Business Innovators Radio - Dr. Shade Shares Strategies to Overcome Imposter Syndrome and Embrace Leadership

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

In this episode, Dr. Tami Patzer talks with Dr. Shade, a renowned leader, consultant, and speaker who is a driving force in the world of professional growth and organizational transformation. With a deep commitment to elevating expertise and inspiring leadership, Dr. Shade dedicates her work to guiding professionals, experts, and high-performing individuals to break free from limitations, embrace their leadership potential, and make a lasting impact.Throughout her illustrious career, Dr. Shade has collaborated with a diverse range of clients, fostering trust, nurturing connections, and inspiring meaningful action. As the Visionary behind the Leadership Synergy Institute, she has established environments where every individual can thrive and where leaders can spearhead transformative change.During the interview, Dr. Shade delves into her expertise in overcoming imposter syndrome, breaking free from limitations, and embracing one’s inner leader. Her insights and strategies promise to be both enlightening and empowering for professionals and leaders alike.This episode is a must-listen for anyone struggling with imposter syndrome, seeking to unlock their leadership potential, or wanting to learn how to break free from self-imposed limitations. Dr. Shade’s wealth of experience and practical advice will inspire you to step into your power and make a meaningful impact in your career and beyond.To learn more about Dr. Shade and her work, visit the Leadership Synergy Institute website at leadershipsynergy.com or connect with her on LinkedIn as a “leadership accelerator.” Don’t miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights and strategies for overcoming imposter syndrome and embracing your true leadership abilities.Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/dr-shade-shares-strategies-to-overcome-imposter-syndrome-and-embrace-leadership

Welcome to Business Innovators Radio, featuring industry influencers and trendsetters, sharing proven strategies to help you build a better life right now. Hi, everyone. This is Dr. Tammy Patzer, and today we have the honor of speaking with Dr. Shade. She is a renowned leader consultant and speaker who is truly a driving force in the world of professional growth and organizational transformation. With a deep commitment to elevating expertise and inspiring leadership, Dr. Shade dedicates her work to guiding professionals, experts, and high-performing individuals to break free from limitations, embrace their leadership potential, and to make a lasting impact. Through her illustrious career, Dr. Shade has collaborated with a diverse range of clients, fostering trust, nurturing connections, and inspiring meaningful action.

As a visionary behind the Leadership Synergy Institute, she has established environments where every individual can thrive and where leaders can spearhead transformative change. Join us today as we delve into her expertise in overcoming imposter syndrome, breaking free from limitations and embracing one's inner leader. Dr. Shade's insights and strategies promise to be both enlightening and empowering. Welcome to the show, Dr. Shade. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here today.

I'm excited too because I was looking at your background and again, expertise, leadership, all of it is something that if you have imposter syndrome, you're going to like stop yourself in your tracks. So before we get into that, I wanted to ask you a little bit more about your background and how you became a leadership consultant and a business coach. That's an exciting question because it's really interesting because it's, It didn't start off as a business or like a consulting. It was more.

So my background is in academics. I'm a university professor. And interestingly, my degrees are in science. So I do have advanced degrees in microbiology and human nutrition. But teaching in the university internationally, I came across quite a few people who wanted to speak with me on. issues other than science. So I had people come to me, students, pairs who would say, you know, I want to run something by you. And I found it really exciting when they came back

to me to let me know that whatever it was that we discussed actually changed their situation. So more and more I found I was drawn to that and I found a lot of satisfaction in that. Fast forward to, I had a few graduate students who were really good in class. They were some of my best students. Graduated and went into the corporate world and they were struggling. No, you are better than this. Come on. I know you, you are good.

I put together a mastermind class. And we started to meet together. I would reserve one of the rooms and the university. And in the evening, we would sit together, brainstorm and share leadership principles. And I found them transforming before my very eyes. And they would write me and tell me how things had changed. Now, the way this, I mean, someone wrote back about the way she now communicated in the workplace and the advantages it's giving her and the doors it was opening.

And I started to find, look, I'm finding a lot of satisfaction in this. And there's so many, many more people who need to hear these messages. I'm excited to deliver the message. And that's how the leadership synergy is. Institute came about and it's been it's been a ride and an exciting one at that. That is really interesting. I was also a professor. I taught mass communications at the University of South Florida in Tampa and I ended up creating one of the very first social media certification programs for Florida Gulf Coast University. So I can understand

And as a professor, you do. You become very close with your students and especially at the level you were teaching graduate students. And it is hard. You get out into the corporate world and it doesn't matter how smart you are or intelligent. You have to learn how to navigate in that world that may mean that you have to have, like you said, leadership skills and different. skills like that. So today I wanted to specifically focus more on the imposter syndrome because a lot of high performing individuals, very intelligent, smart people have it. So I wanted you to maybe define that a little bit. And how can somebody recognize that they have that issue?

