The Power of Vulnerability in Leadership, with Katie Ferman

 I had the great delight to sit with Katie Ferman, a passionate leader and change maker, for this new episode on Women Rise. In this dialog, Katie  shares how she is  challenging conventional leadership and redefining what being an authentic leader means to her. Rooting out imposter syndrome and harnessing the power of empathy in leadership are just some of the topics we explore in this conversation. 

Katie shares how she doesn't hesitate to share  personal challenges and experiences with her team. In fact, her ability to be vulnerable as a leader is one of her great strengths. It allows her to  build trust and authenticity among her team, paving the way for more collaborative and transparent relationships. We also discuss how, she creates an inclusive environment, thus fostering a workplace where everyone's voices are heard and respected.

It is fascinating to me to witness how younger women leaders today are beginning to own their "soft" qualities and how, as a result, the world of leadership is beginning to shape shift!

Katie Ferman's  short bio:  "Katie Ferman is a mission-driven project management professional with ten years of experience in international relations, including international development, public diplomacy, cultural exchange, and counterproliferation. She has experience working with nonprofit implementers to carry out strategic objectives of the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the United Nations. Outside of work, she enjoys getting out in nature and saying hello to every dog she crosses paths with. She is also a proud Corgi aunt and podcast enthusiast."
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-ferman-20292828/

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Transcript

Claire Molinard: 0:00

Hello and welcome to Women Rise, a podcast about women changemakers that explores the emergence of a new leadership paradigm, which calls us to lead from within. I'm your host, claire Molinares, and I live and work on the island of Corsica, in the south of France. I'm a holistic coach and therapist. I teach and facilitate developmental programs for conscious women changemakers, helping them move from depleted and disconnected to resourced and interconnected. Every week I meet with other women leaders and we explore the inner game of leadership and how, in this times of emergency, we are being called to our unique self-emergence to co-create a world that works for everyone.

Claire Molinard: 0:51

So today, on this episode of Women Rise, I have the great pleasure to welcome Katie Ferman. Katie is a mission-driven project management professional with 10 years of experience in international relations, including international development, public diplomacy, cultural exchange and counter-proliferation. Kathy has worked with non-profit implementers to carry out strategic objectives of the US Department of State, the US Agency for International Development and the United Nations. As someone who deeply cares about the world, kathy has built her life work out of her desire to alleviate suffering and to lead from her most authentic self. Kathy, I'm delighted to welcome you here.

Katie Ferman: 1:41

Thank you, Claire. It's a pleasure. I'm very excited to be here with you today.

Claire Molinard: 1:44

I am too. I'm super excited. So let's start with the basics, kathy, if you don't mind. What does authentic leadership mean to you, and how do you show up as an authentic leader in the workplace? What are the values, the ways of being of that leader?

Katie Ferman: 2:00

Starting off with a really wonderful question to dig my teeth into. I think oftentimes we hear so many different conversations about authentic leadership and so many different perspectives, because authentic leadership, by its very nature, is sort of different for every leader, because it's what's authentic to you. I think, universally, authentic leadership is rooted in values, whatever your values are. So if you are a values-driven leader, you're going to be more likely to bring that authenticity to your work and, at least for me, I think it's also embedded in empathy. That's something that I like to lead with often is having an empathetic style through which I motivate the people I'm working with. I think you know, overall, whatever authenticity looks like to you and however you show up authentically to your workplace, it's something that people can see very quickly. Right, we've all had leaders that you look at and you think there's something not quite authentic here. There's sort of almost that uncanny feeling of you know, is there something being hidden from me? Is there something that I should know about this person?

Katie Ferman: 3:07

I think authenticity is transparent, it is empathetic, it is value-based and it also brings the full person to the workplace so that they can show up in a multifaceted way for each of their people. Some of my people on my team, for example, really are taskmasters and they need me to be helping them to stay on pace with their tasks and I can bring that for them. Other people need some empathy. Maybe they're going through a hard time. So authenticity, I think, embraces the multifaceted nature of human beings in the workplace and not just that sort of employee face that you have right. It's embracing the humanity behind the employee.

