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Ep. 1: Transformational Leadership in Uncertain Times · Wellness in Today's World

• 0:01
  I'd like to welcome you to Wellness in Today's World with Dr.
• 0:06
  Kawahara, a space where we discuss the latest insights in psychology, wellness trends, and everything in between.
• 0:15
  Hello, I'm Deborah Kawahara.
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  Thank you for joining me today.
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  Today's theme is on transformational leadership in uncertain times.
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  Today's guest is Dr.
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  Wendy S.
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  Williams.
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  who is a psychologist, advocate, and educator.
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  And she applies her work at the intersection of education and psychology to her scholarship and leadership practice.
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  Dr.
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  Williams began her career as assistant professor in counselor education at Long Island University in Brooklyn, and has served as an academic administrator for progressive
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  justice-focused higher education institution like
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  Bank Street College of Education and Mills College School of Education.
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  She then joined Fielding Graduate University as provost and senior vice president.
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  Dr.
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  Williams is an accomplished scholar in the areas of Black women and girls leadership and development.
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  And her recent publications include Black Women at Work, On Refusal and Recovery, and her most recently published book, The Majestic Place.
• 1:26
  the freedom possible in women's leadership.
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  I'd like to welcome Dr.
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  Williams to our show today and just start off with her talking about transformational leadership.
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  Well, Dr.
• 1:41
  Karahara, Deb, can we do first names moving forward now?
• 1:44
  Okay.
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  Cause I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it.
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  It's such a pleasure to be here with you.
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  Uh, and I'm really excited to be one of your first guests on this wonderful, wonderful podcast.
• 1:56
  So thank you so much for extending the invitation.
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  Um, when I think about transformational leadership, um, I'm really thinking about.
• 2:06
  what is required for the times that we're living in right now.
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  You when we talk about transformation or things that are transformative, it's really speaking to change.
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  And we're talking through, and as psychologists, we think a lot about human beings and the change that we seek to support in other human beings, children, families, individuals,
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  groups.
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  They are coming with an identified challenge and we're supporting them in a change process as they seek to work through that challenge.
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  Our societies are also in spaces of needing, or going through change and having various challenges.
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  And while we don't participate in a diagnosis of a society, we know that there are a lot of issues that we're facing.
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  And so when I think about transformational leadership, it's around being one who stewards and supports the types of change that our society is requiring, whether we're ready for it
• 3:03
  or not.
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  And being someone or a group of people, I do believe that leadership is not just with one person or one head, but really we all do need to work together, lean on our strengths and
• 3:18
  bolster each other's challenges and growth areas to really meet the moment.
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  And so, yeah, that's how I would define transformational leadership, being in the space where we are leading.
• 3:33
  to support the types of changes that our society is requiring.
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  And I think anyone who's aware and awake right now would say that there's significant challenges that we're dealing with.
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  Mm-mm.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  I'll send her a text, maybe her internet connection had an issue.
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  here she is.
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  I'm back.
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  Sorry.
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  My internet cut out.
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  Okay.
• 4:26
  Mm-hmm.
• 4:51
  Hahaha!
• 5:00
  I don't have that, Tony.
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  Oh, we have kind of a, well, I guess it's wifi really.
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  Yeah.
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  Okay.
• 5:19
  I can't, I, it's, like way, I mean, I would have to get a line, Tony.
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  Um.
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  Okay.
• 5:53
  Is that kind of like photoshopping?
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  Okay, that's okay.
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  I mean, and we can just redo the answer of Wendy if you're okay with.
• 6:11
  Sure.
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  just go on and Tony, you know, we can figure out how
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  Okay.
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  Yeah.
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  You could just also, we can just do the question again.
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  My answer is the same.
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  It just won't sound the same.
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  beginning.
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  Okay, well let's hope that I stay connected.
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  you
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  Ah, okay, so I did the introduction of Dr.
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  Wendy Williams and I'm so pleased that you're here and we're gonna use our first names from here on out.
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  So Wendy, I know a lot of your work is based on transformational leadership.
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  Could you talk a little bit about what transformational leadership is for you?