That is exciting because like it or not, imposter syndrome is. why I have a job or a business today, right? Because there's so many people, the best of us suffers imposter syndrome from time to time. I've had a little bit of it coming on this show because I'm like, what's she going to ask me about? How am I going to answer it? Is it going to meet the needs of the audience and the people who need to hear it? And is it going to change someone? Is it just going to come out like I'm ranting because I'm so passionate about it and I can go on. and on and on and on. That said, imposter syndrome is just a psychological pattern, right? It's a pattern that we, each individual at some point, like I said, we all have it. Now, the difference is in,

one, how we process it. And two, how debilitating it becomes for us. So basically, it's a situation where an individual is doubting their capabilities. So you have the accomplishments. You do have the certificates. You have the wounds to show the scars to show the battle scars and you've been through it. But there's this feeling of, am I good enough, really? Do I have anything to say that people really want to hear? Are they going to find out after that amazing intro that I'm a fraud? Am I going to come off as a fraud?

As people are going to wonder, why does she have all? all that, all those titles, and she can't even deliver. Okay? So, common symptoms and how you're going to recognize a great question you ask there is any time you're beginning to feel inadequate in something that you know your skill at, that is imposter syndrome. Or where you begin to attribute your success to luck rather than your ability. You know, I say, oh, that speech was amazing tomorrow.

What you did today, that was great. And then you go off on, oh, actually, that was my assistant. She put it together. And, oh, she even had to correct me a few times. Yes, you did prepare. Yes, you did get help. But you delivered it. So sometimes, especially as women, and I'm going off already,

because I get so passionate about this, we struggle with accepting that we did it because we are good, right? We want to excuse, we want to give the praise to everybody but ourselves. Something as simple as, oh, you're looking pretty today. We can't take it. We have to downplay what it is that we're wearing or how cheap it was or how someone else picked it.

So basically, every time you feel like, oh, you know, I'm not all that, or are people going to notice that I'm not that good? Yeah, I remember when I was a little girl and I got good grades. And I remember, you know, maybe I got a 100 on some test. And instead of thinking that I was smart, I would just go, oh, I have a good memory. you know, instead of acknowledging that it was because I used my abilities to learn the information and then I was able to do well on the test. And I do see that a lot with people and how you do, if you compliment them or something,

they'll downplay that compliment when in fact they should, you know, be acknowledged. that they have that. So do you have an example or a success story that you could share with us about someone you've helped with imposter syndrome? I have several. And thank you for asking because there's a very recent one that is really exciting for me. There's a young lady that I'm currently mentoring and very intelligent young lady. Again, you know, just like those, and I had seen it played out several times, so I easily recognized it. She was exactly like one of those my very smart students who turned out, who got out of school and was struggling.

This young lady was very intelligent. She was one person that I was very excited to speak with because she got it. Like she was doing all the right things. She was taking all the right steps. But then when it kept time to make a decision or, time to apply or go for things that she was truly qualified for, every single time she stopped. Like on cue, like we had everything arranged, we had everything planned,

she had checked all the boxes, and then she stopped. And one of the occasions, I sat down with her and I said, you know what, you need to talk to me. What's going on? You check ABCD. why are you not applying for this position? You're not going to believe what she said to me. What if they fire me?

I had never heard that before. It's not what if they don't employ me? It's not what if they don't like me at the interview. It's not whether they don't think I'm qualified. It's what if they fire me. So I said I had to like take a moment to, to digest that. And then I sat her down and walked her through one,

they're going to have to like you at the interview. They're going to have to employ you. They're going to have to have you work and show them what you can do before they fire you. So can we take it one step at a time? Let's get through the stage of qualifying for an interview. They haven't even called you. So let's walk you through.

Let's get you on the interview. Let's get the panel to like you. There might be a second interview because it's a pretty dissent position she was going for. It might be a second interview and we'll prepare for them. And then when you go in there, how about you show them what you're made of? Like, you know, that intelligent young lady I speak with every time. And I'm not flattering you when I tell you these things. You are one person.

