The Moral Pivot: Breaking the Myth of Strength to Lead Change with Agency

Strength isn’t a solo act—it’s a team sport. We dig into the hidden costs of hyperindependence and the quiet cultural cues that reward exhaustion while calling it excellence. With Dr. Khutso Madubanya —business scholar, speaker, and founder of Dance with Change—we unpack how high performers learn to pause, ask for help, and lead with agency without burning out.

Khutso shares a gripping personal journey from apartheid-era self-reliance to a transatlantic move, a sudden layoff, single parenthood, and a career pivot—all while finishing her PhD. From that crucible she built the PIVOT method: Pause to reset your nervous system, Introspect to name needs and stories, Vector your limited energy toward a clear direction, Overcome perfectionism and the fear of “sucking,” and Travel forward with commitment. We translate each step into real workplace moves leaders can use during change, crisis, and the everyday churn of modern work.

We also name the “free pass” culture that equates availability with value: late-night emails, applause for heroics, and praise that erases boundaries. Then we show how to replace it with norms that scale trust and learning. Expect practical tactics to raise psychological safety, delegate with respect, and communicate from self-acceptance. We frame the ROI in plain terms—reduced burnout risk, stronger retention, faster error detection, and smarter decisions—so even the most KPI-focused executive can see the upside.

If you’re ready to trade the performance of strength for the practice of presence, this conversation is your blueprint. Subscribe, share with a leader who needs it, and leave a review with one PIVOT step you’ll try this week.

Transcript

Strength Myth And Show Opening

Dr. Leah OH 0:00

Welcome to another episode of The Communicative Leader. I'm your host, Dr. Leah O, and today we're diving into a topic that is perhaps the single greatest barrier to resilient leadership and to sustained change. This toxic cultural mandate that equates strength with solitude. In a world demanding perpetual agility, leaders are often left exhausted and they're navigating complex transitions while carrying the full weight of the organization. The greatest challenge here isn't managing the change itself. It's recognizing and dismantling these self-imposed narratives, these systemic free passes that prevent leaders from communicating their needs, embracing support, and leading with genuine sustainable agency. So today we're joined by Dr. Kutzo Marabanya, a business scholar, inspirational speaker, and author hailing from South Africa. She's the founder of Dance with Change. Dr. Kutzo has developed a powerful change method called the pivot method.

Guest Intro And Origin Story

Dr. Leah OH 1:05

It blends her PhD research, global experience, and deeply personal memoir into a blueprint for transformation. Her work, culminating in a new mini ebook, No More Free Passes, Breaking the Myth of Strength, challenges the myths that equate worth with productivity and independence with virtue. She invites us to reclaim balance, self-worth, and courage, asserting that true leadership strength is not found in proving one's capability to do it all, my friends, but in the wisdom to know when to share the load. Let's dive in and have some fun. Hello and welcome to the communicative leader, hosted by me, Dr. Leo Elliott Hodges. My friends call me Dr. Oak. I'm a professor of communication and a leadership communication expert. And the communicative leader, we're working to make your work life what you want it to be. And I think your work, it's part of it, it's so powerful because you're blending your background as a business scholar with your deeply personal insights and especially around this paradox of independence that you talk about. So I was hoping you could, you know, as we start, give us a foundation by sharing your personal journey, you know, what led you from your PhD in business management to developing the pivot method and focusing on your mission of helping leaders redefine strength and lead with lead change with agency.

Dr. Khutso Madubanya 2:42

Oh, wow. Thank you for having me, Leah. I'm very honored. I'm Kutzo, Dr. Kutso Marubaya. And well, you asked a really interesting question. My journey. And you know, I all my life I had thought I'd never questioned that being independent is is aspirational. I thought, you know, it was it was a virtue. I was extremely driven. If you've met me within seconds, I would have told you, I'm a fiercely independent woman and I need nothing from anybody. Because I thought that was the way to be. I wanted to do it all. I thought, you know, you live it once.

