Navigating Leadership Challenges: Overcoming Resistance and Bias

In this segment from the Dynamic Women podcast, we dive deep into the real challenges women face in leadership roles. I engage in an honest conversation with Carol Surbey, Karen Ta, and Gigi Blair about the resistance and biases they've encountered throughout their leadership journeys.

One of the questions I asked them was, "Have you faced any resistance or biases in your leadership roles, and how have you navigated those challenges?" Here are their authentic and insightful answers.

Staying True to Your Values Despite Difficult Leaders

Gigi:  Leadership just comes with challenges. I described the individuals that I had worked for who really set my model of how I wanted to lead. I've also had the opportunity to work with people who were not like that at all: people who I would call ungracious, unfriendly, and just borderline angry all the time. That showed up in their work and in the environment that they created for people to work in—a challenging place to be, for sure, kind of the antithesis of the first example that I described.

But I think it's so important to recognize what you can change and what you can't change. If I hoped to change them at all, it would just be through my behaviour and my presentation to influence them in some way. So it was very important to me to stay aligned with my values and firmly rooted.

I think a key skill that we are all always learning, I don't say all and always often, Diane, but we are all often learning to be better communicators. Those situations are primed to work on communication skills when you're working with people that, can we just say honestly, should not be in a leadership role. It's kind of a head scratcher how they got there.

Diane: We all have stories about that, I'm sure. That's why I'm glad that in the book, we have 35 authors who have shared the great ways to be as a leader and the lessons that have been learned through their stories. So yeah, we are going to face bad leaders, but we can control our response. The key thing is to stay true to your values—that's what Gigi was saying.

So let's go to Carol next. How about you? Have you faced resistance or biases?

Breaking the "I'll Just Do It Myself" Cycle

Carol: Being a female in the industry, I faced tons of biases. But the resistance, and I think as women, we can all relate to this, is that not only as leaders in our industry, but also as moms and wives, sometimes we get stuck in that "Oh, it's just easier if I do it myself" mindset. The tendency not to delegate, the tendency to just take on more and more and more. I think we're all old enough to know that leads down a path that's no good for anybody.

It doesn't apply just to women, but I think when we talk about the mental loads of household responsibilities, women understand that at a potentially deeper level. So when it comes to leadership, it's about allowing and trusting: trusting your vision, trusting your team, trusting your capacity to delegate.

Once you step fully into leadership, your prime directive is about helping your team stay in alignment with your vision and creating the structure that helps them stay there. That's what I ended up doing in my own business. That's what I've done now in my own personal life as well. I'm a little bit luckier; my kids are grown and moved out, so I'm not having to wrangle young children anymore, but my husband definitely got a bit of a wake-up call.

So the bias, or the challenge, was "it's just easier to do it myself." Initially, yes, but that leads to fatigue, burnout, all those things.

Diane: I'm glad you brought that up because so often solopreneurs or business owners or leaders will not expand their team or lean on their team at all, in other words, empower their team to be able to step into those roles. I actually did an episode last week on this piece, and delegation is smart. So stop doing it all yourself. 

So Gigi gave us values, you gave us vision. These are key things, if you don't have these, either in your own business or you're not locked into what your company stands for or what you personally stand for, those are a few things you might want to take some notes on and do as an activity.

Let's jump to Karen. Let's see what her biases and challenges have been. I know that part of that is what pushed you to do something specific that you wrote about in the book. I'll let you share what you're going to share here.

Navigating Cultural Barriers and Creating Visibility

Karen: I think it's even hard to use the words "resistance" and "bias," because with my cultural upbringing, we've almost been taught to be polite, respect our elders, respect the system. That's what I did for many years, just respecting the system, until I was like, "This doesn't add up. I feel like there should be more awareness around East Asians and Southeast East Asians in the workplace."

The resistance I felt wasn't done out of malice, I don't think. It's just this level of unawareness, something that wasn't done before. Even as we launched the inclusion network, which took a couple of years (and you can read more about it in my piece in the Dynamic Women® Leadership Secrets book), there was resistance around things like, "Hey, should we put some communication around Lunar New Year? How about Asian Heritage Month?" It was harder than I thought to actually put some communication around it, only because, again, it was that level of unawareness. It wasn't done before. How do you do this? Do you do it in multiple languages? What are the right words to use?

The other thing, to be fair, is that Lunar New Year is generally around January and February, which is the busiest period in my organization. It's not an ideal time to launch an inclusion network anyway. I personally had to do some research myself and found an alternative in Asian Heritage Month.

I grew up in the Canadian school system. I knew about Christian holidays, Easter, Christmas. I probably even learned about Black History Month growing up, but I didn't know, even as an Asian, about Asian Heritage Month. It only officially became Asian Heritage Month about 20 years ago, in 2002. It was a big learning "aha" moment for me too. I was like, "Oh, I don't even know my own heritage, but I want to launch it and make it big."

In trying to get recognized, I really leaned into this concept around sponsorship, meaning that you lean on more senior leaders in your organizations to navigate the system. I've heard about the concept of sponsorship in the women leadership program that I run, and also in sports. In sports, it's about getting funding: getting sponsors to fund you and your training, perhaps, or getting sponsorship for products. For women, sponsorship is about getting noticed and getting career advancement.

But what's interesting is what I learned about sponsorship in launching an inclusion network is that I just wanted some air time. I wanted some communication around Lunar New Year and Asian Heritage Month, and to make it become visible.

I'm proud that finally, in 2021, my organization launched the first Asian Heritage Month, and it's become a tradition ever since then. What I've heard from our members is that it's really made them feel like they're not invisible anymore. They felt like they mattered. They felt seen, and it created a sense of belonging and unity.

Diane: Wow. It’s so apparent that true leadership means more than guiding others. It’s about creating space for people to feel seen, heard, and appreciated. It’s honoring their perspective as equally important as our own.

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These powerful stories of resilience and growth are featured in the Dynamic Women podcast, where we tackle the tough conversations around leadership, business, and personal development with accomplished women leaders. 

This candid discussion included three contributing authors from the Dynamic Women® Leadership Secrets Book. Join us at our upcoming Virtual Book Launch celebration on June 11, 3:30-5:30PM PDT. Reserve your free ticket here.