Minter Dialogue with Natasha Skolny
Natasha Skolny is a leadership coach specialising in high-achieving women navigating corporate environments. Drawing from her competitive figure skating background and 20 years in leadership development, Natasha explores how athletic discipline translates to authentic leadership. We examine the concept of “corporate armour” – the protective behaviours women adopt to succeed in business – and why dropping these defences creates more impactful leadership. Natasha challenges the notion that knowing yourself is a fixed destination, instead framing it as continuous practice. We discuss the tension between authenticity and professional advancement, the critical role of genuine conversation in leadership, and why leading with heart rather than pure tactics defines modern success. Natasha offers practical insights on helping leaders reconnect with their values, speak their truth in boardrooms, and build integrity with themselves whilst navigating organisational expectations.
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Music credit: The jingle at the beginning of the show is courtesy of my friend, Pierre Journel, author of the Guitar Channel. And, the new sign-off music is “A Convinced Man,” a song I co-wrote and recorded with Stephanie Singer back in the late 1980s (please excuse the quality of the sound!).
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Transcription courtesy of Flowsend.ai, an AI full-service for podcasters
Minter Dial: Natasha Skolny, lovely to have you on. So, what, what connected us was this notion of around leadership and we also have a connection, the fact that you’re based in Canada. Oh, Canada. Well, you know, lovely, lovely world in which I lived for a few years as well. Let’s, so let’s start by just a little question about who is Natasha Skolny?
Natasha Skolny: Yeah. Thank you and thanks for having me on here. This is, this is great. I, so yes, based out of Canada, I’m actually just north of the Toronto area and I as a profession, I’m a leadership coach and I work with high achieving women who are trying to do big things in this world and want to get out of their own way to do it and want to feel authentic and want to create a life that they can define success on their own terms. Not by what anyone else says or what they’ve believed in the past, but they get to create something that feels really good for them and aligned to their values. So, yeah, so that’s my, my work that I do. And personally, I mean I’m a mom of two and I’ve been in the corporate environment in LE leadership development for over 20 years. I have had a ton of experience working with leaders at all different levels from brand new to leadership to executive leadership. And it’s just, it’s been so, so like it’s been very rewarding working with all of those people who have been working through overcoming challenges, overcoming fears and helping them get to a place where they’re really thriving and being their best version of themselves.
Minter Dial: Super. Well, I did want to get into your ice-skating background. I have my friend Lorraine, a tremendous ice skater and, and another lady who’s a French lady with whom, who was an Olympic judge for ice skating. So, I often talk about the world of skating.
Natasha Skolny: Yeah.
Minter Dial: And, and whatever that world is and the impact will roll over into life and, and business and somehow. But talk. Tell us about your background in skating and how it seemed to have formed a lot of your informed or formed a lot of the way you are today.
Natasha Skolny: Yeah, I am. I mean figure skating has always been something I have been always passionate about. I was a late bloomer when it came to skating. I didn’t start skating until I was 11, which is like so far beyond. And I knew I wasn’t going to the Olympics. I knew I wasn’t going to be this superstar. But there was something about being on the ice and listening to music and continuing to push myself and I got to create my own, I got to push myself as much as I really wanted to. And it ended up being where at my peak, I was skating nine times a week. I had three different coaches. You couldn’t get me off the ice. If someone said, hey, Natasha, what’s the thing that you want to do right now? I’m like, put me on the ice. Put some music on. And I just want to go. And the feeling that I got with just soaring across the ice and my entire body just being able to move to the music in whatever way I wanted it to, I just felt free. I felt like I could really be myself. And the competitiveness in me has always been there. So, that drove the competitions and, like, the want to keep pushing and getting medals and achieving things. But it really led me to the feeling of the freedom that I had in that moment and when I was skating and how great that was for.
Minter Dial: Me.
