Thanks for Coming Back
Welcome to "Thanks for Coming Back," where every episode feels like a heart-to-heart in your favorite coffee spot. Hosted by Dr. Latasha Nelson, this podcast strips back the layers of leadership to reveal the real, relatable side of guiding and growing, whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out.
Settle in with your brew of choice as Latasha shares her world of insights and experiences, blending wisdom with warmth in conversations that matter. It’s not just her stories, though; guests from all walks of life join in to share their own tales of triumph and challenge, adding flavors of diversity and depth to the mix.
"Thanks for Coming Back" is more than just a podcast—it's a community where we all learn and grow together. It's about tackling our challenges, getting better at what we do, and embracing the leader within. So come join the conversation, and let’s make leadership a part of our daily lives.
Thanks for Coming Back
Career Growth Insights & Strategic Positioning
Join us as Liz Weber shares career growth insights and the impact strategic positioning can have in your leadership journey. Liz, a seasoned consultant whose journey from a small Wisconsin town to the corridors of the State Department, is nothing short of inspiring. Liz shares her story of transitioning from an aspiring commodities broker to a strategic advisor, detailing the pivotal moments and lessons that shaped her path. Learn how these experiences ignited her passion for consulting and led her to help leaders make decisive and impactful decisions.
Discover the art of situational strategic thinking as we explore actionable strategies for aspiring leaders. Liz offers insights on reading the room, understanding people, and anticipating future implications to stand out in any organization. By sharing personal anecdotes and real-world examples, Liz emphasizes the importance of taking ownership, creating opportunities, and demonstrating strategic thinking without relying solely on formal authority. This episode is a treasure trove of practical advice for anyone looking to elevate their leadership game.
Finally, we dive into the concept of strategic foresight and its crucial role in effective leadership. Liz explains how confidence, discipline, and keen observation can help leaders anticipate challenges and seize opportunities. Empower yourself to contribute strategically and foster a solution-oriented environment. Don't miss this opportunity to enrich your leadership toolkit with wisdom from an expert.
Thanks for coming back. I'm your host, dr LaTosha Nelson. Today. I'm delighted to introduce our esteemed guest, liz Weber. Liz is a seasoned advisor, leadership consultant and speaker, renowned for her expertise in enhancing workplace culture and leadership effectiveness. Her insights are invaluable and I'm excited for the opportunity to share actionable leadership strategies for our listeners. Let's dive right in to share actionable leadership strategies for our listeners. Let's dive right in. If you would start by just telling us about your career journey and what inspired you to start Weber Business Services.
Speaker 2:Sure, latasha, I'm happy to share my story and thank you for asking me to do so. So I grew up in a very small farming town in Wisconsin and had a great childhood, but wanted to get out of there. I didn't want to be a farmer, I didn't want to be a teacher, I didn't want to work in a factory, and I thought those were my only options. So I went to school and got my business degree, with an emphasis of international business, because for some odd reason, latasha I have no idea where it came from I thought I wanted to be a commodities broker. I thought it would be so cool to be on the docks and have these huge ships come in and I'd be saying, yes, that goes to China and that goes to Canada. I don't know, it was my dream, but yeah, you can laugh. And I was sitting in my capstone class in college, and the capstone class, as you and your listeners probably know, is the classic kind of pulls everything together. And this class was taught by a guy by the name of Jim Farrell and he was this thing called a consultant which I had never heard of before, called a consultant which I had never heard of before, and he was one of those incredible teachers that he would say, okay, well, here's what the textbook says, but here's what I actually experienced with my clients and he was giving us a dose of reality and I loved it. But, more importantly, what I also loved was him sharing his stories of how he would help his clients make better decisions, be better leaders and have better companies as a result. And they did the work. He didn't do it for them, he was their guide and I thought that sounds like an amazing career, so fast forward.