She actually is one person that every time I'm speaking with, I'm really excited. because she's just checking all the boxes. But here what she's saying to herself and even holding herself back from things that she's very easily qualified for. Long story short, we did apply. She did get through two interviews, and now she's working for that organization,

and she is excited. Every day she's telling me what new things she's introducing to them and how she's helping them see things that I didn't even know before. I said, Since you give them 120, then let's deal with what happens after that. Because you know what? It will be their loss. That is interesting.

So she actually was worried about something that would never happen because she never put herself out there to find out what would happen. And she is of such a high quality that the odds of it happening are probably very, very small. And I would think that more than likely in the future is if she's not feeling like she's getting whatever she needs from that company, it would be, she would be the one that would make the decision to move on to something bigger and better. But that is something I think you're absolutely right. People are looking so far ahead that they're not seeing what's right in front of them

that they can't get fired if they never get the job. So that is a really great story. So one of the things that I talked about in the introduction was how you help people to break free from limitations, which the story you just told, I think, is a really good example of someone who was putting limitations on themselves. before they even got anywhere. Can you elaborate more on the breaking free from limitations? And again, I think you mentioned it just a little bit that you actually worked with her to understand there are steps involved.

So can you talk a little bit more about helping people break free from limitations and maybe go into a little more detail on those steps? Thank you. That is really exciting. What I do mostly in my work is I help people leverage their strengths. You see, we spend a lot of time dwelling on our weaknesses. We spend a lot of time worrying about the things, like in the case of the example I gave, that are not even the immediate next steps.

So I focus, one, on your strengths. things you're good at. And I help you own that. And I help you own it too, right? Another thing that really, really matters when it comes to breaking free from limitation is you need to be authentic.

If things are not going to hold you down, there is a huge huge role that authenticity plays. The reason being that when you're faking it, it's easy to trip you. But when you are your real true self and carrying out your activities in your strength,

you're more solid, you're very, your heart to trip. Okay. Worst case scenario, what you're going to expose is vulnerability, and that is actually a strength. Another thing that I find that I have to walk through people with is the things we fear to show the most are our greatest strengths. You see that that work, that, that uniqueness, that thing that we're kind of ashamed of kind of thing, that's your uniqueness. That's your accent, so to say. I'm using accent because yeah, that that's something that is kind of out there, right? So I call it your accent. It's

your uniqueness. It's the one thing that no one can be you about. So we, we, we, we, we, we hide, we put those things under and we shrink under them. Where are those are the things that are supposed to help us stand out? Those are things that we're supposed to leverage to show here is where I'm different. Because you know what? The world does not reward you for sameness. You are rewarded for your uniqueness, for your difference. The world recognizes and applauds you for your difference, not for your sameness.

when you're same as another person, you can only be a copy. But when you stand in authenticity and you stand even to the point of being vulnerable, then you shine because there you're different. And nobody has your experiences. Nobody has your specific quirks. Nobody has your specific values and how you weave them into the life you've lived before. So kind of that's how I help people walk through. And it will vary from one person to another.

but we stay on your strengths. I find that very interesting because a lot of times coaches will talk about your authenticity, be authentic, be real, but they will often, instead of looking at the wide range of all of our vulnerabilities, they'll have you go to the very worst thing that ever happened to you, And that may or may not be the thing that you should share because there's all these other things about you that make you unique, that maybe were not tragic. One of the things I found, things that I thought were just normal parts of living, like I'll share something like, oh, I was a single mom and I had to work three jobs. And some people will go, yeah, I can relate. Then there's other people that cannot imagine having to do anything like that.

And I always find that interesting because they were part of, you know, my life and I didn't see them as being unique anyway. Because if you look out in the world, it just seems like everybody's trying to make ends meet or taking care of their children or all of these different things. But then, of course, we're only one out of millions of people who may not have that shared experience. That's interesting to me about the breaking free from limitations because I think you're right. We do limit ourselves because of the fear of exposing some part of ourselves that we think that other people, you know, you know, won't like about us or we have that fear of showing the world who we are. So you work a lot with leaders. And so how do you embrace or pull out that inner leader in you?

I know a lot of people who they don't ever step up into a leadership position. What are your thoughts on that? So the reason a lot of us don't step up and be who we know we can be, yes, is an imposter syndrome. And that is based firmly in the fact that we do not embrace our purpose. I think that's another thing we don't talk enough about. You hear people say find your why, right? If you do not know the reason or the usefulness of a thing, you will inevitably abuse it.

If you do not know your purpose, if you do not know your calling, if you do not know your reason for being where you are at that point, and it could change. You just talked about working three jobs to carry your kids through. That at that point in time was the most important thing you needed to do. The reason you had to work three jobs, you know it. So, see, you even did it without placing any special acknowledgement on it, because that was a purpose you needed to fulfill at that time. You had hungry mouths to feed. You had education to sponsor.

