I was thinking of this conversation is the importance of leaders to be able to provide psychological safety for their teams is like higher than ever, like more stakes involved in this than ever, I think. And um a couple of years ago google did this study in their aristotle project i don't know if you ever came across it but it looked at teams and how they functioned or whatnot over some period of time okay i encourage folks to look into it but the one of the top indicators of the team's ability to function well and you know high functioning teams sort of thing was psychological safety and i think at the time like it was probably bigger news people are maybe more or acclimated to that term now. But what I mean by it, the way I think about psychological safety is a leader or a team lead project heads ability, to provide a space for their team to feel like they can admit that they've made a mistake, to feel that they can take a risk and try something even if they don't know if it's going to work out, their ability to open up and be a little bit vulnerable about certain things. That's kind of how I think about psychological safety in the workplace. And I think that is a really, really key, if not the keystone piece in people's ability to lead teams through this now pretty tumultuous time in 25 and beyond.

[35:46] How do you do that? I mean, I think it's a couple of things. One, it's deep listening, like deep active listening, the ability to resist the temptation to tell people what to do or tell them how to think about things, but actually ask them the right questions.

[36:04] And, you know, that's something I think we get better at over time, but certainly the irony is not lost on me. Like your ability to run this podcast, you know how to ask the right questions, right? So it's that skill set, right? I'm still learning. I'm still learning. I mean, as are we all, but like, you know, that's a way to hone it, right? So asking the right questions, leaving space, but actually this is going to sound a little bit like woo-woo or whatnot, But actually, there's there's a way that we can, I think, control and adjust our energy to make it to to implicitly and not through words, send the message that, you know, you can tell me how you really feel about a certain situation, even if it's admitting, you know, you did something wrong. Like, you can tell me that I'm not going to then try to make you feel bad about it, try to bring in like your shame response and like all that sort of thing. I'm not going to do that let's talk about it and then perhaps we can problem solve our way together through this, you know, that sort of idea. So the listening asking the right questions all of that bleeds into the all of that kind of comprises the.

[37:11] Um, creating psychological safety for somebody. And then I think another piece of this is the empathy. So I think we have to really be able to understand, you never fully will understand what it's like to be another person, but just at least the beginning growths of that to, to try, you know, and that falls into those emotional intelligence skills and stuff like that. But like, can you build empathy with someone? Can you show that you have empathy for their situation?

[37:39] Even if you would do something completely different right but but is that is that a bit of commonality there you know i think that's also very crucial to real psychological safety um and then so that's one bucket of it i think then you know i want to pause there and and see if you want to get into that more but then also i think the 201 is like can you coach somebody through what did you call it the 201 or yeah like like 101 i think that the basic foundational oh sorry sort of like class the class yeah yeah i got it got it sorry no no it's cool it's cool yeah just need to understand your vernacular i'm good yes yes um so level one step one foundation what have you i would say is the psychological safety piece and then once that's sort of there although you know things are not always sequenced out right they can be happening at the same time um then it's uh being able to coach someone up and that skill set instead of, you know, leaning on the other leadership types like authoritarian leadership type or, you know, those sorts of things. So let's explore sort of the foundational stones of what you've talked about as you've operationally defined psychological safety, because I think deep listening or active listening is very important.

[38:57] It's reflective because at that point, I think you made a very very salient point, is not always offering solutions, suggestions, advice. Sometimes it's just listening, allowing the other person to articulate their fears, their concerns, their worries, to hear their own voice. Because sometimes they've thought about it a thousand times, but by deep listening, by being present, by being there and just listening and exploring their opinions, their belief systems about some things.

[39:29] That allows them to actually hear their thoughts, emotions out loud. And then that in itself can be very cathartic. That can shift it from a problem to a possibility focus or subjective or objective or what have you. From tactical to strategic type of thinking. So I completely concur with that. You don't always have to offer advice. If you can just ask them, I always suggest, can I give you, would you like some advice? And if they say yes, doors open, right? Yeah, right. Yeah. And I love that, too, because you are constantly even in the asking of the question, in the hearing of the answer, in the taking actions consistent with their answer. Every time of the way, every step of the way, Jason, you're building that empathy with them. You're building that relationship and that feeling of trust.