Apartheid Roots And Hyperindependence

Dr. Khutso Madubanya 3:25

But part of it, in fact, all of it, was engineered by my background. If you want to understand just how deeply driven I was up until recently, you have to understand, you know, I grew up during apartheid in South Africa. And as a black female, as a black girl, being independent or being self-sufficient, rather, self-reliant, was not an option. It was a survival mechanism. You had to be self-reliant in order to survive. So, you know, my mom, being the strongest person I know, who's also extremely self-reliant and extremely self-independent, inculcated that in me. So the world is rough. You want to get out there, and you don't want to depend on anybody for anything, especially in the context of marriage. You do not want to rely on anybody for that. Anyway, all of that, fast forward, you know, growing up in a community, strong matriarcs, never ever questioning if independence, there's anything wrong with independence. Everybody should be VLEC independent. And four years ago, about four years ago, a whole bunch of lives started unraveling. I was living in South Africa at the time with my three kids. I my then husband decided, well, this is it. He didn't want to play with me anymore. So I decided as a strong independent woman will do, only a crazy one with a touch of survival, right? Picked up my children. Well, I've done it all before. I've been self-reliant all my life. I can go start life in a new country. We're gonna start, go live exactly where I've always wanted to live. I'd always wanted to raise my kids back in the US because I've lived in the US on and off for such a long time. So I thought, okay, dun dun dun, this is what we're gonna do. Landed in the United States. Well, landed in Columbus, Michigan. Everybody along the way asked me, Kutza, do you have a support network there? Do you know anybody there? Why are you moving there? I thought that was a silly question. I was like, why? Me? Do you know me? I don't need any support. I can pack up and you know, we can go live where we need to live. And I got here within a couple of weeks. I got laid off. And so there I was now in the middle of very cold Michigan, it's November, in our very unfurnished room apartment room. I have three children to my name looking at me. Their entire lives are depending on me. And I know nobody. And what do we do? And as if that wasn't enough, within you know, I eventually peg, you know, went through the I I we went through it. Okay. I eventually landed a job, but this this job required a totally different, you know, it took me in a different direction than I thought. I found myself undergoing a serious career pivot that I hadn't thought

Relocation, Layoff, And Burnout Wake-Up

Speaker 6:40

about. Because I needed the job, right? I and I needed it then. I needed to feed the children right away, right? So I uh I took this job, which now, on top of everything else, the legal battle, I'm simultaneously having to pivot into a career I knew very little about. In fact, I knew nothing about it in retrospect. And it was amidst all of that chaos that I decided, shoot, I've been sitting on this doctorate for over 20 years now. It's never gonna get I it's now never. I better finish this doctorate. Because hey, I can do it all. I want to prove them wrong. I'm not gonna be a statistic, you know, black woman with three uh unwedded three children on the dough. That is not me. Excuse my French, if that offends anybody. But those are the sort of thoughts that I had very much anchored on my whole notion of what strength was, right? So I went ahead, you know, juggling court cases, children needing this and that, they're acclimatizing to a new country, and I'm this new job I have is requiring me to work me to work a heck of a lot more than eight hours a day. It's like ten hours sometimes on weekends. It was just grueling. And Leah, I remember a few months after. Now you know everything's going on, this legal battle, which now ended up drawing out for a couple of years. I remember waking up at three in the morning one day. I looked at the clock. You know, if you're a woman of a certain age, you know, three o'clock is a holy hour. Because we wake up.

Speaker 2 8:22

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 8:23

We have hormonal changes that wake up. So there I am sitting there looking at the clock, thinking, shoot, this is three o'clock, and my mind starts racing. Oh my god, I wonder if my children, if this remember, I have three children. Now playdates for this one, a playdate for that one. What does this one need? And then legal, am I gonna afford the attorney? And and and what's needed at work. My mind kept racing, kept racing until I took a deep breath. I said to myself, Kutzo, there is nothing glorious about doing it all.

Speaker 2 9:00

Yeah, that is the truth.