You had games to pay for. You had track equipment to purchase. So you didn't even think about it because at that time, you had something driving you. So I'm saying this to say. that one of the reasons why a lot of us do not go ahead and embrace power and embrace purpose and live unapologetically is because we don't even know why we're here or why we're doing what we're doing. When something is not more than just a job, we don't put in, we don't put in it everything that we need to. Okay. So I'm saying that all you're trying to say

if you're going to pull out the leadership in you, there are three things I want us to pay attention to. The first one of them is that fact of knowing your purpose, right? After that, you need to acknowledge that there will be challenges and remind yourself they can be overcome. So rather than struggle to avoid challenges, and I'm not saying go looking for challenges or go looking for failure, acknowledge that they are. part of the process.

As a matter of fact, the biggest lessons you're going to learn in life will be through failure. There will be the things you didn't do properly because then now you know how to do it. Someone taps you from, wakes you out from sleep, you're there because you failed before. So rather than fear failure, fear not learning anything from it. If you acknowledge that over, what's it called, challenges will come and they can 100% be overcome. The reason why it's a challenge is because it has a solution. I tell people that the reason you have a problem is because there is an accompanies solution.

Then the next step is you have to develop strategies. This is, so leadership is not something, it's not microwavable. Popos is not, it's not something you, it's a, crock pot situation. So it's things you do every day. Slow cooker, yeah. So it's something you do every day. It's something you do in bits and, like,

it's something that has to become a part of your life. It's something where you have to make sure that every single thing you're doing is leading you through that particular purpose. I'm going to be involved in several activities, but ultimately this is where it's taking me to. And in so doing, you begin to form strategies. Strategies that help you break from limitation, things that have worked for you.

You start noticing, oh, every time I get into this phone, I read out affirmations to myself and I'm fine. Oh, I have this friend, this trusted friend I can call and I'm better. Or there's this self-care process that I go through and I come up energize. You have to find strategies because things don't happen accidentally. I say to people that you can make mistakes. You can do wrong things accidentally. Very, very scarcely, do you do good things by accident?

They're usually purposeful. So if you're going to do things that are going to build you, you have to have a strategy. You have to have plans. You have to have energetics, things that work for you. And then you go up and show up in your power. and show up and lead because then you're coming from a place of advantage. Right. And another part of it is, which I don't think we do enough, is have boundaries.

Set boundaries. It's really, really helpful because if you don't have boundaries, you do not even respect yourself. So anything that comes, strips you. because how are people going to respect you if you're not even respecting yourself? So you have to create those boundaries, not unreasonable ones, just know how far you'll go and what you'll take and what you want. So that when those things come, you're prepared. You're not in a situation where it catches you on an awareness

and you don't even know what you're going to do. So I tell people to live intentionally. Don't be a robot, but be very purposeful. Be very intentional. Know the things you won't take. Know how far you can go. Know the things that have some non-negotiables. In business, in life, in relationships.

Otherwise, you're going to get tripped over and over and over. And it's impossible to show up as a true leader if that's the situation. Listening to you, I think you make it really clear to me, because a lot of people will talk about, you know, find your why, know your purpose, and but the way you put it all together makes so much sense to me, especially the part about, you know, having things that you are doing intentionally and that have a purpose and having those boundaries of whatever it is that is that non-negotiable in life and, of course, in business. So that really makes a lot of sense. So when you work with your clients, what are some of the

success principles that you share with them? One of my biggest things is we learn how to move beyond the normal. I call it move beyond the norm. Okay. So True leadership requires you to move beyond normal. Because we're about legacy, right? What do you want to be remembered for? What are the things three years from now you want told about you? Those are the things you have to start doing now. So you can't do normal.

Everything you're going to do requires vision. It requires courage. And courage only comes by doing. and a willingness to take risks. Again, coupled with you cannot live in fear, right? Because if you're going to live in fear, you cannot take risks. If you don't, if you live in fear, you won't have those failures that teach you life lessons that nothing else would teach you.