[40:18] And I can't emphasize enough how much I've talked to you know past clients you know kind of like understood from clients who have then direct reports like kind of seeing through that like second third degree lens people just want to be seen they want to be heard they want to feel valued like they want to feel like they're a part of something you know and that I think is such a base human desire. And I think it carries over into the workplace, perhaps not for everybody, but for a lot of people. It's not, at the end of the day, it's not about all the bells and whistles we might think that it's about. It's a core thing. They want to know that you hear them and that you can see them. And that is going to happen through the process that you just described. Like, to be able to reflect something back to someone, it's going to bring them insights. It's it's going to know it's going to let them know that you heard them and it will just, I think, go so far because like we started, you were saying earlier,

[41:20] right? You've got to lead yourself before you can lead others. So if you're trying to lead others to be able to lead themselves better.

[41:27] You're not going to get there by just telling them each stick, by the way, that is that's totally a crutch. It's training wheels at best. And you're just going to try to, you know, they're going to become like someone who just mimics. That's not true leadership in any way. So, like, yes, I also am someone who believes like people have a lot of their own answers, you know. So how can you support them to figure out how to ask themselves the right questions? And then they can do that when you're not even there, you know, and then isn't that what we really kind of want to support? Yeah, so there's active listening, as we've talked about. It's truly listening and reflecting on what they're saying. And then it's almost like a coin where the heads is questioning and the tails is listening. And it's not you speaking per se, but asking questions. And I think what's very important that I've learned on this podcast is ask questions in a sort of a neutral sense. And it's something that I was taught in my clinical studies, but it's TED, tell, explain, describe, right? Because you can ask questions in a neutral way. Could you tell me a little more about your thoughts, Cynthia? Can you elaborate on your point of view? And that in itself allows exploration, not just for you to understand where they're coming from, But for them to dive deeper into maybe why are they thinking about what they're thinking or feeling?

[42:49] And I think the third part is empathy. And those are the foundational stones. But I just want to say one caveat. You know, for any of those young leaders or managers that have just taken over responsibility, there is going to be the basic human trust that your team has for you. But from my experience, you need to prove yourself. You need to create a track record because no one is going to be vulnerable. No one's going to just open up to you if there's no track record of being genuine, being sincere, being true, being there adept. Because if people just try it and fake it till they make it kind of thing, that superficiality is going to tank your credibility. And it just takes one momentary lapse of reason to completely derail the trust that people have in you. Not the normal trust, but I mean the deeper trust that I think you're talking about, the connective tissue of collaboration, of cohesiveness in teams. Is that what I understand you're saying, Cynthia?

[43:48] Yeah. And I'm notoriously bad at remembering phrases the same way that they are. But there's that thing about it takes forever to build trust, but only one second to break it. You know what I mean? And I think that that's really true. And absolutely correct. Like not everything that we're saying is going to be directly applicable at each stage of everyone's career and leadership. Like there is also some discernment that has to happen with like, OK, this is for me. That might be for future me, you know, file it away, play around with it, you know, maybe practice it up or something. But you're right. It's none of this is guaranteed. It's not automatic. Even experienced leaders, if they're coming in from outside, they're not going to have that trust and track record either. People may be even more suspicious of them, you know, or an infamous situation that we've had a lot of clients go through where they're the leader and they're, you know, their direct reports are kind of more senior than them in terms of tenure or things like that. So, you know, I've had a past client who rose up very quickly, became president, and the VPs reporting to her are, you know, 10, 15 years older than her. They've been in the game for longer, but it's like, how do you, you know. Yeah, that's a tough nut to crack.

