This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - Diversity Isn’t a Strategy - It’s a Leadership Result with Aiko Bethea | 378

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

Leadership is already messy. Add culture, identity, power dynamics, and a workplace that rewards sameness… and suddenly you’re not leading—you’re surviving. In this episode, Nicole talks with Aiko Bethea, founder of RARE Coaching & Consulting, about what actually creates diversity (spoiler: it’s not a checkbox) and why diversity is the outcome of great leadership. We get into: Why “diversity” isn’t a skill set (and why treating it like one makes you a worse leader) Power-sharing vs. power-hoarding and how that impacts belonging, equity, and performance The real reason leadership advice feels like a chaotic buffet of contradictions How to measure leadership impact beyond “we hit the number” (because people aren’t spreadsheets) Why leaders making mistakes feels riskier than ever—and why ownership is still the right move The “punching a ghost” feeling when reality is being rewritten in real time  What it means to be a well leader: aligned, accountable, humane—not perfect Because the goal isn’t to lead like the “stereotypical old-school leader.” The goal is to lead like your full self—and create workplaces where more people can do the same. Thank you to our sponsors! Get 20% off your first order at curehydration.com/WOMANSWORK with code WOMANSWORK — and if you get a post-purchase survey, mention you heard about Cure here to help support the show!  Sex is a skill. Beducated is where you learn it. Visit https://beducate.me/pd2550-womanswork and use code womanswork for 50% off the annual pass. Connect with Aiko: Website: https://www.rarecoaching.net/  IG: https://www.instagram.com/rare_coach  Invite to join RARE community  -  https://www.rarecoaching.net/membership/ Related Podcast Episodes: Leadership Unblocked (The Hidden Beliefs Sabotaging Your Ability To Lead) with Muriel M. Wilkins | 367  How to Push Back: From People-Pleasing to Power with Tonya Lester | 369 How To Be Yourself At Work: Authentic Presence Over Executive Presence with Claude Silver | 366 Share the Love: If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! 🔗 Subscribe & Review:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If this show adds something to your life, I'm asking for your help so it finds its way to the next woman who needs it. The three best ways to do that, rate, share, and support the sponsors. I am Nicole Khalil, your host of the This Is Woman's Work podcast, where in our quest to redefine woman's work, we cover a wide variety of topics, and sometimes the same topic from a wide variety of angles. Leadership is one of those topics because there are so many ways to do it, whether it's positional or personal, at work, at home, or in our communities were all leading in some way. And it's a topic that I'm enamored with. Aside from confidence, leadership is probably the thing I'm most intrigued by, curious about, and interested in because it's complex, paradoxical,

and it matters a lot. In my experience, leadership is much easier to define, evaluate, and judge from the outside, but actually much harder to live, especially if you're trying to do it well, which for most leaders I know is the goal. They care deeply. They're reading the books, listening to the podcast, doing the work to be better for the people they lead. And it's hard, not just because leading humans is complex, but because the advice out there is, let's just say, overwhelming.

Sure, there's lots of good advice, but how do you implement it at all? And what about the tips that contradict each other, like be decisive and also be collaborative? The strategy that motivates one team member, but falls flat with another. And how do you even know if you're doing it well? And don't even get me started on growth because it takes time, practice, and awareness that making mistakes and learning as you go is literally part of the job description, which is tricky because leadership mistakes are often met with finger pointing and judgment, as if any mistake you make makes you unfit to lead.

Now, layer in the added complexity of being a woman, a person of color, or anything different in any obvious way than the sort of stereotypical white male old leader, then there are times where it seems that the only way to win as a leader is to become less of yourself and more like someone else, where you spend as much time proving you are a leader as you do actually leading. That dissonance, it's exhausting, disorienting. And it's why so many leaders end up feeling disillusioned, even after they've worked so hard to get here. So today, yes, we're talking. We're talking about leadership, but more specifically diverse leadership. And our guest is Iko Bathia. She's the founder of rare coaching and consulting and has spent her career helping people and

