Untapped Leadership: Finding Your Authentic Leadership Identity with Dr. Jenny Vazquez-Newsum

What does it mean to be a leader when traditional leadership models weren’t designed with you in mind? In this episode of Our True Colors, we sit down with Dr. Jenny Vazquez-Newsum, an educator, leadership expert, and founder of Untapped Leaders, to explore how identity shapes leadership.

Dr. Vazquez-Newsum shares her journey navigating leadership as a biracial woman, why mainstream leadership theories often exclude marginalized voices, and how we can redefine leadership in a way that’s authentic and inclusive. We talk about unlearning outdated models, embracing the power of lived experiences, and tapping into the unique perspectives that diverse leaders bring to the table.

Join us for a deep and thought-provoking conversation on how we can expand what it means to lead—and why embracing untapped leadership is the key to changing the workplace and beyond.

🔗 Connect with Dr. Jenny-Vazquez-Newsum:

• Website: untappleaders.com
• Instagram: @untappleaders
• LinkedIn: Jenny Vazquez-Newsum

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Transcript

Intro  

Welcome to our true colors, hosted by Shawna Gann join her as she explores the challenges of being a racial riddle, an ethnic enigma and a cultural conundrum. Let's dive in foreign

Dr. Shawna Gann  

Hey, Kat, how you doing?

Kat Aragon  

Good! How are you doing today? 

Shawna  

I am good today. I am busy today, but it's a good busy. I'm always counting the blessings when things are busy in that sort of way. So feeling good, good, good, good. Yeah. Well, listen not to, like, whisk us away out of yummy beverage territory, but I'd want to introduce our guest, because she's so cool and it's going to be great conversation. I'm so glad that we crossed paths and that she agreed to come talk with us, because I think it's going to be super and amazing.

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

yeah. So Jenny is my name. I it's not short for Jennifer, which is a fun fact, people like to elongate the name, so it actually is just Jenny. I grew up in Southern California, so San Diego County, but live in Los Angeles. Now. I come from a Cuban immigrant family, so that's I grew up with my mom, who is a school teacher, retired now, and spent most of my time in Southern California, but did a little stint in New York in my 20s, because that's what, that's what you do a lot of times. Yeah, you're supposed to, right? But yeah. So my background is in education and nonprofit management, and now I run a leadership development organization. That's kind of like the lane that I exist in. So, yeah, that's a little bit about me. Yeah, you know, I dig it. I am a former teacher. I keep saying former. I still am teaching. I just don't teach little ones anymore. So I'm a former elementary school teacher. We'll put it that way. And when I moved into different lanes. I was shocked at how transferable a lot of the skills and experiences are. And I think a lot of folks underestimate that. How does your experience sort of play into what you do now? Yeah, you know, I'm similar. I never was in the classroom in the kind of the traditional sense, but I do identify as an educator, because, you know, there's a lot of spaces where we learn, where we work together to learn and grow. And so, you know, I worked in higher ed for a while and supporting college students kind of on their career journeys and their leadership development. And a lot of work happened kind of outside of the classroom and in that co curricular space, and then transitioned to working with adults, and kind of that that same vein, you know, we're in our professions, we're in our worlds, we have our career goals, but we shouldn't stop learning. And so that's where, kind of the facilitation and the leadership development in those spaces kind of continued on. And so I've always been really interested in how, you know, we all engage with the world and make sense of the world, and how we make sense with each other and in these kind of group spaces, and learning from those group spaces. And that seems to be kind of that common thread, no matter where I am in, like, quote, unquote role title, you know that that piece of it stays, or at least it should stay the same as we grow in our careers. Yeah,