Speaker 9:03

This is it. I am burnt out and I can't afford to be burnt out. I've got three little children looking at me. At that point, I decided, all right, I need to find some tools here, I need to do something that will help me stay feeling empowered because I was feeling so burnt out so much happening at the same time. So I started to watch myself. I thought, okay, what what can I do? I need this job that's very demanding, I need this and that, and this and that. I started to watch my own mind. I realized those narratives I have with my the conversations I have with my inside my head were really making me or breaking me. Everything from I'm at work, I you know, made a mistake. If I told myself, oh my god, Kutzo, here you are, you know, you are you've had this wonderful career. How could you make such a stupid mistake? And how does uh you know, everybody's just gonna laugh at you? This is ridiculous. How can you, how can you, how can you everything from now, oh wow, look at that. You know what? Maybe nobody even noticed. And so what? And so what? If if nobody, nobody knows who I am, my worth, my capabilities are not in any way tied to what people think of me or what this job requires of me. This

Building The Pivot Method From Chaos

Speaker 10:35

job is not everything I am, that's not where my worth is. Anyway, through trial and error, that's how I came to develop pivot through that period of learning. I thought, okay, oh look, this this thought made me feel great. I was like, yeah, this. And then, oh, don't do that, don't do that again. So I now in retrospect, now that I'm on the other side of the chaos, I've encapsulated these what I call mindset hacks into five, into an acronym pivot, which is five letters. And I'll talk about how that, you know, down the book.

Dr. Leah OH 11:16

Yeah, we get to that in a few questions.

Speaker 11:19

Yeah. So that's that.

Dr. Leah OH 11:21

Yeah. What a what a few years for you, Kutzo. Yeah.

Speaker 11:28

It's been a season, Leah. It's been a season. Yeah.

Dr. Leah OH 11:31

So let's keep thinking, and I like this idea, the paradox of independence. And you just recently released a free mini e-book, No More Free Passes. And this ebook, it centers on the myth of strength and the paradox of independence. And I was hoping you could define the paradox, and then from a communication perspective, kind of tell us what's the bottom line cost to leaders, especially women, if we confuse this solitary endurance with authentic leadership strength.

Speaker 12:03

Yeah. No, I'll I'm I'm I I'm happy to elaborate. Yeah, in my in my book, when I talk about paradox of independence, I'm really referring to that point where an otherwise healthy attribute, independence as a healthy attribute, starts to bite us, starts to hurt us. You know, when I was writing the book, my 11-year-old daughter noticed, she asked, Mommy, what are you writing this book about? And I'm writing it about being independent and how I'm, you know, this and that. She wrote me a little quick summary which you know explains what I mean by the paradox so well. She said to me, you know, in her little thing, she sent me a little message. She said, you know, independence is something that is good. When we are young, we are taught to be independent because it's a healthy thing. It's good to be able to know how to brush your teeth. It's good to be able to do things on your own. However, if it gets to a point where you identify so much, she didn't quite use the word identify.

Speaker 2 13:05

But yeah.

Speaker 13:06

But you feel so strongly about independence that you don't even ask for help when you need it. That becomes a problem. And I thought, what a smart little thing.

Dr. Leah OH 13:16

So insightful.

Speaker 13:17

Why didn't I have this child a lot sooner?

Dr. Leah OH 13:21

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 13:24

So, you know, the paradox of independence is it's it's especially our cultures, our society, Western society, especially where I come from, also, it's a spouse as this positive value, and it does have positive merit to it. But taken to

Defining The Paradox Of Independence

Speaker 13:40

the extreme, what I've now, through my research, learned to that is called hyperindependence. There's a clinical term for it. It's called hyperindependence. It can really be detrimental, it can really hurt us. And strong women, especially women in positions of leadership, tend to suffer from this hyperindependence, and we don't know it. You know, we think it's good to do it all. We want to do it all alone, right? And we want to do it also for those people that we think can do it for themselves. So doing it all, doing it all alone, and doing it for others as well, even those who could easily help you carry the load. So, from a communication point of view, that kind of mindset, of course, shapes everything. You know, we stop asking for help, we stop asking for input, even. Yeah, and help is a big one. I'll say it again. I'm terrified of asking for help, and we only communicate our success. We never, you know, take the time to just be vulnerable. And this creates a culture where authenticity and, as I said, vulnerability, you just can't live, it can't exist, right? And that erodes trust and creativity because people need to feel safe, people need to be seen in their true colors, and the bottom line is enormous, it's huge, you know. Our teams model what they see in us, right? When they see us defining strength as solitary endurance, hey, they learn over here. We are silent, we swallow who we are, and over here, and and and of course, once they swallow who they are, that stunts innovation, right? The creativity goes, and once and guess what else results? That's very common.