Speaker 2:Coming from a small town in Wisconsin, farming, rural, with no international experience, I could not get hired in an international company to start my journey to be a commodities broker because I had no international experience. So I was in that catch-22. So I took an internship in Washington DC and, just by luck or the grace of God, I was placed in basically the military or the State Department's version of the military commissary system. Within a very short period of time, I was helping embassies and consulates around the world get food, so it worked out really, really well. What I also learned within a very short period of time and I mean like within three or four months was dealing with the ports and the commodities brokers. I would go crazy because they were incredibly disorganized and it was very frustrating.
Speaker 2:But what I learned as part of that job, part of my job was teaching non-business minded people who worked for the State Department that were stationed around the world how to run commissaries, how to run videotape libraries at the time, how to run tennis courts, how to run all of the activities outside of work on the embassy compound basically to LaTosha, teaching them how to run businesses. And I was 22, 23, 24 years old, but I was fortunate that my father had been a business owner, a self-made business owner, small business, and I had education through school and a lot of it, let's be honest, a lot of it is common sense, a lot of it is being organized, a lot of it is identifying a problem and then figuring out how to solve it. So I was teaching non-business minded people how to be business managers and leaders and that really triggered in me the ability to train, to teach, to learn leadership skills, because I started developing a staff of my own and then also a desire to consult and when the time came for me to leave that position, I had worked with a number of consultants during that process and I had learned from them what they did. They were really good guides, they were very good teachers, and I had the fortune then of basically talking with one of them over lunch and I said I want to become a consultant and he said that's great, but you don't have any experience. You're 24 years old. No one's really going to listen to you yet. You have to experience what some of these leaders that you want to consult with are going to experience so that you have better empathy for their positions and the situations they're in. And when you give them advice, it's not only logical advice, it's empathetic advice and they're going to know you mean what you want them to do, because it comes from a dual place, it comes from logic, it comes from your heart and that really resonated with me.
Speaker 2:So I started my company first as a training company. Basically, any supervisor, your management skill, any place, anywhere, anyhow. So it was everything from stress and time management to business communications to delegation. You know the typical topics. Over a couple of years it was probably about six, seven, eight years into my business I started having clients ask me to help them train on project management and train on, you know, some higher levels type thinking. And then I had some clients start asking me to work with their leadership teams and then work with them on strategic planning. And when I got into that space, basically my world changed because I found my happy place. I found working with the type of leaders and by that I mean the level of leader that had the responsibilities that I could resonate with, because I could help them make decisions that would change policy, that could change people's lives, because they had the authority, the budget and the experience to do so. So that's kind of how I got to where I am today.
Speaker 1:Beautiful, and what I like about your story is that it's very relatable. I think many people in our audience they are navigating their careers right now and some of us may even have degrees that we're not actively leveraging or we may be. I like to think that there's an opportunity for interdisciplinary approaches. You know I joke and I tell people I know if you look at my resume it looks like I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up, because I've got several degrees there. But I leverage each of those disciplines to really offer holistic solutions to things. Holistic solutions to things.
Speaker 1:And so while I consider myself a business strategist who specializes in learning and development, I am very much also an IT professional. I'm very systems oriented and I can tell you exactly where your bottlenecks are and how to create efficiencies within that space. I'm also an educator. I'm also. I can build a database if you need it.
Speaker 1:Me too Probably not my first favorite thing to do, but one of my first degrees and so very relatable in that sense, and I love that you found through experience, because you weren't able to dive right into international, you did have an opportunity that exposed you to consulting, and you said something that triggered a thought for me around common sense being able to help people non-business people run a business. That's tough, because you have to be strategic enough to understand all of your moving pieces and how to fit them together effectively enough to get the outcomes that you're looking for, and so I would love it if you shared with the audience the importance of being a strategic leader. What does that look like, especially for someone without a title but who, to your point, needs to operate and function in that strategic space.