Shawna  

Kat did, like a whole little thing turn in for her education as she went from going to one space to her fashion industry, because, because she had to, but loved it. And so I think no matter what we're doing, whether it's in higher ed, whether it's in I can't say the word, she's gonna make fun of me. Esthetic, esthetic No, you're right. You are right. I feel like I have to extra stick my tongue out. Esthetics, none of that. I mean, I agree. Like the learning, who we are, how we move through world and interact with each other, it just manifests in all these wonderful ways. Yeah, I'm curious for the leadership. So if you could talk a little bit more about that, who are you? Who are you guiding through this process? Like, are you guiding companies? Are you working with individuals? Yeah,

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

both. And I'll backtrack a little bit kind of go to how I got to this space, particularly with the untapped leadership work. So as I mentioned, you know, my backgrounds and education and leadership spaces, I've I've gone on to get my doctorate in education. I did business undergrad. I did MPa, the masters in public administration, not to kind of, you know, I love school. FYI,

Shawna  

she's fancy.

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

No, I don't say that to say I'm fancy, but I did, but I like that. You know, there's certain spaces where I do have to, like, assert that, you know, I feel that so, but I don't usually, yeah, but I kind of name that trajectory only because I've taken leadership courses and management courses pretty much in every stage. You know, there was part of all of my degrees, and even through my doctorate degree, it was a leadership course that we began with. That was the whole start of the the the cohort program, all of the books and all of the theories that were in these classes were all developed by folks that did not look like me. Probably didn't have someone like me in mind. Some of these older theories that we kind of started with really didn't have something like me in mind, because they were built in eras of exclusion and almost designed to exclude. And so, you know, I got to this moment. I mean, I think that that fast forward to 2020, when that I think we all had a moment of, like, pause and like reevaluation. And I just realized how much of the narrative was missing because voices like mine, as a woman of color and leadership, the voices that I, you know, learn from from other, you know, historically underrepresented professionals that are really doing amazing work, but maybe not, are in print in those books, or looked at as the gold standard from this school syllabi, that there was, we're missing out on a lot. And so that's really kind of where the untapped leadership work came about. Just to, you know, call out that, you know, that's That's great. All those theories are there, but there's so much more that we've kind of systematically overlooked over these last few centuries. And so now there's an opportunity to really tap in, to uncover that, to look for that, to really be specific about that. And so that's what I helped do with individuals and organizations. On the individual level, it's really, you know, working with bipoc identifying leaders, but this is kind of expanding to anyone that has felt kind of underrepresented in their professional spaces, how to find your leadership identity and an authentic way that maybe doesn't leverage the models that, again, weren't built for us. And then I do the same for organizations. How does your organization support untapped leadership? Are you just kind of doing the same old, same old, and then wondering why your leadership bench is not diverse or not representative? How can we reframe that so, so that's a little bit a longer answer, but that relevant to kind of the point. So, yeah,

Shawna  

so I took a lot of these classes too, with my programming and business psych, and we learned like leadership styles and the various models, but you said, find your leadership identity, and that hits a little different, I think, than your style. Anyone can have a style, and styles change. I mean, I guess who we are can change in some ways, or at least how we express who we are. But the two things just saying, find your leadership identity, and then you said, do it authentically, which that that's not always easy. So like, Okay, first I gotta figure out who I am, y'all, and then you want me to show it like, that's that feels like a lot. But imagine if we could,

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

right, right, you know, right? And that's what I was like, you know, I play in potential. Like, I feel like we could really be on to something if we really harness this, and if we kind of think about our persistent challenges, and just the, you know, all the things that I think our current world is struggling with, and again, you can really kind of narrow it into professional worlds. And we have seen some persistent challenges if we can actually feel like we are contributing our best selves and that coming from all these different walks of life, all these experiences, then I think we can solve a lot of the challenges that we have

Shawna  

saved the world. I The

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

world. Okay, let's just save the world. Okay, can we just do that?