Dr. Leah OH 15:43

Burnout. Right? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 15:50

Interesting how many different ways we discover causes of burnout. So to me, authentic leadership strength is really like it lies in relational honesty, you know, having the courage to say, hey, I can't do this. I can't do it alone, and that's okay. That's what real leadership is to me. Or I'd like for it to people in the world.

Dr. Leah OH 16:18

Yeah, right. And when we're doing that, then we're we're strengthening psychological safety for our team, letting them know that this is okay for them too.

Speaker 16:28

Exactly. Exactly, because they model what we do.

Dr. Leah OH 16:32

Exactly. So let's think about the free pass culture. And you expand on this idea of no more free passes to, you know, beyond gender to systems that glorify overwork and cultures, and this is so common that call burnout strength. But what are the tangible daily communicative signs that an organization is giving a free pass to an unhealthy system? Like, how do you diagnose that? What are we looking for?

Speaker 16:58

Yeah, well, you know, you look for things

Free Pass Culture And Burnout Signals

Speaker 17:00

that look benign on the surface. It's in the culture, it's in the way people do things, really. That's organizations that generally reward exhaustion and they call it excellence. Right? Now, this is that leader that will email you in the middle of the night, and you know, they say, Oh, there's no need to reply right now. But all of us know the subtext, right? The sooner you reply, the better.

Speaker 2 17:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 17:28

Right? And why are they emailing in the middle of the night? So it's that's the expectation that we we should be emailing in the middle of the night too, even though they say otherwise, right? And we don't dare say it. Right? Yeah. And then, you know, or or you you find those situations where praise goes to that person that went over and above, or beyond above and beyond the Call of Duty. Uh, even if it means they've skipped their rest and they don't have any boundaries, they never push back on anything they shouldn't be doing. And it's in those small daily messages, really, Leah, where you know, we communicate inadvertently that your worth is your output and that your availability is your value. You know, we can always tap into you. That's what makes you valuable. And over time, you know, we organizations develop an organization like that will develop a culture of quiet resentment. People just kind of quietly withdraw and they're resentful and quiet in in their own quietness. And of course, they they burn out, as we already said, and all of it masked under the banner of dedication. We are dedicated. I'm dedicated to my job, but quietly you're dying. And this especially, especially is hard on high achievers, hyper-independent people. Because what do we hear? We hear, well, over here, there's no room for mediocrity, and we are already, you know, so driven. What does that do to us? You know, I like this quote that I saw the other day. It says, High achievers don't burn out because they are weak. They burn out because applause is loudest at the breaking point.

Dr. Leah OH 19:24

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 19:27

We applaud, you know, we take applause all the way until we are dead.

Dr. Leah OH 19:32

Yeah, we're not there anymore. Yeah.

Speaker 19:36

So, yes. So, yes.

Dr. Leah OH 19:42

That's and then let's bring let's bring pivot back in because I think this is gonna help us to understand an alternative. So you've

Pivot Explained: Pause To Travel Forward

Dr. Leah OH 19:50

created this pivot method, and pivot is an acronym, and this method is to help us navigate change with agility and agency. So, Kutzo, could you walk us through, you know, what Pivot stands for? And then I'm wondering too, kind of the second part is how do leaders, if they're subscribing to this PIVT method, how do they go from this reactive burden mindset to one that's more proactive and healthier?

Speaker 20:17

Yeah. Yeah, you know, Pivot, as I as you rightfully said, it's it's an acronym that, as I said, uh it stands for five letters, it's most useful in times of change. And I want to come back to change in the context of in the context of organizational life, because we know the research shows us that 70% of change 70% of change initiatives fail. Right? The Boston Council consultate consulate BCG made, you know, shared that study. Everybody knows that. Oh my god, that's a whole other can of worms that we are introducing to organizations that we don't have existing systems for. So I feel very strongly about empowering leaders and employees that are not leaders to really strengthen their agility muscles because you're gonna need to be very, very adaptable to be able to pivot. Unintended, yeah, right? To be able, what I like to say, dance with change, right? Instead of antagonizing change, really harness it and find rhythm and flow in it so that you're not burnt out by all the vicissitudes. All right, so P stands for pause. Okay, when faced with change, as a leader who Is reactive and burdened and has a burdened mindset. You really want to pause. That's the first thing you want to do. And by pause, I mean quite literally that, Leah. I mean this. Okay, Leah, stop what you're doing. Just stop. Just stop. Let's together. Take a deep breath.

