“Doubt your doubts” From one female leader to many
Melissa Palazzo-Hart
Female leaders -- and all aspiring leaders -- can face uncertainty, imposter syndrome and doubts in their business and their lives. I recently sat down with Liam Forde of The Zone to share how I’ve overcome these challenges in my professional journey, and why the best advice is: lead from the heart, trust your gut, and doubt your doubts. Here are a few highlights from the conversation.
A detour to follow my heart: from accounting to top creative agencies
Of course, of course it feels like a long journey, but I'll keep it as brief as possible. When I was in school, I was super creative. I knew I wanted to be a performer, but my head said ‘That's insane, you'll make no money! Be an accountant, that's reasonable.’ So I studied to be an accountant, and became a certified public accountant working for the Big Four. Soon after, I realized that I just couldn't do it; I couldn't just quiet my heart. I learned that I wanted to use my head and my heart in business. Because I had always loved creativity, I went to work at Sony, then Miramax and other creative organizations where I was surrounded by incredibly creative people creating content. This allowed me to immerse myself in both the creative side and the business side, which for me, I quite enjoyed. I eventually moved on to some of the top creative agencies, among them Ketchum Public Relations, Ant Farm, DDB and, most recently, Sid Lee, the global advertising agency.
Three of my biggest passions in leadership: my advice for aspiring female leaders
1. Lead from the heart
My passion number one, is leading with love. This often gets a bad rap; love, trust and kindness are sometimes seen as weaknesses in business. I think it's quite the opposite. Leading with love means building a strong team on the basis of respect and understanding. Leading with love means giving people the benefit of the doubt and looking at the problem from many different ways, as opposed to blaming others. And, I think, it means acting for the greatest good of the group, as opposed to the individual. I’ve learned through experience, growing up in the old school system, that influencing with fear is detrimental to any leader and especially to the teams working in this environment. While there can be success, it will be short-lived and people will be burnt out, feel unappreciated and they will leave.
Where fear is the culture, people are not their best selves: they’re afraid of getting in trouble and are holding back on their creativity and thus innovation. In an environment of fear, people are clearly not able to lean into their full potential.
In the current labor market, good is the new cool. The folks coming in now have choices; the person getting hired has more leverage than ever and is the decision maker. In the current market -- and in the time of the great resignation -- people are demanding and choosing to be in environments that are good. We want to be part of organizations that do good, are good and create good.
“I’m building a movement of paradigm shifters that bring heart into their businesses as a core way of being and doing, and achieving greater impact. The mission is to change the perception that leading with love is weak, and teaching people that it’s just the opposite -- and excellent for business environments. We're able to have more direct, more sincere conversations with people when we come from the heart - It is called “Care-frontation.” Leading a difficult conversation from a place of love allows us to come to a resolution easier, and to find solutions and innovation together.
2. Use your intuitive intelligence: don’t let your logic overrule your intuition
In our current world where business trends and markets are changing at unprecedented levels, I am really curious how we can learn to lead differently from the inside out. The following words of Albert Einstein have stayed with me: “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” When I read them a long time ago, I thought, well, is that true? And then I started doing some research and found that what Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey and Steve Jobs credited as their secret to success is their intuition, not their intellect. Their intuition!
Some people believe that intuition is a gift that not everybody has -- you're either born with it or you're not. That’s simply not true. Everyone has gut feelings. We all had gut feelings around personal safety during the pandemic, and we’ve felt it in our close relationships. Our gut speaks to us and these intuitive clues will rarely steer us wrong. In my experience, the feelings are a combination of wisdom, experience and innate knowing. Many entrepreneurs tell me that they listen to their inner voice and that they have the ability to access their intuitive hunches. So intuition is neither magic nor nonsense, but here's the challenge: it takes courage to follow your heart and your intuition. It took me courage to shift gears after becoming an accredited accountant and follow my heart, but it was worth it. People make false assumptions about intuition, believing that it's a magic phenomenon or that it only exists in the minds of crazy people. Believe and trust in your intuitive intelligence! We all have access to it.
3. Doubt your doubts
A long time ago, I was on a panel on the topic of how women succeed and get to the top, and I learned a key statistic. Research from Forbes Magazine shows that men are confident in their ability when they know around 60% of the topic, but women don't feel confident until they're at about 90%. So, in other words, generally speaking, a man will apply for a job if he feels he has 60% of the qualifications, whereas a woman won't apply unless she thinks she fulfills 90% of the qualifications. And I started thinking about that. Why is that so? The answer is doubt. And what is doubt? Doubt is thinking.
We have about 6,200 thoughts a day. And, for a yet undefined reason, the thoughts that are doubts seem more real to us. I can't do ‘x.’ I don't have enough experience for ‘y.’ What will others think of me? All of these thoughts come up especially during our challenging moments, and females in particular start to believe them. I'll speak for myself here: I have believed my thoughts. I have had doubts around what I could and could not do. And the only thing stopping me most of the time was my belief that I could not do something.
Over the past couple months, I have taken a deep dive into doubts. I came up with the “doubt your doubts” approach in my conversation with Wendy Clark, who is now the worldwide CEO of Dentsu International. She's one of the most successful women in our business, and sitting at lunch, she acknowledged that she had imposter syndrome. At first I thought, ‘if this woman has imposter syndrome, there's no hope for me.’ And then, Wendy’s vulnerability gave me clarity: it showed me that we all have doubts and that there’s a way. How do we get over them? Hold the doubts up to the light and ask the question: Is this really true? Doubt your doubts, people.
Sharing is caring: I want to pass on my learnings and the incredible mentoring I’ve received in my path as a leader
I've lived in the boardroom and the dining room. I've taken a lot of arrows. And what I want to do now is make sure that my peers and the next generation can learn from my experiences. I've lived both the nightmare and the dream of being an independent woman in a sometimes-old-school system. I want to help other women live a life of more purpose, more success, and a whole lot less doubt. We don't have to be on the hamster wheel, constantly chasing ‘enoughness’. There is another way.
If you’d like to reach out to me on LinkedIn and send me a note, know I’m waiting for it. I help people who are successful, but feel something is missing to activate their true nature. I coach individuals who doubt what is possible for themselves and their businesses to unleash their potential, I support teams who are stressed and burnt out, to access their innate well-being. I guide you to go from hard work to Heart Work (™). I advise organizations who want new levels of performance, increased engagement, innovation, and more effective alignment to vision.
About Melissa
Melissa Palazzo Hart is a leadership coach, executive consultant and Board Advisor. She left Los Angeles, her city of choice for over 15 years, and returned to New York - a “heart decision,” as she describes, to be closer to her family, because it takes a village to raise her 8-year-old daughter. Melissa is building a movement of paradigm shifters where people stop chasing ‘enoughness’, and live from a place of purpose and joy. As a coach, she guides leaders at the highest levels how to make a meaningful impact through the power of heart work, instead of hard work. Melissa is also a coach with The Zone. Connect with Melissa on LinkedIn.