Claire Molinard: 3:50

So for you, an authentic leader is someone who's able to lead from a place of wholeness within themselves and who's also able to see the whole being behind the employee?

Katie Ferman: 4:05

Absolutely yes, because, you know, earlier in my career I've talked to several people who are earlier in their careers and they kind of confront the same thing as how do I be myself but also be professional and be myself and there's that sort of rift that happens and I think learning how to embrace that and be authentic in the workplace while still obviously showing up in an appropriately professional way is really key and really difficult to master.

Katie Ferman: 4:33

But you're exactly right, it's how do I bring my full self in a way that is going to be supportive of the mission? I work in mission driven organizations, so supportive of the mission, supportive of my team. I believe that I sort of leave from below or behind and sort of support the rest of my team and so, bringing not only just the best parts of myself but sometimes the flaws and the mistakes and lessons learned from my past. I oftentimes will bring up experiences I've had where maybe I didn't do such a great job or I didn't quite know what I was doing to help my team through, especially younger professionals that might have been going through things that I've been through. In my view, it's a lot better to say, hey, I've gone through something similar. Can I tell you a story and let them draw their own conclusions rather than oh, you should do this or you should do that, right?

Katie Ferman: 5:21

So I think part of authenticity for me as well is that sort of storytelling narrative and showing them hey, it's okay to mess up, you can still reach your goals and become a leader and be who you want to be, and it's totally okay to have bumps and bruises along the way. So that's kind of how I show up, at least for my team and that respect, as you said, bringing my whole self.

Claire Molinard: 5:41

So what would you say? Is the fear or the hesitation for younger leaders to come from their whole self when there's so much to gain from it, right, what do you think is the fear or the hesitation?

Katie Ferman: 5:57

That's a really good question. I think it's different for so many people. You know a lot of it is. I see people struggling with imposter syndrome, like how long are they going to take to figure out that I shouldn't be here, right? I struggle a lot with imposter syndrome and there's some really interesting sort of theories I've been reading into about whether that's actually an individual problem or whether that's a societal problem or a societal perspective often placed upon young women. So there's this amazing woman named Rashma Staljani who founded Women Can Code, I think, or Women who Code that's what it is, and she was talking about that a lot. It's like the majority of women are experiencing, you know, imposter syndrome.

Claire Molinard: 6:34

Is that truly an individual?

Katie Ferman: 6:35

problem or is that actually a societal issue that we need to overcome as a society? So that's really interesting. I've actually, interestingly, you know, gotten to a point with several of my people about childhood background unresolved traumas. Of course I'm not a therapist, so there's really I can only go so far down that road, but people still we bring that to work, even as adults.

Katie Ferman: 6:53

You know, I think the word you hit on really really well in your question was fear. I see fear manifest in so many different ways and I found that the opposite of fear and the antidote to fear is empathy, being able to show up for someone in the workplace and say I see you. I might not know your struggle, I might not have lived it, but I see you and I see the incredible things you were able to do in spite of and maybe because of some of the challenges you faced. And oftentimes we can make that into our superpower right. Sometimes we can take something we're afraid of or something that is seen as a weakness for us and turn it into a strength and turn it into a superpower, and I think the people who are really the best, most empathetic, most authentic leaders are the ones who can do that most effectively Beautiful, beautiful.

Claire Molinard: 7:39

I totally resonate with what you're saying and particularly that sense of not being enough. As a woman, there's really this deep rooted, underlying belief that whatever we are, it's not enough. We're not enough, and also what you just said about empathy from the leader and also would add, empathy for oneself, self-compassion. You know, I know that in my work with women, when we tap into that feeling, that belief not feeling, but actually deeply rooted belief of I'm not enough, the healing of that is self-compassion, love, acceptance, and that's a big step to actually be with oneself in that not enoughness.

Katie Ferman: 8:30

It's a huge step. It's a step that I'm still working on. I don't know.

