This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - The Sixth Level Of Leadership with Dr. Stacy Feiner | 236

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

I wonder how many of us think of or unconsciously visualize gender when we think of leadership. Truly, how many of us are thinking of women when we’re asked about great leaders? Let’s face it, conventional leadership models and expectations have been and are currently based mostly on men… their attributes, their styles, and their psychology. I believe the time has come where we value masculine, feminine, and everything in between in our leaders– that we admire autonomy and collaboration, independence and connection, directness and thoughtfulness.  Here to advocate for the future of leadership is Dr. Stacy Feiner, an accomplished psychologist, business leader, innovator, author, and mom who advises private- and family- owned businesses with a pro-growth, pro-health approach that ensures leaders solve emotionally charged situations, move forward, and increase enterprise value & family connection. Stacy co-authored the recent bestselling book, The Sixth Level: Capitalize on the Power of Women’s Psychology for Sustainable Leadership, which is also being used in universities, businesses, and local governments and is here today to talk to us about what we can learn from women about leadership. Women have been leading for a long time, in many ways that work. The answer isn’t to replace men with women, but rather to have all genders learn from women, as we have from men. Because leadership is not confined to a single archetype - it's dynamic and multifaceted. Connect with Stacy: Website: https://www.stacyfeiner.com/  IG: https://www.instagram.com/dr.stacyfeiner/  Book: https://www.thesixthlevel.com/  Like what you heard? Please rate and review  Thanks to our This Is Woman’s Work Sponsor: Go to AquaTru.com and enter code TIWW at checkout for 20% off any AquaTru purifier to get yourself, and someone you love, purified water!

I am Nicole Kalil, and I wonder, when I say the word leader, what or who is the visual representation for you? Maybe the word leader brings to mind somebody that you know or have worked with who was an incredible and impactful leader for you. Maybe you think of a notable leader from history or someone in the public eye who's currently leading others well and in a way that you admire. Maybe it's positional, situational, or relational in your mind. But if I asked you to describe great leaders generally, what would you say? I'm guessing qualities like vision, integrity,

communication, decisiveness, and innovation would pop up a lot. We might talk about being able to trust them and how they empower others. I'm sure we'd hear some mentions of resilience and courage, growth mindset, and adaptability. We might even hear about how they make you feel or ways that they bring out the best in you. But here's my real question. I guess the question that's underneath my question. I wonder how many of us think of or unconsciously visualize gender when we think of leadership? And how many of us are thinking of women when we're asked about great leaders? I'm genuinely curious because the reality is the vast majority of us experience leaders who

are men. I'm assuming that based on statistics like 70% give or take of the C-suite are men, or that the books that we read on leadership are predominantly written by men, or that here in the U.S. we've yet to see a woman currently or historically hold the highest position of leadership in our country. So it seems likely that our experiences would provide us with a mostly male representation of leadership. Let's face it, conventional leadership models and expectations have been and are based on men, their attributes, their style, and their psychology. And I am not anti-men for the record, but leadership is no longer something that

one gender is better suited for than another. And man, have I seen some women lead. Imperfectly sure, but that's how every leader has ever done it. And I've seen women do it with great success and impact. And I believe the time has come where we value masculine, feminine, and everything in between in our leaders, that we admire autonomy and collaboration, independence and connection, directness and thoughtfulness, that we change how we define and how we represent leadership so that we don't continue to accept ineffective and frankly piss poor leadership just because it happens to come in a package that we're used to and that we don't discount or ignore inspiring and productive

leadership just because it doesn't come in the package that we're expecting. So let's talk about how we do that. Here to advocate for the future of leadership is Dr. Stacey Feiner, an accomplished psychologist, business leader, innovator, author, and mom who advises private and family-owned businesses with a pro-growth, pro-health approach that ensures leaders solve emotionally charged situations, move forward, and increase enterprise value and family connection. Stacey has co-authored the recent bestselling book, The Sixth Level, capitalized on the power of women's psychology for sustainable leadership, which is also being used in universities,

businesses, and local governments. And she is here today to talk to us about what we can learn from women about leadership. Stacey, thank you for being our guest. And I think the best place to start it is to ask you about this sixth level. What is the sixth level and what does it have to do with women in leadership? Beautiful introduction. My head is just alive and charged up with all of the things that you talked about with regard to the qualities of leaders and the packages that they come in in our expectations. So let me just say, you've lit me up. Yay. I love that. My pleasure. Yeah. Really glad to be here. Yeah. That's a great place to start. What is the sixth level?