Shawna  

I'm down for it. So Jenny, I have a question for you. So I I just, it's so funny that you're talking about this because I had just gotten off a call today, I work in retail sales for makeup beauty. All that stuff. And one of the things that we're discussing today is that years ago, we spoke a lot about leadership, your identity, and we really led with that. It was a lot less about the sales and then with everything. And what ended up happening is, as they knew each other, or as they knew themselves, their brand and everything, like the sales just kind of came, you know, and they had more of a specific message. You knew who they were speaking to. And we always say, like me, speaking to one to all, you're not speaking to anybody, right? So it was one of those things where it kind of was a reflection time today, where I was like, you know, I've been so careful to not push anybody to feel like this is too hard, or it's gonna land them when they're having to, like, you said, authentically identify them. Like, that's a whole project within itself. So somebody's sitting here wanting to sell mascara, and all of a sudden, like, No, we're gonna get a little bit deeper. Like they're like, Well, I don't want to do this anymore. Like, nobody wants to do the work. I don't see nobody. But yeah, people don't want to do the work if they're signing up for one thing. And all of a sudden, like, this is a deeper question. So I feel like, I don't want to say the word coddling, but I feel like in the past years, because we've just come out of a pandemic and stuff, I've been more like staying away from the heavier topics and being like, Okay, here's how easy it is to sell a mascara, you know. So my question for you is, has that changed over the years, you know, in terms of, like, Are people as open to the leadership side of things, or are you kind of having to pull them there me like, No, you can believe in yourself. You can lead other people. Or is there a lot is that been dimmed, you know, over the years? Yeah,

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

so many layers to that, right? Yeah, yes, and a couple things. So I do think we're in this moment, and all of us in this climate of society, of work, life, everything that I think since, also since the pandemic, since a couple of these, you know, political cycles that we are, feels like we're becoming less equipped to handle the hard stuff, or more our window of tolerance for the hard stuff is thinner, like we it's, it's, we're caring a lot. There's a lot going on. We've probably not, you know, figured out how the pandemic experience actually, we carry that still, you know, like, really, there's a lot to unpack nonetheless. And so I do think the motivation to, like, take on more willing, or to like, really, have these tough conversations, or, like, you know, just, I'm selling mascara, but I'm also, how can I identify as a leader, you know, like that. Would say that I think books are struggling with that. So I think there's that. And I think on the other side, you know, I do sometimes when I kind of going back to that question around leadership identity, I find that, you know, folks, more often than not, do not consider themselves leaders.

Shawna  

Oh, yeah,

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

but like 80% like, I don't, that's a random number, but the majority, I would say, when I kind of connecting and talking about leadership, um, they're kind of looking at the positions on the top of their organization as the leaders never themselves, that we're always kind of this, you know, this separation between, you know, what a leader is and what and who we are, no matter where we sit in an organization. And so I that's a lot of the work that I'm trying to shift. Because that is also the this antiquated narrative of like, leaders in charge, the leaders at the front, the leaders like what you know, all all the things that kind of siphoned that, that leadership definition to just a few people that we need to unlearn. And that's where the kind of the practices of unlearning that, and so there is this other element of, you know, for your example, of kind of the sales reps that that it might just be a little bit of that unlearning, like, oh, I can actually, I, yeah, I have agency. I'm able to do this in the way that's most aligned for me, it might be a little bit more work, but it but it shouldn't. And I think that then we kind of look at this, the systems within which we're operating, so that when we can come authentically, that's going to be the easiest for whatever we're doing, right? That's going to be the most fulfilling, yeah,

Shawna  

yeah. And at that point, it's like you're talking to your best friend and your marketing and everything else, first, because you know who you are and who you're connecting to, versus trying to throw out the perfect pitch or marketing approach or something, you know, it's That's

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

right, that's right, that we're always already kind of, we're operating with abundance in that sense, like who you are will just always be there, so you're just fueled. Yeah. To sell in a way that's most aligned. But when we start to kind of, Okay, do it this way, or just, you know, trim, then all the calculus in the brain of like, okay, well, this is not really me, but I'm going to say these things, you know, like that. All of that comes into play, but I think that just lives across all of our spaces. But yeah, I would say there's these two different dynamics that make it challenging.

