The Serving Second Podcast
Leadership in the AI Age
Most leaders think pressure reveals weak people.
But what if pressure actually reveals weak team systems?
In this episode of the Serving Second Podcast, Dr. Toussaint Williams talks with Daria Rudnik about how second-chair leaders can build teams that click under pressure, navigate disruption, and stay human in the age of AI.
If you serve behind the leader, carry team tension, or feel responsible for helping others succeed, this conversation will give you practical tools to lead with clarity, not control.
Key Leadership Lesson
The leader’s job is not to rescue the team.
The leader’s job is to facilitate the conversations that help the team rescue itself.
Daria makes the point clearly: outdated leadership says the leader must know everything, solve everything, and carry everything. Modern leadership requires something different. Leaders must create the conditions where the team can define purpose, build trust, make better decisions, share knowledge, and adapt together.
For second-chair leaders, this is a powerful shift. You do not need the top title to strengthen the team. You can help create the conversations, systems, and clarity that allow the team to perform.
Main Takeaways
Daria identifies five elements that make a team “click”:
But what if pressure actually reveals weak team systems?
In this episode of the Serving Second Podcast, Dr. Toussaint Williams talks with Daria Rudnik about how second-chair leaders can build teams that click under pressure, navigate disruption, and stay human in the age of AI.
If you serve behind the leader, carry team tension, or feel responsible for helping others succeed, this conversation will give you practical tools to lead with clarity, not control.
Key Leadership Lesson
The leader’s job is not to rescue the team.
The leader’s job is to facilitate the conversations that help the team rescue itself.
Daria makes the point clearly: outdated leadership says the leader must know everything, solve everything, and carry everything. Modern leadership requires something different. Leaders must create the conditions where the team can define purpose, build trust, make better decisions, share knowledge, and adapt together.
For second-chair leaders, this is a powerful shift. You do not need the top title to strengthen the team. You can help create the conversations, systems, and clarity that allow the team to perform.
Main Takeaways
Daria identifies five elements that make a team “click”:
- Clear purpose
- Linking connections
- Integrated work
- Collaborative decisions
- Knowledge sharing and feedback
I explain why pressure doesn’t expose weak people—it exposes weak team systems.
- Great leaders don’t rescue teams; they create the conditions for teams to succeed together
- Strong teams are built around shared purpose, trust, and clear ways of working
- The CLICK framework helps teams improve collaboration, decision-making, and adaptability
- Leadership is shifting from control and answers to facilitation and alignment
- Teams become more resilient when knowledge, ownership, and learning are shared
- You don’t need a top leadership title to strengthen team performance—you can influence through clarity, conversations, and systems
(00:00-00:16) Dr. Toussaint Williams
Have you ever been part of a team where everyone is busy and nothing is really getting done? Well, today's episode of the Surfing Second Podcast, I'm joined by Daria Rudnick, a team architect, an executive coach, a former chief people officer, and author of Clicking - a team-building strategy for overloaded leaders who want stronger team trust build better results and more time you see daria has lived and worked across the united states in russia in israel and she has supported leaders on teams in six different continents in this conversation
(00:34-01:01) Dr. Toussaint Williams
We talk about what second chair leaders can do when the team feels overloaded, decisions are stuck, and AI seems to change the way things get done. So this is not just a conversation about technology. It's about trust, clarity, and resilience and how second chair leaders can help teams start clicking again when everything around them is shifting. This is the Serving Second Podcast. Let's dive in.
(01:03-01:19) Dr. Toussaint Williams
You ain't gotta finish first to get your first place prize. Don't need the front row just to let your light shine. The highest place of honors.
(01:29-01:58) Dr. Toussaint Williams
Daria, welcome to the podcast. As you know, the Serving Second podcast, I work with individuals who serve in that second seat. So you're speaking to associates, assistants, vice presidents. I even have some sous chefs on here that are a part of this journey. But you have a unique experience when it comes to leadership. Just tell us how you got started in this journey and your passion for where you are right now.
(02:22-02:48) Daria Rudnik
My background is in HR. I used to be chief people officer in tech and telecom companies. And being a chief people officer, I mean, it's exactly, I think, what you're talking about. It's how to help your CEO succeed. Being someone who helps them succeed.
(02:48-03:18) Daria Rudnik
Sometimes make better decisions in terms of people, their own teams, and things like that. And since I started my career in Deloitte in learning, through all my career, I've been working in people development, leadership development, and executive development, CEO development. And now I quit my corporate career about five years ago, and now I do what I love doing best and can do best, which is help leaders build amazing teams, build strong teams that can navigate disruptions of this world.
(03:19-03:40) Dr. Toussaint Williams
So I like the idea of building strong teams. But one of the things as I'm looking at this and I write down my questions to make sure I get this right. How do you identify that making a team clicks when sometimes they fall short? Let me read it one more time. How do you see that or what makes a team click when so many teams can fall short under pressure?
(03:42-03:59) Daria Rudnik
Well, that's an amazing question, again, because it's pretty easy to be a good team when everything's fine, everything's slow, no one's rushing anywhere, no pressure, no stress. But the real teams, they do show up in stressful situations. And what I see is...
(03:59-04:27) Daria Rudnik
When a team is strong, like I have an example of a telecom company and they had this very strong culture. They were very focused on purpose and they were in this economic downturn and they had problems and they need to cut costs. And so what they did is they didn't impose any KPIs saying, hey, we need to cut costs by this. What they did, they reached out to people, the CEO reached out to people, for example, for a contact center team and told them,
(04:28-04:52) Daria Rudnik
I know you're doing your best job to serve our customers. You're doing an amazing job. We have very high customer satisfaction scores, but we need to cut costs. And to do that, we need you to reduce the time of your conversations to no longer than two minutes. And I'm not going to impose any KPIs because I know that if I do that, you will not be able to do your job.
(04:52-05:13) Daria Rudnik
But I ask you to be mindful about your time and cut these conversations to no longer than two minutes. And this did, I mean, they did it. They had conversations for five minutes when they needed. They had conversations for 30 seconds when they could, but they did cut costs and it saved the company about $10 million or something.
(05:13-05:28) Daria Rudnik
Because they were in a stressful situation. They need to be creative. They worked in partnership with the whole team and they managed to reach this ambitious, hard goal.