Claire Molinard: 8:35

And it's an ongoing thing. As you said, it's not an individual belief, it's a collective belief. So I don't think we get over it. We actually just learn to be with it and to have self-compassion for it and then move on, because that's not all we are, and just build that self-confidence. Wow, also being with that not-enoughness To seeing it from what it is Absolutely, which itself is the imposter.

Katie Ferman: 9:06

Right, I've had the fortune of having a few very very excellent bosses, who I also consider mentors, and the best bosses I've ever had were the ones who hadn't gotten over that not-enoughness and embraced that feeling and embraced the journey, recognizing that it is a lifelong journey, and they leverage it when they need to, to be able to sometimes come to myself or to a colleague and say, hey, I'm not quite sure what to do in this situation, but I've seen you navigate something like this really beautifully. What would you suggest I do? And that's really powerful, I think, as the leader is being able to admit I'm not quite sure what I'm doing right now, but you seem to have a really strong skill set in this. Can I learn from you? They bought so many loyalty points for me in that moment just because I was like wow. They can admit that they don't have all the answers and they can admit that they might need some help sometimes.

Katie Ferman: 10:01

And I think, as a leader, the big key is you cannot be a leader if you don't have other people around you to lead Right.

Katie Ferman: 10:07

And I oftentimes find myself trying to surround myself with people who are either smarter than I am in something or more skilled in something, because I really do think that learning goes both ways in leadership, and I also believe that leadership is a choice, not a position. I think every single person on my team currently, even the people who are at entry levels are leaders in some respect. So I have the opportunity to learn from them and therefore, if I didn't think that I wasn't enough or if I struggled, that I thought not only am I enough, but I've stopped learning. You know, I don't have that need to learn anymore. That's where you get into dangerous territory, right? Then you can't tell me anything. You can't tell me anything new. So, seeing it from a different perspective, I no longer see it as an imposter syndrome. I see it as an eagerness to learn and the excitement that, no matter how hard I work the rest of my life, I will never know everything, and that's so exciting.

Claire Molinard: 11:00

You know, it's a beautiful reframe and it brings curiosity, it brings openness, so it's interesting, right? Authentic leadership is a matter of bringing your whole self, and that whole self is not finished. It's not open and curious, and that's the beauty of it. So it's alive and I love what you said earlier. You said something like as a leader and below and behind my people. Can you say more about this?

Katie Ferman: 11:33

Yeah, I think it's kind of an offshoot of the servant leadership idea. But you know how you know picture of pyramid and at the top you think of the leader than everyone else kind of falls below. I like to invert that pyramid and this is what I say at my job when people ask me kind of what my philosophy of my job is. And for context, I work kind of essentially as manager of team, a portfolio of work, and I always say that the core job responsibility that I, or the core mission as the personal mission that I have as a worker, as a manager, is to essentially make sure my people have what they need to succeed the resources, the time, the capacity, the mentorship, etc. And then get the heck out of the way. Let my people, who are good at their job, do what they need to do. I don't get overly involved unless they need me. I don't try to manage exactly how they do things. I think there are many different ways to do something and so when I say leading from behind or leading from the bottom, it's that in truth I feel as though I am. When I do a good job, I celebrate. I'm able to celebrate my team right, my team is really the core of what we do. The leaders is there to kind of try to set the tone, set the pace, set the vision, get everybody moving in the direction of that vision. But if you have good people, that's really it right. So that's how I see it.

Katie Ferman: 13:00

I don't see myself at the top of the pyramid. I see myself as sort of the person that's checking in and making sure everyone else has what they need to be superstars. And then if you have that, it's you know. From there it kind of ideally the ship would almost run itself a little bit. Of course there's always things happening and going wrong. You need to course correct and you need to learn from your mistakes, but I never see myself at like the top of some bureaucracy or the top of some pyramid. It's just in my experience that how things actually work in a real world. So, yeah, that's my philosophy Give your people what they need and then move the heck out of the way.

Claire Molinard: 13:33

It takes trust right. It takes trust in your team, in your people, in their capacities? Yes absolutely.

