In this episode, we are chatting with Thought Leader, Advisor, and Trainer, Eva Jannotta about resonant leadership and the opportunities we all have to "do good" as leaders, regardless of the situations we find ourselves in.
Eva Jannotta and the Medusa Media Group are on a mission to achieve gender parity in cultural, economic and social authority by amplifying the voices of women and other historically underestimated identities.
Eva maintains that "there’s a lot of opportunity to do good things and to be a really effective and loving leader, even when something 'bad' is happening that you have to address."
In this conversation, we talk about the idea of permacrisis (Collins' 2022 Word of the Year), some examples of resonant leadership, magnetic thought leadership, and a powerful mindset tip.
I hope you find this one as fun and thoughtful as I did. And, that it leaves you with more to consider and explore.
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Resources mentioned...
Permacrisis
https://theconversation.com/permacrisis-what-it-means-and-why-its-word-of-the-year-for-2022-194306
Charlene Li's thought leadership on transformation being constant: Are You Prepared for What’s After Digital Transformation?
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-prepared-whats-after-digital-transformation-charlene-li/
Eva's thought leadership on vulnerability: Is “vulnerability” your permission slip?
https://mailchi.mp/16ffd825c4d3/medusa-media-11820380
Can you be TOO Authentic in your Marketing and Thought Leadership?
https://medusamediagroup.com/marketing/can-you-be-too-authentic-in-your-marketing-and-thought-leadership/
CEO Patrick Collison's email to Stripe employees
https://stripe.com/newsroom/news/ceo-patrick-collisons-email-to-stripe-employees
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Eva Jannotta (she/her) is on a mission to see women leaders and culture shapers take more than half of the seats as bestselling authors, top-rated podcast hosts, and highest-paid speakers.
Eva and the Medusa Media Group team train and advise authors, speakers, coaches and consultants to build authority and influence by publishing their best thought leadership.
Eva lives on O'odham Jeweḍ, Akimel O'odham, and Hohokam ancestral land in Phoenix, AZ.
- I am Celine Williams, and welcome to the "Leading Through Crisis" podcast, a conversation series exploring resiliency and leadership in challenging times. My guest today is Eva Jannotta, who is on a mission to see women leaders and culture shapers take more than half of the seats as best-selling authors, top-rated podcast hosts and highest paid speakers. Eva and the Medusa Media Group team train and advise authors, speakers, coaches and consultants to build authority and influence by publishing their best thought leadership. Eva lives on O'odham Jewed, Akimel O'odham, and Hohokam ancestral land in Phoenix, Arizona. Welcome, Eva.
Thank you, Celine. It's great to be here.
Well, it's nice to see you again. It's been a while since-
Same.
We've actually spoken. So always fun to have people that I know in real life on the podcast. So I always start these the same way, which is to ask the question: When you hear the name of this podcast, which is "Leading Through Crisis", what does that mean for you? What comes up for you? What stands out about it?
Yeah, so two things stand out. And I really appreciate the opportunity to answer this question 'cause I, in hearing you ask it, I realized I've never asked it of myself. But one thing that stands out is that, you know, when I first came across your podcast and heard the name, I thought, "Oh, big picture crisis," like pandemic-level crisis. And that's still part of what stands out to me about it. But also the idea of leading through personal crises and just how there's so much subjectivity to what a crisis is for each of us, and so I think about, like, staying grounded and oriented in myself to be able to lead through whatever's happening inside my life or out in the world with integrity and compassion and grace. And then the other thing that stood out to me about that question, Celine, is this idea of permacrisis, learning, you know, that that was the 2022 word of the year I think by Collins, and just this idea that we're in a world where crisis is permanent. I mean, that's pretty daunting on the one hand. But on the other hand, to acknowledge and to accept that that is reality that's not necessarily an enemy or a problem that we need to solve, but just a fact of how deeply interconnected and complex our world is. Knowing that, it's like, well, leading through crisis isn't, it's not optional and it's not necessarily gonna, you know, you're gonna go through a crisis and be done, but rather that crises are what we are navigating in this day and age. And so leadership through those experiences, through those happenings is non-negotiable.