Natasha Skolny: That when I think about it, if I look back now, all of the work that I’m doing is about helping to create that freedom, helping to create that. Those moments of when you can be truly yourself and how. What happens when you’re in that space and you’re feeling really free? Well, you start to win. You start to impact others. You start to, you know, experience different energy because people start to get attracted to that. And so, it didn’t, like, intentionally go, oh, figure skating leadership coach. That wasn’t a natural progression for me. But looking back, it’s like, wow, I can see how all of those moments really led to the experience that I’m creating and for myself and for. For other people around me.
Minter Dial: Sweet. So, the area I want to dig into is you said it allowed you to be yourself. Freedom and to be yourself. And I’ve long been on this trail of trying to figure out what it is to know yourself. And, of course, as you do and you write about. So, I’m intrigued. Do you know yourself by being yourself, or to what extent did it help you really figure out who you were? I. I want to put this in the context of. Of. I’ve also had other people who might have said, well, just forget about this whole know yourself, as if you could possibly ever know whatever that is. You know, it’s not like some formula that you can put down a piece of paper. It’s just sort of amorphous, vague idea, just do. And. And. And I wanted to put, you know, I’ll put that to you. To what extent was figure skating a conduit to knowing yourself? Because you said you. You were being yourself, therefore, presumably, you know who you were.
Natasha Skolny: Yeah, I. I mean, I love this question so much, too, because I. I didn’t know I was being myself. And as I continued to grow and move up in my career and decide where do I want to go with life a lot, what I realize now that I didn’t know then is I was basing a lot of those decisions on what other people were saying was important, and I was taking it in as the truth. And so, you could ask me, you know, 10 years ago, hey, were you being yourself? And I would say, yeah, of course I’m being myself. But looking back now from today, because I’ve done so much work on asking myself these questions and digging into, like, personally, what is actually meaningful to me, I had to get to the core of that. And it sounds like such a simple question, like, oh, what is it that’s important to you, Natasha? What is it that you really enjoy doing? Or what. What do you like? It’s like, yeah, I like these five things. But when it comes down to, are you committing to going to events, are you committing to doing things that don’t feel right, or you feel resentment around them and you’re still doing them, then you’re not being yourself. And so, it’s not until you start unpacking some of those scenarios or situations where you kind of go, wait, why does this bother me? Why is this? Why am I okay with this? Why am I not okay with this? And I don’t feel like myself in those situations, so how can I create opportunities where I can start being more of that finger skating Natasha, where I felt free, where I felt I could do anything, where I felt I could make mistakes, and it didn’t matter where I felt like I could really just move through music and not care what anyone else was thinking. How can I bring that Natasha, to where I’m at right now? What does that look like? So, that’s. That was the. The shift is the realization that when I was being myself, I didn’t have all of that internal narrative that I was holding on to, and I had to release it over the last few years to come back to myself and feel that. That freedom.
Minter Dial: So I consider myself something of a jock, having done a lot of sports. And in reflecting, I mean, I’ve gotten on skates, I’ve played maybe 10 hockey games. So, I. I have, you know, minimalist understanding, and I say that in total humility compared to how most Canadians skate and all that. In terms of life lessons, one of the things that strikes me interesting about ice skating is there is a True danger when you hit the ice. My wonderful friend Ann Ardi, Olympic judge I was talking about, she crashed and. And had a, you know, terrific accident. The fact that it. It invites danger. To what extent is that a critical component of ice skating? To help you get closer to who you are, as opposed to t tiddly winks, you know, or. Or bowls. This sport, like other games, like, let’s say Canadian football, American football can be dangerous. Rugby, I played for 18 years. These are more dangerous. Skiing, you know, fast skiing. I mean, the Canadians are a rocker, you know, rock that. But. And that’s a dangerous sport. So, where. Where do you think? Danger and actually figuring out who you are. Links.