So I first want to say that I am a co-author of the book. There are three other co-authors with me. Of course, I'm Stacey Feiner, Rachel Wallace-Andreessen, Dr. Jack Harris, and Dr. Kathy Overbeck. And we came together about two years ago formally to write this book. The sixth level, what is it? The sixth level is the style of leadership, the qualities of leadership that women bring to leadership that is above Maslow's hierarchy. Maslow's hierarchy is five levels, tiers of five levels. It stops too soon. As many leadership models end too soon, they end with things like self-actualization, autonomy, separation, and individuation. And what that represents is a focus on one's self. When we get to a place in our development where we can expound on and explore

our own potential because we have our other needs met. But what we haven't done is we haven't studied women's psychology. And therefore, until 1971, we did not have a theory or a model of the qualities that women bring to leadership. And that's called the sixth level, self-inrelation. So Maslow stops at self-actualization, and the sixth level goes to the next level above that to self-inrelation versus self-actualization or the other four levels? So the sixth level in self-inrelation. Self-inrelation is made up of four qualities. Mutuality, ingenuity, justness, and intrinsic motivation. Those are four qualities that are sourced from women's psychology that make up self-inrelation. Now, self-inrelation

was first coined in 1971 by Dr. Jean Baker Miller and a group of scholars at Wellesley College in Boston, along with another psychologist whose name is Carol Gilligan, who talks about the ethic of care. So self-enrelation and the ethic of care are qualities that women bring to, let me just say, the species, right? The human species, right? Humanity. And until 1971, all traditional models, disciplines, and leadership models were based on men's psychology, partly because we live in a system that prioritizes men's perspective of the world, but also disciplines that shape our society, that shape our reality, are missing a key component of our humanity, which is women's psychology. And what I may add as part of self in relation, it's also women's sociology. So what all models miss is the sociology, the psychosociology of women's orientation that will round us out in our understanding about ourself and others.

So self-enrelation is, in fact, the ability and the need and the natural human endeavor of learning about oneself through the eyes of another and for that person to learn about themself through our eyes. And not just that we learn about ourselves through others and that we can't learn about ourselves fully without relationships. We also develop our sense of self in relation to others. So our sense of self, our orientation to who we are in the world is made up both by our own biology and our own psychology, but also in the interactions and the way we create meaning and relationship with others. So as you're talking, all I can think of is this seems of vital importance when we think about leadership, right? The self in relationship with the other people that are around us is leadership.

A leader without people is just out for a walk, right? You have to be leading other people and be in relationship with other people in order for it to be leadership. So this seems of vital importance and kind of a big miss for a very long period of time. Am I misinterpreting that? No, you're spot on. It is jaw dropping and it's jaw dropping still to the place where there is, there's resistance to this notion. And there's, uh, there can be like a pushback when we talk about these concepts that somehow it's leaving men out or it's about women and not men. And in fact, what we have missed so profoundly is the notion that we must learn from women. So it's interesting you said this, Nicole, we were one of Rachel Wallace-Andreas and one of our co-authors tells the story where she was at a meeting and she

talked about her book and everybody was very excited for her. And the men in the room said, I have to get this book for my wife or my daughter or, you know, my chief HR person who's a woman. And all of them were talking about getting this book for a woman. And she said, isn't that interesting? You know, when I buy a John Maxwell book or when I buy a Jim Collins book or when I'm looking for, you know, another leadership book that's, you know, written by a man, I don't think to myself, I don't think this is going to be relevant for me. But somehow, when we have, or when we orient books to, or orient learning from women, people seem to think that only women learn from women. And that is probably our, our biggest obstacle in terms of helping this model get absorbed and applied.