So first of all, I did not know that permacrisis was the Collins or HarperCollin or whatever was word of 2022. This is the first time I've heard this, so thank you for sharing that 'cause I had no idea. I'm gonna be doing some research on this now 'cause-
Isn't that intense?
Yes, permacrisis that's, there's a lot of power when you throw perma in front of crisis. So that's super interesting. And I think that, you know, what you were talking about that there's always crises, I think that is, I think that's always been the way. I just think that we have changed how, I don't, I'm gonna take a step back and just share my thoughts. So I've talked about this on the podcast before. When I think about crisis, crisis to me is often change. It's just something that throws us off on our equilibrium or something that is new or something that is different, and different people will interpret that as crisis or not. So we all have different understandings, level of tolerance of whatever you wanna call it for change and therefore for crisis. But those things, those moments are constantly happening. And so what I might think of as a crisis could be a 30-minute situation that I navigate and get through versus a six-month situation or whatever the case may be. But we're always dealing with stuff changing and the potential of, quote, "crisis". So I think, does that make sense when I, okay.
Yes, and it makes me think of, one of my clients is a woman named Charlene Li. She has written a number of books about disruption and technology. And we work together on her thought leadership, and something that she has made clear to me again and again is that disruption is never over. So when you were describing like crisis is just change, and we have different thresholds for when change feels like it hits a crisis level for us, and that reminds me of some of Charlene's thought leadership about this idea of disruption and that we might have an understanding that disruption, you know, kind of happens once and then it's over and it's smooth sailing. And she invites us into a new definition that, like, disruption is just business as usual, and so how can you work on your resilience and your flexibility and your openness and your curiosity to be able to meet disruption or change or crises however they come up?
So I love that, that's first of all very cool example, and, you know, wholeheartedly agree with that for exactly, I think when we see a disruption, which could also be a crisis for some people, where it's like, you know, we're fundamentally, smartphones, introduction of smartphones is like a classic disruption moment, right?
Yes.
And people had different, and so many things cascaded outside of that. And it's not one moment that happened and then was done. I'm like, "Okay, that's it, we're all moving on." Some people were affected differently, some people had different perspectives. And so, you know, I think it's really any of these things, everyone's perspective is gonna be different, and it's part of why I appreciate your, you know, when you answered what leading through crisis, what comes up for you. Because when you mention, like, personal crisis, whatever that is, not everyone thinks of it. They will think, "Oh, crisis is the pandemic. Crisis is something that is company-wide," or whatever. But everyone's different. We all have different levels and capacities.
Yeah, yeah. And I think about, like, crisis like leading through an experience of loss, or, you know, a crisis that's happening for many people in the tech industry now are these huge layoffs. And that's quite a crisis. Not just for the person who is laid off, like of course that's really challenging for those individuals, but even more far-reaching impact of that, like that's a crisis of an industry and of each company, and for leaders to navigate that with dignity and respect and reassurance. And there's a lot of opportunity, I think, to do good things and to be a really effective and really loving leader even when something, quote, unquote, "bad" is happening that you have to address.
So I wanna ask you this question. When you think of leading, whether it is a leader in a formal way, like, you know, you're leading a company or you're leading a team or, in a more personal way, you're leading yourself, right, when you think of leading, what are some of the things that matter to you or you have seen be really effective when it comes to leadership?
Yeah, an example that immediately comes to mind, 'cause I was just working with a client and I used this as an example, is Stripe payments. They had a big layoff in November of 2022. And what was striking to me about it is how the co-founders, a pair of brothers, they wrote this long letter to their employees, all of their employees including those who were being laid off, outlining what mistakes they had made, what had brought the company to this moment where they had to make this challenging decision, you know, how much they respected the colleagues, even those they were letting go, how they were going to support those laid off colleagues through the transition. And to me, it really struck this balance of humility and compassion and openness that I really admired. And so those are some of the qualities whether you're leading yourself or you're leading a small team or a huge team. I've been reading and thinking a lot about trust in leadership and how important it is to be an open communicator and to acknowledge when you've made mistakes and to take, be accountable or take responsibility for your role in bringing yourself or the community to this moment and where possible, you know, making amends or doing what you can to smooth these rough transitions. Does that answer your question?
