The Impostor Syndrome Files
Building Self-Sufficient Teams
In this episode of The Impostor Syndrome Files, we explore what it takes to create teams that are not only high-performing but also deeply connected and resilient, especially in today’s fast-changing workplace. My guest this week is Daria Rudnik, a former Chief People Officer turned leadership consultant, who draws on her experience leading tech and telecom companies to help organizations transform how they lead and collaborate.
Daria shares her personal journey from being the only woman in the C-suite to becoming a champion for better workplaces. Together, we dive into why most teams today aren’t true teams at all and how that’s costing us in engagement, performance and well-being. She shares practical strategies to reduce leader overload, strengthen peer-to-peer connections and build teams that can thrive even amid uncertainty, remote work and AI integration.
Daria Rudnik explores how leaders can build teams that are both high-performing and deeply connected in today’s fast-changing workplace.
- Most workplaces operate as working groups, not true teams
- Weak collaboration leads to lower engagement, performance, and well-being
- Leaders must reduce dependency on themselves and strengthen peer-to-peer trust
- Resilient teams thrive through connection, shared ownership, and adaptability
- Modern teams must navigate remote work, uncertainty, and AI integration without losing human connection
(00:00-00:20) Kim Meninger
Have you ever felt like you're doing too much as a leader and still not doing enough? Maybe you're constantly solving problems, fielding every question, and carrying the weight of the team on your shoulders. Or maybe you're wondering if there's a better way to lead without burning out. If so, you're not alone. This week, I talk with Daria Rudnick, a former chief people officer turned leadership consultant.
(00:20-00:39) Kim Meninger
about what it really takes to build strong, self-sufficient teams. Daria shares lessons from her time in the C-suite, where she often found herself as the only woman in the room, and how those experiences shaped her mission to create healthier, more collaborative workplaces. In our conversation, we explore the hidden cost of well-intentioned, over-functioning
(00:39-00:54) Kim Meninger
how leaders can free themselves from the trap of being the go-to for everything, and why stronger peer-to-peer connections, not more one-on-ones, are the key to team resilience in today's fast-changing world. Thank you so much as always for listening.
(00:58-01:17) Kim Meninger
Welcome to the Imposter Syndrome Files. My name is Kim Menninger, and as an executive coach and former high tech leader, my personal mission is to help professionals overcome imposter syndrome so that you can advance your career with confidence. Each week, I interview a new guest who brings a powerful perspective to this conversation, including
(01:17-01:38) Kim Meninger
personal stories, best practices, and new insights. The more we talk about this issue, the more we destigmatize imposter syndrome, recognize that we're not alone, and empower ourselves to access the tools and resources that can help us and those around us. Thank you so much for listening and for sharing with others you think would benefit from this conversation.
(01:44-01:50) Kim Meninger
Welcome, Daria. It's so great to have you here today. I'd love to start by inviting you to tell us a little bit about yourself.
(01:51-02:17) Daria Rudnik
Well, thank you, Kim. It's a great pleasure to be here. And again, I love the topic of your show and how you focus on the imposter syndrome because, I mean, I know how that feels. My career started in Deloitte. I started in Deloitte, which is a pretty competitive place, but it was a good company. But then I grew, like I was grown into chief people officer for mostly tech and telecom companies. And at some point I found myself...
(02:17-02:32) Daria Rudnik
Being the only woman in the room, like sitting with the CTO, chief financial officer, chief commercial officer, CEO, all of them were men. I was like, okay. And I was pretty young at that age. I was 30 something. Yeah.
(02:32-02:54) Daria Rudnik
And so I do feel like what most of my clients feel as well, both men and women, that it's like, what am I doing here? All of those people are so smart. And like, how can be among them? Why would they listen to me? And if I have some idea, how do I make them take me seriously? So...
(02:54-03:18) Daria Rudnik
That really resonates with me. I had this history. And then over time, like there were more and more women in the suite when I was working. But a few years ago, I quit my corporate career and focused what I can do and love to invest, which is helping leaders build amazing teams and helping leaders feel well at the workplace. Because I believe we deserve better workplaces.
(03:18-03:35) Daria Rudnik
We spend so much time at work, so I want people to feel good there. And you can do that by developing yourself as a leader, by building strong, amazing teams, and so that everyone, well, at least within your area, within your reach, can feel better at work.
(03:35-04:00) Kim Meninger
That's so inspiring. I can't wait to dig into that a little bit. But I want to back up just for a moment because I think what you're describing is very familiar, whether we've been in the C-suite or just been on teams that have been primarily male. And so being that only woman on the team can be a really uncomfortable position. I wonder if you could share a little bit about...
(04:00-04:23) Kim Meninger
what was internal versus what was external, right? So did you feel like you were made to feel different on this team? Did they treat you any differently as a woman? Did you feel, you know, that there wasn't enough safety or how much of the experience was sort of coming from within and the stories you were telling yourself and some of the doubt that you were experiencing? Yeah.
(04:25-04:42) Daria Rudnik
Well, that's not an easy question because how do you differentiate what's internal and what's external? Because when you see and experience something, is it something that I see because I feel myself that way or is it something that I see because it's really what's happening?
(04:42-05:06) Daria Rudnik
I mean, I tell the truth. I'm a very lucky person. I worked for amazing companies with great cultures where people treated each other with respect. So there was never intentional judgment or kind of diminishing my words or anything else. I was treated fairly. However...
(05:07-05:35) Daria Rudnik
We've been raised in cultures where men make decisions, where men rule organizations, companies, countries, lots of things. And there were things like, it's good for you even that you're a woman. It's good for you even that you're a woman. That was a good idea. They were really well intentional. I mean, they didn't mean anything bad.