Natasha Skolny: Oh, my gosh. This is. This is the. The fear part that gets brought into, because our fear is showing us our edge, and you get to consistently push beyond that edge in order to become the better version of yourself. And there was something about, you know, there’s always a little bit more that you can go. In figure skating, you’ve done your double jumps. Okay. The next one’s triple jumps. Okay. The next one is like triple jumps on top of triple jumps. Like, you can combine them together. And so, there was always a. How. How can you continue to push yourself a little bit further? Knowing that it’s scary, but knowing what it feels like on the other side is going to be magic.
Minter Dial: And that included including the number of times you fall trying to do it. You have to push through, get yourself up. Oh, I bruised my hip again. Ow. But I still want to do it.
Natasha Skolny: The number of times that I would go to school after, and I couldn’t sit down physically because I had, like, really hurt my tailbone from falling so many times. And yet I was like, how long is this going to take to recover so I can get back on the ice again? It wasn’t how. I can’t do this anymore. There’s no way. It was like, how can I get myself back to a place so I can keep going? Because that was so important to me. And I just really loved seeing what I was capable of, pushing beyond that boundary and pushing beyond it, and that’s life. If. If I think about everything that I’ve done or accomplished, it’s because I’ve gone a step further than what I wanted to or felt good about doing, because it was overcoming a fear. It was pushing beyond a boundary. And that’s my mantra is, Natasha, if you think this is the line, go one step further, go two steps further from there, because there’s greatness beyond that point. And the only way to see that possibility is to keep going.
Minter Dial: So the context I was thinking now to move into is women. Obviously you spend your time working with women leaders. I studied women’s studies at university. That was my minor. So, I tried to lean into this idea of what is the difference that we are. And sports is an activity everyone can do in different ways. There’s a difference between how we are as women and men in any sport, virtually any sport, except for maybe archery or, you know, those types of things. But for the rest, there is an element of difference. And to what extent sports is a way to develop women leaders differently than men leaders, males.
Natasha Skolny: Yeah. Is that the question? Is there a way.
Minter Dial: Yeah. Is there. Is there a difference in the way that we develop as leaders and you know, to what extent sports can be part of that apprenticeship?
Natasha Skolny: I mean, that’s a. That’s a great question. I. I don’t know where the differences lie necessarily. I find that I’m. I’m very attracted to working with other women because I’ve been through circumstances on what I’ve experienced in the past with always feeling like I need to take care of others and always feeling like it’s easy to put other people first and at the result of that putting myself last and that impacting meaning, like I am not showing up for myself. I am not building integrity with myself. I am putting on a mask. So, I found there was such a big correlation between how I naturally served others and how women naturally serve others and put themselves last that I wanted to break through that and I wanted to help women see how to put themselves first and what that could look like and how that could really influence how they lead and how they show up for their teams. So, those are. Those are the differentiators that I saw just based on my own experience. I would love to know more about the differences between men and women in leadership and sports. That sounds like a fascinating topic.
Minter Dial: Well, you do. We’re going to probably get to that about this notion of corporate armor, but it does feel like the ability to be yourself. That freedom piece is an interesting one relative to the prescription of you need to take care of everyone else first because you do need to take care of yourself when you’re throwing yourself through the air at speeds with a very hard ground underneath you. There’s a thing I intrigued Natasha, was on your website, you quoted Picasso, and I would just love for you to, because there’s so many quotes out there. How did this one. So, the meaning of life is to find your gift the purpose of life is to give it away. How did you come to choose that one to be your sort of.
Natasha Skolny: That one jumped out for me because I believe everyone has a purpose here in the universe and we think so much about. Well, I want to know what that purpose is. I want to find it, I want to discover it. And so, we spend all this time searching and searching and searching. But when we take a closer look at what it is and who we are, the purpose isn’t necessarily to, like, go and find it. That’s not our job. It’s about when we, we all have it. And it’s about showing the world what it is and helping them see it. And so, it is this process of being able to be your purpose and showcase it and give it to the world. And that’s where, that’s where the impact is. It’s not about me discovering, hey, I, I am meant to serve women. It’s about me in the act of serving women and doing that and helping them become better versions of themselves. That is the gift in doing it. So, it’s this combination of taking action on your purpose, embodying it, and being it, that that has the most power and creates more growth and joy across this world. So, it, it, it really landed for me.