Speaker 2:It's a great question and it can be a complicated question because I'm often asked probably as you are, you know, what does it mean to be a strategic leader? And I've kind of developed my own definition of that. And first, what I'll say is what does it mean to be a strategic thinker and I define that differently than other people no-transcript being able to leverage a number of different activities, different initiatives, different departments, different facilities, whatever it might be, to move that organization forward. I call that the technical strategic thinking capabilities, which means you need to understand the component parts of a plan, what they do for you because each one of them serves you as a leader differently and then how to leverage them collectively. That's technical strategic thinking. It takes a skill set to lead that type of initiative and it takes a skill set to lead that type of project to implementation. The other part of strategic thinking is what I call more situational strategic thinking, and this is very basically Latasha. This is how well do you read a room, how well do you read the people, how well do you read a situation and anticipate what's going to happen next or what will the implications be of something happening or not happening? And this type of skill is probably something you demonstrated very early in your career and it's something that I think I must have demonstrated very early in your career. And it's something that I think I must have demonstrated very early in my career as well, because I probably, like you, were a go-to person.
Speaker 2:I mentioned early in my career. I was an intern and as an intern you know you're a college newbie, you don't know what you're doing, you're administrative support and you're kind of doing a little bit of everything. But I became a go-to person in the office because my boss was dealing with policy and he was in meetings and so I became the person in the office because we had a very small office that the attorneys would call, the inspector generals would call If they needed information. They'd call me, they'd call my boss first and he delegated to me. And as a mark of that, years after I had left the State Department, I was in an airport in Tennessee and I felt a tap on my shoulder. I was getting coffee and I turned around and it was one of the attorneys I had worked with like 15 years before and of course it was great to see you, great to see you, and he said can you come over here for a minute? I want my son to meet you because he's heard about you for years, about this young girl that I used to work with, who really was such a leader at an early age that I knew she was going to do great things.
Speaker 2:So I just share that is that there are so many strategic leaders out there. If you can get things done, you know how to read people, you know how to work with people and you know what they're going to need next to help move them forward. Work with human resources. Professionals speak at a lot of their conferences and I believe they should be doing a lot of the work that I do in organizations, but quite often the reason they can't or they don't is they're not taken as seriously as they could or should be, and some of that is out of their control. But a lot of it can't be put into their control and I share with them is take ownership of the role they have and also offer advice, even when it's not sought, and what I mean by that is again, read the room and as an example.
Speaker 2:So, latasha, let's say that you are my manager and I just believe you should be doing X, y and Z, because I've seen this situation play out and you're not. Let's say, you and I are having a meeting about tasks that have to get done later today. I could say oh, by the way, latasha, I know you didn't ask for my opinion, but I wanted to share with you my thoughts about this situation. I would recommend that you consider doing X, y, z, because we know this, this and this is going to happen, and then you drop it and something as seemingly basic as that gives an indication to the boss. I'm reading a situation, I'm identifying potential implications of what may and may not happen and I'm offering a solution to move you forward or to move it forward.
Speaker 1:I often tell people that we have unique opportunities to create opportunities for ourselves. So, regardless of your role and I think the illustration you just painted for us was great you don't have to have formal authority to have created that situation, that opportunity for yourself and then be able to leverage that for future opportunities when they make themselves available to you that. I was a trusted advisor and a thought partner, with my upline leadership, to help ensure the outcomes we were looking for. We could achieve them together, and that's not something that necessarily was formally presented to you. What I heard you say is it's an opportunity that you can create for yourself and take advantage of Absolutely. I love that. Now, what other actionable steps can aspiring leaders take to develop and demonstrate strategic thinking in their role.
Speaker 2:I do set in their role because that's right where I was going to go. So one of the things that I spend a good bit of time working with my clients on and, for your audience's sake, I typically work with minimum mid-level managers and above, typically executives, business owners or boards of directors to help them lead their companies more effectively. One of the things and it's going to sound pretty basic that I do with every individual is help them understand what is their job. And again, that sounds pretty basic, but we do a couple things and your listeners can do the same thing. First off is look at the position description for the job you were hired for. That is the bare minimum. My opinion, that is the bare minimum of what they're looking for you to be able to do. I would say that, again, that's the bare minimum and for that they are willing to pay you X dollars, whatever the salary is. That, from my perspective, is quite often the tactical aspects of your job.