(05:28-05:44) Daria Rudnik
But if team is good when everything goes well, and then when there is some rapid change or uncertainty or some stressful situation, those teams just falling apart. They cannot achieve their purpose.
(05:46-05:59) Dr. Toussaint Williams
So when you work with leaders that are in situations like that, what is the best way for them to kind of navigate out of those types of holes? Like it seems almost daunting when you're dealing with that. How do you help them navigate that process?
(06:00-06:18) Daria Rudnik
Well, that's exactly like, I love how you said it because it's daunting because it feels like I am a leader. I need to solve the situation. No, you don't. You as a leader need to facilitate the conversation with your team members, with your team so that you can solve it together.
(06:18-06:45) Daria Rudnik
The problem of today's leaders is that we kind of tend to follow the old narrative. When you say leader, what do you imagine? You imagine someone on a hill with a sword, with a cape floating behind them and people behind them and, hey, we're going to win this fight. But that's not working anymore because leadership now is not about knowing more. It's not about knowing where to go and defining the direction.
(06:45-07:06) Daria Rudnik
I mean, people are capable to do that. They have AI, they have Google access to information. Like everyone has this information. What leaders can do and only they can do that is facilitate conversation on the team so that the team defines the purpose, defines how they want to work together, defines the team norms and rules.
(07:06-07:19) Daria Rudnik
how they make decisions and how they grow and learn together. That's the main role of the team, not saving the team, but helping them save themselves and build this high-performing, self-sufficient team.
(07:20-07:37) Dr. Toussaint Williams
So, Daria, I don't want to run past that because what you just dropped on us here at the Serving Second Podcast is, Rich, you identified that the leader is not coming out to save the team like this superhero, but there are certain elements that are necessary that a leader can do. Can you share those five with us one more time? Because that's crucial. Yeah.
(07:37-08:07) Daria Rudnik
Yeah, absolutely. So the first thing is, I mean, it's pretty obvious, but so many teams don't have that. It's clear purpose. You don't become a team when you share a manager. You don't become a team when you're on the same box on the org chat. You're only a team when you have a shared purpose. And that is something that you can only achieve collaboratively by working together. And it cannot be achieved by just summing up your individual contributions. And it actually motivates you to go to work.
(08:07-08:29) Daria Rudnik
The second one is linking connections, how people work together as a team, how they communicate, how they build trust, but not only with their team members, but with the stakeholders and broad organization as well. When teams know who their stakeholders are, people they serve, they can fulfill their purpose. They can like do really create impact in their organization.
(08:29-08:49) Daria Rudnik
Because usually leaders are the ones who go out there. No, team members need to go out there as well. The third one is integrated work, the rules of how we work together, norms, roles, team charter, whatever you need to be there so that it creates clarity on how we work together, what to expect, how success should look like.
(08:50-09:10) Daria Rudnik
The fourth one is collaborative decisions, how we make decisions as team, what stays with the leader, what can be decided by individual contributors, what do we need to decide collaboratively, what goes to senior leadership and what can we delegate, automate, delegate to AI, automate, like not decide at all.
(09:10-09:25) Daria Rudnik
And finally, knowledge sharing and feedback, how we learn and grow together, how we collect feedback, how we adapt when things change. So clear purpose, linking connections, integrated work, collaborative decisions, and knowledge sharing will make your team click.
(09:26-09:52) Dr. Toussaint Williams
So that family for the Serving Second Podcast, you got to make sure you take some notes because Daria is dropping some very beautiful gems. And so I just want to shift gears real quick because that seems like an ideal situation where you have those five things in place and everything's going well. But what happens when those begin to break down? When you get a leader that sometimes feels like they're overloaded, what are some signs that a team is no longer clicking, where things aren't working right?
(09:54-10:16) Daria Rudnik
Well, again, it depends on the situation, but the most obvious that I see that most leaders don't see is when team just says yes to everything. They agree. There's no argument. There's no constructive discussions. There is no conflict of ideas. People just say, yes, let's do that. We like each other. We, I mean, we're okay.
(10:16-10:37) Daria Rudnik
Maybe not great, but okay. And that might happen for many reasons. Like the first reason is that there's no trust or people are just tired. They don't have capacity to innovate, to think, to be creative, to do something else. They can be afraid to say something to their leader or to some of the senior members on the team because they will not be accepted.
(10:38-11:06) Daria Rudnik
Or they might, I know teams who don't want to disappoint their manager and they say yes, because they like this person and they want them to be happy. But it's also not a healthy situation. You want truth and you want efficiency, you want impact. You don't want just to pat someone on the shoulder because you don't want to upset them. So these are the signals that leaders can notice when something's going wrong.
(11:07-11:29) Dr. Toussaint Williams
Yeah. So if I may, can I push you just a little bit further because we're identifying signals, but I want to speak to because we have several women that are on that listen to the Serving Second podcast and you have been a woman in C-suite roles in organizations. Can you just kind of tell us what that's like stepping into that type of leadership in mostly male dominated spaces?
(11:30-11:53) Daria Rudnik
Well, I was in Telecom. I was the only woman on the C-suite back then. Later on, I was in a cloud company. There were more of us there. But what I've learned, and it's my personal experience. I don't tell that it's true. But what I've learned is the most important thing is to find your voice. I mean, I'm sorry that sounds cliche, but that's true.
(11:53-12:03) Daria Rudnik
Some people will expect you to be more assertive, be more masculine. Some people will expect you to be more feminine and more gentle and kind of bring your feminine self to the room.
(12:04-12:28) Daria Rudnik
And I was kind of, okay, where should I go? What should I choose? What is my place? And the best thing was when I said, okay, I don't care what everyone thinks. I just want to make it comfortable for me and I want to reach my goals. Like I know how I reach goals. I reach goals by talking to people like individually. So I was building relationship with each C-suite member on their own, CTO, CFO, CEO.
(12:28-12:47) Daria Rudnik
so that they listen to what I say. If they don't listen to what I say during the meeting, I don't care, like honestly. I do care when they listen in one-to-one conversations because I know that then they will be carrying my ideas forward if we agree. And that was my way. And like any
(12:47-13:00) Daria Rudnik
I mean, any human being need to find their way. But for women, it might be challenging in the male-dominated workplace. But find your way, what makes you feel good and where you see that you can create something.