organizations become braver, wiser, and more whole. She's worked with everyone from Fortune 100 execs to nonprofit leaders, to educators and creatives, and her work is grounded in belonging, wellness, and a deep understanding that leadership is both personal and structural. Ico, thank you for being our guest, and I want to start with something that I've heard you say before, and that's that diversity is the outcome of great leadership. Tell us why that is. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are things that you get when you have a really great leader. Diversity is not a skill set. So when you're a leader who is looking at people as whole people, coming into work as thinking about how you have power, how you're using it, and you're thinking, I don't want to use power over

because you recognize the best outcome and the most humane workplace is going to be one where I am sharing power with people. I am giving power to people. I'm inviting people to recognize the power they have already with their agency and their smarts, etc. And when you do that, for what people feel like I can work here and I can actually be successful. This person really sees me, this leader does. They're not, I love the part that you said about spending all the time proving that I should even be here. all of that kind of goes, can go out of the window when you have a leader who is level setting and thinking about how do I share power into the most potential out of this amazing person?

Because of that, it's going to create a space where more people can see themselves being successful and can be successful. So the output would be much more diversity in the people who are on the team, racial diversity, gender diversity, et cetera. And guess what? There'll be much more equity because as a leader, you're being very intentional and aware about, where does power sit and how do I continue to transfer it so that people feel they have agency and they can show up and take risks and they can fail if something doesn't go well and that's a part of the job so there's not a shaming and blaming so now more people are going to be able to show up show up as themselves be able to have a shorter turn in terms of when I mess up and when I

get right back up and what is that going to attract that is going to attract the brightest and the best without people self-censoring and saying, oh, man, I don't belong, I don't X, Y, and Z, because the leader is expansive and is introspective and is trying to be the best they can for their team, for themselves. So you get more diversity,

you get more equity, and people feel like they belong. So there's inclusion there. Right. And when you ask the question, what does that attract? My brain also went to, it attracts creativity,

it attracts care, it attracts collaboration, It attracts commitment, right? When you work in a great environment, you want to do well in your job. You want to do well for the organization. And one of the things that I often, like, there's so much noise about diversity right now.

And I'm always like, this isn't just the right thing to do. This is a smart business decision. This, as you said, is the outcome of great leadership. This is how you know you're doing it well. It's not something designed to, check a box. Any thoughts on that? I also think about some of the language that is being thrown around right now about diversity, equity, inclusion, and making it seem as if it is something that creates factions. Whereas when you are leaning into being a leader who is much more aware,

much more holding yourself accountable, et cetera, it's actually the most patriotic thing you can do. because you're inviting the potential of the full workforce. You're inviting people to come in and to maximize. You're not allowing anybody to hide and to scapego others. You're helping them to hold themselves accountable and each other accountable for outputs, outcomes, for how they are engaging with other people, about the culture they're bringing, about the quality of work. And when you're doing that, there's no way.

way that you can really, you know, that's that you are creating, getting the best out of your full population and workforce. And there's not, I mean, I don't know how much more patriotic you can be than elevating the people who are there in your community and in your country and creating a space where I expect you to be here. I expect you to show up and I expect you to be doing the best work possible. And my, my role here is to create enablement. Okay. So well said and I love putting it in the umbrella of patriotism, because that really is what we're talking about. It's taking care of the people in your community

and creating a community within your work. Now, in order for a leader to do this, I would imagine it requires a level of confidence, of emotional maturity, of care, because basically creating an organization with people who look and think just like you. That's not all that hard. I consider that sort of lazy leadership.

Like if I just attract people who look and think just like me, I'm not going to have to work all that hard. They're more than likely going to agree with me all the time. They're not going to see, we're going to have the same blind spots, you know, that type of thing. But when you attract a diverse population into your organization, you're attracting diverse perspectives, diverse experiences, diverse backgrounds, diverse ideas.

It requires something from, the leader to encourage that, yes? Yes, and I will say that even if somebody is working in a space where everyone might look like them and might come from the same ecosystem, there should still be points of tension because you're just not the exact same person. You can even, there's a lot of other things happening, but there is a default. I think what you're recognizing is that there's a default ecosystem of expectations. So even though I may be exactly like X, Y, Z, or Brad and Bob are from even the same household, right?