Katie Ferman: 13:42

That's something that I work really, really hard to build. One of the first things when I manage somebody new is I sit down with a meeting with them and I say okay, you are an expert in yourself, help me to become an expert in how to best manage you. What are some things that will immediately turn you off to working? What are some things that you need right? Are you someone who needs constant check-ins? Are you someone who needs relative autonomy over your work? How do you like to receive feedback? So they will give me essentially a one-hour crash course and how to best manage them, and I found that that works really profoundly, because not only are they helping me to get some insight in how to best manage them right, but also it shows that I truly care about what they're like as humans and that I will actually tailor my management style to what they need right. I'm not going to manage someone who needs relative autonomy and has shown me they can get things done really well with relative autonomy. In the same way, I would manage someone who needs to have a check-in every day with me right, and if you do that to the person who needs relative autonomy, you're really going to turn that person off very, very quickly. They're going to shut down. They might get bitter, they might get resentful, they might start thinking do you not trust me? Like why are you doing the job for me and you know, why don't you just do the job and I'll just step back and do something else? So that's something that I think fills trust.

Katie Ferman: 14:59

I've also been very open with all of my people, like you can tell me as much as you want to, and it will remain confidential. So, for example, maybe you just want to focus on work and tasks, and that's fine. Maybe you're having a hard time at home and you need someone to talk to about it. I'm also there for that. You know I can't help I'm not a therapist, but maybe sometimes just talking it through and explaining hey, that's why I've been so tired in the morning is because I've been up so late because of X, y and Z, and I'll be like that totally makes sense. Can we adjust your working hours to make it a little easier on you, right? Those sorts of things.

Katie Ferman: 15:29

And again, basic empathy really helps set up that trust because they see they can tell that I'm there not just to get the work out of them. I'm really there because I'm invested in them as human beings and I want to make sure yes, I care. You know, and that's very apparent when a leader doesn't care about you. You know, we've all had that. Leader was just like. You know what are your ROIs? How much time are you putting in? Of course, you have to do that a little bit too. We're a company, but at the same time, you can tell when a leader actually invests in cares and your well-being.

Claire Molinard: 15:55

Yeah, and so that builds trust between you and the people who work for you, and it also brings care from them to you. There's more motivation to do the work well.

Katie Ferman: 16:07

Yeah, and that's really all you need. I mean people, especially in the line of work that I've been working on, profit, and everyone who works with me. I have the pleasure of knowing his passion on the job and, some ways, passionate about the area, so the motivation is intrinsic, in my view. Where you run into people getting burnt out, especially in an on-profit field, in mission-driven spaces, is bad leadership, because when people get to those spaces, those organizations, they intrinsically want to do the work. They're excited. Maybe they've studied this for, you know, four to eight years, maybe more. And where you see people get burnt out on this job that supposedly should be their dream work area, is that they have, unfortunately, either bad leader or bad leadership, and it really that's what turns people off that phrase. You know, people don't quit jobs, they quit managers, they quit leaders. I think that's so true.

Claire Molinard: 16:57

That's such a good point because, as you said, these are people who want to serve.

Katie Ferman: 17:02

Yeah, absolutely so. When I see people getting burnt out in nonprofit organizations and I know that that person's passionate about the area I'm like oh no, what did your leadership do to you? It's rarely anything else. I mean, sometimes there is a little bit of pay involved. I mean, as a nonprofit you don't get paid as much as you could get at a Fortune 500 company, but usually people don't just leave for the pay. They know that nonprofits while you will, you still get a hopefully still get a very good wage, a very good salary. You might not be making hundreds of thousands of dollars, but usually that's not what drives people away. It's the fact that like, okay, I can't do this work anymore. It's literally taking the joy out of the work.

Claire Molinard: 17:44

And I talked to so many of these women who have left the world of international development for that reason and I'm just wondering what do you think can change that? Oh man, that's a hard question.