(13:01-13:28) Dr. Toussaint Williams
So Daria, and I love the way that you said, Hey, listen, my experience is not like everybody else, but I think your experience really gives a roadmap to identify that process. And if I'm hearing you correctly, you said that I had to find out who I am and who is my authentic self. And in doing so, it allowed me to show up. So I'm not trying to be like somebody else or be like a man or be, you know, a woman that I'm not, but you really kind of hold in on, okay, what do I do best?
(13:29-13:51) Dr. Toussaint Williams
And I think in that embracing that aspect makes unlock, you know, so I don't have to try to show up and perform. Who was I yesterday or the day before? And if I may, how did you find out who you were? You know, and I know we kind of and I know it seems kind of simple, but for some people that may be like chameleons who try to be like, OK, I need to be strong today. I need to be weak today. How did you find out, OK, this is how I work best?
(13:52-14:20) Daria Rudnik
Well, that is a really great question, honestly. And if you ask me several years ago, I would say, okay, I don't know. But now looking back, I do realize that I learn by doing things. Again, that's my way of learning. I learn by doing things. When I do things and I feel good about it and I see the result, I say, okay, that's something that I want to repeat. If I do something and I don't see the result or I feel bad about it, well, probably I don't want to be that person. It's not who I am. It's not working for me.
(14:20-14:30) Daria Rudnik
So by trial and error, making steps, taking up different roles, I did try different roles because otherwise how would I know? Yeah.
(14:31-14:54) Dr. Toussaint Williams
And what I really appreciate about this experience and just your transparency is that you didn't get it right the first time. And I think sometimes we go into these roles thinking, I got to go in here and I have to be this. I got to hit a home run out of the park. But you're saying, hey, there was some trial. There was some error. There's some things I didn't get right. And once I kind of found my footing, I was able to kind of fly. And I think that's so important for young leaders who have been listening recently.
(14:54-15:06) Dr. Toussaint Williams
who may wonder, man, well, I made a mistake or I wasn't this right in this meeting. And what I'm hearing you say is there is permission to be, to find yourself, to find your authentic self in that journey.
(15:07-15:36) Daria Rudnik
Yeah. And I would also add, it's not just for young leaders. It's for senior leaders as well, because, well, now what I'm doing, I switch, I quit my corporate career, totally changed my life, moved from one country to another. I'm learning again, all over. It's like, I'm fresh from the university. There's so many things I don't know. I'm trying new things, how to build my business, how to communicate with my clients, with my partners, with everything. So it's lifelong learning.
(15:37-16:02) Dr. Toussaint Williams
You know, and I love that you said that because that's kind of my mantra, kind of always have to be a learner, always get the idea of lifelong learning. And you've kind of mentioned you've had some global perspective. You worked in the United States, you worked in Israel, you worked in Russia. What is that from leading from those different dynamics, being able to navigate all of those languages and different work environments? What is that like and how did you kind of glean from those experiences?
(16:03-16:19) Daria Rudnik
Well, it's really, I love this global remote world where we can learn with anyone. I had clients in Japan. I had clients in Australia and India, Latin America. And to be honest, when we talk about teams, I always tell leaders, I mean,
(16:20-16:37) Daria Rudnik
Don't look at the sort of cultural labels, because if someone is from India, it doesn't mean that they have like the whole Indian cultural settings that we are thinking about. They might take a university in Oxford or somewhere else.
(16:37-16:55) Daria Rudnik
If someone lives in, so, I mean, don't label people based on their cultural appearance or location or anything, because that might be important to understand on the corporate settings. And it is important to understand, but when you have a team of six, eight, 12 people.
(16:55-17:22) Daria Rudnik
Know them personally, like learn them. Just listen what they say. They'll tell you everything you need themselves. They'll tell you about their culture, their background, how they want to be led, how they want to be communicated to, how they want, how they build relationships. They'll share it with you. Some people will share more quickly. For some, it'll take more time. But if you put this label, you'll kind of prevent yourself from being curious enough to learn this person in front of you.
(17:23-17:39) Dr. Toussaint Williams
So Daria, I wish I'm sitting here looking at how I can get these notes in. And I love this because you're saying, hey, listen, when you're working with people, learn the people, regardless of their culture, learn the people, identify who they are and allow them to tell you how they want to be led.
(17:40-18:01) Dr. Toussaint Williams
And I think that's so important because I think as we're going with people, particularly people that don't have the same cultural background as we do, we kind of come with our own assumptions and we'll try to determine, oh, they want to be led like this because everybody else from their culture leads us away. But I'm hearing you say, no, don't do that. Identify, allow people to be individuals, no matter what culture they're from. Absolutely.
(18:03-18:27) Dr. Toussaint Williams
Let me ask you this, because you also identified this concept of hybrid intelligence. And I know that's really kind of where you're leaning this. What does it mean in practical terms for leaders who are trying to combine this human judgment and AI tools? You talk about that and lean into that. Help us in that role, that space of leadership. Well, AI is changing everything.
(18:28-18:47) Daria Rudnik
It's not like AI is replacing developers. No, it's not. We learned that because you need to know what you're doing to be able to code right. AI might be replacing some junior developers, but you still need senior experts. What AI can do better than people is manage tasks and processes.
(18:47-19:08) Daria Rudnik
set deadlines, tasks, and things like that. AI can do that. And what it means that if your main role is management, delegation, and control, AI can do that. We don't need you as a manager anymore, but AI cannot facilitate those kinds of conversations.
(19:08-19:26) Daria Rudnik
And the reason we need to have those conversations on the team is because there's a lot of research that tells us how AI is influencing our thinking, our brain, our language and collaboration. For example, there is a research called, MIT research called Your Brain on ChatGPT that tells us that
(19:26-19:55) Daria Rudnik
Cadence matters. And when we get AI output first and try to iterate with that, our brain activity is significantly lower than we work other way around. So if we think first and form our own perspective and then give it to AI and iterate and engage with this, our brain stays engaged. We keep ownership to this work. We remember things because if AI does it for us, we keep forgetting it. We will forget it immediately.
(19:55-20:10) Daria Rudnik
So it is important to think first and then work with AI. But also AI is influencing how teams talk. If a team is using AI to solve some problem, and AI suggests some framework, terminology, way of structuring a problem,
(20:10-20:26) Daria Rudnik
Teams adopt that without even knowing. There is a Northeastern University research AI social force field that tells us that teams adopt AI language without knowing, without realizing that, even if that language is not very helpful.