(05:36-06:04) Daria Rudnik
But they kind of, I mean, I don't want to say show me my place, but they kind of show me that I'm not at the same level. So, again, it's cultural and internal. However, people were, like, really nice. They were really, like, treated me fairly to the extent of, like, how they could. Yeah. The best they could.
(06:04-06:19) Kim Meninger
Yeah, no, I appreciate that because, you know, everybody is part of a different organizational culture and some are a little bit more overtly toxic, right? Others, it's more, as you're describing, we have been...
(06:19-06:42) Kim Meninger
conditioned socially to behave differently by gender. And I can remember sitting in meetings with lots of men and one of them would swear. And then they would all look at me and be like, sorry, Kim. And I would be mortified because A, right, they were treating me like I was fragile, but also because, you
(06:42-06:59) Kim Meninger
It just reinforced this idea that I was different from them and that they were censoring themselves because I was in the room. And it was all well-intentioned. They thought that they were just being respectful in doing so, but didn't realize that they were actually pushing on that vulnerability even more. Yeah.
(07:02-07:20) Kim Meninger
So talk a little bit about your transition out of those environments. And you mentioned your mission. I'd love to hear even just what it felt like to go from working in an established structure to now starting your own business.
(07:23-07:42) Daria Rudnik
Oh, I always wanted to do that. Like when I was on my maternity leave, I took a kind of a long maternity leave, like one child and another child. And I studied my business there. It was a small project, but still it was fun to run it together with raising two small children, but still it was fun.
(07:42-08:03) Daria Rudnik
But when you receive an offer and someone says, hey, come work with me, it was your regular paycheck. It's very hard to say no. So my transition to running my own business, to start my own consulting company is when I moved from Moscow to Israel. I'm originally from Moscow, Russia.
(08:03-08:25) Daria Rudnik
uh and i moved to israel about like three and a half years ago and when you make this transition when you make this move lots i mean everything changes like it's not just locations locations language it's culture and okay well i'll make this change i'll make just i'll make another change and i'll start what i wanted to do uh for a pretty long time uh
(08:27-08:48) Kim Meninger
Yeah, which is helping people feel well at work and helping leaders build teams that feel well and perform well at work. Well, that's a lot of change, like you said. I mean, lots of dimensions of change at once. And did you experience any self-doubt along the way? Did you experience any imposter syndrome making this kind of a shift?
(08:50-09:15) Daria Rudnik
Well, the good thing is that when you're sort of kind of forced into that, so it wasn't like, okay, now I'm a solopreneur. Now I'm running my business. But when you're forced, you have nothing else to do but just go forward and do whatever you have to do to survive. And so it's kind of a good thing. That's true. You're right. Like, you don't have much time to think about it or overthink, right?
(09:17-09:46) Kim Meninger
It's like having a baby. When you have a baby, I mean, there's no other way but just survive and raise them. That's right. You just got to go through it. So tell me more about your vision. And I'm curious about when you say better teams and what you're trying to improve, what problems are you specifically trying to solve? Yeah.
(09:49-10:16) Daria Rudnik
Well, the way we run organizations nowadays is so much outdated. When we run it as if it was a Ford company where you have conveyor and you have lots of workers doing the same thing every day. In our world, everything is changing. There's so many changes. There's technologies emerging. There's AI. There are wars. There's economic downturns. Lots of things happening. Demands are huge. Yeah.
(10:16-10:38) Daria Rudnik
And most of those demands lie on leaders who manage teams. And those leaders are expected to motivate their teams, to engage their teams, to show amazing results, to perform, to satisfy their customers, to satisfy the stakeholders. Lots of things they're expected to deliver.
(10:38-10:57) Daria Rudnik
And it, I mean, they just can't, no human being can do that. But what you have is you have a group of people that work together towards the same goal, a team. While most teams and organizations are not real teams, they're just a group of people working together and manager tells them what to do.
(10:57-11:26) Daria Rudnik
when you make them a real team, when they can collaborate, when they collectively make decisions, where they share this burden of rapid changes and multiple demands, that when leaders become more free, they become less overloaded, they can focus on strategy, they can focus on relationship building, they can focus on building this team. And teams can manage stakeholders themselves. They don't have a leader to go to every stakeholder and speak for them. They can...
(11:26-11:44) Daria Rudnik
manage their own mistakes. They can learn from their mistakes. So when teams become more self-sufficient and more autonomous and more self-managed, they can create better results and they leave more time for managers to like for strategy and relationship building and coaching people.
(11:44-11:57) Daria Rudnik
So that's my fundamental belief is that we need more like strong teamwork in organizations. And I mean, I've seen that when you have a strong team, organization can increase performance three or four times. Yeah.
(11:58-12:16) Daria Rudnik
How? Because those teams are more ready for change. So when I was leading a change, it was a major change in the organization that I mentioned before that had amazing culture, that had great team spirit. We managed to do that and increase performance successfully.
(12:16-12:46) Daria Rudnik
three and a half times. So we did produce three and a half times more products than we used to because we restructured the organization and this restructure was successful only because we collaboratively made decisions. Everyone was involved. Everyone understood the role. Everyone provided feedback and like every feedback was heard. So it's both beneficial for the performance and for people's wellbeing who are really, really engaged in making those change.
(12:47-13:01) Kim Meninger
So I love what you're saying and would love to see more of that. What needs to change at the system level in order for that to happen? What are we getting wrong today?
(13:02-13:24) Daria Rudnik
Well, the biggest mistake I see leaders are doing is, again, I'm biased because I work with leaders who want change, who want good things. So it means that most of the leaders I see are those who are well-intentional. They want to grow their teams. They want to support their teams. And the mistake that most of them are making is that
(13:24-13:44) Daria Rudnik
They're taking too much. They are having a lot of one-to-one conversations with every team member, which is good. But what they're not doing is they're not connecting team members with each other so that they can solve their problems first and then come to manager for the final conclusion, decision, support or whatever.
