PRESENCE with Selena Rezvani: Writing new hero stories, 400% belonging, and making your presence felt
Julie and Casey sit down with speaker, author, top LinkedIn Learning instructor, and expert in how organizations can support women at work Selena Rezvani (who they met while working with her on her award-winning TEDx Talk “Interrupting Gender Bias Through Meeting Culture”) to talk about the necessity of bringing the “full color” version of yourself to work, dealing with Imposter Syndrome, and deeply practical strategies to make your presence felt. Along the way, they talk about the necessity of knowing what is and what is NOT the individual’s work in creating more inclusive work culture, and rewriting the prevailing “hero narratives” at your office.
TOP TAKEAWAYS
Selena spent lots of time in rooms where she was one of the few, or the only, woman of color. So often, the response to this is either to try to Rubik’s Cube ourselves into fitting in, or step back and disappear. Selena finally realized that to make the impact she wanted to make, she had to SHOW UP.
Who is a leader? It doesn’t depend on your title, age, seniority, or experience. Are you bringing your full spectrum of contributions to solve problems?
Especially because we know that the pandemic is disproportionately affecting women’s careers (caregiving, etc), we need more than ever to make sure we’re not “muting” our presence in an organization. Where are the decisions being made? Am I in those meetings? What is important around here today, and how can I tie some of my voice, my contributions directly to that?
The better you know your environment, the easier it becomes to ask “what are they craving right now? What’s at the top of their minds?”
As long as we’re all isolated working from home, we have to CONSCIOUSLY reach out to connect with people.
The cultures where people can truly show up and do their best work are “low-assumption cultures” - where we remain curious and don’t assume that we know what other people want, need, or think.
High assumption cultures often reward certainty as a leadership quality, which tends to lead to over-confidence being adopted as a path to leadership. What if we adopted a beginner’s mindset instead?
Individuals can show up with awesome, progressive leadership values, but the culture ultimately decides what is valued. What are the hero stories in your workplace? If companies want to incentivize particular behaviors, those behaviors need to be part of the narrative too.
Imposter syndrome can feel like driving with a nervous, doubting passenger who is constantly second-guessing your every move and decision. Sometimes, that can lead us to never take risks at all—but what if instead, we valorized the “face-plant” moments as an integral, beautiful, necessary part of the journey?
“You can’t overestimate what everyone else can do, and chronically UNDERESTIMATE what you can do."
There is no question that, for many people, it can feel or BE unsafe to be fully authentic at work. This is part of what makes the “Diet Pepsi” (diluted, small, safe) version of ourselves seductive—it makes us feel like we can’t be punished or fail. But if your presence isn’t felt, it also won’t be MISSED.
The work of finding and implementing that “full color” version of ourselves requires self-knowledge and continual exploration—like cultivating a garden, it’s never “done”.
Connect with what REALLY lights you up, and evaluate whose opinion matters and on what scale it matters.
You don’t always have to be the “inconvenienced one” in order to keep the peace or be the good girl. Look at those sub-optimal situations and ask yourself what would make it better. Asking may be easier than you think!
Power comes when you feel like your 400% belong. Selena believes in creating those conditions in herself: “I know this. I prepared. I can do this.”
Even for someone as poised and polished as Selena, she believes that the moments of vulnerability onstage are usually the most powerful.
Lesson: Creating a ritual around showing up with your full presence - what to do before, during, and after a big presentation or other presence-intensive moment.
Selena Rezvani is a recognized author, speaker, and consultant on leadership. Her debut book, The Next Generation of Women Leaders: What You Need to Lead but Won't Learn in Business School (Praeger, 2009) identifies the need for Generation X and millennial women to be seen as a viable talent pool and leadership pipeline.
Her newest book, Pushback: How Smart Women Ask — and Stand Up — for What They Want (Jossey-Bass, 2012) focuses on the unmatched power of negotiation skills in women's career advancement, and was recognized with an Axiom Business Book Award.
She is a Philadelphia Magazine and Forbes.com blogger and former commentator on NPR's nationally syndicated 'The 51% Perspective'. In addition, Rezvani wrote an award-winning column on women and leadership for The Washington Post. In 2018, she gave a TEDx talk entitled Interrupting Gender Bias Through Meeting Culture, which was recognized with a Croly Journalism Award.
Rezvani's professional speaking credits include the following organizations, among many others: SAP, Microsoft, Harvard University, The Clinton Foundation, eBay, Accenture, Johnson & Johnson, GoDaddy, Princeton University, and the Forte Foundation Conference.
Selena also provides strategic consulting for clients who want to implement inclusion strategies with a focus on the advancement of women. She received her Bachelor of Science and Master of Social Work degrees from New York University, and has an MBA from Johns Hopkins, where she received the Edward Stegman CPA Memorial Award for Academic Excellence.