[44:59] Yeah, very tough. But I want to, you know, to the practical nuts and bolts piece of, you know, the inside job, you know, ethos, the thing about building up this track record, what might be helpful to people is to remember, I say this as clients all the time, are your actions lining up with your words? Because to me that's a major way that trust is built and i tell them also to pay attention to it from institutions right from higher leadership are they saying something because in a way to manipulate you to give a certain response but then their actions are telling you something else you know like are they constantly like okay you just need more experience come back to me next year but meanwhile they're promoting everybody else and it's you all you know like you got to look at what are people actually doing and be really.

[45:49] Discerning we've already said but kind of put on your investigative hat about that and then as the leader yeah integrity to yourself and your own leadership and your leadership of your team are your actions lining up with the words that you said to them and you know if they're not okay again we don't have to put a judgment on it it can be very neutral um but what is that about you know what is the pros and cons of that and is that working you know no well said well said i think those are very salient points just because of time we've talked about the foundational stone here of listening questioning and empathy if we could hop it up to 201 or the second level there can you elaborate a little more on this second level yeah so uh maybe an entry point for people who are less familiar and then we can you know dig deeper even more into it is one kind of question that you can ask to, you know, someone that you're trying to be more of a coaching style of a leader to and coach them up is, you know, let's say they come to you and they're clearly stressed out. All of these things are changing. They're frustrated because they can't get their work done because, you know, who knows 10 other factors, right?

[47:01] So what you can do instead of trying to jump right in there and problem solve with them immediately is you can adopt more of a coaching stance and ask them, okay, you know, what, what do you, what would you like to happen out of this situation? What are you looking for from me? Which by the way, ties into your earlier point about when you were like, um, ask somebody, do they want listening or do they want problem solving? Like that kind of thing. You use different words, but that's how I sort of think of it. Um, so asking the person and then immediately you're allowing them to reflect, to not take the easy bait just to see, oh, what is this person going to tell me? And then let me go do it. But to actually stop, be present, ground yourself, and then ask yourself that question. What am I actually looking for? What do I want? I ask clients that all the time. Like, okay, there's this horrible situation going, what do you actually want? And then that goes back into the circles. Anyway, that's an entry point for anyone. If you kind of want to try and experiment a little more with a bit of more of a coaching approach to your leadership the first thing after somebody has like done perhaps the the ted you know acronym and then told and explained it described like all right well what do you want what is your goal what do you think you know just very innocuous basic questions like that can allow them to unlock deeper insights for themselves they are strengthening their own lead themselves.

[48:24] Um, muscle skillset. Um, and then really just go from there. So let me stop there and see what thoughts you have. Cause I feel like you might have some thoughts. I think my, I think what you said there was, uh, quite astute because asking questions allows people. It fires the ball back into their court and they have to deal with hitting the ball back over. And I think it serves two purposes. I think it creates a sense of ownership because they say, well, I can do this by then, right? Okay, that's great. But it also creates a sense of wisdom. They make the connections between A and B. It's not just you tell them. I mean, I have three kids, teenage kids, and I can tell them something. But as the old saying, as my dad used to say with me, goes in one ear and out the other. But if I get my daughters and my son to make the connection themselves, there's this aha moment. So I think what you said is really good. Coaching in the sense of asking questions. And they can be leading questions in this case because the leader can use his or her experience and deep knowledge to guide the way, to create stepping stones. But those stepping stones for me, as you've articulated, are questions.

[49:37] Right that's what that's that's my i'm riffing on what you've said no 100 and like as you were talking to i was thinking yes because you know to to use the you know your teens as an example like the the neuroplasticity of them being able to and again i'm not like a neuro person but like the way i understand it as a lay person they're making those connections and they're building those muscles if you think about it because we've been talking about stepping stones like okay you could take your direct report and like almost try to pick them up and move them from stone to stone Right. But their muscles are going to atrophy unless they are making those steps themselves. And I think that, you know, I think a lot of metaphor, but I think that's absolutely key. And I'll throw another one on here. Right. It's we've talked about the questions. Also, silence.