(13:44-14:13) Daria Rudnik
And what they're also creating, especially that's important for remote teams, is when you have too many one-to-ones, you kind of create this one connection, employee manager, team member manager. But you're lacking many connections that this person could have if they were connected to other team members. So instead of like one connection with the manager, the manager should connect them with each other. And this person has eight connections or six connections, depending how many people are there on the team.
(14:13-14:34) Daria Rudnik
And when they are more connected, they can solve problems better. They feel better because they have many people they can talk to. And again, they let managers focus on strategy and coaching and other stuff. So that's the mistake. They take too much. They solve problems for their people without letting them...
(14:34-14:45) Daria Rudnik
make their own mistakes. I want to share a story. Yeah. And that's a story about a cybersecurity lead in one of the companies I was working for. And she was...
(14:46-15:11) Daria Rudnik
Again, she was very well-intentioned. She wanted to support their team members. She wanted to protect them. She wanted to protect them from problems, from mistakes that they were making, from negative feedback, from difficult conversations with stakeholders. So she was the only person, basically, who was talking to various people in the organization, getting feedback, understanding the goals, like...
(15:11-15:30) Daria Rudnik
taking the blame for the mistakes. And the team members, they were just working together. But at some point, they started to feel disengaged and they were losing motivation. And we saw that through the engagement survey. And she was wondering, like, why? Like, I'm doing so much to protect them. I'm doing so much to help them. Why are they feeling so bad?
(15:30-16:00) Daria Rudnik
But when we looked at the connections that she has and connections that they have, like she was connected to the whole organization while they were connected only to themselves. And they felt isolated, lonely, and they didn't see how they were contributed to the goals of the organization. So when she switched, when she changed that setting and she connected team members with various stakeholders so that they are going out to them, they're presenting their results again,
(16:00-16:18) Daria Rudnik
They're responsible for their mistakes. They became more engaged because they had the meaning. Like we're doing our work for those people. And I know those people. I can talk to those people. I have connections with them. So my work has meaning. And that changed everything.
(16:18-16:43) Kim Meninger
Hmm. It's so powerful what you're describing. And I think it's, it sounds so simple, but it's hard for there. I feel like there are logistical challenges, but there are also mindset challenges that come with making the kind of transition that you're talking about, right? Because you're also, every manager is different, right? Every manager has a different, um,
(16:43-17:03) Kim Meninger
experience with developments and preparing them for that role. And a lot of managers really do see their roles as I need to know everything that's going on. I need to have my hands deep in the work. And you're describing a manager who is
(17:04-17:30) Kim Meninger
has the ability to be more hands-off because the team is more autonomous. You trust them to do the work. They've got other resources to rely on, not just you, which frees up your time to do these other things. But if you can't make that break, then this isn't going to happen. And I'll tell you what will happen if you don't make that change. AI will come for you.
(17:31-18:01) Daria Rudnik
The interesting thing, there was a research about what kind of roles can be replaced by AI. And it was the research of software developers, teams. What they found out is obviously, yes, AI can help developers create code. But what they also found out is AI is perfectly capable of project managing those teams, setting tasks, controlling those tasks, setting deadlines, controlling them.
(18:01-18:30) Daria Rudnik
Everything that traditional manager within the traditional managerial cycle would do, AI can do that better than that because they don't forget anything. So unless you change that, unless you change your behavior and let teams or AI or whoever do that for you, you will be replaced by the AI of the next era for the next few years. That's another interesting angle on this conversation as well is...
(18:30-18:53) Daria Rudnik
What can a human leader do that differentiates them from AI? Because that is certainly the direction that we're headed in. Well, the role of leaders are now even, again, even more important than ever because it's not just leaders need to implement AI with the teamwork.
(18:53-19:03) Daria Rudnik
Because when companies are implementing AI, everyone, most people trying AI, using AI. So it's not a problem. The problem is how we use AI and where we should never use AI.
(19:03-19:29) Daria Rudnik
And I was working with the team and it was a customer success team. And again, they used AI for many things. They had conversations with clients, they were transcribed, then they took those transcripts from the conversation, uploaded to AI, got some insights, uploaded them to CRM while preparing for the next conversations, took those inputs from the CRM, had conversations with clients.
(19:30-19:48) Daria Rudnik
But with that, again, they lost engagement and they lost the feeling of my work makes sense. I'm not just something who works and gives input to AI and then takes output from AI to put it in some other system. I'm not an operator. Like, why am I here?
(19:48-20:08) Daria Rudnik
And they also tend to forget things because they haven't generated those insights. They haven't like they read them. But when you like when you're not thinking it through, when you're not critically evaluating it and kind of processing it, it's not yours. It's someone else's. And it's hard to be engaged with the result of that work.
(20:08-20:32) Daria Rudnik
So what a leader, like I was coaching the leader and what we did with her is actually trained people to collectively discuss AI outputs because it might be hard to do it alone on your own. But when you get together as a team and start having those meaningful conversations, well, first of all, you get better results because you now understand the output, you now have them, you own them.
(20:32-20:39) Daria Rudnik
And the second, they started to talk more. And it's always a good thing when you talk to people and you build relationships through those conversations.
(20:40-21:09) Daria Rudnik
So that's what leaders need to be mindful is teaching teams how to use AI right. And like when you're not supposed to use AI, like you should never use AI to fire people. And I mean, we've seen that. I saw that there was a post on LinkedIn when the senior manager was writing, hey, we're laying off multiple, like lots of people. Here is an AI tool you can talk to to feel better. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness.
(21:10-21:16) Kim Meninger
Yeah, well, I mean, I love the way that you're describing it. And I wonder...