Speaker 2:One of the things I spend a good bit of time talking with executives about, particularly those that are new to the C-suite or want to get into the C-suite or are new to their C-suite role, is in addition to those tactical aspects of your job. What else is missing on that team that you have the skill sets or the attributes to bring to those conversations, and it may be things that that executive team or that ownership team or that board doesn't even know they're missing yet. As an example, I was working with a very smart, incredibly successful executive woman in IT space and she was new to the C-suite and she had a very big role in logistics and IT and had every credential there was highly gifted, very smart, was no doubt that she would be able to do the job she was hired to do. But in C-suite roles quite often, because you're coming in at such a high pay scale, you've got to prove yourself pretty quickly that you are worth the money you're being paid.
Speaker 2:So she had a 90-day initial review coming up that she had to make a mark to show that they had made the right selection, and so what we focused on for that first 90 days was identifying what are the skill sets or what are the attributes that are missing around that table, was identifying what are the skill sets or what are the attributes that are missing around that table and how might she be able to help in ways that that team didn't even know that they needed help yet. And in this particular case, it's similar to what you and I were just talking about. She needed to be a voice of advice, a voice of counsel and a voice of reason to the CEO. Even though she was incredibly new, she quickly identified there was nobody else on that executive team that he trusted to be that voice of reason for him, and so I just I share that, as it's not just the job you're hired to do what is missing with the rest of the team that just by who you are, you add value to what they need to get done.
Speaker 1:Now, this sounds an awful lot like acting beyond your wage. So there's the proving that you made the right selection in hiring me, and then there's the. Here's the added value and benefit of having hired me. In your view, what are the advantages and potential pitfalls of performing beyond your current role's expectations, particularly when it comes to advancing your career?
Speaker 2:I'm going to be very candid with you. I'm probably going to irritate some of your listeners by my answer, because I have a different take on act your wage than what many people do. When I work with my clients, as I just indicated, and we look at position descriptions and, as I just said, what's on there, from my perspective, is the minimum of what you're expected to do, and there's a couple reasons for that. Number one. First reason I share this with every one of my clients when you have a position I don't care if it's you know frontline widget maker or if you are the CEO of the company you have a position description, position responsibilities. You should be able to do that job as described under that document, under that contract, liz Weber rule, independently and competently, which means everything on that position description. Can you, latosha, do every one of those things independently and competently to their fullest? And if you can, then you are entitled to that wage.
Speaker 2:Now, that in and of itself might give some people some heartburn, because you and I, like probably most of your listeners, have worked with people who don't do their job but yet they get paid Like clockwork right, yes? And when someone says act your wage, you're like I'm already doing my job. No, you're not. You're not completely competently and independently doing what you're already being paid for. And so when I've had clients in the past that have had performance issues with staff and I remember one of my clients, dominic, he's like Liz I'm going to start paying a bonus when employees are not late to work and they're not late for like 90 days, and I said so, dominic, you're going to give them a bonus on top of already paying them for jobs they're not doing. You're going to give them a bonus if they simply show up when they're not already doing the job they're being paid for. So that's part of it. That's the first reason I have a problem with active wage, because most people don't understand, from my perspective, what it means to do the job you're being paid to do.
Speaker 2:The second reason is there is a line on the bottom of just about every position description that says something along the lines of and any other duties as needed, or whatever it is. Whenever I say that to a group when I'm giving a keynote, invariably the room starts. It's like this evil laugh, like I can make you do whatever I want to do. Sadly, that's how many people interpret that line. What I recommend to my clients is change that line to any other duties as needed to drive to the vision, fulfill the mission and abide by the values of this organization. Now, that's different and that's where some people go whoa, what does that mean? That means that, as a member of my team, as a member of this organization, as a member of this community whatever you want to call it there will be times and you need to be aware of that. You're a smart person. There will be times when we are all going to be asked to do things that aren't on our position description.