[50:23] Silence is a very underrated tool can be used in coaching, also in negotiation. But that's a whole kind of other topic. But, you know, if you sit there and you're kind of like, I know it's awkward, you know, but if you do, if someone's sharing and, you know, you keep quiet for a beat, a lot of times they're going to keep talking. And that goes back to your earlier point of like, even that process is cathartic for them and the importance of allowing someone to be seen and heard. So. If we're talking about flipping sides of coins and stuff, that can also be another way to – another coaching tool in your toolbox is the power of silence. The power of silence is because, I mean, that's in a clinical setting in my clinical training. Silence is something we worked with because when you asked in that setting, that was a patient, what seems like two seconds for them will feel like two minutes for you of silence, right? And you're thinking like, I'm a radio DJ. There can't be any dead space, right? So you got to keep chatting. But no, it's like, shut up. Let the person think and process and allow them to speak, right? So I think, again, it's a very salient point. Silence is a powerful tool.

[51:35] But like having constructive conflict or difficult conversations, it's something you have to acclimatize to, I think. Because silence can be very awkward for many of us. It's like, okay, I got to fill the dead space here. Yeah. And that's why I recommend to people, usually, again, it's in the context of negotiation when we're even more like amped up and we're a little anxious about it. So I urge people, I mean, number one, if you're preparing for any sort of negotiation or hard conversation, start prepping earlier than you think because you're going to want more time to sit with this. But one thing I challenge clients to do is practice it in your everyday as awkward as it feels let's say you're on the phone with a friend you're talking to you know your partner or somebody at home you know do it's going to be unnerving at first but like literally try to just they say something and they just stay silent for like a minute I mean that's so long but just answer the phone don't say hello and just create that space hello hello is anyone there yeah I'm just kidding But yes, I agree with you, Cynthia. I think that's a very astute point. So we've talked about at the second level, it's coaching questions. And from an experienced leader, he or she can ask leading questions to try to create stepping stones. But it's also you silence because when you ask questions.

[52:55] A very good question, it may take a person time to process an answer, to think about it and process their own thoughts and emotions. And silence can give them that space in which to formulate and then to articulate their answer to you or an answer to themselves. Are there other skills at this level we could just touch on? Yeah. I'll give you one more, but before we leave that one, a caveat like you did earlier too because you know people can detect this it's like the phoniness you said from earlier the fake it till you make it the silence it's got to be like present silence you know what i mean it can't be silence where you're then like on the computer on the side you know or like scrolling your phone or something you know people will know that and i'm not suggesting that anyone would actually do that but i did just feel like let's clarify um you know because a lot of things might happen through screens and you know i get it we're all multitasking But, you know, if you're really serious about building up that trust and psychological safety with your team, like that's a place where beware.

[53:59] So a third thing I'll throw in here is and this is going to happen over time. So it's very much to your point earlier about if you're a newer leader or if you're maybe newer to the context, you've got to give yourself time. I can't know. I don't think it was my former therapist who said this to me, but she said many, many smart things to me. But this one, I think I learned somewhere else when I was in a training camp for in my first career as a public defender. But they told us because we were very newbie at that time, they told us you can't fast forward experience. And I thought that was really helpful to hear as a younger person new in my career, because I was so anxious to just know it all. Of course, we know that doesn't happen. But anyway, so you can't fast forward experience to that point. This third thing I want to say is the historical knowledge that will get built up over time as you build your relationship with your direct reports, with, you know, your entire company that you're leading. That's kind of a third piece to this foundation stones that over time, as you talk to them, as you listen to them through the, you know, asking the right questions, list the deep, active listening, leaving silence for them to, you know, open up to you and things like that. Of course, within boundaries and stuff, you're going to build, as you demonstrate that you're building that historical knowledge and that you are hearing them over time, that will also lead to insights. In a coaching context, what I mean is.