(20:26-20:44) Daria Rudnik
So to catch this AI bias, to catch those AI patterns that influence our thinking not in a good way, teams need to discuss and teams need to have conversations and critically evaluate AI's output.
(20:44-21:06) Daria Rudnik
So they need to be engaged, they need to talk, and leaders are there to facilitate these kind of conversations, to design the work so that human take comes first, not AI, to understand and discuss it with the team where we use AI, where we don't use AI, and if we use AI to what level of automation we want to go.
(21:06-21:16) Daria Rudnik
So again, leaders are not there to delegate and control. Leaders are there to facilitate conversations so that teams stay engaged and keep their brain clean from AI bias.
(21:17-21:42) Dr. Toussaint Williams
So this is a lot for those who have not really immersed themselves. I think we're all kind of in the AI world. But what I'm thinking when you say is we can't stop thinking when it comes to working with AI. We have to put in the brain work first and then put our ideas, thoughts into the AI, whatever AI component we're using. And then also when the output comes in, we have to be careful that we are
(21:42-22:01) Dr. Toussaint Williams
allowing ourselves to analyze the output so we're not utilizing language that does not help our team. And I really appreciate that because it's not saying that we're going to divorce ourselves from AI or just completely allow AI to come in and take over, but doing it in a responsible way that keeps the human engagement really at the forefront.
(22:02-22:17) Dr. Toussaint Williams
Thank you for this. And I want to ask you, because you also wrote a book, the title of your book, and I want to make sure I'm looking at this, this idea is called Clicking. Yes. Okay. So you got it. Tell us about Clicking. How does that work? Please walk me through this journey of the book of Clicking.
(22:17-22:36) Daria Rudnik
Well, the clicking book is basically about the click framework that I told earlier about the click connections, linking, clear purpose linking connections, integrated work, collaborative decisions, knowledge sharing. And what I wanted to do is I wanted it to be very practical. So any leader that can
(22:36-22:53) Daria Rudnik
They take the book, read the book, do exercises, go through activities in this book and can build their team on their own. Because I know not everybody can work with a coach. Not everybody wants to work with a coach. Not everybody needs to work with a coach. So they can do it themselves. I like practical books.
(22:53-23:21) Daria Rudnik
Tell me what to do. That's always my question. So how do I use it? How can I use it? So I wrote this book so that it's like step-by-step approach with frameworks, checklists, exercises, activities that teams can do to make better teams. And some of those books, this book is nothing to do about like, it's not about AI. I don't talk about AI there, but everything is this book is what leaders need to facilitate those kinds of conversations.
(23:21-23:31) Daria Rudnik
in the era of AI, create team norms together, keep their mind engaged in decision-making process. All of this is in the book.
(23:32-23:57) Dr. Toussaint Williams
So what I'm hearing you say, there is a human element that is essential when it comes to dealing with AI and your book helps identify to keep those conversations happening. I love it. This idea of clicking. Now, let me just ask you this because I was talking to somebody who did a couple of days ago who were saying, listen, I may have a book I've been writing, thinking about writing. What prompted you to put your thoughts on paper? You've had global experience, but now you put it on paper to walk us through that journey of, oh, let me just try to write this thing.
(23:58-24:18) Daria Rudnik
Well, I wanted to write a book for a long time. And I wanted to just, I want to be a book. I want to have a book. That's it. That's my first thought. I want to be an author and I want to write a book. What book about what? I have no idea. Exactly. In 2020, I started writing a book about teams.
(24:19-24:44) Daria Rudnik
I mean, I wasn't sure like what is the audience, what should I write about, about the structure. I mean, I wrote about a half of it, didn't finish, dropped it. In 2022, I said it again, didn't finish, dropped it. And in 2024, I said it right in the book and I published it in 2025, all because now I had the clarity of
(24:44-24:56) Daria Rudnik
What's my audience? Who are the people I want to help with this book? What do I want them to take from this book? What do I want them to do when they read this book? So that really helped me finish it and publish it.
(24:58-25:22) Dr. Toussaint Williams
You know, and Daria, I don't want to dismiss what you're saying, because I'm hearing you say you had at least three or four years. You stopped and you started, and even the idea was kind of still there. And for individuals who are listening, they may be like, oh, I have a book. Well, I don't necessarily, listen, it's still part of the, you can still utilize it. It's still good. It may not be the final work. But I love that you pushed through and persevered through those, even some insecurities in your own mind of, I don't know who this is for.
(25:22-25:48) Dr. Toussaint Williams
And you got clarity as you continue to push. And I really think this idea of clicking is going to come out that came out of that was appropriate. Thank you. What are some final thoughts that you could share with individuals in the audience who are listening to this idea of clicking and they're hearing it for the first time, but they want to kind of get a little more? What can they do to learn a little bit more about this adventure? Sorry to say that again.
(25:49-26:10) Daria Rudnik
The idea of clicking, you know, the book that you wrote, how can they learn more about it and get, well, first of all, how can they get the book? Where can they find the book? Well, I mean, it's on Amazon and any book retailer, get the book, read the book. It's available globally. And it's pretty easy to read, I think. Yeah.
(26:13-26:23) Dr. Toussaint Williams
Last question. What is one thing that you would want to leave to any leader that's trying to lead individuals through this AI world? How can they get the most out of their leadership experience?
(26:25-26:47) Daria Rudnik
Well, what I started with is stop being a heroic leader. The era of heroic leadership is gone. Now it's time for empowered teams. And the role of the leader is not to be a hero and save the team, but to facilitate those conversations that help teams stay engaged with each other, with their work, and grow together and evolve together.
(26:48-27:17) Daria Rudnik
Thank you, Daria. I really appreciate that. How can individuals find you if they want to learn more about you? They can go on Amazon to get the book, and we'll put that link in the show notes. What are other ways they can find you and learn a little bit more about how your coaching experience? I'm very open to connections on LinkedIn. Reach out to me on LinkedIn and go to my website, daddyatrudnik.com, where you can find lots of downloadable materials that you can use with your team straight away and all of my contact details.
(27:18-27:35) Dr. Toussaint Williams
Well, thank you so much for joining the Serving Second podcast. I've learned a lot and I'm sure the audience has been blessed because of your time together. You don't have to be a heroic leader. We are looking for people that can build teams, that can build people, and we can grow together. Thank you, Daria, for joining us and we look forward to...