• 7:17
  Yeah, for sure.
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  You know, when we look at that word transformation, transformational, transformative, we're really looking at change.
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  I, you know, I often believe that psychologists are folks who have the capacity to be amazing leaders because of our abilities to sustain and sit with complex human transition.
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  And leadership for me is largely a function of supporting
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  individuals through moving toward and through a process to accomplish a goal, whatever that goal might be.
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  And that is what psychologists do all the time.
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  So when I think about transformative or transformational leadership, it really is around thinking about myself as a leader, thinking about ourselves as leaders who are stewarding
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  institutions, organizations, individuals through transition or transformation, through change.
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  We live in a world that is very, very complex.
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  I don't think that I have to tell you that it would be a surprise to you, that there is a amplified sense of precarity among individuals in our society for a variety of reasons.
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  In fact, one of the ways that I've been thinking about my work more recently is actually using a framing that was developed in the 80s coming off of the...
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  or during the Cold War coming off of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
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  So in the eighties, 87, 88, in the US War Colleges curriculum, we began to see this language of VUCA, V-U-C-A.
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  VUCA stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.
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  And I thought, oh gosh.
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  So basically they acknowledged that then, and it never let up.
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  We are still, think, certainly in a space of a lot of that type of volatility.
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  We experience often, experience it often through, particularly in the US through financial precarity, but that is usually a downstream effect of a lot of other issues and challenges
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  that have happened in the socio-cultural perspective, governmental, militaristic context and challenges that do ultimately affect human beings in a one-to-one.
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  um, relationship or an individual lives, but it has impacts all across, um, every aspect and facet of our lives.
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  And so I like that framing of VUCA cause it speaks to the largesse of the challenges that we face and the inability truly for any one individual to solve those challenges within
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  themselves on their own, um, or even in a one-to-one relationship, we really do need to think systemically and structurally around the ways in which we hold each other as
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  community members, as human beings in the society and in the world.
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  And that then is a leadership challenge in question.
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  And when you begin to think about on the whole, how do we create and cultivate the conditions for wellness for all of us?
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  And I do think that there is an important need to have a framework around leadership that holds that steady.
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  Okay.
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  Wonderful.
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  You know, as I was getting ready to talk with you, I actually went on your website and was able to read about you and read about your approach.
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  And you talk about Black women's liberatory leadership practices and really how we can learn from Black women leaders.
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  So I wanted to talk to you about that today because I...
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  found it really fascinating.
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  And I know I've seen you as a leader.
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  But I really wanted to know kind of the undergird and foundation that you were speaking about this.
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  Yeah, well, my first teachers are black women because they're my mom, my grandmother, my aunt, some of my first early teachers in school actually as well.
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  But and also, you know, coming up as a young woman in I'm Generation X, I came up in the 90s, you know, there was a lot of possibility that was placed in front of us as like, OK,
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  you can do anything.
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  You can do everything.
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  And
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  Yeah, but, and so it wasn't necessarily the issues or challenges that my grandmother or my mother or aunts had faced as they were young women and or middle-aged women during the
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  civil rights movement in this country.
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  But it also wasn't just anything that I could do either.
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  And I really wanted to try to understand what is meant by that.
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  I wanted to definitely leverage the opportunities that were open to me.
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  And yet I didn't yet fully have a full understanding of what it meant not to have those opportunities because I had not lived in the past.
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  I only know the stories.
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  And so I started to get very curious about leadership development actually after I got tenure in my professional life.
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  And so I thought the icing on the cake, the eye on the prize was becoming a tenured professor.
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  Okay, check, right?
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  A very high achieving person.
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  am.
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  It's a problem, I think, sometimes.
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  But I definitely did those things.
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  And it was at about that time, 2016, 2017, when folks started to use these catchphrases in relation to black women.
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  And I was excited about it, but also a little weary.
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  And they would say things like, hashtag black girl magic.
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  hashtag let black women lead or hashtag listen to black women.
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  And it was in vogue, I think to amplify the voices of black women.
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  I wasn't upset about that.