(21:17-21:45) Kim Meninger
I feel like we're at this point, and maybe it's always been this way, but it just feels like people feel busier now than ever before. And so it almost feels like, yeah, I'd love to do what you're saying, but I don't have time, right? I've got so much work to do, and the day never stops, and everyone else is so busy. Even if I'm not busy, my team doesn't have the bandwidth for this. So what do you say to that argument?
(21:46-21:56) Daria Rudnik
I love that question. It reminds me of a picture, like people pushing the cart with square wheels and saying, well, I don't have time to change. Yeah.
(21:58-22:23) Daria Rudnik
But again, I'll tell you a story. It's a story of a retail manager. It was a very big retail store. And she was new in the role. And again, she was very, very busy. She wanted to help the team. And at some point, she realized, I mean, I can't. I can't do it all. So what she did, she blocked time on her calendar for strategic thinking because she had to plan for the next year. And she said, I'm unavailable on that time.
(22:23-22:39) Daria Rudnik
So I'm available after that, but I need to plan the strategy for the next year. I'm not available. And what happens? Wow, team members can't talk to each other. They can't solve problems. It didn't happen overnight, but...
(22:39-22:57) Daria Rudnik
She encouraged that behavior. She told them you can solve problems. She told them they had meetings together. And eventually they learned how to do that because, well, they were now on their own. Like, again, it's like raising kids. When you say, I don't have time to cook dinner for you. Just go figure it out. They will.
(22:57-23:23) Kim Meninger
That's such a good point. That just reminds me like this, I have this random memory of following my mom around and saying, can you tie this for me? Can you tie like a bow, like a shoelace or something? I was like, can you tie this for me? She's like, I'm really busy. And finally I was like, I'll just do it myself. And that's how I learned to tie it because I was like, done asking. And I think that's true. Like if you leave people to figure things out on their own, they will. And
(23:23-23:50) Kim Meninger
Like you said before, there's this way in which we might feel pressure or obligation to protect our people, but you're not protecting them. What you're doing is you're stunting their growth. You're keeping them from developing the skills that will allow them to do their job more confidently. And someday you might want to get promoted. And who's going to step into your shoes if you haven't prepared anybody for that role? Yeah, that's true.
(23:52-24:22) Kim Meninger
So if you're on a team and maybe your manager hasn't heard this conversation, but you're thinking about ways that you can maybe try to influence this on your own, creating more connections across your team. Is there anything that you can do, either speaking to your manager or even just working on your own with your team to advance this? And again, that's a very good question because it's kind of we expect manager to do it all.
(24:23-24:53) Daria Rudnik
And I mean, it's true, I understand. But if you are on a team and no one is doing that, then just do it. No one can keep you from having conversations with other people. Again, I'm coaching a leader now and he wants to run a major initiative in the company, but he's not appointed to do that. But so what he does, he actually goes out and talks to people, getting them together, getting information from them, presenting the results of those conversations to senior leaders to say, hey, here's what I'm doing.
(24:53-25:16) Daria Rudnik
I want to lead this, like, I want to lead this. And like, what do you think? And I said, wow, I'm glad you did that. Thank you. So not every manager is like that. Not every manager will say good, but you can try and you can do things. You can connect people. You can talk to people. You can like do team sessions. Yeah.
(25:16-25:26) Daria Rudnik
You are a CEO of your own career in any way. And so you need to manage it right. And you need to be strategic about what you're doing, not expecting your manager to do it for you.
(25:26-25:47) Kim Meninger
Yes, that's such a good point. I think, you know, obviously you have to know your own manager, but I think a lot of this is rooted in time pressure. And if you bring something to your manager that they can edit rather than create, right, they may be thrilled that you've taken that initiative that they just didn't feel they had time to do on their own.
(25:48-25:59) Kim Meninger
Yeah. Anything else that you think is important for people listening to think about as they're either navigating their own environments as the manager or as the person on the team?
(26:01-26:25) Daria Rudnik
Well, I just want people to feel like you're free to do whatever you want. Well, first, figure out what is it you want. What is it your main goal? And don't expect organizations to change, your manager to change, your team to change. Start doing something you can do that. You have power to do that. You have skills to do that. If you don't have skills, learn those skills quickly.
(26:25-26:41) Daria Rudnik
But nowadays, we're not expected to sit still and do whatever we're told. We can create our own careers. We can create our own cultures. I've been working in organizations where managers had great cultures on their teams –
(26:42-27:06) Daria Rudnik
And those cultures were a bit different from organizational cultures because they wanted to be like that. And they created the environment where they could perform well, they feel well, and they like working together. So you have the power to do that. Yes. I'm so glad you said that. I think that's a really important reminder is we have more power than we think we do. And if we hit it,
(27:07-27:33) Kim Meninger
a wall, it's also important information, right? I mean, maybe we aren't able to make a change today, but if we're consistently trying to make changes that are important to us and we can't do that, then that tells us that maybe we're not in the right place for long-term growth. I really like how you called out you're the CEO of your own career. And if you keep getting stuck, right, like that's data, right?
(27:33-27:38) Kim Meninger
That's important to take into consideration when you're making your own career decisions.
(27:42-28:07) Kim Meninger
Well, I am so grateful to you, Daria, for bringing this conversation here. I think this is a really important one and very timely one. I'm glad you brought up AI as well, because I think that is on everyone's minds these days and will only continue to be an even more dominant part of the conversation. For people who want to stay connected to you and continue to follow your work, where can they find you?
(28:08-28:32) Daria Rudnik
Well, you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm very open to connections there and messages. You can also find me on my website, dariarudnik.com. And I highly recommend you read my new book, Clicking, which is exactly about building self-sufficient teams, teams that are more autonomous. So whether you're a manager or a person who wants to work in such a team, get the book. There are lots of practical tools that you can use to build an amazing team.