Speaker 2:I do a lot of work with state government. There may be times when the governor is going to come to the office and if we have a dirty cafeteria area, latasha, come on, we got to go clean it up. And if you say that's not my job, ok, technically it's not, but I thought we were part of a team and we wanted to be proud of this work area together. So that's why I have a problem when people interpret act your wage as if it's not listed here. I'm not doing it. That creates a problem.
Speaker 2:Now to your other point act beyond your wage. That also has two factors to it. If that means, yeah, we're going to go clean up the cafeteria because the governor's coming it. If that means, yeah, we're going to go clean up the cafeteria because the governor's coming, I have no problem with that. I have no problem if you're out sick and I cover some of your responsibilities because you're out sick, because I know when I'm going to be out sick, you're going to help me out. That's called having your back.
Speaker 2:It's different, though, is if I just don't do everything on my position description or do my job independently and competently. I'm only doing maybe 60% of my job. The boss is making you cover my other 40%, then you have every right to be upset by that. That's not fair, and so that's where I come down on act your wage, act beyond your wage. It's what are you doing to be the best you, given your job and your part of the team that you can be, so that people say you know who should we call? Let's call Latasha. I want to ask her first. Let's get her on this team Versus, I'm not calling her. I don't want her. There's a big difference.
Speaker 1:I love the sense of accountability. I love the example you shared of. So you're gonna pay your team beyond their wage for things that they're not already doing, to do things that they should already be doing. It reminds me of my parenting style my munchkin. I would tell her your one job right now is to go to school. That is your day job, and so, no, I do not pay for grades. I expect you to come home with good grades and or to let me know how I and your teachers can support you better if you need help. But I am not paying for grades. But I grew up with some of my best friends. They used to get paid for grades and I just used to giggle because I'm like my parents would never go for this. So I love the accountability aspect of it.
Speaker 1:But the rephrasing of the in other duties as assigned versus in other actions that may be needed to further the business in accordance with our values is extraordinarily empowering to me, because it's not just the things that you may be asked to do. It's not just the things that you may be asked to do. It may be the things that, if you see a need, you have an opportunity. You're being given permission on the front end to fill that need. So I love that. My only concern and I say that from my lens because I've been known to go above and beyond because there's always a need and when you become that go-to person, before you know it you may be hoping to fill other people's needs, almost to your own personal detriment. In fact, I shared with someone I'm working on boundaries right now. I'm working on figuring out a way to still lean in and help, but without deprioritizing the things that I need for myself, and so I'm curious how should people balance the risk of overextending themselves with the need to showcase their potential for higher responsibilities?
Speaker 2:I want to go back to what I said first is look at the current job you were hired and are supposed to be doing now, and you have to find a way to get some outside validation that you are in fact doing the job independently and competently, 100%. Right now you got your job covered. Then what is the next extension of some of your current responsibilities? Do you see how information or product coming into your position might be enhanced, or do you see how product information after it leaves you might be enhanced? How can you help the flow? How do you identify opportunities to improve the process so that the work that you're doing obviously is better, but you start to improve a process that impacts those that come before you and those that are going to come after you.
Speaker 1:Now, you mentioned the ability to modify processes and think futuristically at the same time. So there's the benefit of the modifications and the adjustments I can contribute to right now. And then what is my legacy? What mark am I leaving? And that sounds like it requires some foresight on the individual's behalf to really be able to think in the present and in the future. So how important is foresight, or the ability to anticipate future challenges and opportunities, particularly in leadership?
Speaker 2:Oh, I think it's incredibly important and it really comes from that ability to think strategically in the situations and anticipate ramifications, and I think it takes a certain skill set, but, more importantly, I think it takes a bit of discipline and observation, because there are so many things that happen that can be anticipated. You know how someone's going to react. Or if you've been in the workforce for five years, you start to see patterns in how things are going to happen. You know, if you've been in business as long as I have, you're like I've seen this one happen before. Human beings tend to work in patterns. Are there exceptions? Absolutely. I mean. You know COVID and everything that happened in 2020 was like oh, no one saw that happening. But what also were some things that could be predicted were how people dealt with that monumental change. What could be predicted was the type of support that people would need coming out of that type of massive change, and so, again, there were patterns.
