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Welcome to So You Want to Be a Leader, Really? A Defy Expectations podcast.

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I'm Helen Honeysett and we're here to explore the highs and lows of leadership today with our guests.

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We'll also help you navigate the complexity of being a leader.

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From every aspect, the sublime to the utterly ridiculous and everything in between.

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This week's guest is Cathy Hadizadeh.

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Who is a whole person, leadership, executive coach, and advisor.

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Kathy, welcome. Thank you, Helen.

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Thank you for having me. You can find out more information about Kathy on our website.

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Please visit defyexpectations. co.

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uk for all of that information, including a link to Cathy and more about her and the work she has done.

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So Cathy, you started in technology.

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Yeah, I did. And then you've shifted to coaching leaders.

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Talk us through your story. We love a good story here at Defy and that's usually an opening question we ask because stories are who makes us.

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They bring us alive. Sure.

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Yeah. I, yes, I have, I am an engineer.

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I have been an engineer. I have two masters in engineering. And so I spent 15 years of my life in corporate America, leading tech teams and software developers and all of that.

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And it happened that I went and worked for a leader that since last night with Oscars, probably got very surprised because he works now for a company that is very much involved with Barbie Mattel.

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And he was a very progressive leader.

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And he worked with the CEO of the company at that time, CIO, CEO of that company to see how we can bring fearless.

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Leadership into our tech organization, which was one of the biggest organizations in the world at the time.

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And that was a very big pause for me, Helen, because I really didn't think about fearless leadership much before.

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I didn't think about fearlessness. I was living life like it.

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Ordinary human in tech and that was like opening a floodgate and I was like, oh my god I never thought about any of these things.

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I was Having a really good life and what I was very programmed that you go to school you get a good job You get out of the grad school Get a good salary have kids have a house have a husband have a car I don't know the whole things that they talk about it in their fairy tale stories So it was happening but That fearlessness brought something for me, and I was like, when was the last time that I questioned any of this path? I never questioned any of this.

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I just didn't think very well in the movie.

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But that was like, a trigger to make me think about that.

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And it will happen in life that three, four years later.

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I was presented with the health challenge and I was presented with the situation that the notion of fearlessness really came in fruition in my own life and I was like, wow.

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That's when I started the shift. So fearlessness is, it's a really interesting word because I don't think most of us understand how much we're driven by fear.

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Yeah. Until we start to look at how we remove it.

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What was that biggest trigger for you around that fearlessness, that lack of fear and acting in a place of lack of fear that made it such an aha moment? Well the thing was that I was put by the universe, God, whatever you believe in in this lifetime, in a position that there was nothing darker than that.

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Because I was dealing with the health challenge that basically the medical Doctors said this is the end.

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You figure out how you want to do the rest and There's a lot of fear in that, especially if you're a high achieving professional and all of a sudden you lose the ability to think, which is your biggest gift.

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That's the position I was put in and it's a very scary situation.

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To be honest with you and figuring out what to do with myself, how to get out of that.

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That was a very big journey. And I went on a journey and I really became like the pilgrim in the Paulo Coelho's work that I really just followed whatever came my way.

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And without fear because I was like what else do I have to lose? That was very scary at that time.

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I become fearless in training and in action, but it doesn't mean that I lost all the fear.

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I want to say that because people think, oh then you don't have any fears.

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No, That's not true. I'm still afraid of a jellyfish and I have been bitten by a jellyfish before.

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It's painful So I still have my own fears.

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It doesn't mean that I have become fearless or there's a snake Sitting under my desk every day because I have made peace with snakes.

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No, there's no such a thing, but I have learned to probe the fear and see if it's Does it stop me? And when it stops me, then I become more curious to see, is it fear? Is it reality? What's going on in there? That is what I mean by fearlessness.

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And that's a fascinating process because it's so easily teachable.

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But it is that journey, it's being able to look fear in the face and go, what is this? We talk about courage.

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The words courage, bravery, they're really big and those corporate values that are stuck on walls around big offices.

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But what do we mean? We say that courage is, acting in the face of fear, but actually action without understanding why you're being driven by fear, necessarily be the right action.