(28:32-28:59) Kim Meninger
Wonderful. So I'll make sure that the link is in the show notes as well. And thanks again for being here, Daria. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Kim. It was a pleasure. Thanks so much for listening to the imposter syndrome files. If you would like to continue this conversation in a safe and trusted space, I would love for you to join my virtual discussion group every Thursday at 12 PM Eastern. For the past several years, the group has been limited to women, but it is now open
(28:59-29:19) Kim Meninger
regardless of gender, to anyone who is interested in exploring and troubleshooting common workplace challenges, building better awareness of ourselves and others, and becoming more inclusive allies at work. Check out the show notes for more info on how to find us. And please join us next week for another episode of The Imposter Syndrome Files.
Have you ever felt like you're doing too much as a leader and still not doing enough? Maybe you're constantly solving problems, fielding every question, and carrying the weight of the team on your shoulders. Or maybe you're wondering if there's a better way to lead without burning out. If so, you're not alone. This week, I talk with Daria Rudnick, a former chief people officer turned leadership consultant.
(00:20-00:39) Kim Meninger
about what it really takes to build strong, self-sufficient teams. Daria shares lessons from her time in the C-suite, where she often found herself as the only woman in the room, and how those experiences shaped her mission to create healthier, more collaborative workplaces. In our conversation, we explore the hidden cost of well-intentioned, over-functioning
(00:39-00:54) Kim Meninger
how leaders can free themselves from the trap of being the go-to for everything, and why stronger peer-to-peer connections, not more one-on-ones, are the key to team resilience in today's fast-changing world. Thank you so much as always for listening.
(00:58-01:17) Kim Meninger
Welcome to the Imposter Syndrome Files. My name is Kim Menninger, and as an executive coach and former high tech leader, my personal mission is to help professionals overcome imposter syndrome so that you can advance your career with confidence. Each week, I interview a new guest who brings a powerful perspective to this conversation, including
(01:17-01:38) Kim Meninger
personal stories, best practices, and new insights. The more we talk about this issue, the more we destigmatize imposter syndrome, recognize that we're not alone, and empower ourselves to access the tools and resources that can help us and those around us. Thank you so much for listening and for sharing with others you think would benefit from this conversation.
(01:44-01:50) Kim Meninger
Welcome, Daria. It's so great to have you here today. I'd love to start by inviting you to tell us a little bit about yourself.
(01:51-02:17) Daria Rudnik
Well, thank you, Kim. It's a great pleasure to be here. And again, I love the topic of your show and how you focus on the imposter syndrome because, I mean, I know how that feels. My career started in Deloitte. I started in Deloitte, which is a pretty competitive place, but it was a good company. But then I grew, like I was grown into chief people officer for mostly tech and telecom companies. And at some point I found myself...
(02:17-02:32) Daria Rudnik
Being the only woman in the room, like sitting with the CTO, chief financial officer, chief commercial officer, CEO, all of them were men. I was like, okay. And I was pretty young at that age. I was 30 something. Yeah.
(02:32-02:54) Daria Rudnik
And so I do feel like what most of my clients feel as well, both men and women, that it's like, what am I doing here? All of those people are so smart. And like, how can be among them? Why would they listen to me? And if I have some idea, how do I make them take me seriously? So...
(02:54-03:18) Daria Rudnik
That really resonates with me. I had this history. And then over time, like there were more and more women in the suite when I was working. But a few years ago, I quit my corporate career and focused what I can do and love to invest, which is helping leaders build amazing teams and helping leaders feel well at the workplace. Because I believe we deserve better workplaces.
(03:18-03:35) Daria Rudnik
We spend so much time at work, so I want people to feel good there. And you can do that by developing yourself as a leader, by building strong, amazing teams, and so that everyone, well, at least within your area, within your reach, can feel better at work.
(03:35-04:00) Kim Meninger
That's so inspiring. I can't wait to dig into that a little bit. But I want to back up just for a moment because I think what you're describing is very familiar, whether we've been in the C-suite or just been on teams that have been primarily male. And so being that only woman on the team can be a really uncomfortable position. I wonder if you could share a little bit about...
(04:00-04:23) Kim Meninger
what was internal versus what was external, right? So did you feel like you were made to feel different on this team? Did they treat you any differently as a woman? Did you feel, you know, that there wasn't enough safety or how much of the experience was sort of coming from within and the stories you were telling yourself and some of the doubt that you were experiencing? Yeah.
(04:25-04:42) Daria Rudnik
Well, that's not an easy question because how do you differentiate what's internal and what's external? Because when you see and experience something, is it something that I see because I feel myself that way or is it something that I see because it's really what's happening?
(04:42-05:06) Daria Rudnik
I mean, I tell the truth. I'm a very lucky person. I worked for amazing companies with great cultures where people treated each other with respect. So there was never intentional judgment or kind of diminishing my words or anything else. I was treated fairly. However...
(05:07-05:35) Daria Rudnik
We've been raised in cultures where men make decisions, where men rule organizations, companies, countries, lots of things. And there were things like, it's good for you even that you're a woman. It's good for you even that you're a woman. That was a good idea. They were really well intentional. I mean, they didn't mean anything bad.
(05:36-06:04) Daria Rudnik
But they kind of, I mean, I don't want to say show me my place, but they kind of show me that I'm not at the same level. So, again, it's cultural and internal. However, people were, like, really nice. They were really, like, treated me fairly to the extent of, like, how they could. Yeah. The best they could.
(06:04-06:19) Kim Meninger
Yeah, no, I appreciate that because, you know, everybody is part of a different organizational culture and some are a little bit more overtly toxic, right? Others, it's more, as you're describing, we have been...