They're going to be different, but one of them is going to be defaulting, or they both are going to be defaulting, or either they're not going to push themselves beyond because we have a system that rewards you for sameness. It rewards you for not putting in friction. It rewards you. So even when that leader, let's just say Brad is a leader, even if Brad is a leader, even if Brad is then elevating and having and starting to be much more introspective. And he says, you know what, Bob, I think, let's try doing this differently. And Bob is pushing back like, this is how we've always done it. What do you mean, et cetera? Then we still know that, wow, what Brad is doing and trying to be so much

more expansive is going to invite different ways of being and doing, but Brad might be punished for that. For doing something different, even in that very, looks like a shared ecosystem, right? So I don't. don't want to default that it is, you know, there is no effort or there is no laziness, but I want people to understand that it is self-limiting. So it's not only limiting a system, but it is self-limiting what Brad might possibly venture out to do. The expansiveness of his own life and world is limited when everyone keeps going back to the default. It may feel safer, right? Because now I know what to expect the next day. I know who I'm supposed to like. I'm not supposed to like, I know who's supposed to get ahead, then I'm just going to go by that.

It is what you said in terms of very lazy, but it is also self-limiting. And I think that's what people don't understand. When I talk about patriotism is limiting to our whole ecosystem in our country. And we can't innovate. We don't and get the most out of everybody. And I don't even get to challenge myself to think differently and to put some rigor against how we've always done it, right? So I want people to really see this idea of expansiveness of introspection of why do I believe this? And is there a different way? Is there a thought that's coming up that I'm refusing, I'm not allowing myself to say? And if I don't say it, why is it?

Is it because of fear that I'll be punished? Is it because it's so different? I don't know what people would think for people to really pause and consider that. Like, why do I keep doing it like this instead of X, Y, and Z? and that expansion will be there. And that expansion is not only for their own singular growth, but when they open that door wider, more people will be able to come in to.

More people will be able to go out. But right now, I'm holding my hand like this tight fits. Nothing can come in and nothing can go out because we need to keep it exactly like this. But if I'm willing to not be afraid of all of my own creativity as a person, consider the possibilities, consider that I'm wrong and maybe say it out loud, consider that the stories I got from my community and family of origin weren't helpful or they could

even be harming other people. When I start considering that, you can imagine the heights of possibility of my leadership. Right. How expansive it can be and how much it can push the rigor on other people to expand themselves as well. That's hard work. It's hard work because, one, I might have to see some things about myself that I don't like too much. I might see some things about a belief system that I inherited, which means that maybe my mom, my dad, my grandparents were giving me some messages, were not only self-limiting for me, but they're false.

And that's a hard process and hard grieving, and it takes a lot of emotional labor and maturity to do something like that. Unfortunately, we're in a space where there's a lot of public reward for being stuck in the same and being small and shrinking. And that does not make for great innovation, creativity, rigor in debating ideas to come out with what's the best idea. There are so many things that I popped up as you were talking first. Thank you for acknowledging that it is hard. When you talk about leadership in the way you just did, it's so aspirational. Like I'm so excited about the idea of knowing a leader who's leading in that way, of, you know, working to become a leader who's leading in that way.

And it is hard. It's a lot of self-work. And it's inevitable that we'll make mistakes. You mentioned acknowledging mistakes. Does it feel to you, I don't know if this is just a me thing, it feels to me today that it is so much harder for leaders to make mistakes because everything's so public, everything's so quick to wag a finger. And there are some things, don't get me wrong,

that like just as judgmental as anyone else. But it's hard work and it feels even harder because it feels like there's a spotlight on it and the minute you mess up, you know, there's all the judgment and you're not a leader. Any thoughts on that? A really good observation there.

I think there's a couple things. It is harder to be a leader and make a mistake in public if the thing that you feel you have to lose is your position. Right? Oh man, now they think that you don't know what you're doing. You need to be fired as CEO. I can't believe you made that mistake. Blah, blah,

blah, blah, blah, blah. But what is the cost that you're paying this even higher by not naming and owning? Right. And that's an internal cost. That's a cost in terms of when you're thinking, are we living to work and to hold a position? Are we just working and holding this position to live so that we can become more of our aspirational selves and be the person we want to be. And people have to make that call every day in terms of what is the decision I'm going to make in this moment and recognize the cost is not just the external superficial cost of what will people think. And now I could be fired. I have to talk to the board versus who do I aspire to be? And this is more in line with it. And I have to sleep with myself every night. And I am modeling something for my family,

my kids, my, with the society. And we know that courage, I love, you know, and I always says courage is contagious and it is. When you see somebody else naming what they're doing and taking ownership for it, when you are willing to step in and be very transparent and clear about, yeah, I messed up, guess what? There's never going to be a gotcha moment.

