(00:00-00:11) Olajumoke Fatoki
Many women leaders today feel like they are working on that tight rope between strength and burnout. What does it actually look like to lead with sanity in such high-pressured environments?

(00:31-00:47) Olajumoke Fatoki
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another power-packed episode of the Thrive Careers Podcast, where we unpack what it really takes to build a fulfilling, confident, and future-ready career. Today, we are diving into a very powerful topic.

(00:47-01:08) Olajumoke Fatoki
what it means to lead with strength, sanity, and trust, especially when you're the only woman in the room. Because let's be very honest, leadership today isn't just about performance. It's about navigating the overload, the disruption, and the constant pressure to prove yourself in spaces that weren't already built with you in mind.

(01:08-01:26) Olajumoke Fatoki
And to help us break this down on today's episode, we have someone who has not only talked the work, but she has truly walked the talk. Daria, thank you so much for joining us today. Can you introduce yourself briefly so our listeners can get to know you a little bit more? Thank you.

(01:26-01:50) Daria Rudnik
Thanks, Ola. Thanks for having me here. I'm very excited to join your show and to talk to the amazing women that listen to this podcast right now. My personal journey started with, like I said, my career in Deloitte. My background is in HR and organizational development. And throughout my career, I was working with international companies, G500 companies, fast-growing startups.

(01:50-02:12) Daria Rudnik
And eventually I became a chief people officer for a telecom company. And like you mentioned, it was a very interesting, challenging, but still interesting experience of being the only woman on the C-suite. Being chief people officer with CTO, CEO, all the CMOs in C-suite were being men. Yeah. Yeah.

(02:14-02:37) Olajumoke Fatoki
Yes. They taught me along. Amazing. Amazing. Thank you so much for that introduction. And what a journey. I can only imagine what audacity it takes to, you know, lead in such rooms. And I know we're going to be unpacking that today. But before I get so excited, I'm just curious, Daria, what motivates you? And you know, what gets you going and doing what you're doing right now?

(02:37-03:03) Daria Rudnik
Well, thank you for that question, because I was thinking about that a lot. And I was lucky in my career. I worked for some amazing companies. Again, I worked for Deloitte, which has great culture and a lot of learning opportunities. I worked for Swedish Bank, internationally Swedish Bank. And I worked for the telecom companies. I was lucky to work for companies with great cultures. And while being there and while being there...

(03:03-03:24) Daria Rudnik
Working with those leaders and helping people. My goal was to make sure people feel well and feel happy at work. Because one day when we feel happy at work, we can perform better. We can collaborate better. We can produce great results. We can serve our customers better. We can create amazing products that help other people's lives easier.

(03:24-03:42) Olajumoke Fatoki
So for me, it's about creating a thriving workplace where people feel well and perform well. Thank you so much for that foundation. Because at the end of the day, the people we serve are truly the end goal. And like I always say jokingly to people,

(03:42-03:59) Olajumoke Fatoki
And maybe it's really not a joke. The workplace is where we spend most of our active hours. These days we get to be able to spend less time with family and all of that, but we spend most of the time, productive time at work. So if you're there and you're unhappy, it means that, you know,

(03:59-04:18) Olajumoke Fatoki
Your life is already like halfway done if you're in a workplace where you're not excited to be there. Thank you so much for laying that foundation. Now let's start with the theme of today's conversation. What has your experience taught you about being the only woman in the room and how has that shaped your leadership style?

(04:18-04:38) Daria Rudnik
Well, as I mentioned, it was really a learning opportunity for me because walking into the room full of men, it was always a question. Should I be more assertive? Should I be more like them? Should I be more pushy? Should I be more hard and assertive?

(04:38-04:58) Daria Rudnik
Another hand, like, should it be more feminine? Should I be more gentle? Should I kind of make my things around? And then, like, what should be my approach, whether I should go one way or the other way? And I've seen very different examples of female leaders going one direction or another.