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  I thought that that was helpful.
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  But what concerned me was that it was becoming commodified, maybe lacking depth.
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  And I also felt, you know, so it's like this easiness around it.
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  And I thought, well, it's not magic.
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  She's working really hard.
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  You know, and she's working really, really hard.
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  And the other side of that is that, you know, what makes it possible for you to just all of a sudden listen to her now without understanding why you did not think hearing from her
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  or listening to her before now without exploring why you did not think that was valuable.
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  I think you have to understand why you devalued that voice in order to
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  value it now, you know, and it's sort of a type of reckoning there.
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  And so my concern was that I didn't see the reckoning, I didn't see the depth.
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  And so I started to study and write about that.
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  That actually was the time when the idea of the birthing of the book, Black Women at Work came to pass and our shared mentor, Dr.
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  Jean Lau-Chen, was one of the editors of a series within a publication company at the time and sent out a...
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  and a request for proposals.
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  And I thought, okay, I would try.
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  It's my first book.
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  And so very special to me that, very special to me that that happened and that she was someone who made that possible for me.
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  And that's what I sought to try to understand in that book to complicate it a little bit and to get underneath it.
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  And so when I talk about black women's liberatory leadership praxis is actually thinking about and looking at what are those leadership praxis that black women have and where do
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  they come from?
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  Now,
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  Do I think that black women are the only people, minoritized women or minoritized folks with leadership praxis?
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  No, I don't.
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  But what I can tell you is that I was raised by these women.
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  I'm one of these women.
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  And there are particular ways that we move.
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  And that I see similarity and complementarity with colleagues and friends who I work closely with.
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  You're one of them.
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  Where there's this dance, because we understand something.
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  And what we understand is
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  being in situations in context and having to navigate dynamics where our value is questioned, having to maneuver and make meaning and make sense of with colleagues and
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  folks who are otherwise really kind and nice, but also have not grappled with the ways in which they don't fully respect us.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And when we have a goal or a responsibility or a job to do literally that requires that whatever those barriers are to those individuals hearing us or not hearing us, seeing us
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  or not seeing us, valuing us or not valuing us, that we get that job done anyway.
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  Otherwise, guess what will be said?
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  Well, she's really nice, but she's just not a great leader because you have to achieve the goal, right?
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  So more are then from.
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  Finishing the goal, completing the goal and starting off and being inside these contexts are a little complicated is where our praxis is.
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  And so there are things that I have learned to do by witnessing and watching the women in my life, by witnessing and reading the historical narratives of women and folks.
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  to be quite honest with you, I read across genres, a lot of history, but across different cultural backgrounds and experiences because I learn a lot from what people have.
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  done previously and how they've navigated those situations and settings.
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  Right now I'm really deeply inside of lot of Indigenous authors and histories because it feels really important to understand.
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  And so I see a lot of interconnectedness in terms of how I was reared and the kinds of strategies that I've witnessed and also see characterized in some of the stories about
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  various women who have led, who are Black women, but also other folks as well.
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  And so there are some of these strategies that I think have helped us to
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  get as far as we have in terms of some of the good trouble as John Lewis used to say in the midst of times when it was not seen that we were going to be permitted to have that
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  type of movement.
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  So that is the leadership praxis in that space.
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  you, I mean, what's interesting to me is that you really amplify that when they say it's magic or that they make it seem like this is so easy, you're saying, no, it's not.
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  That the expectations, the context in which these women are having to work and the spaces that they
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  find themselves having to navigate really take a lot of skill, they take a lot of work.
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  And I guess I'm wanting to ask you, because it sounds like you've been studying this for a long time, how can we learn from what Black women who have been in leadership, how can we
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  take that?
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  and utilize that today in terms of the challenges and the opportunities that we see currently.
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  Absolutely, I think that's a brilliant question because that's underneath, that's, really think, know, that is the, that is where my interest and attention are focused.
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  You know, what I would say for Black women is that the fact that we're here and that we've had any of the accomplishments that we have had is a masterclass.