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So I think that whole concept of how you frame fearlessness is prodding it, looking at what's behind it, understanding it, how it's driving you.

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I want to ask how many leaders you work with who don't have fear, but that feels like a completely stupid question because everybody's driven by fear, as you said, you've got snakes, jellyfishes, all that.

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But are there any people that you've worked with who are so open to embracing their fears that they've been a real role model for you.

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You mentioned one of your leaders who was a pioneer of fearlessness, but are there any people you've worked with as a coach who have really inspired you to go into that fear even deeper? There are people who inspire me among my clients.

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Yes. It's very interesting because I am their coach and advisor and then they inspire me.

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That's interesting, right? This is a very interesting dilemma to look at.

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But I actually get curious about what has made them to be who they are.

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And how they are going about this differently than I would.

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And I really like some of the answers that I find.

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But sometimes people's fearlessness comes from fear too.

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I mean, that sounds very, very, very weird when I say that aloud.

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But in America there is a notion of cutting my losses.

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So people sometimes get very courageous to do things that is out of fearlessness because they are afraid of consequences if they do not take that action.

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I give you an example. I have a client that that I really admire her in terms of Of how she has managed some of her team.

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She's in a big tech corporation. And, but at the same time, she is hired to deliver.

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The number one thing any tech leader or any leader in general is hired.

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But IT more is to deliver.

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You need to deliver all the other things go out of the window if you cannot deliver frankly but she has been able to deliver very well but the thing is that her delivery could have been abrasive to some people which I personally didn't know even as a person who's working with her Because she was getting very good results for that company.

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So it didn't sound to me and she was very in line You know It felt with her bigger boss.

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So I was like, okay, since things are moving along well till the time that she decided there are people that she doesn't get along with them very well across the organization.

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And she decided to go to her big boss more often.

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And we were very surprised that the big boss said, This is not my problem.

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You go figure out how you want to move this forward.

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And she got very disappointed. And she thought that maybe my ways are not the best ways.

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And her questioning that was coupled with the timing that company launched an investigation based on some of the people's requests into what is going on.

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And she came to me and said that she thinks some of the things that she's been doing as a leader are not, Very in line with human centered leadership, and that's because she has learned that from her big boss.

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That's how she has got to where she is. And she said that I am willing to go and talk to the human resources about what I think needs to be changed.

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And I was very, very, very impressed by her wanting to go there.

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I think it takes a real big act of fearlessness to say that I think I have made a mistake.

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In order to deliver results for you. How can I change that? I mean these are big things because you're going to say I was not that human centered Leader because I was trying to get results.

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These are huge Things that you become fearless in the fear because if she believes if she doesn't do that, they might show her the door.

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So, there's interesting things, dilemmas happening.

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I think that's huge amounts of bravery to stand up and say, I've got to where I've got to, but I haven't necessarily done it rooted in the person I want to be and the values that I hold dear.

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And that sort of comes onto my next question around legacy.

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What does it mean for a leader to leave their legacy? What does that concept look like? Very, very good question, Helen, because most of the people that I work with them, they are in a part of their career that they are thinking of, What am I doing? What did I do all these years? After this point, and some of them are in positions that they say, I want to stay with this company and make sure I leave a legacy until I retire, which is an interesting notion in a country that the tech is undergoing so many layoffs right now.

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It's an interesting notion, but to answer your question, people have a way of leadership and at one point they realized that before they become a leader, the success was all about growing themselves and all of that, but now that they have become a leader, their success is about growing their people.

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And that becomes their legacy.

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And that is when they step into the legacy conversation that what is it that I'm living with people? How are people perceiving me? How are people talking about me when I'm not in the room? How am I influencing the lives of these people who come to work for me? What kind of impact are we making with the products of this company? Products, services, whatever it is.

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Those questions do not come into the table if you're early in your game.

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Those questions come into the table when you have a lot of experience, when you have done a lot, and when you're considering that, what is going to be my name associated with it? And I love that question, what do people say about me when I'm not in the room? Yeah, I think incredibly strong in terms of legacy and that developing people allowing yourself to become one of the shoulders to stand on so other people can rise and rise higher than yourself.