Speaker 2:So the ability to have foresight, I think, is critical and what I encourage my leaders that are mid-level leaders starting to move up more into the executive ranks that ability to have that foresight, to think strategically, to think holistically, think about how these actions impact departments beyond yours, impact the whole organization holistically. That is really where the strategic thinking and the foresight starts to take. Shift is when you get over the monofocus of how does this affect my job or my team to yeah, this is going to affect my team, but how is this going to affect us? And then if my team does X, how will that affect everybody else? So then maybe my team doesn't do X, maybe we need to do J instead. And that becomes where the real strategic thinking and the real foresight comes into play, because you can start seeing multiple ramifications over certain actions.
Speaker 1:Absolutely makes sense. And so for aspiring leaders, what methods can they use to start developing this foresight, especially if they feel a little stuck in their day-to-day operations?
Speaker 2:I think it goes back to a couple of things we've talked about, LaTosha. It's number one start having more confidence in their observations and read on what's happening in there with your team or the organization, Because you probably experience this all the time as well with the clients that you work with. But quite often, particularly when I'm working with HR, I will tell them. So here's what I'm observing. They'll say yeah, yeah, yeah, they all see it, they all know it, but because they're right there, they're not listened to. The outside consultant is paid to come in and I say it. They all know it, but because they're right there, they're not listened to. The outside consultant is paid to come in and I say it it's like great, we never heard that before. Well, yes, you did. But to go back to what I said earlier, the way that you are communicating your observations, communicate them with more confidence, communicate them more concisely and communicate them with the solution proposed. So, instead of saying, Latasha, this thing is just broken, Someone's got to do something about this. This doesn't work, this policy is broken. It's not fair Versus saying, Latasha we've talked about this a number of times. I've heard you in meetings with senior management that this policy needs to be changed, and I know you think it does. I wanted to suggest to you what if we changed it like this, this and this, Because then the staff would experience that that and that that's a very different approach. One is, hey, there's a problem here, you fix it. The other is, hey, there's a problem, Could it be fixed? Like this, or here's how we might want to consider fixing it. It's concise, it's to the point and it's solution-oriented.
Speaker 2:And quite often I'll have managers say or you know people that are not as experienced yet in providing solutions Well, I don't know what to do, and quite often, what I'll say and I'm not being snarky, I'm trying to jolt them to think if they'll say, well, I don't know what to do, and I'll say but if you did, what would you do? And they're like what? And I was like look, LaTosha, you are obviously a smart woman. You have a munchkin. That's not easy. You have a lovely home, it appears. So you're making real adult decisions on a regular basis. As a smart, adult woman, in this situation, if you had the power to do something, what would you do? You just start giving those opportunities for people to speak up and show that they have the ability to make decisions at work.
Speaker 1:It's just a matter of giving you time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it goes back to empowering others. I think that oftentimes, especially in very hierarchical structures, people are waiting for permission to lean in in that way and when they're given that opportunity, they're caught off guard because it's oh, you really want to hear what I think the solution could be, or you're empowering me to offer potential solutions. And then there's this part of me that wonders how much of responding with either what may not be received, like hey, maybe we've heard your proposed solution out, but we're going to move forward with a different solution. So it feels a little bit like rejection versus maybe they think it's just a crazy proposed solution and I somehow ding my very protected reputation of just being the worker versus being a potential thought partner. I wonder how much of that often hinders us from taking that chance and say well, because you asked, I have a couple of thoughts here. Let me offer a couple of solutions to you, and I love the practicality of offering a solution, being concise in it and taking advantage of the opportunity, when presented, to share and influence your space.