[55:23] Like when I'm working with somebody and we're in maybe like year two of working together, the work gets even more powerful because then I've been partnering with them for X amount of time or, you know, we have team coaches. They've been working with them. They've been going with you on this journey. So that shared knowledge is so valuable because something might happen and then that, you know, the coach or you as the leader can reflect back like, oh.

[55:50] Didn't something sort of similar to them help them see some patterns, right? Like, what about that thing that happened last year on such and such account, you know, and then you're helping them connect dots that maybe, you know, they couldn't have, but that can only happen with time and only as you are like investing yourself in their journey too. Do you know what I mean? I know I'm being a little not so clear. I mean, any relationship is going to require building and maintenance. It, I, there's going to be conflict and it's, it's the ability to handle conflict diplomatically and civilly. It's about giving feedback. It's about coaching. It's about sharing a little about your, your own sort of private life. So you get to know each other again, without oversharing. Yes, there's, there's got to be boundaries in any professional. I'll just take that as a, as a given. Yeah. Any relationship is going to take an investment and you have to invest and invest. And eventually there is the dividends of trust and transparency where they will open up to you, where they will ask for help and support, where you can build your tribe and your community around you as a leader or as a direct report or just someone on the team per se.

[57:01] Really the dividends in the ROI over time, because then they will really be invested in the same thing that you want, those same shared goals, the OKRs, the mission, whatever it is, right? Like they're going to see, wow, you know, like Jason really like invested in me as when I was like coming up. I can't tell you the number of times people have said like the sense of loyalty and rightfully so that that those kinds of relationships can lead to. It's going to pay back in droves, but it is a long game, you know? So, and like, sometimes you're also going to like lose that game, let's say, right. Cause you invest in somebody and then they leave that, that happens all the time.

[57:41] Um, and that's kind of part of it too, but you know, that's sort of looping us all the way back to the adaptability thing and being able to still move through and understand that as a leader, guess what? Every time you are doing these things, you're building your own playbook your own set of systems your own methodology for how you do this and if you are disciplined about kind of um codifying that getting it out of your brain i mean that can lead to all sorts of other cool things like one you kind of get better at you hone your craft faster two you could turn it into um side revenue and side hustle for yourself if you want to like teach your own methodology to others right it helps you build your visibility as an industry leader, all kinds of wins can happen through this process if you care to, you know, go on that journey. And I think a very part of understanding, you know, what works and what doesn't work is our own sort of bespoke way of leading people. I think it's very, very important to get feedback from your direct reports. You know, it doesn't have to be every week, but maybe once a quarter, you know, what's working well, what isn't working well, what could I do more or less of?

[58:51] And of course, at first it's going to be very difficult but if if a leader or a manager or team lead can build that as part of their culture over time it will become a natural aspect of that team that that particular subculture within that team to to share feedback right because i think that's the only way someone has to sometimes put up a mirror against their own behaviors or how we communicate and collaborate and we're not always going to like what we see right now it's a wake-up call to improve our game, to take us up to the next tier or level.

[59:27] And then you as a leader, you own that, right? That improvement, that belongs to you. And I do think that's a gift. Feedback in both ways. I mean, if there is a topic that is more fraught that people add, like, there's just so, it's rife with a lot of, I don't know, people have a lot of feelings around it. But I love the idea of building in that practice so it becomes second nature. And then the only thing I'll add more to it is also compare, remember that actions and words thing I said earlier, compare what people are saying and how they're acting. Because sometimes people, as much psychological safety as might be there.

[1:00:01] Everyone's still, you know, we're all still limited by our ability to put things into words. And sometimes we're in a cycle of denial with ourselves. You know what I mean? So we might say something because that's what we think we're supposed to say or like that's what something like that. But then if we move a different way, if you watch how people move and act, that's always going to give you the answer. There has to be some sort of alignments or synchronicity between it. And I think it comes down to communication. Also, you know, we have an intent of a message, but the way we say it or where it comes off, the impact is misaligned with the intent. And all of a sudden, OK, Jason's talking BS again or you're not telling me the truth or whatever it is. Right. So I agree with that between thoughts and action or behavior and action or intent or impact. All of these things have to be aligned. And I think it comes full circle back to what you were talking about before, self-awareness, right? Yeah. You know, as you said, you said also in negotiations, you just don't blindly walk into a negotiation. You got to think things through, hopefully, right? Yeah, hopefully. Hopefully. I mean, you're not going to get the result you want.