I mean, I think it's a great example of exactly, you know, of what leadership means to you for sure. So I appreciate that. And I'm curious because you, of the work that you do and you work with people, women specifically, around, I'm gonna say being more visible as a very broad overarching term for some of the work that you do. I get that that's not it, but bear with me with for my terminology. You can feel free to correct me as well. But because of the work that you do around working with women on being more, quote, unquote, "visible", what do you see, or have you seen any trends or challenges get, obviously generalizations 'cause everyone's different, but do you see trends or themes in terms of where they show up well as leaders where they are leading effectively or where there may be opportunities for them to lead more effectively?
Hmm, yeah, you're not wrong in describing our work as helping women become more visible. That's definitely an aspect of it. And we talk-
Whew.
Woo, yeah, crisis averted. Just kidding.
That's right.
No, so we say, at Medusa Media Group, that our vision is to achieve gender parity in cultural, economic, and social authority. And so this idea of authority is really near and dear to us. And the acknowledgment that for thousands of years, and more recently in the western world, centuries men and white men in particular have had the majority of authoritative roles in our societies, in our communities. And at the very least, I hope we can all agree, that that is not representative of the experience or the perspectives of the global population, right? So our vision is to really change that. And we are doing this work in the greater context of what I would consider a real reckoning of, like, what leadership is, what it looks like, you know, embracing a model of it that allows you to be authoritative without being authoritarian. And so I would say one of the things that I think we really relish doing with clients, and we've seen clients do well, is what I call calling out the elephant. And that's to say the aspect of leadership where you're willing to say the thing that's not being said, say the thing that's uncomfortable, put words to what's unspoken in the room. And that can take a lot of different forms, you know. On the one hand, that's often like calling out the fact that if you're a woman of color or if you're a person that has multiple intersecting, historically underestimated identities, your access to power and privilege is gonna be different than a white person's or a man's, et cetera. That's one way that our clients call out the elephant, really make that a topic of conversation that is open and safe to the extent that they can. Another example I think of what I call calling out the elephant is like if someone, if you know someone you work with and they have lost a loved one, rather than tiptoe around that and, like, not mention it or mention it awkwardly or kind of try to avoid them to really, like, bring your heart forward and say, "Say something about them, about that," give them some grace, extend their deadlines, take on some of their workload. You know, I live in the United States and we have a lot of mass shootings here, which are really, really hard. And one thing I've tried to do is call out the fact that when those happen it's really hard to do work like normal. It's really hard to focus. It's really hard to know how to process all the things we feel about that. So calling that out, that's a leadership practice that I see be really effective, and not always easy among our clients and with myself. So I'm gonna pause there 'cause I think I answered at least part of your question, but I wanna check in with you before I keep going.
No, you keep going. This is great. I think it's an important quality that we don't talk about very often, or we don't talk about often enough maybe is a better way of putting it, is that stepping into, it's almost like what Brene Brown calls rumbling, right, where you're stepping into that messy middle and calling something out that maybe people don't wanna hear about, that might feel uncomfortable for you, that might feel uncomfortable for other people in the room. And it can take on the form of, to what you're saying, something that is on a societal or cultural level, something that is business-related, or something that I'm feeling about me where other people are like, "Oh, you seem off in some way," but they don't know how to say that. And if I say, "I am feeling uncomfortable about this," or, "I am afraid of this result," or whatever, that can also be a version of it. So keep going 'cause I think it's really, I think you are 100% answering the question and sharing a perspective that we need to talk more about.