And one thing that people always know they can expect of Nicole is that there's not going to be a cover-up. There's not going to be a shortcut. There's a, you know what, I could have made a better call. And this is what I commit to doing differently. I think the reason I made that call was this. And this is, maybe I wouldn't have done anything different with the knowledge I had at that moment, but I'm going to own what the impact was. Because right now we see quite a few leaders, I think about Texas and the flooding and things that are happening, and a leader doubling down and not willing to say, you know, we could have made a better call and this was an expensive price to pay.

This is what you're going to see us doing differently. It doesn't give me greater faith in a leader who refuses in. circumvents and talks around versus naming it, owning the impact, and then saying this is what we're going to do differently. Yeah. Yeah. It's that demonstration of ownership. I talk to enough leaders to know one of the things they often desire more of from their team is ownership. And it begs the question, are we demonstrating it? You're right. And what do people mean when they say ownership? Sometimes people think ownership is, oh, it's my job and I have the, you know, authority over this. And I own this versus with ownership comes self-accountability. Accountability of when something happens.

We are in a space where people are so afraid to hold each other accountable. We have a system that doesn't hold people accountable. And we have folks who don't know how to even name that I did this wrong. I blah, blah, blah, you know, and what's being rewarded is the cover-up. the not naming, the pretending you don't see it, the false darts being thrown out all over the place. And so there's a lot of dissonance. Mental exhaustion, there's emotional exhaustion. It's like punching a ghost. Like, this doesn't feel right.

I don't know, but they're saying this or no one's naming this. Am I the only one in this room is a little bit crazy? Because I feel like this is what happened, but no one's mentioning it. Yeah. First is the idea of the transparency and ownership in holding yourself accountable and naming what didn't go well. and also being able to hold other people accountable with generosity. Here's my hot take. What if we all gave the finger to resolutions about losing weight

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I'm like, I feel like I'm living in a series of what the fuck moments. Like, am I in the twilight zone? I don't even understand what's happening. I don't know if you struggle with this. I struggle with this challenge of being informed and wanting to be involved and stand up for what I believe is right and, like, protecting my own mental. energy because it's exhausting feeling like you're punching a ghost. Are you experiencing that? So I witness it. And sometimes I can start sensing it coming up when I'm listening to any type of

news cycle or things that are, you don't get the full story. There are these sound bites. And you're like, wait a minute, that is not what happened. Hey, wait a minute, that isn't even how government works. Right. So I absolutely have those moments. And the grounding point for me or the anchoring point point for me is that I must always be honest with myself, which means I need to hold myself accountable. Even those moments having to unpack, what is it about this that is really making me feel like I'm in the twilight zone? And then it may be something very factual and logical, like, actually, there's this thing called checks and balances. And it is not working right now. Or it could be, Ha, Iko, it's because they're not saying what you want them to say, but they're not wrong.

To be grounded and anchored during the, you know, dissonance that we're seeing and witnessing in the midst of we must always be honest with ourselves. And sometimes the self-discovery or the unpacking of what's happening around us will actually help us to understand ourselves better. And sometimes when I might say, you know what, I understand why people feel that and believe that. And legally, there's even some truths to X, Y, and Z. Why this is bothering me or taking me to 600 is because I am feeling very hurt for the people who are impacted. And it's not fair because it's not fair in the sense of humanity and how I believe people should be treated

or what family means to me. So now I can go to it is my moral north and my value of justice and loyalty that is really being sent to task. And that can, when your own values are being challenged, it can even invite you to step outside of your values. Right. So as soon as I see it and I'm like, oh, that's so wrong. And I'm up in arms. It may make me treat the next person up the street

who has some kind of bumper sticker or whatever in a terrible way because I feel like my sense of justice and my values are encroached. and now I've done it to somebody else just on something superficial. So the idea of always trying to keep within my, this grounded sense of who are you and what are you doing? Why are you doing that? Why are you feeling this way? And it's a great regular, ongoing journey of self-discovery. Yeah.