Katie Ferman: 17:58

Yeah, that's a hard question. So I think part of it is it's going to have to be a little bit of a shift over time. I think sometimes if you have a very, very entrenched bureaucracy, very, very entrenched leadership, it's hard to change that. I can say one major misconception of the nonprofit sphere, the international development sphere, is that we're all sort of these hippies just having fun, do what we want to do, and they're not really working that hard and just sort of being like, yeah, let's save the world. Man, that is not how it is. It is super spistful. You have no resources to do what you need to do. You're oftentimes working with government agencies that can be very, very demanding. The reporting is super demanding. You sometimes have multiple stakeholders, especially if you're a mission or, excuse me, a membership organization. You have to answer to the board, you have to answer to the members, you have to answer to the donors, you have to answer to the government funders and you're doing so much, sometimes three or four different jobs on so little. It's really.

Katie Ferman: 19:03

I think that's part of it is sort of this misconception that this is just when you said just now that you've known a lot of people who've left in the international development space. Some people, who maybe never worked in international development, be like why, that just sounds like so fun, You're traveling the world, You're going to go. No, it is really stressful. So in those situations, that's where you most need good leadership. You're not making a ton of money, You're not staying at the organization or the company because it's like, well, at least I'm getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year so I can put up with a bad leader once in a while. It's like you're there because you're passionate for the work, You're making a lot of sacrifices, and so, on top of that, if you have a bad boss, oh man.

Katie Ferman: 19:44

And oftentimes leadership can be really difficult in these spaces because either A the leaders in these spaces are really good at what they do they themselves were academics or experts in international development, for example, or maybe lifelong government people, and so they're really good experts in that area but they're really bad at managing people, because it's not enough to know how to make widgets to manage the people who make the widgets. It's a whole different skill set, and on top of that, they're under a ton of pressure. So I think, again, countering fear, like the fear of not knowing how to manage people, or the fear of not being in compliance with government protocols when you're doing all this really complicated work, or the fear of geopolitics and that you can be working on a project for five years and it's going to go kaput because of a bad election somewhere. I think, again, we counter that with empathy. I know it seems really simple, but I'm going to keep going back to this for a bit refrain, because every day there is high anxiety in this job and if you can counter that with coming to the position calmly, coming to the position, being like I feel what you're feeling, I totally get it.

Katie Ferman: 20:51

We can do the same work without having to beat ourselves up or feel like we need to be stressed out. I always tell my team being stressed is not a good indicator of how successful you're going to be at a task and bringing my own story to that as well, because stress has not been a very good friend in my life, health-wise, and so being able to be more intentional. Hopefully I'm hoping the next generation international relations leaders are going to be more intentional and spending more time looking at not just being international relations experts but also how to lead people well. That's going to start moving the needle on that. I think over time. It's not going to be an overnight thing, but I think over time, hopefully, if we can get more authentic leaders into that field, more empathetic leaders, it will change the game.

Claire Molinard: 21:35

I think you're touching on something very important here.

Claire Molinard: 21:38

You're speaking to a quality that needs to evolve in leaders today, that quality of empathy and self-compassion, and you keep going back to it because you're sensing that this is an important quality to bring to our leadership today, as we attempt to respond to the global crisis, the multiple existential risks that our world is facing today, as leaders, we're being asked to become more vulnerable, to actually let the pain of the world touch us and to respond to the pain of the world from that place of having been touched, and that cannot happen if we don't have access to our empathy for self, to begin with, and our empathy for others.

Claire Molinard: 22:33

How can we have the capacity to feel our vulnerability in the face of existential risk if we cannot even own our own vulnerability and honor others' vulnerability? So you're really touching something very deep here, because it's not by pushing harder it's not going to happen by pushing harder. It's only when we let our self be touched that we can bring our unique gifts in service of our work, our passion, our purpose. And so I have a question for you, kathy what role do you think women have in birthing this new way of being a leader?

Katie Ferman: 23:18

Yeah, that's a really good question. Well, I think, first and foremost, we do have in the international relations sector, particularly most recent, two areas of international relations. I work with both diplomacy and counterproliferation. There's a lack of women, a severe lack of women, severe lack of people of color, people who are differently abled. It's truly, it's been recognized by the State Department and Diplomatic Corps as an issue.