There's some things that no one can tell you about that you have to do. And in doing, because it's your life, it's your purpose, it's your, uniqueness, you have to do it to find out how it would work. Yeah. So basically, those are some of the guiding principles that I really, really work on. And I like to guess that the first time you did your interviews, it didn't flow this smoothly. But if you didn't start that day, if you didn't start day one, where it was clumsy, where you had to do retext, where you had to edit, you'll never be in this position where you are now, where it flows so easily and you're able to spin one question off my answer. Not everybody can do it. I love the way you're interviewing

because it's so smooth and I can see experience and I can see practice, right? But unfortunately, we want to be this good to start, but you'll never be this good if you don't start. Right. And I think that's 100% true with anything like being interviewed. on podcasts, you have to start by getting on a podcast and being interviewed or being on television. You have to just do it. And every time you do it, you learn from the past experience. So you get better and better and more relaxed and calmer. And your answers become more succinct.

and everything just flows more naturally. And I think that's true in anything you do, the more you practice it, the better it gets. So the Leadership Synergy Institute and the Leadership Accelerator, can you tell me a little bit more about that and how it all works? So the Leadership Synergy Institute is the umbrella body of my business. I run the leadership accelerator program where I help professionals who want to uplevel their leadership skills. They want to work on themselves.

We go through a 12-week program where we hone in on what are your strengths and all the other good stuff that we talked about earlier in making them be the best version of themselves. I also run the career accelerator for people who really are looking to move from mid-level career into example. executive leadership positions because a lot of times people get stuck in that level, in that mid-level career. And it is a task to move to executive leadership. So I work with them also to do a SWAT analysis of sort to see what their strengths are, what they're dealing with, and why it is they've been finding difficult to climb. And we map out a strategy for them to get into executive leadership.

Now, when they are there, we also support them. them to succeed because it's one thing to get into executive leadership. It's another thing to know how do you succeed as a leader. I know that's true because I at one point went from that middle management into a higher leadership position and it is a different adventure in your life and you have to know how to navigate that and you really do need that support system. So, that you don't, you know, fall from grace in those. Absolutely. So I wanted to ask you just a couple things about what's going on in the leadership world today.

What do you see as the big challenges for people in leadership today? You know, the biggest challenges that I see in leadership, right, is that, you know, there's no other way to say a lot of failure on leadership, right? Because people are not prepared for the positions they get into. And it's very obvious from the moment they get in there because, unfortunately, our systems do not. train you in leadership until you become a leader, which is ridiculous. Most people do not get prepared for leadership until they become leaders and then they start sending them for programs and blah, blah, blah. At that time, I'm sorry, but it's a little bit too late.

So we find people fumbling through processes because they don't really know what to do and they found themselves literally tossed into leadership positions maybe by virtue of having been with an organization for so long or having done certain things very well. Unfortunately, when people get into leadership, they try to keep doing the things that got them into leadership, which is not what you need as a leader. So again, I'm finding a lot of people struggling to be effective leaders because they're not prepared. Most people go into leadership very, very unprepared.

So generally in the leadership world now, I find that we are putting out fires rather than building and creating leaders. That's what I find going on in a lot of situations. That makes a lot of sense because, like you said, a lot of times people are, you know, they've been with a company a long time and where do they go. So they get thrust into a leadership position due to that. or maybe they were really good at their job, but maybe they weren't prepared to be a leader. So that's where I would think that you could come in to help them. So what final advice would you give to some of our listeners

if they might be struggling with imposter syndrome or if they want to prepare themselves now for that future? leadership position that they want to have in the future. The final word I'm going to leave is that you need to believe in your true potential. You need to believe that you were born to do something in particular and you're the only one of your kind. You are the only one who can do it exactly how it needs to be done. Any other person doing what you're supposed to be doing are imitations, but you have a

unique calling where you're the only one that can really show up and lead with the level of passion and integrity that is needed for that particular assignment. If you recognize that you are that special, yes, you are that tool. Then you're able to put in the work that is needed for you to leave out your dream and also create a legacy that inspires other people to do the same. because what is leadership if you're not replicating yourself? And how can you replicate something you don't even value and something you don't even grow in and honor? So last words, recognize yourself for who you are.

You are special. You're unique. And yes, you're worth it. That's really beautiful. So where can people find more information to reach out to you? So my website address is leadership synergy.ca. And my social media handles mostly leadership accelerator. So I'm leadership accelerator on LinkedIn and on Instagram.

Or you can also send us an email info at leadership synergy.ca. Okay. Well, thank you, Dr. Shade. I really learned a lot. And of course, I think we could probably go on talking for a long time about all kinds of topics related to leadership and imposter syndrome. So I just wanted to say thank you very much, and I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I've really enjoyed this too.

Thank you. Everyone, this is Dr. Tammy Pitzer. Make it a great day. Thanks for listening. to Business Innovators Radio. To hear all episodes featuring leading industry influencers and trendsetters,

visit us online at businessinnovators org.com today.