But it's also the biggest blind spot. The relevance of what women know is so powerful. And I'll just add this too, is women bring these four core qualities. And I'd like to talk with you about them because I think they will really further shape the depth of the conversation. So dominance and command and control is a rather easy leadership methodology. When you create fear and when you have power over others, you can manipulate people to do for you in order to get some basic need met. But what women are orienting around are qualities, not just of leadership, but necessities for healthy societies. So mutuality, mutuality is the ability, again, I'm going to say this again, to learn about oneself. It's a shared experience of learning about oneself and the world around through the eyes of others and to shape ourself and our identity in relation. Ingenuity is also brought

to the species through women. It's the ability to solve complex problems with novel solutions that serve the interests of many. Now, this is so fundamental because just by a little bit of comparison, men are oriented toward solving problems more linearly based on precedent to serve the needs of their immediate target market or their immediate problem. So men are oriented to problem solving in a linear way, using precedent to serve the interest of a few, right? The most obvious target of the challenge or the goal. Women, again, I'm restating, are oriented to solving complex problems with novel solutions to serve the interests of many. And in order to do that, it takes more sophistication. It takes more time.

It takes more consideration. So if you think about mothers who are trying to get three children, three unique individuals in one car to get to grandma's house or their grandparents' house, that mother has to be ingenious because they have a seven-year-old that has different developmental needs than their five-year-old who has different developmental needs than their newborn. You have to strap one in, click one in and buckle the, or, you know, snap the other one in. And all of them have to get into one vehicle and move in one direction. And because these children are aging at different times, right, you need to always be defining and creating new

solutions. And so this is a unique quality that women bring to society. And it orients people around a collaborative system that serves many. There are a couple of things that pretty much everyone in the health and wellness industry can agree on, and one of them is the importance of drinking water and having safe, clean water is the last thing we should have to worry about. And yet, according to extensive research by the Environmental Working Group, three out of four homes in America have harmful contaminants in their tap water, which is why I personally use and endorse AquaTrue. Their purifiers use a four-stage

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from tons of plastic waste. Listen, if I'm gonna drink 80 ounces of water a day, I want it to be the very best water. AquaTrue comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, and my listeners receive 20% off any AquaTrue purifier. Just go to AquaTrue.com, that's A-Q-U-A-T-R-U.com, and enter code TIWW at checkout. That's 20% any AquaTrue purifier when you go to AquaTrue.com and use promo code TIWW. This is resonating with me so much, both personally and in the coaching work that I do and in the leadership work that I've done. And what I love about what you said earlier is this isn't men versus women.

This isn't like women only lead one way and they're only capable of leading one way. As a woman, I've accessed very often more masculine styles of leadership. I've been expected to, and I've also gravitated toward some of those. Sure. I think we're more malleable than we give ourselves credit for. And by the same token, I don't think that we're saying only women can solve complex problems with novel solutions to serve the interests of many. What we're saying is women are doing this on a more consistent, regular basis. We're expected to. And men have the opportunity to, or any gender has the opportunity to learn that skill and

develop that behavior because it's beneficial in leadership. I'll also say too, the 10 to 12% of the people who listen to a podcast called This Is Woman's Work, who aren't and don't identify as women, they just have a special place in my heart because of what you were saying earlier. This idea that we all can learn from women and women's experiences. This is not just about women teaching women how to lead. This is about leaders learning from women very unique and imperative leadership skills. Yes. And I do want to react to that. I want us to remember there are two other core differentiators that we'll get to. But I do want to reiterate what you just said. So this style or this approach to leadership is of great importance in this point in time for a

number of reasons. First of all, we are at a very fragile place in human history where we are outpacing, you know, our growth, our technology is outpacing the development, you know, the psychological development of human beings. And so we are becoming increasingly immature as AI and technology becomes more mature. So our psychological, social psychological development is actually getting increasingly constrained. We are more insulated and isolated, and we are less prepared to engage in the world emotionally. We are defensive. We're polarized, we're self-oriented as opposed to other oriented. And a lot of this comes from feeling like the world has not been paying attention to our particular needs. So it's an interesting pendulum swing, but in the face of technology and AI, that's going to replace a lot of our workforce.

Emotions and the ability to understand, relate to, learn from, express, trust, to trust our emotions, to operate from emotions, to let our emotions inform us in order to make better decisions is paramount. And this model does reinvigorate and reestablish and surface the priorities of emotional connection, emotional reciprocity, and healthy social dynamics. Yeah. Thank you for saying that because I was going to ask why you believe this is so important right now. And you articulated it beautifully and couldn't agree more. I mean, we are feeling more disconnected, even with all of the access to connection we seemingly have. We are being replaced in certain ways, as you mentioned. So all fascinating things, but I want to make sure we talk about the four core qualities.