[1:01:14] Cynthia, I really appreciate it. We're coming to the top of the hour, and I'm very respectful of your time. If someone wanted to reach out to you what would be the best place they could uh make contact with you yeah thank you for that question so everything you know we have we have a pretty big web presence on a lot of different platforms um at embrace change but the main place to go if you want just that first stop is the website so that's embracechange.nyc i can find all of the other socials and things linked on there the only thing that might be of additional interest to your listenership in particular is they might also find a lot of value from my forbes contributor column so they can find that on forbes if they just google or search for forbes and cynthia pong they'll they'll find all my articles in the past on all kinds of aspects of leadership and leadership strategy so i'll be sure to include all those links in the show notes one last question is there any last advice suggestions or piece of wisdom you'd like to leave with us today.

[1:02:18] So I think one that might sort of tie things up from the beginning to the end, because I know we shared so much and so many things. And I'm always trying to be cognizant that we not sort of overwhelm folks or whatnot. But I think trusting in your journey and your process and where you are on that is is important, too. We talked a lot about trust between interpersonal, but trust in yourself as you continue to better know yourself, grow your self-awareness. That's the root of everything that's going to come out. So build up that trust in yourself and then ask yourself some of these hard questions in a compassionate way, you know, and then it will lead you to the next step, which is all any of us ever need.

[1:03:06] Brilliant. And Cynthia, thank you very much for sharing your time, your knowledge, and your experience with us. It's been very, very valuable. We got really granular today, really nuts and bolts. And I think our listeners will be able to implement some of these things five minutes after listening to this episode. I hope so. That is my hope. And thank you so much, Jason, for having me on and for everything you've built through It's an Inside Job. Love it. Cheers.

[1:03:30] Music.

[1:03:36] Well, folks, that was the knowledgeable and passionate Cynthia Wong. Now, in this episode, we talked about a lot of skills. So I'll let you rewind and replay at your heart's content. But the three fundamental skills that I found very intriguing and interesting, which also resonates with me from my own practice as a sparring partner, it was truly deep and reflective listening. And that means being present, putting electronics aside. Maybe you're taking notes with pen and paper, but you're truly sitting there listening to their opinions, their attitudes, their beliefs, their narrative. They're telling themselves about what's going on, the situation, the uncertainty. Because what that does, it allows that for that deeper connection in the relationship, that connective tissue. By doing that, we invest in the person they feel listened to. They feel that their emotions are okay to have, that they feel connected. They feel valued and secure. And a second skill is the ability to ask questions and asking questions is to ask questions in a way to explore their thinking for them to articulate their own thoughts and emotions and that might be asking questions in a neutral way in the third part well that's empathy. It's being present and through the questions and through the listening, well, empathy comes across.

[1:05:03] And everything we're talking about has to come from a place of sincerity. It has to be genuine because people can cut through the crap. They can see when we're not, when we are being superficial. And it only takes a momentary lapse of reason to completely tank trust and the sense of connection. Cynthia is a well of knowledge and experience, and I would highly encourage you to check out her links, her website. I'll leave all those in the show notes. Cynthia, personal thank you from me to you for spending some time with me today. It was an intriguing and insightful conversation, and your passion, your vibrancy comes across readily that you are really invested in helping people with these skills as we move into 2025. Vibe well folks if you found this episode of interest and you think someone might benefit from it please share it with them it helps me spread the word of it's an inside job and thank you for showing up i really appreciate it i will see you friday for bite-sized fridays where we will continue exploring the contrarian mindset and until then keep well keep strong.

[1:06:08] Music.