Speaker 2:You know you said a couple of things that I really like and that strike me, and you know, if I could give advice to individuals who are early in the careers or new in careers and who want to be a part of the conversation and who want to be viewed as a leader, what I would say, number one, is stop doubting yourself, and I know everybody says that a lot. But the reason I say stop doubting yourself, because if you want to be viewed as a leader and you want to be part of the conversation, you can't be a drag on the conversation. This is where situational, strategic thinking comes into play. You have to read and match the vibe of the room. Match the vibe of the room. So, if the vibe of the room is with ideas being moved around the table, and if you say I'd like to offer a suggestion did you feel what just happened to the beat? You just sucked it down. Okay, this is going to sound so petty, but we're human beings. If the room conversation is I boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and a Latasha, you go. I'd like to offer a suggestion.
Speaker 2:The room's going to go, oh God, and it's petty, but we're going to go. Oh God, what's she going to say? And our view of you is oh God, it's petty, but we're human beings and we do it Versus the beat of the room is like this and you say let me toss out an idea. Boom, we look at you, you kept the beat and you say what if we do X, Y, z? You might be wrong, it might not hit, they might not take it, but you met the beat of the room. Now here's the other thing to keep in mind you toss out that idea, they don't take it. That's not because they didn't like my idea. Don't get offended by it. Realize what you did is you added to the beat? It's easier to build upon ideas and there may be something that you said that they can work with. If you add to the beat, if you add something, you add value.
Speaker 1:I love what you just said because I imagine that it works perfectly in reverse order to you being the one to change the beat, potentially, but in a positive way. Oftentimes you may be sitting in a room where the vibe is already kind of meh, but if you're the one who jumps out and says, hey, got an idea here, wondering if we can kick it around you, then kind of put the air back in the room for everybody to say, okay, you know what, let me set up a little straighter, I'll pay attention. Yes, so I love that. Yes, so I love that. What final thoughts advice would you give to aspiring leaders, particularly when it comes to developing their strategic leadership abilities, positioning themselves well to excel in their careers, to be seen as those future leaders that we need, and showing up confidently, because I love that. You touched on confidence so much in our conversation. It's such a critical thing that seems abstract to some. I think some people think, oh, you're either confident or you're not, but you can grow in your confidence.
Speaker 2:What final advice would you give? As you're asking that question, natasha, one of my favorite quotes just popped in my head and it's from Shirley Chisholm, and you may know she was the first African-American legislator, and the quote that she has that I just love is you know if I'm going to say it wrong, because I'm losing a little bit here but if there's not a seat for you at the table, bring a folding chair. I'm losing a little bit here, but if there's not a seat for you at the table, bring a folding chair. And what I mean by that in this context is be careful Now. You don't want to be the person who's always jumping in and you have to say something because you want to be part of the beat. That's obnoxious and annoying.
Speaker 2:You need to again use your situational, strategic thinking skills to read the room, to know when your voice is an appropriate ad versus being a nuisance. Take some time. Learn to read the room, learn to understand what the beat is, understand the objective of the meeting, the problem they're trying to solve, the issue they're trying to move forward. What can you add to it versus what can you just simply amplify? And what I mean by that is yeah, yeah, I agree with that. That's not helpful. What can you actually add to the conversation that they may not have thought of, that may give them some food for thought, that may further solidify a decision or may give them cause for concern?
Speaker 1:I appreciate that and I think that's very sage advice, so I hope the audience takes it to heart. Now, please share with us how we can stay connected with you and all of the awesome work that you're doing.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you so much. I am on LinkedIn, I'm on Facebook, I'm on X, I'm on Instagram. Every one of my channels is at Liz Weber. That's W-E-B-E-R-C-M-C. At Liz Weber C-M-C. All those channels on my website is W-B-S as in C-M-L-L. Sam LLCcom. Perfect.
Speaker 1:Liz, you've been an amazing guest today. This was really really great and I appreciate you spending the time with us today. Thank you so much, I appreciate you Latasha.