(04:58-05:24) Daria Rudnik
And it never felt like me, like 100% me. I wanted to be myself. I didn't want to take any role. So I had to find that, what it's like to be me, what it's like to be myself with all of those people. Because after all, we're all human beings. We're all people. We can connect. We can communicate. And as I mentioned, the cultures and the companies I worked for, they were great. They had

(05:25-05:47) Daria Rudnik
They took care of people. Leaders were very attentive. However, even in those cultures, some biases just, I mean, people don't always, they're not always aware of their biases. So even with good intentions, you can still hear things like, oh, it's good for you as a woman. It's good for, like, you did that. They wouldn't say that to a man.

(05:50-06:18) Daria Rudnik
The thing for me was not to pay attention to those things and to make a conflict out of that. However, in some private conversations, I could mention that there was occasional things that when I didn't feel appreciated well, and I would appreciate if they don't say that. But I never put it out upfront not to make conflict about that because I knew that the intentions were good. So for me, the most important thing and the most important learning was

(06:20-06:46) Daria Rudnik
To be confident with who I am, to feel comfort in having conversations with them as human beings, as people. And when I felt that something goes wrong, I found my way of handling that, which is not calling it out in person in front of other people, but in a side hall conversations, one-to-one, sharing my thoughts and what kind of behavior I would want to see from them.

(06:46-06:57) Daria Rudnik
But that's my way of dealing with things. And you might find your own way. And that's the most important thing. Find your own way of dealing with situations and go for it.

(06:57-07:26) Olajumoke Fatoki
That's amazing. You know, I love how you sort of moved, gravitated towards the fact that, you know, you were trying to find the right means of, you know, showing up. Should you show up as the feminine self? You know, should you show up as the boss? And somehow you were able to eventually lean in into who you are because the more you try to be someone else, the more you're not able to show up as your authentic self. So,

(07:26-07:50) Olajumoke Fatoki
Thank you so much for leading us in that direction. But I'm just curious as well, before I move to my next question for today, what were those things that made you stand out or that made you stand firm in who you are? What are some of those qualities? So when you say you leaned in into who you are and you showed up as yourself, what does that mean in practical terms?

(07:50-08:19) Daria Rudnik
Well, I'll share an example with those conversations. One of the hardest thing for me was, and it is like a lot of my clients, both male and female, struggle with it. How do you make yourself visible? How do you make yourself heard? Especially if you're an introvert, especially if you're new on your role and you don't have enough confidence to be loud. You don't have enough confidence to interrupt someone, which you probably shouldn't do anyway.

(08:19-08:39) Daria Rudnik
Some people do that and you don't have that. How can you still be visible and heard? So what I found out for myself and what I'm trying to teach my clients is that you don't have to be visible at every meeting. We kind of assume that the place to be visible is meeting when everyone is in the room.

(08:39-08:57) Daria Rudnik
Well, it's not. There are opportunities to prepare for the meetings. So, for example, you got an invitation from someone about the meeting, so you can reach out to them and say, okay, how do you want me to show up? How do you want me to contribute? Or I'm going to share these ideas. What do you think of them? Would they support your meeting? Would they be valuable for your meeting?

(08:57-09:19) Daria Rudnik
And you can reach out to some of the decision makers before the meeting so that, first, they know that you have something important to share. Second, they agree with you because they heard it. They said, okay, they will support you at the meeting. And they will be expecting you to speak up. And they will create this space for you because they know that you have something valuable to share.

(09:19-09:35) Daria Rudnik
If you do that, it'll be easy for you to speak up during the meeting. Sometimes you don't have that opportunity. Sometimes you cannot prepare. It was kind of an unexpected meeting. You couldn't prepare. You're there. You didn't have a chance to say anything. Then there was a follow-up.

(09:35-09:54) Daria Rudnik
You can reach out to the decision makers or those who organize the meeting and say, hey, well, thanks for the meeting. And I have some additional ideas or I want to add some information or give some additional points, additional information to the topic of that meeting so that, again, they got some value and you're visible and you're heard.

(09:54-10:16) Daria Rudnik
So it doesn't have to be all during this short period, like 45, 60 minute meetings. It can be before the meeting, during the meeting, after the meeting, in between, in whole conversations, reach out to people, talk to them. Don't wait to official meeting to be called to share your ideas. Amazing. I love that insight. I know what I hear you say is amazing.