Speaker 3 22:20

Exhale. I won't do it again.

Speaker 22:26

But I mean just that. Just pause. I don't mean pause and think and just pause. Research your nervous, reset your nervous system. Because what happens is when we're faced with change, we really tend to just want to react. We just want to run, run, run, run, run, run, run. And as research shows us, you know, when you run like that, you're not thinking. Blood goes to your extremities when faced with a crisis. Not to your brain. You can't think. So the first thing you do is pause just to stop yourself from being reactive. Pause before you send that email. Pause before you call that made again. Right? And I stands for introspect. Now, what are you introspecting here as a leader? Remember, I need to keep clarifying these are all mindset chatter tools. These are what things that you're doing in your mind. I'm not asking you to go, you know, join a yoga group or go get a tool that's additional. These are things that you do immediately on your own by yourself, immediately. I keep saying you can do them at any point in time in your life, right? You can always pause and you can always introspect. And when you introspect, you're actively cultivating awareness of what what threat this new change is presenting to you. Okay, is this really a real threat to me? Is it a threat to my identity? Really? Because half the time you find it's not. And most importantly, what do I need? Give yourself permission to ask yourself, what do I need as you introspect? Because this is very hard for us hyperachievers, right? We we do not take time to ask to question what we need, what support do we need? And delegate. Goodness gracious, who else can take this off of your plate? Right? Then V stands for vector. Vector is all about direction. Hey, you got limited resources here, you don't have infinite amounts of time. Take a minute to just think, okay, I'm not gonna panic, feeling overwhelmed. I can pick a direction that I'm going in, and I don't have to get overwhelmed by it. And most importantly, if this is a new direction, and most often it is, uh rest assured, take comfort in knowing that you can use what you already know to build the new. You already have what you need

Inherent Worth And Human-Centered Leadership

Speaker 25:20

to what's the word to adapt to whatever new situation presents itself to you. So just take comfort in that. I found that knowing that, okay, I I know how to read, I can always rely on that skill to help me wherever I am, regardless of how maddening everything is, makes me feel a little more empowered. And then O stands for overcome the fear of making mistakes. Uh, when I give my talks, I like to amuse my audiences and say, Oh, this is overcoming the fear of the suck. Excuse my branch, the fear of sucking, you know. We we spend so much time shooting ourselves about things that actually don't matter, especially those of us who seek external validation. We tend to think, oh, people are judging us, we are appearing weak, we're making all these mistakes, people are gonna laugh. But at the end of the day, it really isn't all that serious. Cut yourself some slack, give up on that perfectionism, it's not perfect, so what? So what? Nobody, it's not that big a deal. Life is not all that serious at the end of the day. Yeah, I found that giving myself such a break really helped my cortisol level go down. It's like, okay, don't have to be so hard on myself. Yeah, and then lastly, treat T stands for travel forward. And by traveling, traveling forward, I mean commit to the new direction you're going in. There's absolutely no point in you looking back and rebuking yourself and wishing and hoping for the life that you no longer have. If you're leading change in an organization, in an organization, yes, you know where you would like to go, but you don't, you might not know how to get there. Remember, you can get there, but commit to the journey. Don't keep thinking you can go to and fro, too, and if it doesn't work, we'll just go back. No. Focus all your energies into creating the new life you want for yourself and for your organization. Because it really takes a lot of energy out of you when you keep looking back. So that's what pivot stands for. And I find that if you do these things, if you can model these sort of conversations, you're overall a lot calmer, and you're able to communicate learning in an organization instead of perfection. Yep. And your teams will take note, they follow.