Shawna  

Thank you for that. Yeah. I mean, everything that you said makes total sense, just kind of like what you said about who we imagine to be on those books. We also have, for such a long time, imagine that that's what leaders look like, you know, sometimes in workshops that I do, I'll do like a little visualization exercise where I talk about, you know, imagine you're sitting in this huge conference room, this enormous oval table with comfy chairs, yet they're kind of formal. All around the edges of this table, people start to sort of trickle in as they're preparing for this meeting. And so as people sort of are having their small talk, how are you the weather, all the things the CEO walks in, and everyone turns their attention as they begin to speak. And then I stop there and ask people, What does the CEO look like? And you know, it's like, Who do you have in your mind? Could it be me, right? Like that thing that we've internalized about what a leader looks like, sounds like how they move. People can't always imagine themselves being that person. And also, a leader doesn't have to be a CEO. There are formal and informal ways to lead, and I think people miss that. The second thing that came to mind is, I often work with leaders who are emerging. They're kind of new in this space, and they show up feeling like, well, frankly, they're terrified, because they think they're supposed to know everything because they got a new title. So someone gave you this new title, you get to update your LinkedIn profile with it, and it's super but that doesn't mean like suddenly you're omniscient and you you know everything you have all the answers. And so being able to have those conversations about intellectual humility and being able to share responsibility and leadership actually makes you a stronger leader. So those are the two things that came to mind. I was like, oh, yeah, uh, who she's talking about are the people in the back of those books, yeah? And

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

I think that's, that's a piece of it, you know? So I on top leaders came about through a book because I was just upset around, like, just, I was mad. I was Big Mad on just the fact that nine it was 90% when I was kind of doing my research, 90% of these leadership books, the top ones that were that Google said the top ones, yeah, were written by men and by white authors. And so it's not to discount those 90% it's just to say, Hey, that's not representative. There's other there's other perspectives. That's just that, yeah, and so, you know, with that's where we should really be spending this next century, like exploring, like, what are these other perspectives, or these other ways of leading? Or how would we redefine some of these things if we had other folks, no matter who they are, just putting in their two cents on that and that bookshelf of what their leadership strategies, or whatever it may be, whatever business you know, book approach there is, yeah, that there's, you know, there's more. There's just, there's more not taken away. There's right, we

Shawna  

can add to it, as as the academics say, we can add to the body of knowledge. I mean, that's

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

yes, you know, like, and then the other piece of that, though, is add to the body of knowledge and then also include it as the canon, as the gold standard. Like, we can't just have, okay, these are the top ones. And then here are all the other books, you know, by other authors. And that's, I think, what I still keep seeing, is that okay? There's this gold standard. That's where we have to kind of, yeah, critically, look at,

Shawna  

I do have another question, and it kind of also stems from that find yourself in terms of your leadership identity, and I asked this kind of wanting to ask you too about yourself. How do you help not only yourself, but others, use or tap into since we're going with being untapped. Let's tap into it one's own identity to let your your leadership style or who you are shine. So as you think about your childhood or your culture or and on this show, we talk a lot about racial and ethnic identity in terms of how. Seeing multiple things sort of feed into this. How does any of that, none of that, all of that play a part.