I know you hit two, mutuality and ingenuity. Justness, is that the third? Justice is the third one. Justice. Okay. Justice. J-U-S-T-N-E-S-S. Justness. Great. And by definition, our definition is full and fair representation with consistent and transparent due process. Now, justness is very critical in healthy social dynamics and why women uniquely bring this to humanity so men can also learn this, like the species can learn it, is because women are the first victims of injustice. And if it isn't our person, by extension, it's our offspring or our parents or our peers,

our partners. We are so connected to the systems, to the family systems that we live in, that somebody else, a victim of some, when our loved ones are victimized, we by association are also. on the rules of engagement and minimize the potential of dominance from taking over. Essentially, what we are living in is we're living in a system that has recognized dominance as the primary form of an organizing system, organizing factor, missing these four core differentiators and dominance has thus taken over. And it's an incomplete leadership model, just by definition. So we're operating with an incomplete and insufficient model for managing justness. And in systems where there's injustice, right, you can't have healthy social dynamics. So this model requires a focus on justness and fair and full representation. And finally, intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation

is the willingness for a person to go above and beyond one's own narrow self-interest for mutually rewarding and beneficial outcomes. Now, just think about intrinsic motivation is when people show up because they want to. I am intrinsically motivated to be here with you today, right? Because I will receive benefit. I know I will deliver benefit. We have a mutual interest in being here together. And so it's really important to recognize that building communities requires getting people to want to be there. And the way people want to be there is when they believe somebody is looking out for them and their best interests, and they can't also contribute to the

other, to other people's best interests. So, you know, do you remember, I don't know if you remember, maybe some of your listeners remember when the term buy-in, how important buy-in is, we have to get people to buy in. And I remember a feeling so good about recognizing that leaders need the employees, the workforce to agree with what's happening. But even buy-in can feel a little bit manipulative and perhaps somewhat coercive. Intrinsic motivation, right, is the elevated. These are all the elevated interactions in emotional relationships that we have both with each other and to the environments that we're in. So if we go back to mutuality, that's two-way empathy, right? It's reciprocal empathy. It's reciprocity, ingencity ingenuity right it's to serve the interests of

of many by by creating new uh solutions it's justness full and fair representation and it's intrinsic motivation the the responsibility for everybody to show up because we want to be in the service of each other. So these are not just qualities of leaders, but these are the leader qualities that also create the conditions for healthy social dynamics. Okay. So as you're talking, this is all making so much sense to me, but one of the frustrations I've often run into in the work that I do is trying to convince leaders, mostly men in my experience, that this isn't just a feel good. This isn't just, and I put in air quotes, the right thing to do, that this actually

impacts the productivity, sustainability, profitability of the organization or business. So as you talk about these four core qualities, can you elaborate a little bit on why this is also good for business? Yes. And so the book is layered. And I wanted to say that, I'm glad you're mentioning this, that there are 16 narratives written by 16 exemplary women leaders whose stories reveal and illustrate, improve the model. When they have applied the core four differentiators collectively, they have experienced an increase in retention, an increase in productivity, a decrease in interpersonal dynamics, a decrease in legal grievances, and just an exponential ability to grow, to perform at higher levels, to retain clients, and to beat the competition. So this is a model that improves business outcomes.

Now, interestingly, it does require more from the leader, right? So if you think about a leader who wants to win and is winning without the four core differentiators, and somebody presses them to say, if you do all these things different, you can perform even better. But the requirement is for them to change their own biases, to work in a different way with the entire system, oftentimes in a system that is already celebrating their leadership. They are not particularly inclined to learn a new way of leadership in order to grow. But in this shrinking world of emotional intelligence, emotions are becoming paramount. Understanding them, developing them, developing relationships is going to be the, if not, if it isn't already, we haven't necessarily realized it, but it is going to become apparent that it's going to be these four core differentiators and several others that other models have brought to bear that will elevate business and the

experience that employees have working in their companies. And so these stories are really, they're critical and they prove out the model. As you were talking, I keep thinking about one of my beefs with how I see leadership being done today, regardless of gender and who's doing it, is this sort of what I call lazy leadership. It's the do what I do, say what I say, I'm in control, you know, just buy in, right? Just step in line. And I understand the inclination towards that because it's easier. I mean, you just tell everybody what to do and they do it.