(10:16-10:39) Olajumoke Fatoki
Proper preparation prevents poor performance. If you take the time to do your proper homework, you'll show up as your authentic self. Thank you so much for that angle. Moving on, I know that a lot of women, we have that ability to juggle so many things, you know, and somehow I think we just have the grace for it. Women are able to combine so many things you have to see.

(10:39-11:07) Olajumoke Fatoki
at work, you are the mother at home, you are the wife. We just combine all of those things. And in today's high pressure environment, there's just a very thin line, you know, between burning out while performing all of those functions. So here's my question. Many women leaders today feel like they are working on that tightrope between strength and burnout. What does it actually look like to lead with sanity in such high pressured environment? I can so much feel that.

(11:08-11:24) Daria Rudnik
You can feel it in your heart. Be your mother, grow my business or being an executive. In my previous corporate career, I do feel bad. For me, it's to let yourself be human and create yourself, give yourself some time to recharge.

(11:24-11:53) Daria Rudnik
So that's one of the most important things for me personally. It's kind of constantly reminding myself I'm responsible only for what I can do. Like I'm trying to do my best. I am not responsible for all the outcomes. I'm not responsible for bad weather. I'm not responsible for my child getting sick. I'm not responsible for someone making a mistake at work. I cannot be responsible for everything that's happening around me. I can only be responsible for what I'm doing to either prevent it or solve it or be my best at every role that I'm in.

(11:53-12:22) Daria Rudnik
So that's the first thing, constantly reminding myself I'm not responsible for all the outcomes and for everything that's happening. And that kind of gives yourself some space to breathe and feel bad about yourself. And the second is take time and save time for yourself, for your coffee time, your walk, whatever gives you energy, whatever energizes you. We need that time. We need that time for ourselves. I love it.

(12:27-12:55) Olajumoke Fatoki
Hey, it's time for your Thrive Career Hack of the Week because small shifts makes big career moods. This week's hack, when you're feeling stuck at work, don't just ask what am I missing? Ask what am I tolerating? That one mindset shift can make a big difference because it can lead to better boundaries, bolder ask or even more clarity. Try it and let me know how this works for you. You can DM me your aha moments on Instagram at Thrive Careers Hub. See you next time.

(12:59-13:17) Olajumoke Fatoki
So powerful points you made right there. You know, save time for yourself because at the end of the day, you know, you have to protect yourself to continue to give at the level that you want to give. Thank you so much for those insights. Very important as well. You are not responsible for all outcomes.

(13:17-13:39) Olajumoke Fatoki
That's powerful because that's the tricky part. That's where a lot of people get it wrong. And thank you so much for calling that out because that's really important. So moving on into this conversation, one of your standout messages is around building trust and autonomy in overloaded teams, right? So can you walk us through the key principles of your clicking method?

(13:39-13:54) Daria Rudnik
Well, thanks for asking. Yes. I recently published a book about building self-sufficient teams, book Clicking. And it's exactly about how overloaded, busy leaders can build self-sufficient teams that take some responsibility from the leader. Because now...

(13:54-14:23) Daria Rudnik
We have this leadership paradox where leaders are overloaded, but teams are disengaged. And they're not disengaged because they're poor performers or they're not capable. It's just that the decision-making process and the work is distributed the way that leaders are taking everything that's kind of falling apart. And teams are just doing what leaders tell them to do. And it's a system problem that needs to be changed and leaders can change it. And if you're leading a team, you can do it for your team.

(14:25-14:51) Daria Rudnik
Because the reason most leaders are overloaded is that they are making decisions and they're doing things that their team can do for them and with them. So in order to create this self-sufficient, autonomous team, there are five pillars. First one is clear purpose. Why are you working together? What makes you a team? What's the shared purpose you're all working towards that you can only achieve collaboratively and you cannot achieve it by summing up individual contributions?

