Listen to the full interview:
1. Can you tell the audience a little bit about who you are, what you do, and how you help your clients?
“I am a leadership development consultant and executive coach. I spent 20 years working in corporate, and I decided to leave a number of years ago—2020 actually. December 31st, 2019 was my last day in corporate. It was before the mass exodus from corporate because of the pandemic. And we’ll talk about my Brilliant Difference™, but intuition is one of my strengths. So, probably somewhere in my subconscious, I knew that change was coming, and people were going to need coaches in their lives. But I decided to leave my job in corporate to start leadership development and consulting because I really wanted to focus on helping people understand what truly makes them distinctive, so that they can break through their limits and reach their full potential. And in my business, I do that through leadership development and training, consulting, coaching, and even working with organizations on their inclusion strategy.”
2. How did you know when it was time to make the leap from corporate to your own business?
“It didn’t happen December 31st, 2019. It was a series of events. I had a health scare. Luckily, I’m fine. Nothing happened, but I remember going to the doctor and I was having all these issues with my stomach. And so I thought to myself, ‘My God, I’m not even 40 yet at the time that this happened. And if I should be gone, pass away at this point, am I living? Did I do what I came here to accomplish? Did I live my dream?’ It was a wake-up call and a wake-up moment for me. And at that moment, I started to think, ‘You know what, I don’t want it to be 10 years from now when I’m turning 50, if I make it that long, feeling like I wasted my time. And so, at that point, I started thinking to myself: I’ve always wanted to do coaching.”
3. What did you notice when you think about imposter syndrome, when you think about the confidence gap women experience in the workplace and/or the communication opportunities they have to cultivate those skills? What was it that was bugging you so much about it, and what was it that you uncovered as a way forward to help women and leaders in the workplace to elevate their impact?
“That narrative in the voice in my head consistently told me, ‘You’re not good enough.’ People didn’t have to tell me that. I just felt that I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t smart enough. I didn’t belong for all these reasons. And that’s like the voice of imposter syndrome.
There was one peak moment when I went to an interview and the leader asked me to tell me why I was the right person for the job. I froze up. I literally froze up. I couldn’t speak. It was my first time talking to somebody at the C-suite level. It was early in my career. And I remember him saying, ‘Okay, do you want something to drink?’ Because I literally had a Charlie horse, like a pain in my hamstring. My body was freezing up. Eventually I recovered and decided to take a sip of water. I started sharing with him. Then he asked me a few questions about my opinions on certain things and he started writing things down. And I thought to myself, ‘What is he writing down? Nothing I’m saying is that mind blowing, right?’ That’s the voice of self-doubt. And a lot of times we overvalue other people’s perspectives and undervalue our own because it comes so easily and naturally to us. But he saw that potential in me. Eventually I did get hired, but I remember telling myself, ‘If this is what’s going to happen to me every time I’m going to break through to get to the next level of my career, I’m going to have to figure out how not to have this imposter syndrome attack.’
Eventually I went to a personal development workshop and hired a coach. That coach helped me build my confidence. And I thought to myself, ‘I want to do this for other people as well.’ So, I learned the tools. I went to coaching school. Fast forward 10 years and I’m in the room hearing the same things about other women. I was like, what were the strategies that I learned to help me show up in my power? And that was the precedence of me starting my business, me solving the problem in the organization. And as a result of solving the problem, I developed a whole program I now use in my business and book.”
4. What have you noticed through your corporate career, business, writing of your book? Where are areas where you noticed your Brilliant Difference™ showing up?
“I think it’s a curiosity. I always had a curiosity. I didn’t travel a ton, except back and forth between the U.S. and the Caribbean. That was the extent of my travel. And when I read books, it allowed me to travel, be anywhere, and be exposed to different cultures. As a result, it helped me in my career. Ironically, my undergrad was in international studies. It wasn’t business. I eventually got an MBA. I was always interested in learning about people, how they lived, their cultures, their language—curiosity around people. And it helped me in my HR profession in talent development in corporate; I would be the person who people would just vent their problems to. And I asked myself, ‘Why is everybody telling me?’ But it is that level of creating safe spaces for people. People just feel safe, and so that showed up in my HR career. It helped me to have my ear on the ground, always knowing what was going on with the employees. I was able to feed that back to leadership so that they would know the level of engagement and morale in the organization. It also helps me now as a coach to establish connection and trust with my clients.”
5. Can you tell us a little bit about the book you’re writing?
“The book is called Your Power Unleashed: How Savvy Women Use Courage to Get Promoted, Paid, and Find Fulfillment. In the first half of the book, I focus on overcoming fear, self-doubt, and imposter syndrome. I call it removing your internal glass ceiling. A lot of leadership development and career books tell you all the strategies and things to do. But I realized that we don’t have a lack of information. It’s the hard work. It’s the limiting beliefs, the things that get in our way from actually implementing the knowledge. So, the second half of the book is about removing that external glass ceiling. Some things I teach are salary negotiation tips and how to have difficult conversations, but one of the main things in the second half of that book I also teach is there is this belief that just delivering results in corporate is what gets you to advance professionally. But I walk you through how hard work is not enough. You’ve got to actually build your own personal board of directors. You have to build your brand, which is what you teach in Brilliant Difference™. You have to get visibility. So, it’s a four-step method called the DIVA method: deliver results, image, visibility, and your advisory board.”
6. If you were going to give one piece of advice on how people can win at work, what would you tell them to do?
“Besides owning your Brilliant Difference™, try not to do it alone. If I had to pick something out of the DIVA method, most of my clients deliver results. They’re really good at that. What they don’t do a good job at is building that advisory board, which is your support system. And not just a mentor, but also getting a coach, a peer that’s going to cheer you on and advocate for you. Don’t go it alone. Everything, even business, is so much easier when you do it in community and with support. Don’t be the lone ranger. Don’t try to do it all by yourself. Get a community. Get a support system. I didn’t do it alone. When I left corporate, I had a coach, and I was even in your program. That’s how we met in one of the programs we did together. And I was a part of your community and learned a lot from you. It’s much more fun when you have a community.”
Interviewer
Finka Jerkovic
Leadership Coach and Founder of Finka Inc.
With 25+ years in leadership and sales and the financial services industry, she has witnessed the power of recognizing and celebrating people’s unique strengths and differences (a.k.a Brilliant Differences™) within a workplace. When everyone’s unique talents are appreciated and people work together using them, that’s when the real magic of business growth happens. Fast forward 10 years. Finka has established programs that help corporate companies grow their businesses by tapping into the full potential of their teams, so they can clearly define their strengths, value their differences, and perform at their best.
Interviewee
Kisha Wynter
Founder of Wynter Rich Enterprises
Kisha Wynter is a leadership consultant, executive coach, author, speaker, and trailblazer in women’s leadership strategy, and has over two decades of corporate experience with a track record of developing and training leaders in over 50 countries. Kisha lives in the New York City tri-state area, loves the beach, and enjoys learning languages.