Well, good, yeah, because I think about this a lot. And it can feel very exposed to be the call outer of the elephant. And I wanna be clear that there is some risk to doing that. You can make people uncomfortable, make them angry. And what we've noticed with our clients is, again, the more historically underestimated identities they inhabit, that they live with or they identify with, the more at risk they are for pushback and criticism from others, which is really, really unfair. That's what structural bias gives us. And so I wanna be clear that there are some risks to doing this, but it's also clear to me the rewards. You know, so many times I've seen the relief that comes when someone's willing to say it, how much permission that grants others, and also what a brave act of leadership that is. And even if, you know, the feedback you get might come to you privately about how much of an impact that made on the other person or how relieved they are to just hear someone call it out, it really, you know, I work with my clients on what we call magnetic thought leadership, so this idea that your best thinking has this magnetic, attractive, memorable quality. And there are many ways to achieve that, but one of them is certainly having the courage and the willingness to call out the elephant, and that is really memorable for people. And the way that that makes them feel, especially if it makes them feel seen or recognized or really valued in a certain way, is, you know, that kind of feeling is never gonna be forgotten.
It also goes back to one of the words that you used when were describing leadership, which is that idea of openness. Because oftentimes, inside of calling that out or speaking into that, it requires you as the individual doing that to be open and vulnerable in a very specific way. And one of the things that, I'm sure it has come up on this podcast multiple times because I feel, again, I'm a bit of a broken record about certain things, this is definitely one of those things, is that people don't remember that person who gets on stage and talks about all of their accomplishments and how amazing they are and, "Look at all this stuff that I've done," no one remembers any of the details of that because, while you might get excited and motivated in the moment, there's no long-term impact. No, I can't say no. For most people, the long-term impact of that is minimal. But when a person tells you what they were challenged by or what was hard about their life or their business or what they were scared of, there's emotional resonance there that we can connect to. And that's part, to me, part and parcel of this openness and being vulnerable and what you're talking about, is that's where we actually connect and remember things because we can feel that. We can't feel someone else's perfection or successes the same way that we can feel and connect to, you know, making a mistake or being shameful or this thing that we're not talking about because we're afraid of the consequences and someone had the courage to, you know, acknowledge the fear and say it anyways.
Yeah, that's a great point. You know, just the emotional resonance piece. And some nuance that I think is valuable, it's valuable for me when we're talking about vulnerability, which has kinda become a buzzword in leadership and in the world, is a phenomenon that I've noticed among women leaders in particular, and I think gender bias of course plays a role in this, but I think of it as like vulnerability matching is one way I've phrased it and another is that I think sometimes women in particular might feel like they are supposed to be vulnerable and that's kind of like a permission slip that they use to be able to say something or do something. And I bring that up not because I'm, like actually vulnerability's bad by any stretch 'cause it's most certainly not, but I think that there's sometimes a culture of women feeling the urge to be kind of confessional or to disclose something about themselves that they actually don't really want to share or to let out or to be known but they feel some pressure to kind of perform vulnerability to gain acceptance and approval. So, for example, I'm thinkin' of a client, who was talking about how she had made some really big achievement, and she was like, "Oh, but I was really terrified the whole time." And that, on the one hand, can be a really emotionally resonant thing to share, to your point, Celine. And on the other hand, I don't wanna, I'm not saying this to, like, discourage anyone listening from being, from sharing the fact that you might have been terrified during this big achievement, but it struck me that there's sort of like sometimes a tendency to like, "I did this thing, but here's why it was extremely difficult for me," or, "I did this thing, but all this other stuff was really hard." I suspect that that is true for every human being regardless of their gender identity. But I also have noticed a tendency among women to really lead with that or really emphasize that element of their success or their achievements. And I just think, to the point of calling out the elephant, I find it valuable just to mention that as something that I've noticed. Again, and, you know, I never wanna be among the legions of people who are like, "Women need to do this better," or, "Women need to change this about how they do things," I hope that's not the impression that I'm giving. But I do think it's curious how vulnerability can be so powerful and so deeply connecting, and it can also, I think, have an element of performance or maybe we feel like we have to do it before we really truly feel ready because it's part of what's expected of us, whether because of our leadership role and/or gender identity.