Minter Dial: I, I had on my French podcast a, a lady who. Psychologist who, who wrote the Power of Being Yourself in French for leadership. And, and, and the, the, the interesting question for me is what? Actually, it’s a lovely combination of words. I think we could all just sort of quickly read them. But if you lean into it, if I’m authentic and you hear me snoring in the middle of the night or swearing at some other something, or maybe speeding when I drive. These are part of me. And if I want to be authentic, well, you know, how many times have I taken LSD? So. Oh, I don’t want to talk about that because maybe they’re going to think badly about me. Totally. Better not tell them about the, the speeding, the snoring, or the LSD. Well, any case, I cannot be authentic.
Natasha Skolny: Yeah.
Minter Dial: So how much of you do you need to be in order to be authentic? Is there a line that needs to be private, intimate? Because if, you know, if I were to go further, we can talk about maybe deviances that we might have in our lives that’s authentic but may not be popular in the public eye.
Natasha Skolny: Yeah, I think that is such an important question. But also, we live in a culture where people just easily cancel each other. And being in an online space, people just like shut you off or decide, no, I’m not going to follow you anymore. I’m not going to listen to this anymore. And so, we grow. We’ve grown used to so easily being able to cancel each other out because we don’t like what they’re saying, that it just starts this, okay, if I want to build my business, if I want to continue to grow, if I want to be popular and be liked, then I have to form myself into a way where I’m going. People are going to appreciate that. People are going to keep liking me on social media. People are going to keep saying great things about me if I’m a leader. So, that, I think, is a constant challenge of, like, how we’re showing up and questioning, am I showing up as my real self? Am I saying what’s really important to me? Am I, you know, performing? Or am I just being genuine? And I think that’s going to be a constant evolution as people continue to evolve their business, as I continue to evolve my business, I think there’s layers and layers and layers that I’ll continue to discover about myself. Where it’s like, oh, how, how can I be more brave about taking a stance and saying things that are really meaningful regardless of what people think? And the balance is you kind of go, okay, well, you know, my. I run a business too, or I’m moving up the corporate ladder and my next step, I really want it to be here. And no one’s going to be okay with me being in that level if I act in a certain way and I be completely myself. So, there’s this constant, like, battle internally that can happen on how can I speak, still show up as myself, but also be considerate and know how this is going to impact me with my career and with my, My growth? Yeah, yeah.
Minter Dial: I mean, being naked is about as authentic as. As one can get. Yet we’re probably accustomed to putting on clothes and then the clothes with which brand, because, you know, that’s going to speak for me. And do you know everything about all the brands you ever wear, every car you ever drive, and, you know, and to what extent you can actually have a congruent, coherent, total path? And I’m wondering, Natasha, you have two kids. I have a daughter and a son. To what extent this idea of being liked on social media will impact the leaders of tomorrow?
Natasha Skolny: Yeah, I think it’s a real, A real thing that I know I spend a lot of time. My daughter’s 9, so she hasn’t gotten into social media yet, but I know it’s coming. And so, there’s a lot more conversations around understanding the platforms and understanding what they’re used for. But more work and more conversations are being had on how to love yourself and how to be confident in who you are. And I think it’s just a. A thing that’s going to continue to have them be challenging themselves because it’s so easy at their fingertips to get that validation or to get that response. And it’s that dopamine hit that we get when we put something online, and we immediately get the likes that I think is. Is the part that makes me a little bit nervous, but it also, I think, challenges us to level up our conversations and level up more depth to conversations, more understanding of when you’re going through the emotional roller coaster and helping, Helping each other through it. That’s been, that’s been a big part of the things that I’ve been doing with my kids, too.