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  And you can see in some ways some of the
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  social and cultural backlash to, I wouldn't say diversity, equity and inclusion, but I would say to the ways that black women and other folks of color and folks from other
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  backgrounds represent, are the representation of that, that we are witnessing a backlash to what our leadership has done because our leadership in many spaces and not only black
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  women, I'm mindful to say that because I don't want to engage in exceptionalism.
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  think that.
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  or essentialism, I think it's just not true.
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  And also I do focus on the work of black women.
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  You know, the civil rights struggles, the struggles across the globe, the ability to work within constrained and constricted in context and still create some opportunities and
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  pathways, I think are really important.
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  So one of the things that we'll find when we're thinking about
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  black women's leadership in the context of in this country is the focus on not just the present and the now, but the future generation.
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  And really thinking through, how do we use and for there's this element of fugitivity in our leadership because we don't know for how long we're going to be able to have this door
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  open because someone's going to come take it away.
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  So you may have heard folks say like, oh, the tide is shifting in the country right now.
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  And a lot of black women are like, yeah.
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  I'm not surprised.
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  I'm disappointed, but I knew it was going to because we're like, just so like that's, you know, it's the pendulum swimming back and forth.
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  So for as long as we could, for whatever it is, if you're in education, if you're in this setting or that setting or whatnot, you're wanting to create opportunities for others to
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  come after you.
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  Kamala Harris was a really great example of that.
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  She said, I may be the first, but I will not be the last, indicating that she's thinking about how to leave the door open.
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  She used that language.
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  So there's that ethos.
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  I would say that a very important aspect of black women's leadership praxis that I encourage in my work with, with folks that I work with and support around their leadership
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  journey is to have an internally defined sense of self and worth.
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  And it's important because for example, again, we're dealing with a lot of backlash.
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  So right now in our society, it's okay to say that
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  whatever it is, whatever she's done, it's not okay or it's not as good because she's black.
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  I'm not saying that everyone is doing that, but there is a larger social cultural discursive narrative that that permitted, that we've removed all these people and we've
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  replaced them with all these other people.
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  And there's a difference here.
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  And if we were to look closely, we might be able to identify that.
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  And so...
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  That being the case and the lessons that I've learned and as I shared earlier with inside my family where it's like, there's lots of opportunities.
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  You can do anything and also not really.
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  Part of that is having the external evaluation or being evaluated by those external to me and not seeing the efforting that I put in and the good works I put in being seen and
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  acknowledged for that.
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  And so I've had to start to know, well, is it good?
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  and not have to ask externally, is it good?
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  I know when it's good because I am a very tough cookie when it asks my students, like you want it to be perfect.
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  I am not you, you know I am a tough cookie.
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  But I'm, and you know, and so figuring that out to like, I know that it's superb.
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  It's superb.
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  Grappling with that as a younger woman and growing into a more mature woman to appreciate the balance of that.
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  It can be superb, but you don't have to harm yourself or hurt yourself to get it there.
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  Like you can joyfully make it good, you know?
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  But this ideal of having your own internal definer of success, and because it may not always be reflected back to you externally, just because of some of the dynamics in our
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  society according to racial and gender hierarchies and inequities.
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  And so if that's the case, I just don't look there for my worth.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  It really speaks to having that internal resilience and that at times you aren't going to find it in the context or externally to yourself.
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  And as you were talking, one of the things that also came up to me is how, you know, whether it's indigenous cultures or, you know,
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  that people look to their ancestors and the strength and resilience that they needed in order to now us be here in the present day, you know, and not to forget that during these
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  uncertain and turbulent times.
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  So I once gave this keynote and I was talking about these uncertain times and I asked the question, I was in Canada and at a university that's very much able to articulate the
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  harms done to First Nations and Indigenous folks there.
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  And I posed a question that this terminology, VUCA, 1980s,
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  Cold War, US War College, followed the Berlin Wall.
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  And folks were like, oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
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  And so then, you know, put a photo up of my grandmother.
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  I said, I think my grandmother knew VUCA before VUCA was named.
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  And I said, you know, I think your ancestors knew VUCA before VUCA was named.