I think that's a really valid point. And I think that there are, I think there is a lot of performative vulnerability, I am going to say, also with men, for the record, who think that that is the key to their success in this, you know, new modern world. So not only for women, but absolutely for women. I think there is a lot of performative vulnerability that happens. And I don't know that I always, I don't know that it's always because they feel pressure and/or actually vulnerable, and I think that's a key difference. If you are performing vulnerability, you're not being vulnerable. That is what-
It's a contradiction in terms.
Contradiction. When you are performing vulnerability, that's where oversharing happens. Or inappropriate sharing happens because it's not actually vulnerable. You think you have to do things a certain way. So I agree with you. I think vulnerability is absolutely too much of a buzzword sometimes and I also think it is extremely valuable. But when we think we have to be vulnerable or we think it needs to look a certain way, that's when it's not vulnerable.
Hmm. Yeah, that's a really good point, Celine. I'm glad you added that nuance. And I think I have a little bit of a contrarian chip on my shoulder where anytime anything's really popular I feel like I need to give it some side eye.
Yeah, me too. I totally get it.
But it makes me think about like, you know, I would argue that part of a leadership undertaking, you know, or leadership development in oneself or in a role, or most likely both, is, you know, being a really, like, astute student of yourself and, like, learning how does appropriate emotionally resonant, connecting vulnerability, what does that feel like, and what does the forcing it or performing it or making myself do it, what does that feel like? And learning to just tuning ourselves to that internal compass not just with vulnerability, but with a whole host of things. You know, coming back to our bodies, to discover like, "How does this feel? Does this feel scary in a good way or scary in a bad way?" And I'm really intrigued by our ability to have that, like, tuning ability, I think, is really interesting.
I absolutely agree. And I think that there's a particular challenge for people in general, women especially, to take the time to do that because it feels like, I think I'm broadly generalizing here obviously, but I think it often feels like not the thing that's gonna make a difference or not the thing that's gonna be respected or not the thing that looks a way that they think it should look or whatever the case may be. And so they don't do the thing that is actually about grounding themselves or having that reflection or whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever. And I really appreciate you highlighting it as something that we should all probably be doing more of maybe in general.
I think it's so valuable, and you're right. You know, gender identity, identities of all sorts aside, I don't think our larger culture really encourages us to have that connection with our bodies or our intuition and to really trust that, especially if it flies in the face of the career ladder or what our parents expect of us or our mentor expects of us or whatever the heck is being expected. And talk about a bold act of leadership, of self-leadership is to really honor that sense of, "You know, this promotion," or like, "This opportunity sounds amazing, and I know it's not right for me." Which doesn't always mean like you might take it anyway and learn from that, and it doesn't mean it's gonna ruin your life, but learning to feel the difference and to honor and respect it is so, it just feels like part of our birthright and yet not something that we're always encouraged or even, like, trained to do.
We have also overall created a system that rewards, and I'm gonna talk, you know, I'm speaking more in a corporate world but in a general that rewards certain behaviors in a certain way. So when you-
Very true.
Right? If I am a great, I'm so sorry, I always pick on programmers for this, so I apologize to potential tech people who are listening. But if I'm a great programmer and I think the only way for me to make more money, have more responsibility, get more interesting projects, is to become a team lead and to lead people but I don't actually want to lead people. When there are no other options presented, when there's no, "I don't know that I can advocate or have a discussion," then I just take on the thing that everyone tells me is the best next opportunity rather than thinking like, "You know, do I actually want to do this? Is leading people what I," I'm picking on this as an example, "But is that what I wanna do?" And I have more friends than clients in the past couple of years who have taken a step back out of leadership, team leadership, into individual contributor roles and moved companies often as a result to get, you know, whatever they were looking for. But where they realized, because of the time and changes in the past few years where they had the time to go, "Oh, that's not what I want." Imagine if they'd been able to do that ahead of time or had the space to think or knew there were other options.
What a great example, Celine, of, like, leading oneself through a crisis. I mean, like, you could argue, like I'm in a position that feels like a crisis to me. I'm not good at it, I don't even like it. Like, this is not what I pictured for myself. How can I lead myself to another company, if necessary, to talk to the right people no matter how yikesy that might feel? Like, what a good example of the opportunities we always have to self-lead in or out of situations. You know, of course there sometimes are extenuating circumstances. You can't always quit your job. But I find it so reassuring to be reminded that you always have some choices, and I think that's part of leadership, what it is, is like acknowledging the choices and being conscious about what you're doing or not choosing to do.