(06:19-06:42) Kim Meninger
conditioned socially to behave differently by gender. And I can remember sitting in meetings with lots of men and one of them would swear. And then they would all look at me and be like, sorry, Kim. And I would be mortified because A, right, they were treating me like I was fragile, but also because, you
(06:42-06:59) Kim Meninger
It just reinforced this idea that I was different from them and that they were censoring themselves because I was in the room. And it was all well-intentioned. They thought that they were just being respectful in doing so, but didn't realize that they were actually pushing on that vulnerability even more. Yeah.
(07:02-07:20) Kim Meninger
So talk a little bit about your transition out of those environments. And you mentioned your mission. I'd love to hear even just what it felt like to go from working in an established structure to now starting your own business.
(07:23-07:42) Daria Rudnik
Oh, I always wanted to do that. Like when I was on my maternity leave, I took a kind of a long maternity leave, like one child and another child. And I studied my business there. It was a small project, but still it was fun to run it together with raising two small children, but still it was fun.
(07:42-08:03) Daria Rudnik
But when you receive an offer and someone says, hey, come work with me, it was your regular paycheck. It's very hard to say no. So my transition to running my own business, to start my own consulting company is when I moved from Moscow to Israel. I'm originally from Moscow, Russia.
(08:03-08:25) Daria Rudnik
uh and i moved to israel about like three and a half years ago and when you make this transition when you make this move lots i mean everything changes like it's not just locations locations language it's culture and okay well i'll make this change i'll make just i'll make another change and i'll start what i wanted to do uh for a pretty long time uh
(08:27-08:48) Kim Meninger
Yeah, which is helping people feel well at work and helping leaders build teams that feel well and perform well at work. Well, that's a lot of change, like you said. I mean, lots of dimensions of change at once. And did you experience any self-doubt along the way? Did you experience any imposter syndrome making this kind of a shift?
(08:50-09:15) Daria Rudnik
Well, the good thing is that when you're sort of kind of forced into that, so it wasn't like, okay, now I'm a solopreneur. Now I'm running my business. But when you're forced, you have nothing else to do but just go forward and do whatever you have to do to survive. And so it's kind of a good thing. That's true. You're right. Like, you don't have much time to think about it or overthink, right?
(09:17-09:46) Kim Meninger
It's like having a baby. When you have a baby, I mean, there's no other way but just survive and raise them. That's right. You just got to go through it. So tell me more about your vision. And I'm curious about when you say better teams and what you're trying to improve, what problems are you specifically trying to solve? Yeah.
(09:49-10:16) Daria Rudnik
Well, the way we run organizations nowadays is so much outdated. When we run it as if it was a Ford company where you have conveyor and you have lots of workers doing the same thing every day. In our world, everything is changing. There's so many changes. There's technologies emerging. There's AI. There are wars. There's economic downturns. Lots of things happening. Demands are huge. Yeah.
(10:16-10:38) Daria Rudnik
And most of those demands lie on leaders who manage teams. And those leaders are expected to motivate their teams, to engage their teams, to show amazing results, to perform, to satisfy their customers, to satisfy the stakeholders. Lots of things they're expected to deliver.
(10:38-10:57) Daria Rudnik
And it, I mean, they just can't, no human being can do that. But what you have is you have a group of people that work together towards the same goal, a team. While most teams and organizations are not real teams, they're just a group of people working together and manager tells them what to do.
(10:57-11:26) Daria Rudnik
when you make them a real team, when they can collaborate, when they collectively make decisions, where they share this burden of rapid changes and multiple demands, that when leaders become more free, they become less overloaded, they can focus on strategy, they can focus on relationship building, they can focus on building this team. And teams can manage stakeholders themselves. They don't have a leader to go to every stakeholder and speak for them. They can...
(11:26-11:44) Daria Rudnik
manage their own mistakes. They can learn from their mistakes. So when teams become more self-sufficient and more autonomous and more self-managed, they can create better results and they leave more time for managers to like for strategy and relationship building and coaching people.
(11:44-11:57) Daria Rudnik
So that's my fundamental belief is that we need more like strong teamwork in organizations. And I mean, I've seen that when you have a strong team, organization can increase performance three or four times. Yeah.
(11:58-12:16) Daria Rudnik
How? Because those teams are more ready for change. So when I was leading a change, it was a major change in the organization that I mentioned before that had amazing culture, that had great team spirit. We managed to do that and increase performance successfully.
(12:16-12:46) Daria Rudnik
three and a half times. So we did produce three and a half times more products than we used to because we restructured the organization and this restructure was successful only because we collaboratively made decisions. Everyone was involved. Everyone understood the role. Everyone provided feedback and like every feedback was heard. So it's both beneficial for the performance and for people's wellbeing who are really, really engaged in making those change.
(12:47-13:01) Kim Meninger
So I love what you're saying and would love to see more of that. What needs to change at the system level in order for that to happen? What are we getting wrong today?
(13:02-13:24) Daria Rudnik
Well, the biggest mistake I see leaders are doing is, again, I'm biased because I work with leaders who want change, who want good things. So it means that most of the leaders I see are those who are well-intentional. They want to grow their teams. They want to support their teams. And the mistake that most of them are making is that
(13:24-13:44) Daria Rudnik
They're taking too much. They are having a lot of one-to-one conversations with every team member, which is good. But what they're not doing is they're not connecting team members with each other so that they can solve their problems first and then come to manager for the final conclusion, decision, support or whatever.
(13:44-14:13) Daria Rudnik
And what they're also creating, especially that's important for remote teams, is when you have too many one-to-ones, you kind of create this one connection, employee manager, team member manager. But you're lacking many connections that this person could have if they were connected to other team members. So instead of like one connection with the manager, the manager should connect them with each other. And this person has eight connections or six connections, depending how many people are there on the team.
(14:13-14:34) Daria Rudnik
And when they are more connected, they can solve problems better. They feel better because they have many people they can talk to. And again, they let managers focus on strategy and coaching and other stuff. So that's the mistake. They take too much. They solve problems for their people without letting them...