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

All of it, I would say, all of it. And I would say that for me, you know, it was a journey to get to this place even just tapping into my own leadership, to defining leadership for myself, aside from what I've been given or told or read about, it took a long time to figure that out. And so, as I mentioned, you know, so am. I grew up with the Cuban side of my family. I do identify as biracial. So my dad was from Egypt. I didn't meet him, so I grew up with my mom and my grandmother here in Southern California. So Cuban family, but descendants from Spain, so they have fair skin, European features. No one looked like me and my family, to be honest, outside of, you know, maybe a lot of folks will usually say the eyes, you know, I think when they realize that you can't really make a connection between me and my mom physically, that's where I think my young experience of, you know, just Navigating identity started to form. I always kind of felt like, you know, I love my family and very loving family, but aware of otherness, noticing, noticing, like, okay, you know, yeah. And so it's just interesting how that kind of shaped navigating schooling, for example, as well. You know, I, as I moved up in education and even in high school, you know, as I started to take some of the honors and AP classes, I would be one of the only ones in that classroom that looked like me. And it just kind of, I feel like it compounded a little bit like I just was always in a space where I was an other that wasn't quite clearly defined, and so that just added on as I, you know, navigated my career in, you know, nonprofit management and, you know, leadership development and all these spaces. Again, I'm reading these examples of leaders. And you know, all these, you know, the archetypes of what leaders should be, again, with folks that did not look like me. So I'm like, Okay, I'm trying to figure my place. Yeah, you know where it's it's hard. And so, you know, I think that over time and over with experience and just with awareness and with work, I realized, though, that, you know, that has given me kind of a nuanced perspective of the world, and kind of realizing that I'm kind of experiencing workplaces, educational spaces in a way that's maybe different than others. And with that, that's an awareness of reality. They're a reality. I have a deeper awareness of reality because I can see where it's different for me than for others. And then also, then, you know, kind of the connection being that that's probably happening for other people, oh, well, right, you know, and for in other ways that this kind of depth of context of reality that's happening in all these spaces. And so that's a lot of the work that comes into the untapped leadership facilitation frameworks, the approaches of really tapping into context and leveraging that context to lead from there. And one piece of that is really digging into lived experience, into cultural upbringing, into those really, you know, young experiences that we have that if we're not aware, we're realizing that they are connected to our day to day. They are informing how we navigate, how we make decisions, how we don't make decisions, how we opt out. You know, all the things that we do that's all being fueled by our histories, and that's going to be different for every team member, every person you know that you lead anything. And so if we can build that connection up and strengthen that, then we can lead with authenticity. We can kind of name come back to that, like leadership identity. Well, how does this inform my identity and the way I want to lead and the way I want to move things forward, and the vision that I have, and the vision of what I think is possible, like, how does that play in and I think if we can really, you know, tap into too much of the tapping, too much tapping, I

Shawna  

know, but it works.

I mean, but if we can really

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

align with that, then I think we just are living purposefully, right? For in a way that's fulfilling and a way that we are now able to give again to the the workplaces, the planet, the ways that we're meant to like live, and that helps us to again just have deeper impact, our deepest impact. I think that's where that lives, for sure. So long answer, but I think it just really is the basis of this work, and what has been, I think, devoid from other leadership approaches and other frameworks. You know, when I was reading those books that I was assigned by these guys, these bros, or whatever, you know, these leadership bros, and I would read, and I was like, you know, this sounds, it sounded good on paper, but there was always this moment of

Shawna  

like, but my color, I'm like, you know,

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

like that, that piece of it's like, I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can pull that off. Or 100%

Shawna  

you know, absolutely. My favorite is when it's like, you're just gonna go in and ask for the thing, because that's what you do. And you just stand and I'm like, who's gonna ask for that? Not me, not like that. Anyway. We gotta be or that. There's gotta be some finesse. You gotta have some social capital. You gotta like, it's not, it doesn't work that way for everybody. It comes those books, like you said, do hold a lot of great nuggets, but they also hold a lot of assumptions of what everyone is coming with. The same thing with, I mean, not to pick on her, but the whole lean in thing, yes, would love to. Will do so a little bit with caution. Or I tried that got burned, and so I think there's, you know, we definitely there. There's truth to every single thing that you said. Because while it's good to have these different perspectives, and while we should not throw out all the old stuff, it is important to realize not everybody's showing up the same way with the same thing. And I was also thinking about, you know, when I think about my identity and my my identity journey. Let's say it that way. I think like, who am I? Kind of like, the beginning I was like, Who are you, right? Like, do you ever think, like, who am I not? Like, for example, while I identify as a black woman, that I do have a rich heritage, and I know I look how I look, which means that comes with privilege. So I can say I'm a black woman, but I know I am not walking through the world the same way as other black women, and they're not walking through the same way as I am, because we all are different. We all are going to have these unique experiences, and we all have privileges in one way or another, and we all face barriers in one way or another. So I was also thinking like, while we're figuring out who we are, it's also probably good to tease out who we are not.