Katie Ferman: 23:48

I think that it's very easy to get weeded out of these fields from a very early age. If you're not connected, good luck. If you can't slog away at six to eight years of unpaid internships, good luck. If you're not 100% able-bodied, you can get posted anywhere in the world, even if they have a modern medical care, good luck. If you don't look like other people who are in leadership, good luck. It's a very sort of paternal type field, and so I think that women inherently bring a sense of authenticity to the workplace.

Katie Ferman: 24:32

We play so many roles in society, we have so many different aspects of our humanity. Men do too, and people who are non-binary as well. I'm definitely not excluding them at all, but I think traditionally women are still seen as the caretakers at the home, still seen as kind of fulfilling some of these domestic roles are most likely, just statistically, to be. Caretakers of elderly parents, for example, are more likely to shoulder the majority of the burden for caretaking of small children in the house. And so, with that said, I think that we need women, because women see on a very visceral level so many aspects of actual what society is, what humanity is right.

Katie Ferman: 25:25

We have to balance all of these other roles and oftentimes are saddled with all these extra responsibilities. So we're very, very good at being, typically, we're very, very good at prioritizing and again, oftentimes, again, often, often I don't want to say all the time, but often we are the ones to see and to help people who are need of help in our society, people who are most vulnerable in the society. And if that doesn't speak to the very core of what is needed in this world with regards to international development, international aid, diplomacy, women are often the peacemakers. Sometimes in the family too, we see that as well. We oftentimes will be the ones to try to mediate conflicts. I'm not saying I definitely do not want to come out with a message that oh well, because all women are just the homemakers and we're the ones taking care of the home that all these domestic tendencies can be brought to international development.

Katie Ferman: 26:25

But at the same time, I think that there are some strengths that women have, that having been absent from leadership of diplomacy, of international relations in general, of counterproliferation, we've seen some impacts of that, that's all I want to say is that we've seen the impacts of women and people of color, people in different, various, different genders, etc. We've seen the lack of diversity in leadership in these fields very, very acutely for too long.

Claire Molinard: 26:54

Yeah, yeah. And again, this is not about stigmatizing male leadership. It's about pointing to some specific qualities that are more naturally developed by women that, because they've been lacking, have given leadership a certain direction. And I'm curious to know what would it be if in your field there was more caring, maybe more community building? What are the new directions that that kind of leadership would bring in your field?

Katie Ferman: 27:34

And I think all of what she just said. So before, earlier in my career, I actually did a lot of research into empirical studies behind how women manage decisions of distribution of public goods. So, you know, water was one thing that I looked at specifically. But, like resources, public resources, natural resources in a community versus how traditional male sort of governmental hierarchy would do it, and they've over and over again. These studies need to be replicated more, I think. But the information that is out there so far is that, overall, if you have a government in which women are present and women have leadership positions, there is going to be a better and more equitable distribution of resources within that society. So when I say these sorts of things, when we say these sorts of things like community building and conflict resolution and equity, it's not just, I think, coming from a place of well, this is what I hear it's more that there are empirics behind this. So I think to your point, yes, we would see all of those things. I think we would see all of those things. We would see. You know, perhaps I would like to think some more, some different policy. I'm not going to get too far into my own perspectives of that, just because the sensitive nature of some of the things I work in. But I think we would see some different in policies. I think we would see some difference in, maybe, how people are brought up.

Katie Ferman: 29:08

Young people are brought up into things like diplomatic or or chemical abrasion and these sorts of fields. And the biggest thing is, I think it's important to see someone who looks like you in leadership. Right, it's difficult when you're a woman or a woman of color or you know someone who is differently abled. Looking into these leadership, the leadership of these fields that you might be dreaming about, and it all looks the same and none of it looks like you. I think it sends a powerful statement when you can see people at the very highest levels of these fields reflecting the diversity that is within this country, in the United States. That is actually kind of a big stated part of the diplomatic or the foreign service is that you want a foreign service that's reflective of what the United States actually looks like, and when these diplomats go abroad and represent the United States, they represent the diversity that is in the United States, and so that's why they identified it as such a problem that they don't have that diversity. So I think just even the visibility would be so powerful for young people.