(14:34-14:45) Daria Rudnik
make their own mistakes. I want to share a story. Yeah. And that's a story about a cybersecurity lead in one of the companies I was working for. And she was...
(14:46-15:11) Daria Rudnik
Again, she was very well-intentioned. She wanted to support their team members. She wanted to protect them. She wanted to protect them from problems, from mistakes that they were making, from negative feedback, from difficult conversations with stakeholders. So she was the only person, basically, who was talking to various people in the organization, getting feedback, understanding the goals, like...
(15:11-15:30) Daria Rudnik
taking the blame for the mistakes. And the team members, they were just working together. But at some point, they started to feel disengaged and they were losing motivation. And we saw that through the engagement survey. And she was wondering, like, why? Like, I'm doing so much to protect them. I'm doing so much to help them. Why are they feeling so bad?
(15:30-16:00) Daria Rudnik
But when we looked at the connections that she has and connections that they have, like she was connected to the whole organization while they were connected only to themselves. And they felt isolated, lonely, and they didn't see how they were contributed to the goals of the organization. So when she switched, when she changed that setting and she connected team members with various stakeholders so that they are going out to them, they're presenting their results again,
(16:00-16:18) Daria Rudnik
They're responsible for their mistakes. They became more engaged because they had the meaning. Like we're doing our work for those people. And I know those people. I can talk to those people. I have connections with them. So my work has meaning. And that changed everything.
(16:18-16:43) Kim Meninger
Hmm. It's so powerful what you're describing. And I think it's, it sounds so simple, but it's hard for there. I feel like there are logistical challenges, but there are also mindset challenges that come with making the kind of transition that you're talking about, right? Because you're also, every manager is different, right? Every manager has a different, um,
(16:43-17:03) Kim Meninger
experience with developments and preparing them for that role. And a lot of managers really do see their roles as I need to know everything that's going on. I need to have my hands deep in the work. And you're describing a manager who is
(17:04-17:30) Kim Meninger
has the ability to be more hands-off because the team is more autonomous. You trust them to do the work. They've got other resources to rely on, not just you, which frees up your time to do these other things. But if you can't make that break, then this isn't going to happen. And I'll tell you what will happen if you don't make that change. AI will come for you.
(17:31-18:01) Daria Rudnik
The interesting thing, there was a research about what kind of roles can be replaced by AI. And it was the research of software developers, teams. What they found out is obviously, yes, AI can help developers create code. But what they also found out is AI is perfectly capable of project managing those teams, setting tasks, controlling those tasks, setting deadlines, controlling them.
(18:01-18:30) Daria Rudnik
Everything that traditional manager within the traditional managerial cycle would do, AI can do that better than that because they don't forget anything. So unless you change that, unless you change your behavior and let teams or AI or whoever do that for you, you will be replaced by the AI of the next era for the next few years. That's another interesting angle on this conversation as well is...
(18:30-18:53) Daria Rudnik
What can a human leader do that differentiates them from AI? Because that is certainly the direction that we're headed in. Well, the role of leaders are now even, again, even more important than ever because it's not just leaders need to implement AI with the teamwork.
(18:53-19:03) Daria Rudnik
Because when companies are implementing AI, everyone, most people trying AI, using AI. So it's not a problem. The problem is how we use AI and where we should never use AI.
(19:03-19:29) Daria Rudnik
And I was working with the team and it was a customer success team. And again, they used AI for many things. They had conversations with clients, they were transcribed, then they took those transcripts from the conversation, uploaded to AI, got some insights, uploaded them to CRM while preparing for the next conversations, took those inputs from the CRM, had conversations with clients.
(19:30-19:48) Daria Rudnik
But with that, again, they lost engagement and they lost the feeling of my work makes sense. I'm not just something who works and gives input to AI and then takes output from AI to put it in some other system. I'm not an operator. Like, why am I here?
(19:48-20:08) Daria Rudnik
And they also tend to forget things because they haven't generated those insights. They haven't like they read them. But when you like when you're not thinking it through, when you're not critically evaluating it and kind of processing it, it's not yours. It's someone else's. And it's hard to be engaged with the result of that work.
(20:08-20:32) Daria Rudnik
So what a leader, like I was coaching the leader and what we did with her is actually trained people to collectively discuss AI outputs because it might be hard to do it alone on your own. But when you get together as a team and start having those meaningful conversations, well, first of all, you get better results because you now understand the output, you now have them, you own them.
(20:32-20:39) Daria Rudnik
And the second, they started to talk more. And it's always a good thing when you talk to people and you build relationships through those conversations.
(20:40-21:09) Daria Rudnik
So that's what leaders need to be mindful is teaching teams how to use AI right. And like when you're not supposed to use AI, like you should never use AI to fire people. And I mean, we've seen that. I saw that there was a post on LinkedIn when the senior manager was writing, hey, we're laying off multiple, like lots of people. Here is an AI tool you can talk to to feel better. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness.
(21:10-21:16) Kim Meninger
Yeah, well, I mean, I love the way that you're describing it. And I wonder...
(21:17-21:45) Kim Meninger
I feel like we're at this point, and maybe it's always been this way, but it just feels like people feel busier now than ever before. And so it almost feels like, yeah, I'd love to do what you're saying, but I don't have time, right? I've got so much work to do, and the day never stops, and everyone else is so busy. Even if I'm not busy, my team doesn't have the bandwidth for this. So what do you say to that argument?
(21:46-21:56) Daria Rudnik
I love that question. It reminds me of a picture, like people pushing the cart with square wheels and saying, well, I don't have time to change. Yeah.