(14:51-15:07) Daria Rudnik
If you're a group of people just having one manager but no shared purpose, you're not a team. In order to be a team, you need to have this shared purpose. So get together with the team and ask yourself a question. Why are we together? What is it that we're achieving together?

(15:08-15:26) Daria Rudnik
The second is linking connections. How people are connected with each other on the team. Because always, very often we see that leaders have one-to-one conversations with multiple team members, but those team members are not connected with each other. They don't have

(15:27-15:50) Daria Rudnik
anything in common apart from being on the team. So if you as a leader invest some time in building those connections between team members, they'll be solving problems and not reaching out to you. They'll be able to make decisions or at least suggest those solutions for some problems instead of coming to you to ask you to solve every problem that they have.

(15:51-16:10) Daria Rudnik
The third one is integrated work. What are the team norms and rules of you working together as a team? Third one is collaborative decisions, how you make decisions on the team, whether the lead is making decisions, what kind of decisions are made by individual contributors, and what decisions need to be made collaboratively.

(16:10-16:36) Daria Rudnik
And fifth one is knowledge sharing. How do you share knowledge and how you grow together as a team? So it's clear purpose, linking connections, integrated work, collaborative decisions, and knowledge sharing. If you have that, you'll have your team. Your team will click. Amazing. That's so powerful. That's so powerful. And I hope people will reach out to get a copy of this book and let's get our teams working and performing optimally.

(16:36-16:56) Olajumoke Fatoki
Thank you so much for putting that together. And I'm sure that would have the link to that in the description of this episode. So you can reach out and grab one. That's a powerful tool you want to take advantage of. Thank you so much. All right. So I have a similar question to the very last one, which is about disruption. We are in a world that...

(16:56-17:20) Olajumoke Fatoki
disruption is everywhere work as we used to know it is not what we are currently experiencing today so everyone is sort of you know in that place where we are ready for the big disruption so how can leaders help their team thrive when everything seems uncertain you know and the world keeps constantly evolving I love that I mean absolutely and the more we go into that AI space and everything like

(17:20-17:30) Daria Rudnik
technologically, economically, there are a lot of things happening. There are a lot of changes. There are a lot of new regulations coming up and leaders need to deal with it. They need to navigate those

(17:31-17:59) Daria Rudnik
new circumstances and new environments. And what many leaders do, and I face them, and most of my clients start with that, is that they're trying to solve those problems on their own. They're trying to be those with great intentions, very good intentions. They're trying to be those heroic leaders who are saving their teams, making sure the team is clear on everything they need to do, on everything that's happening, that the team has all the answers. So they're standing in front of all of those challenges on their own.

(17:59-18:11) Daria Rudnik
alone with teams behind them, which probably was good at some point, but not anymore. Now the era of heroic leadership is gone. Now it's time for empowered teams. So instead of

(18:12-18:30) Daria Rudnik
trying to solve all the problems on their own, leaders need to get back to their teams and together as a team face those challenges and face those disruptions. And since there are more people on the team, more brains, more collaboration, they can come up with better solutions. They can solve those challenges

(18:30-18:57) Daria Rudnik
like easier and faster and in a more effective way. So for all overloaded leaders, stop trying to be heroes and save your teams. They don't need you to save them. They are professionals, they're experts, they're grown up people who want to face those challenges together with you. Amazing. And that's the real definition of teamwork, right? Together, everybody achieves more. You know, we're leveraging each person's strengths

(18:57-19:19) Olajumoke Fatoki
expertise i really love that perspective so powerful if leaders can lean in into more of that today we'll get more results and not just teamwork by mouth but teamwork in actual practice thank you very much all right so if we have this conversation today and we don't talk about ai this conversation would be incomplete

(19:19-19:46) Olajumoke Fatoki
Because that is a phenomenon that is changing our world today. And you have been very vocal. You've spoken a lot about the intersection of AI and human systems. So what do leaders get wrong about AI? Let's start from there. And how can women in leadership begin to position themselves to lead confidently through this next wave of transformation that we are seeing in the world today? I love the question. It's interesting because

(19:46-20:15) Daria Rudnik
Many leaders see AI transformation as technological transformation. It's about tech stack, the tools, the implementation of new technology. It's not. It's all about how we perceive things because AI is not just a technology. It's not just a tool for automation. It influences team dynamics. It influences how we work together and how we think. Well, think about that. There is a new research called Your Brain on Chat GPT that tells us that if you

(20:16-20:38) Daria Rudnik
Think about the problem first and then ask AI for its input and then work with the outcome and create some solution. Your brain stays engaged and you are connected to that issue. You own the solution. But if you ask AI first and then work with AI outputs and kind of try to edit it, your brain becomes disengaged very fast.