Minter Dial: Yeah, you talk about, and I can’t remember exactly the term you use, but being on the deck and having your conversations that are sort of more informal, how important they are, how. Where would you place the importance of conversation as the maybe highest order of tool that a leader should have?
Natasha Skolny: I put that at the top. I put that as like one of the biggest things that if you were to shift anything in your leadership to be more impactful with the people around you, it would be to give them your attention, your presence and get curious and have the conversations and create space where you can understand what’s going on with them. You. It’s where trust gets built, too. And in a world right now where AI is really making things a lot more efficient, creating ways that we’re trying to think, oh, how can we do things faster? We’re, we’re, we’re working not against, but we’re working with technology that is starting to take up more space on how we get things done. And if we don’t intentionally make time to have conversations with each other, to know what’s getting in the way, to know what problems people are facing right now, how to work through them, to just, like, be with each other, we lose the heart of why we’re doing the things that we’re doing and the impact and the real connection. And so, I, I put connecting with people, connecting with how they’re doing, connecting with what happened over the weekend that was meaningful for them, that they appreciated, that they love. What was different about that? Oh, you had it. It’s, it’s about creating those moments. My daughter comes home from School. She does not want to talk to me. And it’s like, okay, I could just shut the door and say, okay, we’ll come back to it another time. Or I can look at it and go, she’s shutting the door right now. There’s something really important that she’s processing. How can I help her work through that? So, then I go, okay, how do I create space for that? What does that look like? And then we sit down and sometimes she just needs a hug. We don’t even need to talk. She just needs presence. She needs to know that someone’s got her back. And you’re not going to go and hug all your employees. Like, that’s a bar that some people are not comfortable doing. But you can sit next to them and you can say, hey, I can notice. I can tell that you’ve got a lot of things going on right now. I’m here and I just want to be here with you for when you’re ready to talk about it. And that can be a simple, a simple way of just opening up and showing that you’re human. They’re human. There’s things that are happening right now and it’s okay. It’s okay to not be okay too. And it’s okay to not know how to articulate it. So, I would put communication as like the number one thing on the list.
Minter Dial: Yeah. Funnily enough, I used to run a company where we encourage seven second hugs. I love that wasn’t for everybody.
Natasha Skolny: I would do it.
Minter Dial: Yeah. It was a gorgeous experience to know how to craft a culture that. Where that could happen. Of course, it was before me too. And other things like that made it distinctly more complicated. But this idea of knowing yourself, I mean, obviously it’s, it’s a co consistent theme throughout your work, Natasha, and your leadership cabin and everything. How do you really figure out who you are? When do you start? I mean, I. When I look at my kids and you know, those type of age, I feel it’s perfectly normal that they have no idea who they are yet because they haven’t really experienced enough of life as themselves. They’ve been doing things as they’re told to do and what society tended to do and so informed. But how and when does getting to know yourself become the thing to do?
Natasha Skolny: I mean, I would say for me personally, it started like just really five years ago. That’s when I got really curious. I’m talking to young women right now who are in their mid to late twenties who are doing this work for themselves. And I’M like, wow, imagine. Imagine this next generation of women who are already asking and getting curious about what’s important to them and what they want out of life. And the other thing is, I am still learning. Even though I’m doing a deeper dive into what’s important to me, I’m going to continue to learn. So, I, I actually don’t think that you will always define, have all of the answers at some point. That is kind of the beauty of it. But it’s about going through the practice of thinking about those key questions that are going to help you hear your internal voice, you know, that voice that’s like telling you all these things, but we don’t really listen to it because there’s so other stuff going on around us. And pay it. It helps build that skill to learn. Okay, what is it inside that I’m not hearing? And that skill set, I believe you can, you can learn from a very early age and continue to pay attention to. I wish I learned how to listen to myself at a much earlier age than where I’m at right now. But I’m also, I’m also excited with what it taught me over the last five years, too.