Dr. Leah OH 28:12

Yeah. I think learning and acceptance and adaptation, right? It's all of these really, really

Vulnerability, Safety, And Strategy

Dr. Leah OH 28:20

positive elements that keep us from getting stuck. Stuck and then also on that hamster's wheel as well. Yes. Yes, absolutely. Yes, all right. So Cootso, I want to skip ahead to I think the next question that makes sense is this idea of reclaiming your worth then and identifying that purpose gap. So I know that you invite audiences to reclaim balance and self-worth and kind of reject that myth that equates your worth with how productive you are, that output. So, how do you define inherent worth in a highly transactional corporate world? And how does communicating from this place of self-acceptance, you know, help you to become a powerful and a strategic imperative rather than you just being kind of this passive passenger on the ride?

Speaker 29:12

Right, right. Well, by inherent worth, what I mean is the value that we all have because we exist. So often we forget that well, actually, I didn't know this until very recently. That the fact that I have worth just because I exist. I don't need to earn my worth. So it's that well that value that exists before performance in a corporate setting. It's like a human right. Yes, you're here. It's a human right, you're right. You have value. You just have it. That's a blessing you come into life with.

Dr. Leah OH 29:58

Yes, it is inherent.

Speaker 30:00

Yes, yes. And so by the word revolution, I really invite people to step away from thinking, you know, Earth, you you have to work hard in order to be recognized as a somebody, and just reclaim balance and give yourself permission to know that you're okay. Reclaim balance and self-respect. You're valuable just the way you are, and embrace those as leadership imperatives. Yeah. As a leader. Yep.

Dr. Leah OH 30:34

Excellent. So Kutza. Oh, I'm sorry. I was gonna ask the follow-up of that is so, you know, what is if if I'm a leader and I'm uh subscribing to this idea, and I certainly do, this is not a hypothetical, but just that the people are valuable because they are people, because of the dignity of them, of them being here. How do I, as a leader, how do I kind of infuse that in the way I I communicate with them and I connect with them and I interact with them?

Speaker 31:04

Yeah, no, you will notice your your tone shifts, right? To it, you become a lot more compassionate, a lot more patient, you listen more, and you you delegate better. You know, when you delegate, when you give people things to do as a leader, they feel they feel that you see them, you trust them, right? You as I said, you listen more. And overall, you just lead with far less fear, and people pick up on all these things. Yeah, they really pick up on your energy. Uh, whether you, you know, if

ROI Case For Psychological Safety

Speaker 31:40

you can lead from a well, regardless, whether you're leading from a place of self-acceptance or not, people pick up on your energy. So overall, you just become a lot more rounded and you you pass it on, and your teams really benefit from that.

Dr. Leah OH 31:57

Yeah, yeah, I really like that. And that's I'm seeing organizations take a much more human-centric approach rather than a traditional management or output approach, which is just so warming to see. But again, it it takes time. It does. You know, we can't switch a light, unfortunately.

Speaker 32:16

Like, welcome, we've arrived. Right, right. And and it starts with individuals, doesn't it? It all starts in the individual level. As I said, pivot is is about what you tell yourself in your head as a person. Yeah. And it's all these transformations that then it transmute outwardly.

Dr. Leah OH 32:35

Yes. So excellent. So, Kutzan, I'd like us to think about kind of we're gonna kind of take some of your background and take your pivot method and think about how to transform that into strategy. And so, as you shared, you completed your PhD amidst a relocation. I mean, I think that's an understatement. It was like, you know, transatlantic relocation, a career pivot, a difficult legal battle. I mean, just kind of the most challenging situations, circumstances you can imagine. And of course, this is a moment where you you had a choice. You could, you know, how do you address that adversity? So I'm wondering if kind of drawing from your experience plus you know, your PhD, your work, for a leader who is overwhelmed now by an unexpected change or crisis. And I know we've walked through pivot and that the pause and pivot, but you know, what are some other steps or things that they should be mindful of to ensure that this crisis, this you know, this really challenging season they're in, that it doesn't define their leadership narrative, right? That that way they see themselves, they talk about themselves, they understand themselves.

Speaker 33:49

Yeah, I would say really not being afraid to be seen. Leaders need to just stop proving trying to be so strong, stop trying to appear so strong, just be a lot more real, if I could say that as the foundation on anything and everything they

Practical Tips For Leaders And Teams

Speaker 34:20

do, just stop trying so hard to be to appear strong, that just kills you, and it kills everybody to begin with.