Katie Ferman: 30:17

So at one point it was kind of looking at leadership and also doesn't have any family member that works in international relations and as a field where you have to typically be very well connected to succeed or you slog it out for six, eight years, making over so many, and I think that would have been so powerful for me to see more of that.

Katie Ferman: 30:36

Of course, I got to see some of it, right, you know, madeline Albright, hillary Clinton, samantha Power and others, you know, just being able to see, you know, but all of those are white women, for example. So if I was a young woman of color, I would still be like, well, there's still no one there for me to necessarily look up to there. I'm like Condoleezza Rice, of course, and others, but you know, condoleezza Rice was the first woman of color in the Secretary of State position and that was, and she was, just very recent. So all of that said, I think, not only the traits, but also just the visibility for other people, so that we can start growing that future that we want to have right, and the future that said, we not only think your differences are okay, but we are seeking them out because they bring such value to this organization.

Claire Molinard: 31:25

Beautiful, beautiful. How did you work through these differences and from where did you draw the motivation to actually be yourself when you didn't see any reflection, when you didn't have any role models?

Katie Ferman: 31:43

Yeah, that's a really good question and hey, I'm very stubborn, but I think I would like to introduce an aspect of my identity at this point, if I may. That might also lend some color to this. So I do identify as a white cisgender woman. I grew up in a middle class, upper middle class upbringing, so I was extremely privileged and I recognized my privilege and I'm so thankful to have parents who are still together and married in a very simple family environment.

Katie Ferman: 32:17

One aspect that I particularly struggled with was the health aspect my whole life, and that includes mental health as well as physical health. So I have bipolar 2 disorder diagnosed and medicated, as well as pretty severe OCD. These are recent diagnoses and this is something that I was struggling with through college, through early career on diagnosed not really sure what was going on with me, which is, you know, not the sort of excitement that you're looking for in your late 20s. You're looking for other types of excitement, not why is my brain doing this to me? And then, of course, I recently also got diagnosed with three autoimmune diseases and in my view those are directly linked, because I really don't have any background of autoimmune disease in my family. I really do think they were a manifestation of some very, very persistent stress on unmanaged stress throughout most of my life, probably tied to the fact that I had two undiagnosed mental illnesses. And so because those things are so stigmatized and because they are such a daily part of my life, you know, oftentimes the big thing is, you know, it's really hard to find role models that are open about that right, and we have a very much culture of being self-reliant and pulling yourself up by own bootstraps in this country, in the United States, and so if someone needs a nap in the middle of the day, sometimes that's me.

Katie Ferman: 33:47

That runs contradictory to that. It's sort of you're seen as lazy or unable to keep up or unable to cope, and so my way of sort of dealing with that has been trying to every day be in any small part the leader that I want to see when I was earlier in my career. So trying to be to the point that it's appropriate, open and transparent about what I face medically with my team and so that you know they know that if I'm offline for an hour it's like, well, katie's going to take her nap, she'll be back much better in the afternoon. And also allowing my team to recognize the fact that underlying health concerns and other things can and do impact our work. Let's you know to the extent that you feel comfortable, let's work together to try to make your work time as conducive to being to productivity as possible, right Knowing that you know some people may need extra accommodation or may just need some flexibility.

Katie Ferman: 34:46

So I think the ball for me has been trying to. There's a phrase, there's a quote that's like if you give, if you give the world what you are most craving or need yourself, you heal the parts of you that are broken. That is not my quote, but I read it. I don't know who to attribute it to, but I love that quote and that's something that I try to look my life by as like what did I need as a young person? How can I give that to other people?