Minter Dial: Well, I, I mean, I, I want to push back just a tad to say I think that children need to have guidelines, need to understand discipline, need to know that there are rules and laws and you can’t just be whoever you want to be and do whatever you want to do. There are limits in our lives. And so, the idea of, of seeking out who I am in a limitless world, while kind of rosy and idyllic, I could potentially not be a. A good thing for kids as they actually hit the reality, you know, when the Runway is open and they have no more cops, as in parents helping to structure. You kind of do need to know that there’s some limits out there and you just can’t just scream at the top. And I want to be this, or I am this necessarily, anyway.
Natasha Skolny: I mean, maybe. And like, what I think the things that come to mind for me is if you understand what your values are and you understand the things that are most important to you, then you can figure out how you want to show up in life so that they show up for you. And yes, of course, like, don’t break the law. There’s certainly certain rules that we need to make sure everyone’s safe for. And so, yes, there are certain things that can get reinforced in certain protocol. But everything that I do as a parent, and that gets me frustrated. I ask myself Is this. Am I reinforcing something? Because this is important to me or it’s important to a behavior that I learned because of an upbringing, because that is what I grew up learning. And the easiest way that I can kind of explain this is like my husband and I grew up in two different households.
Minter Dial: Fortunately, by the way, fortunately.
Natasha Skolny: Different be. Different upbringing, different parenting styles. And there were certain things that he learned along the way that just needed to happen in a certain way. And same with me. My. My traditions or my behaviors were when think of an example. That’s land because I have so many in my head. When we go to an event, we must be 10 minutes early. We must have all of our snacks, all of our food ready to go. We must have got our route planned out with exactly how we’re going to get there. But being late for an event or for something that we committed to never, never can happen. That. That was how I internalized it based on our upbringing. And so, when my kids take us off track or we have something that comes up and my son is playing with toys and he’s not getting himself ready and he’s not getting himself out the door, and I’m getting frustrated and I’m going, okay, we got to go, we got to go. I can tell that it’s because I have a belief that I need to be there early, and that’s the only thing that matters right now. And so, I’m going to react to him in a way where he’s going to be frustrated and upset. And then guess what? He’s going to have a temper tantrum. And the temper tantrum is going to set off my husband, who grew up with don’t have temper tantrums. And he’s going to say, go to your room. And then we’re in this, like, whole space, right? And so, the questions then go, yes, we need rules. And like, there needs to be an understanding on, like, what are we all in agreement with in order to get out, to get out the door on time, because that’s important. But I also go, and what really matters here, what’s important to me, because it is a belief that I carried through that I need to let go of. Because what is really most important is that that we all spend time together and hang out and get to this event and connect to people. And it just drops some of the other things that are happening because we start to let go of the things that we’re holding on from what we believed in our childhood and what we brought to the table. So, I Don’t know if that helps explain it or if I did it in a clear way, but there are all these pieces that are happening at the same time. The more that we can understand, weight what’s going on internally for me, and have ownership over it, the more that we can show up as a better version of ourselves to create the environment that we want to create.
Minter Dial: Yeah, well, that makes total sense to me. I mean, my book is called you lead. The one up there on the over my left shoulder. You lead as why being yourself makes you a better leader. And the more you understand yourself and the things that motivate you are there yet in the end of the day, there’s also this notion of transmission where you might say, well, we believe that showing up on time is showing respect to others and that is deeply important to us. And so, you just got to do what you got to do to show up on time. You need to plan the route in advance and you have a contingency in case there’s a traffic jam. And because being on time is a good value, an old-fashioned value perhaps, but there’s no excuse for not knowing what time it is nowadays. You know, your wristwatch, it’s kind of all there, all the time.
Natasha Skolny: Yeah.