It's an ongoing journey of systems, of understanding and discovering systems, of understanding people. And that's hard work. That's hard mental labor to do perpetually. because you'll hear people say, you know, I can't even do it. I just want to stay in the house or what have you. But what does that accomplish? Like, in what way? Sometimes I'm going to say, you need to stay in the house and relax and get yourself together. But the idea that you're going to become an island, we know the dangers already of people being polarized, being an island, our own epidemic of disconnection and isolation that's happening. So you have to find a way in tools where you can still navigate community, the world, a range of ecosystems. Well, that was also just a great example of self accountability, right?

You talked about that earlier, where it's really easy to hold under our values when things are going well. But it's in those moments where choosing to stay true to our values is both hard. and a great example of leadership. Like I value curiosity. It's one of my core values. And so God, in those moments, it's like, I have to dig real deep, but it's like, what's a question I can ask here? How do I get curious about this versus angry about it?

And sometimes I do need more time than I'd like to admit to get to a good place with that. But I'm so, so glad that you said that. Now, I go, I probably should have asked this from the very beginning. And it might just be a stupid question. but your work is around diverse leadership. Do you find yourself focusing more on leaders, leading a diverse team or diverse group of humans,

or do you find yourself more focusing on leaders who are diverse leading others, or is it both and? Yeah, so one, I'll just go back and unpack part of the premise of like my work is about diverse leadership. I think my work is more about inviting people to be the best leaders, they can be. But what I do recognize is that a place where people stumble a lot as being able to lead across cultures. And leading across cultures often can be very dynamic and it can be very explosive because you have this other variable that can talk back to you, can reason back with you,

and can resist to you, right, which is another person who you're leading or working with or, etc. And you have to do internal work to understand why is the way this person doing this activating me? Why is this so foreign the way that they keep doing X, Y, Z so weird to me? Why is it so it is still about the more that you elevate, going back to our initial premise, the more that you elevate as a leader and increase your self-awareness, your ability to self-regulate or self-manage, the more that you are going to be able to work with, anyone anywhere because you're like you're the constant variable, the only variable that you can control. And so that journey of understanding, allowing yourself to constantly be expansive and to

understand yourself better, those are the first two building blocks when you think about emotional intelligence, right? Self-awareness and self-management. The other one is an awareness of others and then managing that whole dynamic of groups and other people. But it starts with what am I bringing to the table? What do I need to excavate? What are these beliefs I have that I've never had a moment to ever pause and think about and where do they come from? And do I like it? And that's what I want. And do I like the impact as having on myself and other people? And so that's why I think the question of, you know, do you focus on leaders or diverse or teams that are diverse? It's really about leaders elevating themselves, which means that they have to understand the ways that they may be same as different from and what the impact is.

And no matter what room you're in or what body you're in, you are always, if there's one other person in that room, you're going to be different from them and they're going to be different from you. But what you need to be aware of is what am I bringing into the space in this room and how do I need to manage it in order to whatever? You know, in order to get the project over the line, is it in order to be the person I want to be? And as a leader, I fully believe that it's not that leaders should ever change who you are, but you need to be so aware of who you are that you can flex to get the best out of other people. So if I'm somebody who has a very domineering personality, and I realize that Beth is somebody who is very quiet, is an internal processor, and empathy and relationships are her leading factors that she notices. I know that I'm going to have to tamp it down a little bit so that Beth feels like she can

actually speak in the room and come to the table because the latter I am, the more she may shrink away and shut down. So my realizing that, self-awareness and self-managing it, I can flex and invite more and get more from Beth. Right. So that's what a leader should do. it's a self-awareness and it's oftentimes knowing how I am different from. What are some homeworks about me so that I can navigate what I'm bringing to the table in order to get the best impact and to be closer to who I aspire to be. Yeah. It reminds me a lot of what I know to be true about confidence. That's what I've studied the most. And ultimately, it's an inside out proposition where we get so much messaging about how to look confident, but very little about how to be

and become confident. And I think somewhat true on leadership, how to look and act like a leader. We get a ton of messaging. Most of it not so good, in my opinion, but what you're saying is it really is something that happens first internally, and then it has an outward component of it.