Dr. Leah OH 34:33

Exactly, yep, yeah.

Speaker 34:35

That that is the first thing, and also just realizing that vulnerability is a strength that when your external message is I can do it all, the team hears there's no room for imperfection here. And as I already said, and you know that's gonna create a culture where people just have to edit themselves, they overwork, and they avoid asking for help because they are afraid that you're gonna judge them. So as as a as a key foundation of any strategy, no matter what you do, just stop trying to appear strong. Just try just stop trying to look strong and allow people to be themselves. Allow people to be themselves. Yeah, because that's what's gonna give them psychological safety, that word that you use that I love so much. Without that psychological safety, where you as a leader can actually, you know, say things like, Hey, I'm learning this too. I need your input.

unknown 35:54

Yeah.

Speaker 35:55

When people hear that, no matter what kind of strategy it's marketing strategies, whatever strategy it is, they approach it from a place of authenticity and agency. They feel empowered because they feel C. And because they are not going against who they are, you're not running the risk of a burnout, which has you know if you're thinking about ROI, yeah. Kissing goodbye right there.

Dr. Leah OH 36:24

Exactly.

Speaker 36:26

You can kiss a goodbye, yeah.

Dr. Leah OH 36:29

Yeah, and when you were talking, could so I was thinking too, you're talking about the leader who's always trying to project strength, and it communicates to team members that they can't make mistakes, and I think it also communicates, I can do it all, so I don't really need you, right? And to an employee, you know, even though this is not explicitly said, you know, picking up on that feeling, I think we can just have that presenteism, like we're there, but we're not really there, or that quiet kid at quitting, we're doing the bare minimum. It's not wanting making me want to innovate. It's not making me want to, you know, throw like, hey, let's flag this now. There's some potential unintended consequences. Like I am just there for the ride. I'm not an active participant anymore.

Speaker 37:22

Yeah. Yeah. No, you're very right. Yeah. That's exactly right.

Dr. Leah OH 37:27

Recognize the the way that can grow legs and really negative, negatively impact your workplace. So a moment ago, Kutzo, you mentioned ROI, and that's my next question. So your work, it challenges these deep-seated cultural myths of strength. I'm doing strength and quote marks because I'm with you, girl. I don't think anymore, you know, that idea of trying to do it on your own, that is not strength. That is, that is madness in my mind right now in this season. But how do you help these skeptical

Closing And Where To Learn More

Dr. Leah OH 38:00

executives who, you know, are looking just quarterly metrics? How do you help them understand the tangible, tangible ROI of investing time and energy into this work of redefining independence, prioritizing mental self-worth, right? Embracing vulnerability. What does that messaging look like?

Speaker 38:21

Now that um KPI focused executive, you were asking, how do you convince them that you know this beneficial to invest in soft skills and it's not all fluff? And yeah, I I hear you. I and I totally get that. I totally get it. When you're responsible for quarterly, you know, uh numbers, it's really quite hard to see value in something that you can't, you know, you can't directly quantify. It's like all these soft foo-foo things. But I'm challenging them to think about it in a slightly different way. Think about it as systemic risk management. Because if you don't take care of people's self-worth, if you don't redefine strength so that people don't feel that you know they have to be working all the time, and you don't and if you don't prioritize self-worth, burnout's gonna happen. We already talked about this. And uh, you know, our Gallup research, I'm sure you know this because all of us cite this these popular studies, you know, it yeah, we know burnout costs organizations billions and billions of dollars, that's a fact, and we know that teams with high psychological safety outperform their peers by a good 40 percent. So if you wanted someplace to quantify your ROI, that's a good starting point. It's investment you're making into your people now so that they can continue to do what they do best. Instead of all right, did you do it yesterday? You know, even if it killed you, did you do it yesterday?

Dr. Leah OH 40:18

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. That's really helpful, and I think that's a nice way to you know accommodate your communication to meet the expectations of the audience and using the language that they're used to using, but also helping them to introduce a new way, a new mindset, right? A new way of of thinking and doing. Oh, oh, we're done. Oh no, no, that's not we're not done. I was just saying, I like that uh that idea. So we have two final questions for you.