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So last week was International Women's Day.

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Now, all of us have different views on IWD.

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And yeah. how much we still need to do.

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But from one female leader to another female leader, we've both spent a lot of time in technology as well.

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What advice do you have for female leaders, women in leadership, those who want to take a leadership position as well? Yeah that's a really interesting question.

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I would have answered this question very differently if you have asked me this maybe 15 years ago.

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Because the rules of the gender Maybe has changed a little bit around the world, or there are new things to think about that maybe they are out of preview of my experience and knowledge, so I want to acknowledge that.

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But I'm talking it from a traditional perspective, because that's what I have experienced in my lifetime, and I have more access to that.

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So if people have other. Experiences or they have different lives.

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I encourage them to look at it differently.

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So I want to put that on the table.

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But from my perspective, has been that being a female, if you are deciding To have a child, you need to consider that in your leadership journey because there is a lot of ambition that goes at least into a corporate career or a startup career or even entrepreneurship.

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And when you decide to bring another human being into this world, no matter how amazing your partner is, There is certain things that that human being will rely on you for them and only you and that is a huge Responsibility.

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I personally wasn't thinking this way and as a female person and I wasn't thinking even about if I will have kids till I was 33 and something happened that I was like, no, I want to have kids Most people do not think about it that way.

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I mean, I did not think about it when I was 20 or 18 or when I choose my career.

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I didn't know how much of a big deal it will be.

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And when I was pregnant, I started realizing there is going to be a human and you're going to be dealing with that human and you have to put time for that person.

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So how are you going to do all the things you've been doing? Because there is leadership.

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There's the fact that you as a human interest in something other than work, I hope, and there is family and there is a husband or wife or partner or Some entity that shares maybe that life with you or even if you are a single mom and you decide to have that still is a lot of work, whatever the equation is, it's a lot of work and then you have your own ambitions around career and you will not be able to go to happy hours and stay till late and stay till whatever you want because There is a person that is relying on you.

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One of the biggest stories of my life that I tell people, when I had my second kid, I went back to work after four months because there was a lot of pressure on me by my boss that if you want to keep your job, you better come back.

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So four months I scrambled, I find a daycare for the little person.

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We sent the little person to the daycare.

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And, and that place was very, very harsh to a mother.

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Very, very harsh. Now, I'm not going to go into the details of it.

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But I know that within two months, I guess, I decided to resign.

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And on a Friday, I got an offer from another firm.

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And I was like, I'm going to resign today.

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And I called my husband and I said, I am not going to leave this building until I have taken care of everything because I'm not intending to come back to this building and my husband was like, my child was being breastfed and he was like, I don't know what to do with this.

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He's crying nonstop and I'm like, Oh, I'm sorry, but he can cry for one night.

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I need to get my sanity back and I need to take care of it today.

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And I stayed there. Till I wrote my resignation letter till I took care of everything that was out of my laptop so I could leave the laptop and just say I'm available for any questions.

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If you need me, call me because I wanted to respect the two.

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And I am out of here. I stayed there till 11 o'clock at night, and I was so stressed that I had was wearing a purple silk shirt that the silk shirt got tore apart because I was doing so much in that night.

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But I had to do what they have to do.

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Trying it's lungs out. We have here at home.

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I want the female leaders to consider all of these things Because if you decide to have a child, that's really it's gonna impact your leadership your career a lot of things so consider It's interesting because I'm one of the generation where we were brought up that women can have it all and You can't at the same time.

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And that was the biggest lesson for me.

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I've got a couple of wonderful mentors in their seventies and eighties who sort of say to me, actually, you still got time to play.

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You don't have to achieve it all now.

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It's what are your priorities? Who do you want to be? And.

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as a mother of two who didn't think about it, who just, and I'm very blindly marched on due to the fact that I have been told I can have it all and therefore I can do it all and I won't break, even though I could feel myself breaking.

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It's something where we, we have to step back and think.

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In the UK, we've got this movement called the Queen Ager, which is, revitalizing 50 plus women and getting them back into the workforce and really engaging with them.