Now, I want to explore this, what the impact is. You said that. I think sometimes with leadership, it's a little bit like, how do I gauge if I'm doing it well? And you said something about what the impact is a couple times.

I do think that there's so much information about how to lead well out there, so many books, so many podcasts, so many, whatever. And it's easy to be like, oh, I'm just going to do what that says or I'm going to follow that advice or whatever. And there sometimes is the disconnect of, okay, but is that advice working? What is the impact that it's having?

What advice do you have about recognizing whether or not your leadership is having the impact do you want it to have if by results or what is happening around you, if you're leading well. Is my question making any sense? It is. It is. One, I love to call out the fact that if this idea that leadership is not just a formula. If so, we would all get the latest HBR and Fortune and Forbes and we'll just do what it says.

It would be great. And if people worked that way, guess what would probably all be X size, X amount of body fat, et cetera, because we just read what it said to do when we did it. So we have our own emotional and other behavior things that are not going to allow us to just do something, which is why we need to understand that. But the other part is that a lot of those, the how to and the articles, they're static, right? Whereas every, you're going to have different variables and your composition of as a leader is going to engage with those variables differently.

It's like a chemistry, experiment or something. But I do believe that, you know, part of this aspect of what should you be doing as a leader has a lot to do with who do you want to be as a leader? And I know that I'm being successful based on, is it aligned twofold? Is it aligned with who I aspire to be as a person? Sometimes it can be aligned with who I aspire to be as a person and the outputs aren't what I would have wanted because it's not aligned with what success. that would have looked like, which is like, you know, maybe it was meeting at 80% sales mark and we hit 50%. But in that, I know that two people who were critical to the project had crises, situations, or different things that happened. And because of the way that we handled it, we know those people are never going to

leave this company because they felt heard, seen, and cared for. So the retention might go up. And that is what was important to me is coding these people with care. And guess what, the project didn't hit 80, but it's still blah, blah, blah, blah. So that's going to be my measurement. Right. So there's partly that. And it might, hopefully, if the place I'm working at has certain types of values, hopefully is in line with their measurement too of what success could look like. Then there's the other impacts. So some of the impacts could be like we hit it out of the park at 200 percent. But everyone left feeling demoralized. There's a lot of shouting and yelling and calls at 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. and people miss birthdays and graduations and weddings. things to get this over the line. So was that a success? So whatever the impact and deliverables are, it has to be in alignment with how we are as a whole person, right? And then also thinking about in alignment with organizational goals, sometimes they're not aligned. And oftentimes, and I know that you know this as another executive coach is that oftentimes when folks find

themselves in the doldrums, which is when they go and seek a coach, they realize, holy cow, I'm doing everything right on paper. My performance reviews have been great. I'm getting these great bonuses, but I feel like crap. And then they realize, oh my gosh,

it's not an alignment with who I want to be. So the impact for them and who they want to be was such that it wasn't successful. They didn't feel like a good leader or the leader they want to be. But everything else looks great. So those are just different impact markers

you can look at to figure out if you're being the leader you want to be. Is it aligned with your values and who you want to be. How do you feel at the end of the day? What were the actual objective measurements in terms of the returns? How do the people around you walk around and leave? Right? Is that the impact you wanted? Is that this person you really admire won't even come up to you in the hallway anymore? Now there's something I need to be accountable for because that's not the impact I wanted to have. Yeah. I had no idea it was going to have that impact, but I need to hold myself accountable

and I need to find where, you know, Rick is and find out what's happening. That's me holding myself accountable. I'm taking a beat. I'm not saying, well, I don't know what's going on. Rick, he needs to get himself together. I'm thinking, like you said, the curiosity. And I wonder what's going on. I don't like what's happening.

I'm going to go and try to unpack it with generosity and find out. And I need to be ready when Rick says, Iko, the way that you drove the team, yeah, you got your results. But you did X, Y, and Z, X, Y, and Z, and I have to be willing to hear it. me holding myself accountable and learning about this impact that I didn't even know was there. And now was I a successful leader or not. In that moment, I may not feel it. But yeah, the first thing I did was I held myself accountable. I was curious.