(27:35-27:55) Dr. Toussaint Williams
the different adventures that you take as you go throughout your leadership experience. This is the Serving Second Podcast, and I thank you so much for joining us. If you enjoyed this experience, please like, comment, and share this podcast with individuals that you know that are serving in a second chair role. Thank you so much for being with us. I look forward to talking to you later. God bless. Take care.
(27:55-28:20) Dr. Toussaint Williams
What an episode. What I appreciate about this conversation with Daria is that it reminds the strong teams don't happen by accident. They're built with clarity, trust, communication, and the courage to address what's not working. Have those real conversations. For second chair leaders, that's what matters. You may not always be in the full control of strategy, but you can still shape the health of your team. You can reduce bottlenecks.
(28:20-28:35) Dr. Toussaint Williams
You can help people think clearly. You can make sure technology serves people instead of replacing collective wisdom. That is serving second at its best. The mission you serve is bigger than your title. And when your team starts clicking, your influence becomes impossible to ignore.
(28:36-28:52) Dr. Toussaint Williams
family. This is the Serving Second Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure that you like, comment, and subscribe below so that we can share this episode with other second chair leaders who want to learn, glean, and grow. Until next time, talk to you later.
(29:08-29:20) Daria Rudnik
It's your time
Have you ever been part of a team where everyone is busy and nothing is really getting done? Well, today's episode of the Surfing Second Podcast, I'm joined by Daria Rudnick, a team architect, an executive coach, a former chief people officer, and author of Clicking - a team-building strategy for overloaded leaders who want stronger team trust build better results and more time you see daria has lived and worked across the united states in russia in israel and she has supported leaders on teams in six different continents in this conversation
(00:34-01:01) Dr. Toussaint Williams
We talk about what second chair leaders can do when the team feels overloaded, decisions are stuck, and AI seems to change the way things get done. So this is not just a conversation about technology. It's about trust, clarity, and resilience and how second chair leaders can help teams start clicking again when everything around them is shifting. This is the Serving Second Podcast. Let's dive in.
(01:03-01:19) Dr. Toussaint Williams
You ain't gotta finish first to get your first place prize. Don't need the front row just to let your light shine. The highest place of honors.
(01:29-01:58) Dr. Toussaint Williams
Daria, welcome to the podcast. As you know, the Serving Second podcast, I work with individuals who serve in that second seat. So you're speaking to associates, assistants, vice presidents. I even have some sous chefs on here that are a part of this journey. But you have a unique experience when it comes to leadership. Just tell us how you got started in this journey and your passion for where you are right now.
(02:22-02:48) Daria Rudnik
My background is in HR. I used to be chief people officer in tech and telecom companies. And being a chief people officer, I mean, it's exactly, I think, what you're talking about. It's how to help your CEO succeed. Being someone who helps them succeed.
(02:48-03:18) Daria Rudnik
Sometimes make better decisions in terms of people, their own teams, and things like that. And since I started my career in Deloitte in learning, through all my career, I've been working in people development, leadership development, and executive development, CEO development. And now I quit my corporate career about five years ago, and now I do what I love doing best and can do best, which is help leaders build amazing teams, build strong teams that can navigate disruptions of this world.
(03:19-03:40) Dr. Toussaint Williams
So I like the idea of building strong teams. But one of the things as I'm looking at this and I write down my questions to make sure I get this right. How do you identify that making a team clicks when sometimes they fall short? Let me read it one more time. How do you see that or what makes a team click when so many teams can fall short under pressure?
(03:42-03:59) Daria Rudnik
Well, that's an amazing question, again, because it's pretty easy to be a good team when everything's fine, everything's slow, no one's rushing anywhere, no pressure, no stress. But the real teams, they do show up in stressful situations. And what I see is...
(03:59-04:27) Daria Rudnik
When a team is strong, like I have an example of a telecom company and they had this very strong culture. They were very focused on purpose and they were in this economic downturn and they had problems and they need to cut costs. And so what they did is they didn't impose any KPIs saying, hey, we need to cut costs by this. What they did, they reached out to people, the CEO reached out to people, for example, for a contact center team and told them,
(04:28-04:52) Daria Rudnik
I know you're doing your best job to serve our customers. You're doing an amazing job. We have very high customer satisfaction scores, but we need to cut costs. And to do that, we need you to reduce the time of your conversations to no longer than two minutes. And I'm not going to impose any KPIs because I know that if I do that, you will not be able to do your job.
(04:52-05:13) Daria Rudnik
But I ask you to be mindful about your time and cut these conversations to no longer than two minutes. And this did, I mean, they did it. They had conversations for five minutes when they needed. They had conversations for 30 seconds when they could, but they did cut costs and it saved the company about $10 million or something.
(05:13-05:28) Daria Rudnik
Because they were in a stressful situation. They need to be creative. They worked in partnership with the whole team and they managed to reach this ambitious, hard goal.
(05:28-05:44) Daria Rudnik
But if team is good when everything goes well, and then when there is some rapid change or uncertainty or some stressful situation, those teams just falling apart. They cannot achieve their purpose.
(05:46-05:59) Dr. Toussaint Williams
So when you work with leaders that are in situations like that, what is the best way for them to kind of navigate out of those types of holes? Like it seems almost daunting when you're dealing with that. How do you help them navigate that process?
(06:00-06:18) Daria Rudnik
Well, that's exactly like, I love how you said it because it's daunting because it feels like I am a leader. I need to solve the situation. No, you don't. You as a leader need to facilitate the conversation with your team members, with your team so that you can solve it together.
(06:18-06:45) Daria Rudnik
The problem of today's leaders is that we kind of tend to follow the old narrative. When you say leader, what do you imagine? You imagine someone on a hill with a sword, with a cape floating behind them and people behind them and, hey, we're going to win this fight. But that's not working anymore because leadership now is not about knowing more. It's not about knowing where to go and defining the direction.
(06:45-07:06) Daria Rudnik
I mean, people are capable to do that. They have AI, they have Google access to information. Like everyone has this information. What leaders can do and only they can do that is facilitate conversation on the team so that the team defines the purpose, defines how they want to work together, defines the team norms and rules.
(07:06-07:19) Daria Rudnik
how they make decisions and how they grow and learn together. That's the main role of the team, not saving the team, but helping them save themselves and build this high-performing, self-sufficient team.