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  So it feels uncertain now inside of a Westernized ideal of, you know, military supremacy that's being challenged in the world.
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  And we're experiencing that right now too, a certain.
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  shift is happening in world dynamics and power.
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  But some of our communities, First Nations communities, indigenous communities, African descent and enslaved communities, Asian communities all across the globe have experienced
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  this level of uncertainty, this volatility, this complexity of the relationships.
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  Like in some ways we're evenly
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  you know, victims of this expansion.
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  And sometimes we are beneficiaries of it, too.
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  It's complex.
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  There's it's not one side that they're the oppressors and I'm the oppressed.
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  No, we are complicit sometimes in some of the dynamics that are happening in our lives and in our communities and across the globe as well.
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  And it can be really ambiguous.
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  Like, truly, we do not know what will happen day to day, year to year.
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  So much of what we're experiencing current day is so unexpected.
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  And that in itself is.
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  disorienting for many of us.
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  And that then, you know, particularly from a psychological perspective, which I know you and I both are psychologists, we know what that does for folks in terms of anxiety,
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  depression, you know, just really creating this context and feeling of overwhelm.
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  And so when we're talking about leadership, that's why I think it's so incredibly important, because we have to have a framework and a framing for that.
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  And for folks who can connect back to the legacies and the journeys and the stories of their ancestors, I have
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  I have past information of instances when it did seem very bleak and yet they survived.
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  Because I'm here, I represent that survival and that thrival, thrivance, right?
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  So there's a way in which I can pull on that to have some strength in the moment.
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  I don't see it as completely hopeless.
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  If it were, I would not have been, if it were completely hopeless, my sense is my ancestors would have felt it that way.
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  They were enslaved, they were.
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  in chains, they were not treated well, they were abused in horrid ways.
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  I'm right here in front of you because they were able to survive.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  I know that.
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  That's very powerful.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Yes, yes.
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  And I think it makes me think, you know, how people are talking about radical hope and healing as well as joy and rest.
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  And I guess I wanted to ask you, how do you kind of take care of yourself and make sure that that
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  radical hope and joy and rest are within you because we know that leaders are are really being put to the test right now.
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  Yes, they are.
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  We are the tea bags in the hot water, aren't we?
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  Yes.
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  Yes.
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  Oh, okay.
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  Okay.
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  I I figured that the sound is there.
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  let's figure out, Tony, how we do my picture.
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  But I'm figuring that we're recording this.
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  So if we can figure that out, then we can still use it.
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  Because I think her answers are just so wonderful.
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  Okay.
• 28:45
  Okay, I am I'm apologizing my internet is really bad, but let me ask again So, you know many are talking about radical hope and healing and Joy and rest and as leaders we know
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  that this is so important in terms of our effectiveness And so I wanted to ask you what do you do?
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  to take care of yourself and to hold on to that hope and joy and rest.
• 29:23
  Well, know, part of it is aging.
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  really helps to put things in perspective.
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  I'm very grateful for having crossed over various age thresholds, truly.
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  Because I do think you some perspective and that means you need some distance.
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  And to have seen a few things happen in my lifetime,
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  I'm still quite young.
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  I recognize that, but I still have seen a lot of things happen in my lifetime.
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  And so that gives me that.
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  And I want to name that because I think it's important.
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  You know, I allow myself and know that I cannot be someone who leads well if I'm stressed.
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  I have tried that before to be like very hard pressing and hard hitting and, you know, working a lot because everything is important and it just feels like everything.
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  And I also want to make sure that I'm giving all the things all the time that
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  They deserve, and I've shifted my thinking.
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  The pandemic has had a lot of impact on me, a lot of us as well, in terms of even prioritizing radical self-care, radical hope.
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  And so part of what it has meant for me is to relax in the, the best of me is when I'm fully present.
• 30:49
  And so I give the best of me to me first.
• 30:54
  Then I give the best of me to my family and friends.
• 30:58
  then we can talk about work and in that order.
• 31:04
  That's it.