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

That resonates. Yeah, I think that's and that's also part of my own leadership journey, because there were some aspects of like, leadership, you know, like the qualities and you you direct, and you have vision, and you saw these white presence, yeah. And that was, and that was never, it was hard for me, you know, to like, I'm okay, I'm gonna go out there and perform and pretend. But that wasn't me. I'm, you know, I am the behind the scenes person. I like to be behind the scenes. I don't want to be in front. I like to take my time. I'm a slow processor. I'm not gonna be fast. If you you know all these things that I think are attributed traditionally to, like leadership, or what we're in, the leadership behaviors we're looking for. I wouldn't make it, I wouldn't, you know, like that, I'd be out. And so I think that's where circling back to like having folks define leadership for themselves when it really defined that question, like, what? What am I not? And that doesn't then mean I'm not a leader. That means I'm this kind of leader. This is how I act in my leadership. This is these are my leadership behaviors. But I think the other piece of that, then we need the world to value these other approaches.

Shawna  

All right. Dr Ginny, how do we get the world to

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

do it? I mean,

Shawna  

but when you work with organizations and so on, what sort of things do you do with them to help them value difference?

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

Yeah, the systems work is where I'm most interested, and it's the most challenging, because, again, we're, you know, we all entered into these systems. They predate us. You know, we are operators within them, and we all have varying degrees of power and privilege, and you kind of marginalize experiences within that. And that's always shifting. You know, when I work with organizations, there's a kind of a few things I want to try to do traditionally, you know, those in the top of the with the formal authority. Not necessarily leaders. They could be, they often are, but those that hold the formal authority have the most power to have impact on how to value, you know, again, the untapped potential and capacities of their diverse teams. So, you know, I do work with full teams and but the ideal scenario is kind of training and support for executives that are then able to shift the way things happen within their organization. So a big piece of it is diffusing power. Don't

be taking my power. I don't

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

know. Yeah, yes, I mean, but that's again, where the systemic shifts will happen, and I think where we will flourish, where others and any position in the organization can have space to be leaders, to lead in the way they want to sell mascara they did. This is the this is where we're trying to get to. Maybe that the folks at the top will offer that. But then how you do that? I'm here to support. I'm a part of the team. I'm not actually head of the team, that type of thing, and so, so it's a lot of you know, facilitated sessions work. It's tricky, though, because I think a lot of organizations will feel good about a facilitated session. That's the start. It's the start. Kind of sharing experiences, sharing language, bringing out more of these lived experiences, is like untapped potential that we don't usually have conversations about, and getting to kind of build those connections. But I think it just, it has to go much deeper than that, so, so it's no silver bullet. I hate that term, but,