Minter Dial: And I mean, so then the, the challenge becomes like in culture, understanding as a leader in a corporation, what, you know, my father or mother might have traumatized me into believing I had to do and, and yet wanting to stick to that. You know, by the way, this is how we operate. This is how we are who we are. And the issue there is sort of the imprint of the leader in his or her methods, reasons there’s a confrontation that has to happen.
Natasha Skolny: Yeah, yeah. But the more that we realize this, the more that we can take us out of this like panic reaction state where we’re all heightened and go, okay, wait, what’s really important here to your point, when I get early or when we arrive early, it showcases that that person is important to us. We’ve made them a priority. Okay, so how do we make sure that that happens? How? And then we can go back and we can start having more conversations and we can start figuring out what needs to change in order for that to, to happen.
Minter Dial: It’s such.
Natasha Skolny: Yeah.
Minter Dial: What I like about what you’re saying there, Natasha. Actually, this, this is the point. We things explicit so it doesn’t happen in the explosion where your child goes into a tantrum because that’s too late to have the conversation. The conversation needs to be embedded somehow upfront, in full Knowledge and some level of transparency. This is what we are, this is how we roll, and this is what I. What I expect as behaviors that follow up with this cultural revolution. Right. I want to. We’ve got a little bit less, more time. And one of the things that I did want to talk to you about, this notion of corporate armor, and specifically with regard to women, where you try to help them to drop this notion of corporate armor and allow them, instead of working like a man, be themselves. So, what specific armor pieces are you trying to undo and. Or give back some other versions in order for women to be able to succeed in a corporate environment?
Natasha Skolny: Yeah, great question. I love asking the question. What would you say if you could say anything in the room and I. And I come back to the boardroom? Because typically that’s where voices are not heard. Or I mean, I’ve seen it so many times where a woman would share an idea and then there would be no response, and then another person would. Another man would say it, and suddenly everyone would turn and say, hey, that’s a great idea. Like, wait, wait a minute. And so, the question starts to come up more around, like, what is it? How. How do you not form yourself or conform yourself into doing things in a certain way? Because you believe that conformity will actually help you get your voice heard. And so, the women that I coach experience this deep down feeling of inauthenticity because they’re trying to form into something else that they’re not. And so, the corporate armor is say things in a certain way in order to get your voice heard. But what if you don’t have to do that? What if you could just be yourself? What would that look like? What if you could have conversations, you could say the things that were important to you? What would that look like? And so, it really is helping them put down the protection. Like, that’s the corporate armor that I say is just you’ve got this protection that you’re stopping yourself from not saying the things that you need to say in order to get your point across. Let’s help you do that. Let’s help you say and become vocal and confident in saying the things that you need to and influence. Influence the people around you. And the corporate armor piece comes around leading a team. You start moving from being an individual contributor to starting to lead a team. And suddenly you feel like you need to protect yourself and know everything and have all of the information. It’s like, you don’t have to have all this stuff so you don’t have to have it all figured out. It’s about giving them permission to understand that your power and the things that you’re going to do to help influence your team isn’t going to come from you having the title of being a manager. It’s going to be from you connecting with them. And how do you connect with them when you’re protecting yourself with all of these things and not being vulnerable, not sharing the things that are important to you, just, Just showing up and being human.
Minter Dial: So now I’m listening. I’m thinking, right, well, bravado. This I would characterize as a rather masculine trait. Fake it until you make it. And neither of those two words or concepts really seem to rhyme with authenticity. So, at some level it feels like, well, this is absolutely what men should be considering as well. Because if men are the ones that are imposing this armor, this method of being and not actually wishing to be authentic with themselves, why does it even exist in the first place?
Natasha Skolny: Yeah, I, yeah, I don’t know the answer to that. I, I think a lot of men would get so much value out of doing this work as well. I personally enjoy working with women because that’s, that’s. I’m a woman and that just feels like I can relate to a lot of their experiences. But I’ve also coached a lot of men, too, and they run into a lot of similarities around protecting themselves and not showing up. So, I, I actually don’t think it’s unique to women, but that’s just where, where I see my biggest impact.