(21:58-22:23) Daria Rudnik
But again, I'll tell you a story. It's a story of a retail manager. It was a very big retail store. And she was new in the role. And again, she was very, very busy. She wanted to help the team. And at some point, she realized, I mean, I can't. I can't do it all. So what she did, she blocked time on her calendar for strategic thinking because she had to plan for the next year. And she said, I'm unavailable on that time.
(22:23-22:39) Daria Rudnik
So I'm available after that, but I need to plan the strategy for the next year. I'm not available. And what happens? Wow, team members can't talk to each other. They can't solve problems. It didn't happen overnight, but...
(22:39-22:57) Daria Rudnik
She encouraged that behavior. She told them you can solve problems. She told them they had meetings together. And eventually they learned how to do that because, well, they were now on their own. Like, again, it's like raising kids. When you say, I don't have time to cook dinner for you. Just go figure it out. They will.
(22:57-23:23) Kim Meninger
That's such a good point. That just reminds me like this, I have this random memory of following my mom around and saying, can you tie this for me? Can you tie like a bow, like a shoelace or something? I was like, can you tie this for me? She's like, I'm really busy. And finally I was like, I'll just do it myself. And that's how I learned to tie it because I was like, done asking. And I think that's true. Like if you leave people to figure things out on their own, they will. And
(23:23-23:50) Kim Meninger
Like you said before, there's this way in which we might feel pressure or obligation to protect our people, but you're not protecting them. What you're doing is you're stunting their growth. You're keeping them from developing the skills that will allow them to do their job more confidently. And someday you might want to get promoted. And who's going to step into your shoes if you haven't prepared anybody for that role? Yeah, that's true.
(23:52-24:22) Kim Meninger
So if you're on a team and maybe your manager hasn't heard this conversation, but you're thinking about ways that you can maybe try to influence this on your own, creating more connections across your team. Is there anything that you can do, either speaking to your manager or even just working on your own with your team to advance this? And again, that's a very good question because it's kind of we expect manager to do it all.
(24:23-24:53) Daria Rudnik
And I mean, it's true, I understand. But if you are on a team and no one is doing that, then just do it. No one can keep you from having conversations with other people. Again, I'm coaching a leader now and he wants to run a major initiative in the company, but he's not appointed to do that. But so what he does, he actually goes out and talks to people, getting them together, getting information from them, presenting the results of those conversations to senior leaders to say, hey, here's what I'm doing.
(24:53-25:16) Daria Rudnik
I want to lead this, like, I want to lead this. And like, what do you think? And I said, wow, I'm glad you did that. Thank you. So not every manager is like that. Not every manager will say good, but you can try and you can do things. You can connect people. You can talk to people. You can like do team sessions. Yeah.
(25:16-25:26) Daria Rudnik
You are a CEO of your own career in any way. And so you need to manage it right. And you need to be strategic about what you're doing, not expecting your manager to do it for you.
(25:26-25:47) Kim Meninger
Yes, that's such a good point. I think, you know, obviously you have to know your own manager, but I think a lot of this is rooted in time pressure. And if you bring something to your manager that they can edit rather than create, right, they may be thrilled that you've taken that initiative that they just didn't feel they had time to do on their own.
(25:48-25:59) Kim Meninger
Yeah. Anything else that you think is important for people listening to think about as they're either navigating their own environments as the manager or as the person on the team?
(26:01-26:25) Daria Rudnik
Well, I just want people to feel like you're free to do whatever you want. Well, first, figure out what is it you want. What is it your main goal? And don't expect organizations to change, your manager to change, your team to change. Start doing something you can do that. You have power to do that. You have skills to do that. If you don't have skills, learn those skills quickly.
(26:25-26:41) Daria Rudnik
But nowadays, we're not expected to sit still and do whatever we're told. We can create our own careers. We can create our own cultures. I've been working in organizations where managers had great cultures on their teams –
(26:42-27:06) Daria Rudnik
And those cultures were a bit different from organizational cultures because they wanted to be like that. And they created the environment where they could perform well, they feel well, and they like working together. So you have the power to do that. Yes. I'm so glad you said that. I think that's a really important reminder is we have more power than we think we do. And if we hit it,
(27:07-27:33) Kim Meninger
a wall, it's also important information, right? I mean, maybe we aren't able to make a change today, but if we're consistently trying to make changes that are important to us and we can't do that, then that tells us that maybe we're not in the right place for long-term growth. I really like how you called out you're the CEO of your own career. And if you keep getting stuck, right, like that's data, right?
(27:33-27:38) Kim Meninger
That's important to take into consideration when you're making your own career decisions.
(27:42-28:07) Kim Meninger
Well, I am so grateful to you, Daria, for bringing this conversation here. I think this is a really important one and very timely one. I'm glad you brought up AI as well, because I think that is on everyone's minds these days and will only continue to be an even more dominant part of the conversation. For people who want to stay connected to you and continue to follow your work, where can they find you?
(28:08-28:32) Daria Rudnik
Well, you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm very open to connections there and messages. You can also find me on my website, dariarudnik.com. And I highly recommend you read my new book, Clicking, which is exactly about building self-sufficient teams, teams that are more autonomous. So whether you're a manager or a person who wants to work in such a team, get the book. There are lots of practical tools that you can use to build an amazing team.
(28:32-28:59) Kim Meninger
Wonderful. So I'll make sure that the link is in the show notes as well. And thanks again for being here, Daria. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Kim. It was a pleasure. Thanks so much for listening to the imposter syndrome files. If you would like to continue this conversation in a safe and trusted space, I would love for you to join my virtual discussion group every Thursday at 12 PM Eastern. For the past several years, the group has been limited to women, but it is now open
(28:59-29:19) Kim Meninger
regardless of gender, to anyone who is interested in exploring and troubleshooting common workplace challenges, building better awareness of ourselves and others, and becoming more inclusive allies at work. Check out the show notes for more info on how to find us. And please join us next week for another episode of The Imposter Syndrome Files.