(07:20-07:37) Dr. Toussaint Williams
So, Daria, I don't want to run past that because what you just dropped on us here at the Serving Second Podcast is, Rich, you identified that the leader is not coming out to save the team like this superhero, but there are certain elements that are necessary that a leader can do. Can you share those five with us one more time? Because that's crucial. Yeah.
(07:37-08:07) Daria Rudnik
Yeah, absolutely. So the first thing is, I mean, it's pretty obvious, but so many teams don't have that. It's clear purpose. You don't become a team when you share a manager. You don't become a team when you're on the same box on the org chat. You're only a team when you have a shared purpose. And that is something that you can only achieve collaboratively by working together. And it cannot be achieved by just summing up your individual contributions. And it actually motivates you to go to work.
(08:07-08:29) Daria Rudnik
The second one is linking connections, how people work together as a team, how they communicate, how they build trust, but not only with their team members, but with the stakeholders and broad organization as well. When teams know who their stakeholders are, people they serve, they can fulfill their purpose. They can like do really create impact in their organization.
(08:29-08:49) Daria Rudnik
Because usually leaders are the ones who go out there. No, team members need to go out there as well. The third one is integrated work, the rules of how we work together, norms, roles, team charter, whatever you need to be there so that it creates clarity on how we work together, what to expect, how success should look like.
(08:50-09:10) Daria Rudnik
The fourth one is collaborative decisions, how we make decisions as team, what stays with the leader, what can be decided by individual contributors, what do we need to decide collaboratively, what goes to senior leadership and what can we delegate, automate, delegate to AI, automate, like not decide at all.
(09:10-09:25) Daria Rudnik
And finally, knowledge sharing and feedback, how we learn and grow together, how we collect feedback, how we adapt when things change. So clear purpose, linking connections, integrated work, collaborative decisions, and knowledge sharing will make your team click.
(09:26-09:52) Dr. Toussaint Williams
So that family for the Serving Second Podcast, you got to make sure you take some notes because Daria is dropping some very beautiful gems. And so I just want to shift gears real quick because that seems like an ideal situation where you have those five things in place and everything's going well. But what happens when those begin to break down? When you get a leader that sometimes feels like they're overloaded, what are some signs that a team is no longer clicking, where things aren't working right?
(09:54-10:16) Daria Rudnik
Well, again, it depends on the situation, but the most obvious that I see that most leaders don't see is when team just says yes to everything. They agree. There's no argument. There's no constructive discussions. There is no conflict of ideas. People just say, yes, let's do that. We like each other. We, I mean, we're okay.
(10:16-10:37) Daria Rudnik
Maybe not great, but okay. And that might happen for many reasons. Like the first reason is that there's no trust or people are just tired. They don't have capacity to innovate, to think, to be creative, to do something else. They can be afraid to say something to their leader or to some of the senior members on the team because they will not be accepted.
(10:38-11:06) Daria Rudnik
Or they might, I know teams who don't want to disappoint their manager and they say yes, because they like this person and they want them to be happy. But it's also not a healthy situation. You want truth and you want efficiency, you want impact. You don't want just to pat someone on the shoulder because you don't want to upset them. So these are the signals that leaders can notice when something's going wrong.
(11:07-11:29) Dr. Toussaint Williams
Yeah. So if I may, can I push you just a little bit further because we're identifying signals, but I want to speak to because we have several women that are on that listen to the Serving Second podcast and you have been a woman in C-suite roles in organizations. Can you just kind of tell us what that's like stepping into that type of leadership in mostly male dominated spaces?
(11:30-11:53) Daria Rudnik
Well, I was in Telecom. I was the only woman on the C-suite back then. Later on, I was in a cloud company. There were more of us there. But what I've learned, and it's my personal experience. I don't tell that it's true. But what I've learned is the most important thing is to find your voice. I mean, I'm sorry that sounds cliche, but that's true.
(11:53-12:03) Daria Rudnik
Some people will expect you to be more assertive, be more masculine. Some people will expect you to be more feminine and more gentle and kind of bring your feminine self to the room.
(12:04-12:28) Daria Rudnik
And I was kind of, okay, where should I go? What should I choose? What is my place? And the best thing was when I said, okay, I don't care what everyone thinks. I just want to make it comfortable for me and I want to reach my goals. Like I know how I reach goals. I reach goals by talking to people like individually. So I was building relationship with each C-suite member on their own, CTO, CFO, CEO.
(12:28-12:47) Daria Rudnik
so that they listen to what I say. If they don't listen to what I say during the meeting, I don't care, like honestly. I do care when they listen in one-to-one conversations because I know that then they will be carrying my ideas forward if we agree. And that was my way. And like any
(12:47-13:00) Daria Rudnik
I mean, any human being need to find their way. But for women, it might be challenging in the male-dominated workplace. But find your way, what makes you feel good and where you see that you can create something.
(13:01-13:28) Dr. Toussaint Williams
So Daria, and I love the way that you said, Hey, listen, my experience is not like everybody else, but I think your experience really gives a roadmap to identify that process. And if I'm hearing you correctly, you said that I had to find out who I am and who is my authentic self. And in doing so, it allowed me to show up. So I'm not trying to be like somebody else or be like a man or be, you know, a woman that I'm not, but you really kind of hold in on, okay, what do I do best?
(13:29-13:51) Dr. Toussaint Williams
And I think in that embracing that aspect makes unlock, you know, so I don't have to try to show up and perform. Who was I yesterday or the day before? And if I may, how did you find out who you were? You know, and I know we kind of and I know it seems kind of simple, but for some people that may be like chameleons who try to be like, OK, I need to be strong today. I need to be weak today. How did you find out, OK, this is how I work best?
(13:52-14:20) Daria Rudnik
Well, that is a really great question, honestly. And if you ask me several years ago, I would say, okay, I don't know. But now looking back, I do realize that I learn by doing things. Again, that's my way of learning. I learn by doing things. When I do things and I feel good about it and I see the result, I say, okay, that's something that I want to repeat. If I do something and I don't see the result or I feel bad about it, well, probably I don't want to be that person. It's not who I am. It's not working for me.
(14:20-14:30) Daria Rudnik
So by trial and error, making steps, taking up different roles, I did try different roles because otherwise how would I know? Yeah.