Minter Dial: Right. And I mean, reality is we are different. And that’s, that’s the way I see things. And, and, and we need to understand those differences and lean into the best as possible, because I don’t think that we can all be the same. The idea is to benefit from our differences and that we come to the table through these differences providing different benefits. So, the bravado can actually be a great position to have when you, when you’ve never sold your first widget. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we can do it. We need to be able to pretend like we can do it because we’ve got a ton of competitors who’ve sold widgets. So, yeah, yeah, we can do it. Bravado. Not authentic. Not necessarily true. We can. Maybe. The truth is I believe I can do it, but I haven’t done it. And there’s fudging around the edges to get into that. What, what about, what about emotional intelligence? In your observation? We, we. You’ve talked a bit about how we’re compressed for time. There’s a lot going on, especially in today’s world. Maybe the, the, the singular question that comes to mind at this point, Natasha, is to what extent over your 20 years, or potentially, if you want to draw back further, leadership has changed. What, what specifically are the new elements that leaders, male or female, really need to be taking on board today that’s different from maybe the way you and I, what I was brought up, you know, a whole lot before you, Natasha, but even you, with your 20 years of experience.
Natasha Skolny: Yeah, yeah. I, I mean, I think growing up, there was so much emphasis on the logistical side of our brain and tactically making sure that things were done in a certain way. Where the evolution right now is more lead with your heart, lead with the things that are going to help your people connect with each other so that, that can bring out their best ideas, it can bring out their excitement, their engagement. They’re wanting to be there and contribute. I think what we’ve learned over time is just, yes, you can hire someone and they can do a job, but if you want to hire them and keep them there, them and have them contribute and go above and beyond, it’s more than a paycheck. It’s more than this is your job description that’s going to hold them there. And so, unless a leader is willing to lead by example and open up their own heart and connect with their team, their employees are just going to feel like a number and you’re going to keep going through that cycle of people who are hiring. So, I, I would say that’s been a big shift.
Minter Dial: So I’ve long talked about. Branding is personal. Trust is deeply personal. Ethics are personal. So, to what extent do you believe that business should be personal?
Natasha Skolny: I mean, I think business is very personal. I believe that. I mean, I can think about all of my experiences working for organizations if I wasn’t connected to what the business was doing and what the values were of the business and the purpose, I felt like I was just coming in, grabbing a paycheck. Like, it just felt like you’re going through the motions. We’re not here to go through the motions. We’re here to enjoy our work, to connect with each other, to build and be creative and impact the world in such a positive way. If your organization doesn’t have that clarity around what, what it is that you’re doing to impact the world in that way, then employees are not going to be naturally attracted to that because they’re going to go, wait, this is important to me, but I can’t see the connection. And so, a lot of the, the work that I do around vision work is also helping employees connect. What is the. The vision of the organization? What’s my vision? And what are those connecting dots that are going to help me so that I can feel like I am doing and having an impact bigger than who I am?
Minter Dial: I love you running Fingers, by the way. All right, well, Natasha, lovely chatting with you about a topic that you and I are both keen on. How can people get in touch with you, track you down, get involved with your leadership cabin? What, what are the calls to action that anybody who’s listened and enjoyed listening to you would like to. Would you like to send them to?
Natasha Skolny: Yeah, anyone who’s listening. I am actively on LinkedIn and on Instagram for social media. Or you can send me an email, too and check out my website @theleadershipcabin.com I love grabbing coffee, just having a chat and even if you’re wondering, you know, what is it that I could be doing differently and you want to hop on a call, book a coffee, chat and let’s, let’s chat.
Minter Dial: I put the link specifically in the show notes. Many thanks. Merci beaucoup, Natasha.
Natasha Skolny: Thank you so much for having me. It was great.
Minter Dial
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