I think it's a very powerful mindset to have as well is that there are choices. So even when it feels like you have no choice, if you actually think about, "I can stay in this role and do this work," or, "I can quit my job," now you might feel like, "I have too many responsibilities and I can't quit my job or I can't do that thing," but the truth is that is an option. It might not be an option you like, but it is an option. If you can acknowledge that option and recognize, "That's actually, I don't like that option," it gives you more power inside of the choice that you are making even if it's temporary until you get to the next choice. But it's less of, "These things happen to me and more of I have some, I am making the best option based on what I know right now," from choosing the best option, making the best option. I'm choosing the best option based on what I know right now.
Yeah, you're making a point to me, Celine, about, like, taking like, yeah, taking accountability or responsibility for where you are, you know, rather than feeling like a victim. And maybe you need to do a little bit, feeling, you know, having a small pity party for yourself, or acknowledging the fact that you've, you know, really gone to the school of hard knocks. But yeah, that level of accountability and being willing to consider or at least acknowledge the option that you would never take because it's horrible, but it still exists. That, I think, is an example of like, "I am here and these are my choices. And some of them are awful, but they're still my choices."
Yep, absolutely. So I wanna ask the question before we wrap this up, which is, we've talked about a lot of different things in this conversation, and I always enjoy speaking with you and how flowing and natural it always is. You're just a joy to get to spend some time with. All of the words in my mouth at once. So I wanna give you the opportunity to either add or bring something up that we didn't get to that you would like to talk about or potentially emphasize something that we did speak about that you think is important to, you know, kind of put a pin in as a, "Let's pay attention to this."
You know, I have to say, this conversation went in a different direction than I expected. I'm not mad about it. I'm really glad about it. And I really appreciate that, Celine. And I'm feeling, you know, it's funny, sometimes you have conversations or interviews that kinda feel like they've really come to a close. And others where you're like, "Oh, this opened so many new doors. I'm gonna be thinking about this later," like, we could've taken this in so many different directions. Neither one of those is better or worse, but I'm feeling the latter of just like, "Wow, so many great things that we covered, and probably could have kept talking about in depth." So I have to say, I don't have a certain one that's standing out that I want to reemphasize, but I really have appreciated the time to, like, explore these ideas with you, Celine, and to those of you listening, to explore them with you as well, whether you're like in a car right now or like walking your dog or doing the dishes. If you're me, that's when I sometimes listen to podcasts. I really appreciate being here with you.
Well, thank you for saying that. And I hope that these conversations do open those ideas up 'cause that's, for me, that's what I love, is hearing something like this and going, "I hadn't thought about that. That's really interesting. I am gonna do more research. I'm gonna look into that. I'm gonna, you know, I wanna explore more of that." And I love the fact that you have this lens on leadership and working with women in such a way to get their voices out in the world and to get, you know, to be more, quote, unquote, "visible". It gives you a specific lens on these things that not everyone comes with because we're all doing different work, and we are all different people. So to be able to have a conversation that touches on a number of different topics that all fall in, you know, the work that you do, even if it's not the work you do, to me, that's often the most interesting places to kind of play.
Hmm, yeah. Leadership, it's comprehensive, you know. Like, it's not just what's on your business card, or the position in your family, or with your team. There are so many aspects to it, and I find that so delightful. And, you know, not everyone is drawn to, like, a leadership role, you know, where that's the set of responsibilities that comes with that. But all of us have the personal leadership opportunities for ourselves, and I think that's really exciting.
I could not agree more. Thank you for joining me today. It's been a really fun conversation, and lovely to spend this time with you.
Right back at you, Celine.
[Celine] Thanks for joining me today on the "Leading Through Crisis" podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a minute to rate and review us on your podcast app. If you're interested in learning more about any of our guests, you can find us online at www.leadingthroughcrisis.ca.