(20:38-20:54) Daria Rudnik
And you don't own the solution anymore and you feel disengaged and it's not like you're doing something. And I've seen that happen with teams when they overuse AI and delegate to AI too much and delegate decision, like critical decision making to AI and they lose engagement, they lose motivation.

(20:54-21:23) Daria Rudnik
And the only thing that made them get this performance back and motivation back is when they together created rules of working with AI, how we as a team are integrating AI in our work processes. And once they had those rules, like the third pillar integrated work, they had those rules for human AI collaboration, they knew that they need to be in the loop. They need to be involved in decision-making and critically evaluate AI outputs.

(21:23-21:40) Daria Rudnik
So it's important the cadence of how you use AI, where you use AI in your work processes, and how you collaborate as humans. So again, AI is not just technical transformation. It changes the way we work and it changes team dynamics.

(21:40-22:08) Olajumoke Fatoki
Amazing. Thank you so much for those beautiful thoughts. And I particularly love the analogy that you used about how to engage with AI and ensure that your brain is still working, for lack of a better word, by allowing yourself give AI the first draft and then working together with AI to fine tune it and not the other way around, which is what most people do. That's beautiful. And thank you so much.

(22:08-22:27) Olajumoke Fatoki
for sharing your thoughts on that and it's really been an amazing conversation with you today you know we've been able to move from leadership to team building you know and everything a woman can do to own a space and take charge in the boardroom and wherever it is she found herself thank you so much

(22:27-22:56) Daria Rudnik
But before I let you go today, I know that our listeners would definitely love to meet you and engage with more of your work. So can you tell us a little bit about how people can find you and engage with your work? Well, I'm very open to connections on LinkedIn. So reach out to me, send me a message. Let's keep this conversation going. And of course, go to my website, thatairwoodning.com, where you can find lots of downloadable materials for your teamwork, self-assessments, and of course, a link to my book. Okay.

(22:56-23:26) Daria Rudnik
Thank you so much for sharing that with us. Before we finally go, I know that you also have final words for our listeners today, you know, to wrap up everything we've discussed. What would be your final words as we wrap up on this episode? Well, the most important thing I wanted to share and to tell is that, again, we kind of learned that leaders need to be heroes, that leaders need to save people they need to protect, which is true, but you cannot protect other people by shielding them from the real challenges.

(23:26-23:55) Olajumoke Fatoki
The only way we grow is when we grow together, when we face those challenges together and when we solve problems together. So again, the year of heroic leadership is gone. Now it's time for empowered teams. So let's build those teams. Beautiful. Thank you so much. It's been amazing speaking with you. And I hope we get the opportunity to bring you on again because this was really insightful. Thank you so much. And to all our listeners, I'm sure that you've had, you know, actionable tips that you can begin to put to practice today.

(23:55-24:20) Olajumoke Fatoki
and make a difference. Thank you so much for joining us. And until I come your way again next time, keep thriving. Thank you. And that's it for today's episode of Thrive Careers Podcast. I am Olaju Moke Fattaki, reminding you that no matter where you are in your career, you have the power to rewrite your story.

(24:21-24:30) Olajumoke Fatoki
If you've enjoyed today's insights, do not forget to subscribe, leave a review and share this episode with someone who's ready to thrive.

(24:31-24:52) Olajumoke Fatoki
If you have questions or topics you'd like for me to cover, let's connect. I would love to hear from you. Remember, clarity creates confidence and confidence leads to success. And until I come your way again next time, stay inspired and keep thriving.