(14:31-14:54) Dr. Toussaint Williams
And what I really appreciate about this experience and just your transparency is that you didn't get it right the first time. And I think sometimes we go into these roles thinking, I got to go in here and I have to be this. I got to hit a home run out of the park. But you're saying, hey, there was some trial. There was some error. There's some things I didn't get right. And once I kind of found my footing, I was able to kind of fly. And I think that's so important for young leaders who have been listening recently.
(14:54-15:06) Dr. Toussaint Williams
who may wonder, man, well, I made a mistake or I wasn't this right in this meeting. And what I'm hearing you say is there is permission to be, to find yourself, to find your authentic self in that journey.
(15:07-15:36) Daria Rudnik
Yeah. And I would also add, it's not just for young leaders. It's for senior leaders as well, because, well, now what I'm doing, I switch, I quit my corporate career, totally changed my life, moved from one country to another. I'm learning again, all over. It's like, I'm fresh from the university. There's so many things I don't know. I'm trying new things, how to build my business, how to communicate with my clients, with my partners, with everything. So it's lifelong learning.
(15:37-16:02) Dr. Toussaint Williams
You know, and I love that you said that because that's kind of my mantra, kind of always have to be a learner, always get the idea of lifelong learning. And you've kind of mentioned you've had some global perspective. You worked in the United States, you worked in Israel, you worked in Russia. What is that from leading from those different dynamics, being able to navigate all of those languages and different work environments? What is that like and how did you kind of glean from those experiences?
(16:03-16:19) Daria Rudnik
Well, it's really, I love this global remote world where we can learn with anyone. I had clients in Japan. I had clients in Australia and India, Latin America. And to be honest, when we talk about teams, I always tell leaders, I mean,
(16:20-16:37) Daria Rudnik
Don't look at the sort of cultural labels, because if someone is from India, it doesn't mean that they have like the whole Indian cultural settings that we are thinking about. They might take a university in Oxford or somewhere else.
(16:37-16:55) Daria Rudnik
If someone lives in, so, I mean, don't label people based on their cultural appearance or location or anything, because that might be important to understand on the corporate settings. And it is important to understand, but when you have a team of six, eight, 12 people.
(16:55-17:22) Daria Rudnik
Know them personally, like learn them. Just listen what they say. They'll tell you everything you need themselves. They'll tell you about their culture, their background, how they want to be led, how they want to be communicated to, how they want, how they build relationships. They'll share it with you. Some people will share more quickly. For some, it'll take more time. But if you put this label, you'll kind of prevent yourself from being curious enough to learn this person in front of you.
(17:23-17:39) Dr. Toussaint Williams
So Daria, I wish I'm sitting here looking at how I can get these notes in. And I love this because you're saying, hey, listen, when you're working with people, learn the people, regardless of their culture, learn the people, identify who they are and allow them to tell you how they want to be led.
(17:40-18:01) Dr. Toussaint Williams
And I think that's so important because I think as we're going with people, particularly people that don't have the same cultural background as we do, we kind of come with our own assumptions and we'll try to determine, oh, they want to be led like this because everybody else from their culture leads us away. But I'm hearing you say, no, don't do that. Identify, allow people to be individuals, no matter what culture they're from. Absolutely.
(18:03-18:27) Dr. Toussaint Williams
Let me ask you this, because you also identified this concept of hybrid intelligence. And I know that's really kind of where you're leaning this. What does it mean in practical terms for leaders who are trying to combine this human judgment and AI tools? You talk about that and lean into that. Help us in that role, that space of leadership. Well, AI is changing everything.
(18:28-18:47) Daria Rudnik
It's not like AI is replacing developers. No, it's not. We learned that because you need to know what you're doing to be able to code right. AI might be replacing some junior developers, but you still need senior experts. What AI can do better than people is manage tasks and processes.
(18:47-19:08) Daria Rudnik
set deadlines, tasks, and things like that. AI can do that. And what it means that if your main role is management, delegation, and control, AI can do that. We don't need you as a manager anymore, but AI cannot facilitate those kinds of conversations.
(19:08-19:26) Daria Rudnik
And the reason we need to have those conversations on the team is because there's a lot of research that tells us how AI is influencing our thinking, our brain, our language and collaboration. For example, there is a research called, MIT research called Your Brain on ChatGPT that tells us that
(19:26-19:55) Daria Rudnik
Cadence matters. And when we get AI output first and try to iterate with that, our brain activity is significantly lower than we work other way around. So if we think first and form our own perspective and then give it to AI and iterate and engage with this, our brain stays engaged. We keep ownership to this work. We remember things because if AI does it for us, we keep forgetting it. We will forget it immediately.
(19:55-20:10) Daria Rudnik
So it is important to think first and then work with AI. But also AI is influencing how teams talk. If a team is using AI to solve some problem, and AI suggests some framework, terminology, way of structuring a problem,
(20:10-20:26) Daria Rudnik
Teams adopt that without even knowing. There is a Northeastern University research AI social force field that tells us that teams adopt AI language without knowing, without realizing that, even if that language is not very helpful.
(20:26-20:44) Daria Rudnik
So to catch this AI bias, to catch those AI patterns that influence our thinking not in a good way, teams need to discuss and teams need to have conversations and critically evaluate AI's output.
(20:44-21:06) Daria Rudnik
So they need to be engaged, they need to talk, and leaders are there to facilitate these kind of conversations, to design the work so that human take comes first, not AI, to understand and discuss it with the team where we use AI, where we don't use AI, and if we use AI to what level of automation we want to go.
(21:06-21:16) Daria Rudnik
So again, leaders are not there to delegate and control. Leaders are there to facilitate conversations so that teams stay engaged and keep their brain clean from AI bias.
(21:17-21:42) Dr. Toussaint Williams
So this is a lot for those who have not really immersed themselves. I think we're all kind of in the AI world. But what I'm thinking when you say is we can't stop thinking when it comes to working with AI. We have to put in the brain work first and then put our ideas, thoughts into the AI, whatever AI component we're using. And then also when the output comes in, we have to be careful that we are
(21:42-22:01) Dr. Toussaint Williams
allowing ourselves to analyze the output so we're not utilizing language that does not help our team. And I really appreciate that because it's not saying that we're going to divorce ourselves from AI or just completely allow AI to come in and take over, but doing it in a responsible way that keeps the human engagement really at the forefront.