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And it's being led by a fabulous woman called Eleanor Mills.

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And it's hers.

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Actually, a lot of us do step back in our thirties and forties to really prioritize.

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Yeah. And then we see some of that.

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Opportunity for our career disappear a bit because our male counterparts are moving forward.

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But I do think that myth that you can have it all Mm-Hmm.

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needs to be repositioned as, yeah.

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You can just, not at the same time, because I think it puts too much strain on us all.

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Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, I love that term.

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I'm gonna steal that in my conversation.

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Not that I learned it from you. The Queenager. That's a really beautiful term.

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I like, I love that. And I really have to say, Helen, that maybe people will realize it later in their life, but I can tell you there is this big trend going on on Facebook that people go and put all of their challenges and dilemmas in their mind on these groups for people that they do not have any idea in the hopes that out of the, I don't know, 50 people who comment on it, Maybe I don't know an inspiration of light comes to your to their head And which is interesting for me that you think that all these strangers have something to tell you Frankly, really do they know you even it's just fabulous, but coming back to the point is I can't tell you how many times I see that a woman post.

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Oh, I have my my child No, it's hard for me to focus and concentrate the same it was before And I I got reprimanded by my manager and I'm thinking shall I continue or shall I change my job or shall I, whatever.

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They need to hear that kind of advice, I think, that it is, there is something that get good.

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There is something physically that you are putting in there.

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If you are waking up three times at night to feed a little human, You cannot have the same amount of focus the next day.

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It's just the physicality is different.

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It's that great piece of research that says once you've been up for 18 hours straight, it's the equivalent of having two glasses of wine at lunchtime.

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So you're fundamentally operating under the influence.

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So if, like many of us, you go through six, nine months where you're getting an hour and a half sleep at a time, You're operating as though you're under the influence.

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And, that's not good for anyone. I did do a LinkedIn post relatively recently saying, What would you do if one of your people turned up drunk to work? Every leader knows exactly how they'd handle that.

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But okay, you are very happy to have people coming off red eyes, or, late night proposal writing, and just straight back into the office, or having young kids at home and not thinking about it at all.

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It's insight that needs to be shared and it takes a degree of bravery and fearlessness, Kathy, to share that with other women out there.

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So thank you as well. Now I have one final question.

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We ask this to every single one of our guests.

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And it's a bit of a play on who we are here at Defy Expectations.

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So we like to be a bit maverick. We like to be a bit defiant.

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And we ask all of our guests, you've already shared a great one for female leaders out there, but have you got another pearl of defiant wisdom that you would share with young people or aspiring leaders who are thinking about taking on the challenge of leadership? Yeah, you know, most of the times people tell people, oh, do things, do whatever you take.

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Takes a lot of the doing and a lot of encouraging people taking more and more actions and I'm going to tell them You need to know what direction you are following with your taking actions Even if it is necessary that you take a pause allow yourself to take that pause allow yourself To regroup and think where am I headed? Why am I doing this? and Really rely on the fact that maybe you necessarily do not know where you are ought to go.

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And you need to be able to pause and think and sometimes just try rely on your heart rather than your mind to make those decisions.

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Helen, you mentioned you haven't watched Oscars yesterday, but there was a lady that was supposed to be With a hornet, nest, bees, conter or something.

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And instead of that jaw, she was a supporting actress, nominee last night.

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Wow. So, there is something about following your heart, rather than your mind.

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We're a strong believer in heart set as well as mind set here at Defy.

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So, you've got our full support with that pearl of wisdom.

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But again, it's fearless to pause.

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in a world where we're tracked by progress and we are tracked and monitored and we do that to ourselves.

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Taking time to pause for as long as you need is incredibly brave and important.

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So thank you for sharing all of your insight today, Kathy.

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Thank you for having me, Helen. Well, if you've been as inspired as we have with our amazing guest Kathy today, check back in as we'll be running these regularly and we cover every aspect of the skills, behaviours, mindsets, heartsets that leaders need to continuously develop and evolve to thrive.

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Do defyexpectations. co.

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uk and remember to follow us to get notified of our next episode.