Speaker 40:55

Yeah. Okay, yes.

Dr. Leah OH 40:58

So the two final questions, this is how we end all episodes of the communicative leader, and they go hand in hand. So the first one is, you know, we like to leave our listeners with pragmatic leadership, the leadership communication tips, the challenge advice. So the first part is for our titled leaders out there, you know, our managers, our directors. And then the second part of the question is, you know, what is the tip challenge or advice related to leadership for leadership communication for our employees of all ranks?

Speaker 41:29

Oh, okay. Yeah. No, I think uh Felitas, I I already said it, you know, just stop trying, stop trying to look strong all the time. Really? Just start being more real, allow yourself to be vulnerable, allow people to see you for who you are because you're fabulous the way you are. That's why you are who you are, you're different. Right? And our teams don't need perfect leaders, they just want leaders that are present, leaders that can see them, leaders that understand and and and really can talk to them and support them where they are. And remember that vulnerability communicates trust really and provides that psychological safety. You and I keep talking about. So that would be my one advice for leaders. One piece of advice for leaders in terms of all employees across industry, ex shit industries. In fact, this does apply to leaders as well, it's just to all human beings. Really? I would like everyone to know this. You don't have to prove your worth to be valuable. You do not have to prove your worth to be valuable. You're already valuable. Many of us spend so much time, so much of our careers over-explaining ourselves, overproducing, overperforming. Just to feel C. But we don't have to. Your worth was never meant to be a line item on your performance review. Right? We we think of ourselves as oh my god, am I gonna get a pay raise? How did I perform? How did I perform? Am I gonna be seen as performing over and above? Our worth is inherent. Let's take the pressure off. Yeah, let's take the pressure off. And now the danger lies in the way we communicate, of course. If we communicate from a place of proving, we speak to impress, you know, right? But and not to connect. And what does that do? It isolates us. And when we chase validation, we don't get clarity. That aligns with our purpose and who we really are. Everybody let's handle this whole purpose is so big in the industry right now, in corporate right now. Everybody wants to align with purpose. But we can't we can't even talk about purpose if we can be honest. This is all about honesty.

Dr. Leah OH 44:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's work that has to happen.

Speaker 44:22

At the end of the day, we just have to be honest with ourselves. Show up as who we truly are, and have the space to let others do the same as leaders.

Dr. Leah OH 44:33

Exactly. Yeah, what a powerful idea.

Speaker 44:36

Yeah. And you know, I'd like to say let's a challenge to all of us. Just in our next meeting, let's practice doing this. Just practice communicating from a place of self-acceptance. That way you're not critical, where you're just being yourself. Am I really, do I really agree with this? Really, really genuinely why am I here? What do I really feel? What do I really need? And not be so defensive. Because oftentimes we we're in a meeting, we're really thinking about oh god, what's gonna be needed of me, and how do I align myself with what's needed? How am I gonna protect myself? And whoo, if you do that, if you're able to make that transition in your head, you'll see your voice will be a lot calmer. Because you're not fighting anymore. You're a lot more agile, you're you're you'll be clearer and more true and more aligned with yourself, and you'll feel a lot more courageous. Talk about stepping into you know, getting rid of fear.

Speaker 1 45:40

Yes.

Speaker 45:41

That's what empowerment is about. Being able to live your life with the sense of empowerment, no matter what comes your way.

Dr. Leah OH 45:49

Mm-hmm. Exactly. Well, Kutzo, thank you for joining us today on the communicative leader. I've learned a lot in our conversation. I wrote down the steps of the pivot method, something that I'm gonna continue to think about and to put into practice. So thank you so much. I know that this will leave listeners with a lot of really helpful, tangible tools.

Speaker 46:14

Oh, thank you for having me, Leah. I really had a good time. And yeah, if uh people want to learn more about the kind of work that I do or get a free copy of my book, um I'm at dancewithchange.com. That's my website or my emails info at dancewithchange.com. All right, my friends, that wraps up our conversation today.

Dr. Leah OH 46:36

Until next time, communicate with intention and lead with purpose. Looking forward to chatting with you again soon on the communicative leader.