(22:02-22:17) Dr. Toussaint Williams
Thank you for this. And I want to ask you, because you also wrote a book, the title of your book, and I want to make sure I'm looking at this, this idea is called Clicking. Yes. Okay. So you got it. Tell us about Clicking. How does that work? Please walk me through this journey of the book of Clicking.
(22:17-22:36) Daria Rudnik
Well, the clicking book is basically about the click framework that I told earlier about the click connections, linking, clear purpose linking connections, integrated work, collaborative decisions, knowledge sharing. And what I wanted to do is I wanted it to be very practical. So any leader that can
(22:36-22:53) Daria Rudnik
They take the book, read the book, do exercises, go through activities in this book and can build their team on their own. Because I know not everybody can work with a coach. Not everybody wants to work with a coach. Not everybody needs to work with a coach. So they can do it themselves. I like practical books.
(22:53-23:21) Daria Rudnik
Tell me what to do. That's always my question. So how do I use it? How can I use it? So I wrote this book so that it's like step-by-step approach with frameworks, checklists, exercises, activities that teams can do to make better teams. And some of those books, this book is nothing to do about like, it's not about AI. I don't talk about AI there, but everything is this book is what leaders need to facilitate those kinds of conversations.
(23:21-23:31) Daria Rudnik
in the era of AI, create team norms together, keep their mind engaged in decision-making process. All of this is in the book.
(23:32-23:57) Dr. Toussaint Williams
So what I'm hearing you say, there is a human element that is essential when it comes to dealing with AI and your book helps identify to keep those conversations happening. I love it. This idea of clicking. Now, let me just ask you this because I was talking to somebody who did a couple of days ago who were saying, listen, I may have a book I've been writing, thinking about writing. What prompted you to put your thoughts on paper? You've had global experience, but now you put it on paper to walk us through that journey of, oh, let me just try to write this thing.
(23:58-24:18) Daria Rudnik
Well, I wanted to write a book for a long time. And I wanted to just, I want to be a book. I want to have a book. That's it. That's my first thought. I want to be an author and I want to write a book. What book about what? I have no idea. Exactly. In 2020, I started writing a book about teams.
(24:19-24:44) Daria Rudnik
I mean, I wasn't sure like what is the audience, what should I write about, about the structure. I mean, I wrote about a half of it, didn't finish, dropped it. In 2022, I said it again, didn't finish, dropped it. And in 2024, I said it right in the book and I published it in 2025, all because now I had the clarity of
(24:44-24:56) Daria Rudnik
What's my audience? Who are the people I want to help with this book? What do I want them to take from this book? What do I want them to do when they read this book? So that really helped me finish it and publish it.
(24:58-25:22) Dr. Toussaint Williams
You know, and Daria, I don't want to dismiss what you're saying, because I'm hearing you say you had at least three or four years. You stopped and you started, and even the idea was kind of still there. And for individuals who are listening, they may be like, oh, I have a book. Well, I don't necessarily, listen, it's still part of the, you can still utilize it. It's still good. It may not be the final work. But I love that you pushed through and persevered through those, even some insecurities in your own mind of, I don't know who this is for.
(25:22-25:48) Dr. Toussaint Williams
And you got clarity as you continue to push. And I really think this idea of clicking is going to come out that came out of that was appropriate. Thank you. What are some final thoughts that you could share with individuals in the audience who are listening to this idea of clicking and they're hearing it for the first time, but they want to kind of get a little more? What can they do to learn a little bit more about this adventure? Sorry to say that again.
(25:49-26:10) Daria Rudnik
The idea of clicking, you know, the book that you wrote, how can they learn more about it and get, well, first of all, how can they get the book? Where can they find the book? Well, I mean, it's on Amazon and any book retailer, get the book, read the book. It's available globally. And it's pretty easy to read, I think. Yeah.
(26:13-26:23) Dr. Toussaint Williams
Last question. What is one thing that you would want to leave to any leader that's trying to lead individuals through this AI world? How can they get the most out of their leadership experience?
(26:25-26:47) Daria Rudnik
Well, what I started with is stop being a heroic leader. The era of heroic leadership is gone. Now it's time for empowered teams. And the role of the leader is not to be a hero and save the team, but to facilitate those conversations that help teams stay engaged with each other, with their work, and grow together and evolve together.
(26:48-27:17) Daria Rudnik
Thank you, Daria. I really appreciate that. How can individuals find you if they want to learn more about you? They can go on Amazon to get the book, and we'll put that link in the show notes. What are other ways they can find you and learn a little bit more about how your coaching experience? I'm very open to connections on LinkedIn. Reach out to me on LinkedIn and go to my website, daddyatrudnik.com, where you can find lots of downloadable materials that you can use with your team straight away and all of my contact details.
(27:18-27:35) Dr. Toussaint Williams
Well, thank you so much for joining the Serving Second podcast. I've learned a lot and I'm sure the audience has been blessed because of your time together. You don't have to be a heroic leader. We are looking for people that can build teams, that can build people, and we can grow together. Thank you, Daria, for joining us and we look forward to...
(27:35-27:55) Dr. Toussaint Williams
the different adventures that you take as you go throughout your leadership experience. This is the Serving Second Podcast, and I thank you so much for joining us. If you enjoyed this experience, please like, comment, and share this podcast with individuals that you know that are serving in a second chair role. Thank you so much for being with us. I look forward to talking to you later. God bless. Take care.
(27:55-28:20) Dr. Toussaint Williams
What an episode. What I appreciate about this conversation with Daria is that it reminds the strong teams don't happen by accident. They're built with clarity, trust, communication, and the courage to address what's not working. Have those real conversations. For second chair leaders, that's what matters. You may not always be in the full control of strategy, but you can still shape the health of your team. You can reduce bottlenecks.
(28:20-28:35) Dr. Toussaint Williams
You can help people think clearly. You can make sure technology serves people instead of replacing collective wisdom. That is serving second at its best. The mission you serve is bigger than your title. And when your team starts clicking, your influence becomes impossible to ignore.
(28:36-28:52) Dr. Toussaint Williams
family. This is the Serving Second Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure that you like, comment, and subscribe below so that we can share this episode with other second chair leaders who want to learn, glean, and grow. Until next time, talk to you later.
(29:08-29:20) Daria Rudnik
It's your time