I was willing to hear the truth. And now what am I going to do after that point? Because now that Rick has let me know that I was a real Class A bitch jerk or whatever, now who am I going to be? Am I going to own it? Am I going to commit to doing something different? or am I going to double down, say, well, that's what the project needed, and blah, blah, blah. So leadership, every moment you have a choice and you have an opportunity to explore impact,

to show up in a way that's in alignment, to see the people who are working with you and recognize what is it that they need, to understand that whatever it is they need, Nicole, is it something that you in the workplace should be offering? Because we've also seen that in a lot of spaces where people are saying, that wasn't a trauma-informed way that you spoke to me. Well, we've got to understand what is happening at the company, and is that something we set an expectation up for? Or is the way in the culture just not in alignment? Because now I've noticed that a lot of people,

there's not the same degree of rigor because there's either a fear of, oh my gosh, we have to show up as totally empathetic, so I can't give Nicole the feedback because of this, that, or the other verses, no, you can be empathetic and hold people accountable. You can do it with generosity. So it is a constant shifting formula that leaders, that's the mental and emotional exhaustion that can be happening, is that it's dynamic.

Yeah. I think what you're saying, or at least what I'm hearing, is also acknowledging that it's not a leader's or a workplace's job to meet its team's every need. Absolutely. I think we have over-rotated a little bit where it's like your workplace should be,

healthy and productive and all of that. But it's not supposed to meet all of your needs. Like that's not the purpose. Just like no one person meets all of our needs. Okay, I have to ask this one last question. You talk a lot about wellness as part of successful leadership. What is a well leader? What is a leader who is well look and feel like? How do we work toward that? So one thing I want to say is that being a well leader doesn't mean that you're always going to feel like you're knocking out the park and you're at 100 percent and you got 80 hours of sleep. but that it does look like that you're in alignment with who you aspire to be and that you are supporting other people and being aligned. And sometimes that might even mean that this workplace

isn't going to help you to feel more aligned, right? But you're showing up, I do think it's about being humane. I think it's about treating people so that they can have dignity and treating people with generosity, believing people are doing the best they can do. So I do believe that being a leader who is providing for wellness of others, it comes back to you. You know, it's going to support you instead of feeling like you're always like riding people or you're always trying to get extractive of folks. Like how are you feeding back into people? It comes back to you, right? In terms of this rest, it's not us versus them. It's an us and how do we move this forward, right? And how do we harness the most out of everyone? Am I getting the best out of myself? Am I getting the best out of myself? Am I getting the

out of others. I should have said the best because it's not getting most out of people. But it's like, how do I get the best out of this person so they can even see their best? I think that's the wellness of when you are, you know, pouring into others and pouring into yourself, holding yourself accountable, being honest, being transparent, all that takes churn out of the system. Decreases your emotional labor, your mental labor, helps you to stay grounded. Yeah. Well, I started this episode by saying I'm enamored by leadership and I am enamored by you. about this all day long. I'm so I love what you're talking about. I wish this for more leaders. I wish this for more communities, for more teams. I'm sure those people listening in feel the same.

So the way to find Ico and her work is go to rarecoaching.net. She has a rare community. There's a membership program on her website. So again, rarecoaching.net. You can also follow her on Instagram at Rare underscore Coach. And we're going to put everything all the ways to find and follow ICO in show notes. Thank you for being here today, for your wisdom and for talking about leadership in a way that feels both aspirational and somewhat approachable. Thank you for the invitation. My pleasure.

All right. Friend, leadership isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. It never should have been. It's not about having all the answers or following somebody else. is blueprint. It's about doing the real, often messy, sometimes disorienting work of leading in a way that aligns with who you are and who you want to be. It's personal, it's structural, it's complex as hell, and it's also one of the most powerful ways we can create change in our workplaces, in our communities, and in the world. So whether you lead teams, classrooms, families, or something entirely

your own, may you lead with intention, with self-trust, with self-accountability, with your full self- at the table, not despite what makes you different, but because of it. We need women at tables where decisions are being made. We need you to lead. It is, after all, women's work.