And that would be, frankly, easier. This is such a more nuanced and more challenging. Exactly. So it's funny. I often, I've said this to some people that I've worked with in a consulting standpoint in the past, and they thought I was off my rocker. I was like, I want to start with some of the leaders in the organization that are having the hardest time, that aren't getting the results in their business that they want to be getting.

Because I find they're more open. It's the people who are succeeding currently or ringing the bells and it's working the way it's always been done for right now. Those are the hardest ones to have this conversation with. They're just stuck. They're not interested. And you know what? It's good that you point that out because we don't need to start with the resistors, right? One thing that Jim Collins, he learned and he says is that you start with

the companies that are ready and the ones that are in the most pain who are open to making new decisions and trying new things. One thing that is also really important is the way that psychology has been developed and how we're going to help men and women develop these, these core four differentiators is with a concept, a neuropsychological concept called, or not just concept, but a mechanism called toggling. And toggling represents two parts of the brain. One part is the more analytical brain, and the other part is the more emotive and emotional brain. And over the course of our lifetime, women have been taught and socialized and expected to develop the emotional side of our brain, right?

As caretakers in the ethic of care. And what we have also seen is men are oriented towards socialized to be more analytical, right? To dismiss emotions, even though they have a lot of emotion. Anger is an emotion which men are very accustomed to expressing. It's an emotion and it can often be irrational and impulsive and it shouldn't be in the boardroom. So when they say they shouldn't have women's emotions in the boardroom, well, they shouldn't have those irrational emotions in the boardroom from men either. But my point is, is that then over time,

women are also expected and taught to learn men's way, right? The more analytical way. So we have developed a strength in toggling. Women can toggle between the analytic and the emotional quickly and seamlessly, where men who have not typically exercised the toggling muscle and are less capable and less practiced at using their toggling skills to develop emotion and to use emotion as part of the decision-making with analytical. So what we are asserting is that a very critical way for helping leaders adopt the sixth level is to learn to toggle. And to learn to toggle is to practice moving between the emotional and the analytical. And that's a very reassuring and encouraging fact and notion is that these things can be learned. Again, I love that you said men are less practiced because what you didn't say, but as implied, is not less capable, right? Less practiced. So we can all toggle. And

this, I think, is an incredible opportunity for all of us as leaders, and I think as women, to recognize when we're doing it. I think sometimes we're doing it so subconsciously, we're not even aware. Okay. I know you want to learn more about The Sixth Level, as I do as well. So make sure you go to thesixlevel.com where you can buy the book in bulk for a discount. So get it for your teams, the leaders in your life of all genders, and you can also, of course, buy it on Amazon. Stacey, thank you for this incredible conversation and the wildly important and valuable work that you're doing to identify and have us all talking and orienting around the sixth level. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, thank you so very much.

And to your listeners, thank you. Okay. It's clear to me and I hope to you that the future of leadership must be one where all genders can thrive, bringing their unique perspectives and strengths to the table. How would we lead a diverse team of people? How could we serve a diverse population of clients and customers? How would we attract a diverse group of talent without diverse thought, perspective, and experience at the leadership table? I don't know about you, but I'm tired of seeing photos on websites and on LinkedIn of leadership teams or leadership events that only include a sea of white men. I would never choose to work for or buy from that company. Why? Because how could they understand me? Why would I believe that they value my perspective? How would they support or serve me if they don't see or

develop leadership in other women? Women have been leading for a long time in many ways that work, as Stacey already pointed out. The answer isn't to replace men with women, but rather to have women lead with men and every other gender together. And those that say it can't be done, I say you don't understand leadership because being an agent of change is what leadership is all about. Leaderships are called to advance, improve, influence, and move people forward. That's the job, my friend.

And as the quote says, change is hard, but not changing is fatal. So let's remember, leadership is not confined to a single archetype. It's dynamic and multifaceted, and we can toggle, is fatal. So let's remember, leadership is not confined to a single archetype. It's dynamic and multifaceted, and we can toggle. And it is absolutely woman's work.