#02: Mette Johansson, Founder and Executive Coach – MetaMind Training and Andrew Bryant, Motivational Speaker & Executive Coach – Self Leadership

May 24, 2021
3:45 pm

About Mette Johansson:

Mette Johansson is the founder of MetaMind Training, a Singapore-based, globally active training company that transforms managers into leaders. Also, she is the founder and chair of KeyNote Women Speakers, a directory of women speakers, and one of six co-founders of the Inclusive Leaders Institute.

She worked in corporate leadership positions for two decades before she found her calling as a social entrepreneur. She helps others find their purpose, living and leading authentically and unlocking energy to accomplish extraordinary things.

About Andrew Bryant:

As a Global Influencer on Self-leadership and Effective leadership, Andrew is on a mission to ‘Wake People Up’ to the power of taking ownership for their thinking, feeling and actions.

Andrew is an Amazon best-selling author, Certified Speaking Professional, and an Executive Coach. He has spoken for TEDx and for audiences as large as 12,000. He also facilitates breakthrough learning sessions and cultural change for senior leadership teams and he helps C-level leaders to scale themselves and their companies through 1-to-1 coaching.

Listen to the full discussion here:

Stream by clicking here.
Download as an MP3 here.

Connect with the Guest:

Mette Johansson: LinkedIn
Andrew Bryant: LinkedIn

Some of the highlights from the podcast:

Women self-sabotage or self-limiting beliefs about getting to Senior level and C-suite leadership in supply chain
Success stories where companies have been successful in bridging the gap of female and male representation in leadership
How can males be a part of the movement of supporting and getting more women in leadership
Creating a safe space for women inside the organization
Advice for all women starting their career

Show notes:

[02:27] Andrew, you coach C-suite leaders or leaders about to get into C-Suite, and I’ve heard and read stories of how you have helped a lot of women to get represented in C-Suite. What are some ways you have noticed women self-sabotage or self-limiting beliefs about getting to that level especially in a male-dominant industry like in the supply chain?
[05:25] For a woman to step up into a leadership position, she has to be more confident than a man because she has to overcome her own self-criticism around perfectionism, and she needs to feel confident and safe.
[05:57] Mette, I just want to get some of your observations as well in terms of the self-sabotage and self-limiting beliefs when you’ve worked with women and yourself as well as women in leadership?
[08:05] In the C-Suite, we need to get to a level where we have psychological safety and have role models so we can feel comfortable about speaking up and we need to go to at least beyond the 20% of the threshold of women in C-Suite and probably even beyond the 30% in order to achieve that.
[09:32] What are some of the strategies and practices which have helped women through your program to really move out of this ceiling which society and sometimes they have created for themselves?
[09:48] I believe that one of the reasons why the programs are so successful is that we are creating a safe space where women can explore what leadership is when you’re a woman.
[12:40] And Andrew, what are your additions or your observations about this?
[15:08] All women need to support the rise of women and get over the fact that nobody’s gonna ride up on a white horse and rescue them.
[17:11] Mette, there has been a question for you, which I’m just going to showcase here. Most of the time women can feel safe in a leadership program or a coaching program, but not in the corporate space. How do we create a safe space within organizations?
[17:45] It’s first about creating that confidence within yourself, that you can do this and that you are good as a woman as well, and you don’t need to pretend to be a man.
[18:47] The reality is women are being interrupted a lot more than men in the business world or in private places. So, you need to have allies who stand up for you and speak up for you in the workplace.
[23:02] What are some of the success stories you’ve seen recuperations have been able to bridge the gap between the representation of male and female leadership over the years, who you’ve worked with? And what did they do to reach that level?
[23:36] It started off many years ago, when the owner of a company said we would never have gay men in our ads. And that, of course, caused a huge outcry in society and boycotting of lots of people in the US they would not buy the product anymore.
[25:16] Andrew, what are some of the success stories when you’ve coached C-Suite and leadership teams?
[26:11] I recently helped place a female finance professional as a CFO, because she was passed over for the CFO role in her bank. And it was super easy to coach her. And we have placed her as CFO at a very exciting role, where she’s going to have much more autonomy.
[29:18] What are some things which male allies can do to help bring about this equality in female representation at the senior level?
[31:21] Women need to have the mindset that you shouldn’t be waiting for the tap on the shoulder and you should have an expectation that you belong in the C-Suite. And that only comes when you truly want to 100% know the value that you bring. And men can help their women colleagues, by helping them to articulate what that value is.
[36:19] What one advice would you like to give to women who are starting out in their career? What are the things that matter that you wish you knew when you started out in your career to help you progress through the organization and go to senior-level positions?
[36:45] If I had known that there is such a thing as gender discrimination at the workplace, I would have planned my career differently. I was ignorant to it in the beginning that there is such a thing as gender discrimination.
[37:24] Andrew, your daughters are going to step into their careers in the next few years. What would be one big advice you would give them so that they can navigate their career and reach the level they want to reach?
[39:02] I wish for my daughters and every daughter that is entering the workplace to have clear boundaries. My sense of self is mine. Nobody gets to tell me what I’m worth my confidence around what I do. Yes, you can measure how fast I run or how many words I type or how many clients or how many billion dollars of contract I close, you can measure that. But you can’t measure me. I have nothing to prove, only things to improve.