• 31:05
  I do not place, I do not because I think otherwise I place myself and I place the organizations, the institutions, the individuals to whom I am accountable from a
• 31:17
  leadership perspective in jeopardy when I show up halfway, half full.
• 31:22
  Yeah.
• 31:23
  So that looks like a few things.
• 31:26
  I love time with my family.
• 31:28
  Mm-hmm.
• 31:29
  One of those weird people who wants to be with those folks.
• 31:31
  just love to be around them.
• 31:33
  We're nutty and it's fun and it's good.
• 31:35
  And I love being supported by them.
• 31:37
  I love supporting my family.
• 31:39
  And I consider many of my friends' family.
• 31:41
  There's a very thin window between being a friend and being family.
• 31:44
  It's like you're either in or you're out.
• 31:46
  And so that's important to me.
• 31:48
  It gives me a lot of meaning in my life and I appreciate that.
• 31:52
  I love to spend time in nature.
• 31:54
  So I right now live in Northern California in the East Bay.
• 31:59
  There are so many wonderful, beautiful hiking trails.
• 32:02
  And I just love to go be out near the Redwoods and just spend time there.
• 32:07
  I love reading and I know that that probably is like, really?
• 32:12
  You're going to read more because you didn't have enough time reading all the other things you had to read for work.
• 32:17
  But reading for pleasure is really important to me.
• 32:20
  I shared before a lot of the, the, the, the, the, the stories and narratives that I have access to is by
• 32:28
  nonfiction and fiction reading.
• 32:30
  Actually, I love reading stories just from all across the world.
• 32:34
  And, you know, really, again, perspective gives me a lot of perspective.
• 32:39
  And I love writing.
• 32:40
  I'm having more time to do more of that now, and I'm enjoying it.
• 32:44
  And forms of writing that don't always feel academic, but allow our work to be more accessible to a great many more people.
• 32:54
  I'm very mindful of
• 32:57
  how what we do as psychologists can sometimes have this paywall in between us and the public.
• 33:03
  And I've been thinking a lot.
• 33:05
  I have been, over the last couple of years, and particularly during the pandemic, when I and we all witnessed so many folks having a hard time and they just needed something to
• 33:12
  hold on to.
• 33:13
  And so I started thinking a lot about what can we give away for free?
• 33:17
  How can I share what I know with folks just easy peasy if they wanted to access it, they could.
• 33:22
  And I did some things in that space as well.
• 33:27
  I just love that.
• 33:28
  And for those of you, I will vouch that Wendy, I will vouch for her that Wendy, these are not just words that she's saying, she actually lives them truly.
• 33:43
  you know, I just feel so honored that you are my first guests of my podcast.
• 33:51
  Thank you for coming on today.
• 33:54
  You know, I wanna thank everyone for joining me today.
• 33:58
  And I just wanna say, remember wellness is a journey, not a destination.
• 34:03
  Take care.
• 34:11
  Okay.
• 34:13
  Okay.
• 34:15
  Okay.
• 34:17
  What do
• 34:20
  Well, I think also it's raining harder right now.
• 34:24
  And so my internet is body.
• 34:29
  Yeah, it's effective.
• 34:32
  But if we can get it, Tony, we can at least you can work on it.
• 34:38
  I think it's good.
• 34:43
  OK.
• 34:46
  Okay.
• 34:48
  And yeah, if you need me to record it again, we can just do it at another time, but should we try and record it?
• 35:07
  Yeah.
• 35:09
  Okay.
• 35:11
  Okay, wait a minute.
• 35:12
  It's frozen.
• 35:13
  Okay, I think we're back.
• 35:15
  I'm going to talk really fast.
• 35:18
  You
• 35:22
  you
• 35:23
  and I'm going to vouch that what Wendy said is the truth.
• 35:28
  She walks the walk.
• 35:30
  She isn't just talking the talk.
• 35:33
  So I want to thank Dr.
• 35:35
  Williams for being on the program today.
• 35:37
  And I want to thank all of you for joining me today.
• 35:41
  Remember, wellness is a journey, not a destination.
• 35:45
  Take care and see you next time.