Claire Molinard: 35:14

That's very close to my own tradition, which is mystical Kabbalah, and this notion of tikkun. Tikkun speaks to the fact that when you heal the wounded parts of you, you're actually develop a perspective that allows you to be the medicine that can heal a specific aspect of the world that only you can heal. So your wounds are the path to your unique medicine. In other words, there is a specific aspect of the world that I was born and you were born to heal uniquely. And again, it demands that we embrace our vulnerability, we embrace our brokenness and it sounds like you were able to do that for yourself, to actually meet those broken parts and to embrace them in order to be fully yourself. And so showing up as a leader was not afraid to say I need a nap, or to accept that from yourself gives you the freedom to lead on your own terms. It actually empowers you, yeah.

Katie Ferman: 36:28

And I truly it gets back to my philosophy of give your people what they need and then get the heck out of the way.

Katie Ferman: 36:33

In my philosophy, if you make the workplace conducive and open and caring, so that people can feel welcomed and embraced but also they have what they need to succeed, the biggest problem is just getting out of there very fast enough so they don't pull those right over you, right, like I think that's what it is, because my whole life the challenge has been figuring out what I need to succeed and fighting against that for the longest, because I was told okay, you need to push and you need to grind, and you can't take it after the day or you can't admit quote, unquote weakness, you can't let them see a sweat.

Katie Ferman: 37:12

I always hear that phrase and that's really hard for someone who is I think Jen Grindelin put it in her podcast episode with you NeuroDistinct, right? Or if you have health issues behind the scenes, like autoimmune diseases can cause a lot of exhaustion, which is hence the reason for the naps. But for goodness sake, we have women in the workplace. What if you're a woman who's pregnant, right, or you have your breastfeeding, or you have any sort of person who has any sort of health issues behind the scenes.

Katie Ferman: 37:43

Like if I had my own office, I would put nap rooms all throughout that office, knowing that it's sort of the assumption that no one has a disability and everyone is just sort of like normal and doesn't have differing needs. I think that you can have the things that you need to succeed whether that be accommodations, whether that be breaks, whether that be whatever and still be just as successful. It's just being honest and open with yourself and compassionate with yourself about what you need and therefore compassionate with other people. Yeah, absolutely, I definitely. I don't remember where I started on that, but yeah, I think that that self-compassion piece that you were talking about was super, super key being able to be that, so you can also be that way for others.

Claire Molinard: 38:27

Beautiful, beautiful and thank you for disclosing this. Tender places in you, so testament to how willing you are to be vulnerable and I really appreciate and also thank you for being on the leading edge of bringing that philosophy, that culture, at the workplace. I really have a sense that this is such a big part that to welcome all your distinct workers just has a lot of potential.

Katie Ferman: 38:58

Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting too with the note about the fact that I'm working in international relations. This is not new in a lot of other places. Having space, having time off, having certain hours which are like elongated lunches or rest time Part of cultures, yeah, having like a nursery or like a date here in the office, it's just not really a thing in the United States, and so in my view, it's sort of like well, if I'm working in international relations, let's inject some of these other great aspects of culture into this office as well. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Claire Molinard: 39:30

Well, thank you, Kathy. It's been a pleasure to have this discussion with you. Is there anything that you wanted to hot-chunk before we end this conversation?

Katie Ferman: 39:39

No, I don't think so. I think that it's wonderful doing this because I was able to think through and you helped me think through some of the things that have kind of been top of mind for me recently and just reminded me how we need to keep showing up, not only for our teams and for our colleagues, but also for ourselves. And I think sometimes particularly women, I would say, although it's not specific to women, but I think that we can remind ourselves to show up for ourselves a little bit more than we do, absolutely.

Claire Molinard: 40:10

And we can remind each other as well, right, yeah, so thank you, thank you. Thank you for listening to Women Rise. If you enjoyed the show today, please leave us a review. To get announcements when a new podcast is published, send me an email at Claire at UnixelfEmergencecom to be added on my distribution list. If you're interested in being a guest on my podcast or you would like to join my private free group for female leaders, go to my podcast description for the links to apply. Thanks again and see you soon on the Women Rise podcast.