Shawna  

but it is true. Yeah, it's true. What's coming up for you, at? I'm actually really grateful for the space that we're in. And like I said, I was on a meeting with them today. This is a weekly meeting they have with their top executives and leaders like so they're always like, what are you guys thinking? That they're always pulling us in. They're very humble. So I love that we have that space. They did just implement something monthly where we learn from different leaders in different industries and to come in and they may be in competing companies, and it doesn't even matter. I love that, cool, awesome. So I do research with racial ambiguity, mixed, racial heritage, ancestry, etc. And I ask a lot of people a lot of questions and surveys, interviews and all the things, and I see that there's these different mindsets people hold. All of these folks, by the way, identify as mixed race in some way, or mixed ethnicity in some way. But there are some who identify, even though they'll they say, Yes, I have mixed racial ancestry. I am black or I am Asian, even though they will acknowledge this other, these other ways of being. Then there are people who are like, I'm not half this, I'm not half that. I think Kat, you and I talked about that, I thought it was beautiful, because I was like, she said, I'm fully this, I'm fully that. So there's sort of folks who identify as that way, and then there are folks who will acknowledge their racial ancestry as being different, having different elements, but they're like, if you could just stop talking to me about race. Actually, I have been called racist. I have been called racist for asking questions about identity in this way. And I'm like, how is that racism? And they're like, because you are focusing on race, could you just stop now? We could make all the faces. She make it faces. Yeah, I make the faces too. I make them too, and I'm by myself. But the truth is, I'm not going to take that from them, because there is something that makes them feel that way, whether it's this focus on race that has caused them harm in the past, or they feel like, and some people do like they're missing certain opportunities, because there is a focus on people who don't have the same privileges that they Have, but they don't see them as privileges, right? Do you feel like there are times when it is more appropriate to lean into these aspects of our identity than others? Or do you think that we should try to make that less salient to all of us? Like, I just wonder what your thoughts are, both of you, I could jump in.

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

So there's so much nuance, and I think context to this, that I think what is unfortunate with where we are is that there are racial histories and present day racial realities in. That have not been reconciled. And so therefore race plays such a prominent role in everything, whether we want it to or not, whether we want it to or not, I lean very heavy into identity, in the leadership work, only because it has been overlooked again for for centuries, that we've just again by design. You know, a lot of us with overlooked, underrepresented, marginalized identities have not been in play in the leadership space, in representation and all that spaces, and so I my hypothesis is that we're missing out, not that being of a marginalized identity equals leader, not that because that that would be kind of the problematic issues that we had when we first started talking about leadership. But navigating this world with a marginalized identity gives you a set of perspectives, a set of maybe tools, strategies to still thrive and to be aware of everything around you that get equips you to lead. Yeah, that's my hypothesis. And so there's like, two sides of this where I can see why. It's geez, looks like, let's not and also there's purpose in kind of flaming identity as well. So it's tricky. I think it's like, kind of navigating the systems again, that just are not well built because we've they're sitting on eras of exclusion. And so I don't know what are your thoughts?

Shawna  

Yeah, no, I 1,000% agree with you. Actually, you were saying everything I was thinking, but I put it in the way of your experiences lead to empathy. And while we can't understand everything, we can certainly provide the space for people to tell us, and, you know, give that opportunity for them to share what their experience is and why this particular policy, rule, regulation or practice at work, whatever the thing is, isn't necessarily what we thought of as a best practice. It's a practice. But is it best for all you? Y'all made me think today, I

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

appreciate it so good. This has

Shawna  

been so great. That's why I love having these conversations. You know, having folks like you on Jenny, we get to share not only where we're coming from, but hear from you, and then you, of course, have all this experience with so many of the amazing people you work with, and you've gotten to see firsthand how these things could be applied. Thank you so much for sharing that with us.

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

Thank you. This was wonderful. And again, yeah, very thoughtful conversations. It's nice to have them. Wish you could do it every day.

Shawna  

I know, right, I dig it. Where can folks find you? And they want to, because I know they're going to be like, I'll find me some. Dr Jenny,

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

go with. Dr Jenny, well, so you can learn more about untapped leaders at untap leaders.com or at untapping jerseys on Instagram LinkedIn, but I'm also available on Instagram and LinkedIn, as well as at Jenny Vasquez Newsom, is

Shawna  

there anything else you want to share before we close?

Jenny Vazquez-Newsum  

Thank you with gratitude for this conversation and just kind of be the ethos of true colors and just the nuance and depth that it sits there, and so if you can kind of bring it out, that's great. I really enjoy this. I love it. Thank

Shawna  

you. All right, take care. Y'all Thank you. Bye, Bucha.

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