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Donna LichawCrafting your identity as a leader is a lot like creating your superhero persona. You need to be able to discover your authentic identity and pursue a clear mission, and to do that you need to understand your unique superpowers.
In her new book The Leader’s Journey, Donna Lichaw draws on her experience as an executive coach and shows how she helps leaders transform themselves into true workplace superheroes.
We talked about:
- the origin story for her new book, The Leader’s Journey
- how leaders can identify and activate their superpowers
- the three things that all superheroes have: identity, superpowers, and a mission
- how you can begin your development as a hero from any number of starting points
- how to measure your impact as a leader
- the importance of building on your unique awesomeness over simply acquiring new competencies
- how her background in documentary filmmaking has influenced her work
- how the best stories that leaders share demonstrate who they are, not a simple narrative about something they did
- how understanding the stories you tell yourself can improve your leadership abilities
- how it’s possible, but takes a lot more work, to lead without a position of authority
Donna’s bio
Donna Lichaw is an executive coach, keynote speaker, and bestselling author of The Leader’s Journey, the much-awaited followup to the The User’s Journey. She helps high-growth CEOs, executives, and senior leadership teams transform their leadership so that they can more effectively propel their business forward. Subscribe to Donna’s newsletter to get first dibs on tools, exercises, and courses to help you transform your leadership so that you, too, can accomplish the extraordinary.
Connect with Donna online
Video
Here’s the video version of our conversation:
Podcast intro transcript
This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 154. We talk a lot in the content world about the power of storytelling. But stories are complex and multifaceted, and storytelling insights can sometimes come from unexpected directions. Donna Lichaw developed a nuanced understanding of storytelling as a documentary filmmaker and applies that wisdom in her coaching practice to help leaders become superheros – to show their authentic identity, discover their true mission, and reveal their unique superpowers.
Interview transcript
Larry:
Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 154 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I’m really happy today to welcome to the show, Donna Lichaw. Donna is the author of the the new book, The Leader’s Journey, which is what we’re going to mostly talk about today, which is it’s a follow on to her bestselling earlier book from, I don’t know, like five or six years ago called The User’s Journey. She’s an executive coach who works mostly with high-growth founders and tech executives and leadership team. So welcome, Donna, you want to tell the folks a little bit more about what you’re up to these days?
Donna:
Yeah. Thanks for having me, Larry. And what am I up to? It’s summertime. We almost have a break next week, I’m excited. Trying to chill as much as possible this summer. The book came out about six weeks ago and it’s been busy and totally nuts and busy with work as well. So I’m excited to have some time to chill over the summer.
Larry:
Well, good.
Donna:
That’s what’s on my mind, basically.
Larry:
Okay. That’s why I keep the episodes to a half hour, so you can get off and enjoy your vacation.
Donna:
There we go.
Larry:
Yeah. Well, hey, I love your new book, The Leader’s Journey. Well, I won’t steal your thunder, but one of the things that I was most taken with it is the opening anecdote. The opening story in the book that you talk about, which is we also were talking just before we came on the air. That’s pretty much the origin story for the book as well. Tell the folks a little bit about that story that led to the book.
Donna:
Yeah. I know it is like an opening act, isn’t it? I mean, I guess, my story with the book starts actually… I mean, so it goes even farther back than what I talk about in the book, which is my last book. The User’s Journey was successful, it was wonderful, and I had been working with product teams and tech companies, but large and small for years, helping them think of the things that they were building not as features or just what we typically think of as products, but thinking of products as something that would enable customers to have a great experience. But by experience, I mean, a great story with the product because a great experience ultimately is a great story, whether it’s in a movie or thinking about a product or using a product. And I had been consulting with companies for a while and started to get more and more interested in leadership.
Donna:
And so I was thinking about writing my next book on leadership as I was working with more and more leadership teams, but it was going to be focused initially on product leadership and how you can move teams forward towards building amazing products. And what I realized over time, and that’s the story I start with in the book, is that the higher up in leadership I went at more and more successful companies. What I was finding is that product leadership wasn’t the biggest challenge people were having, it was people leadership. And it wasn’t how do I get people aligned towards building great products. It was just like, “How do I get aligned with myself? How do we stop arguing? How do we get along?” And it was one executive who I worked with at a team, which was my aha moment, who just straight up said our customers.
Donna:
My whole thing was helping them figure out how to think of and transform their customers into heroes of their stories. And this executive just said to me, “You know what? Whatever. Our products are fine. Our customers, they’re not going anywhere.” Yes, everything could be better, but I be a hero, and how do I be a hero? And my initial reaction was, “It’s this not about you, get over it and you build things for customers.” And I had this idea of servant leadership in my mind, which is internally, you’re not the hero, you’re building heroes across your organization and internally everyone is your customer. So you still have to be thinking of them and how to get the best out of everyone you work with.
Donna:
And this is not about you basically. But, this was a leadership retreat, when I left that day, I realized, “Wait a minute.” How can you do all the things a leader needs to do if you’re not actually feeling good about yourself and if you’re all fighting and not getting along? And I just couldn’t get that question out of my head. So seven years later, I’m still answering it every single day, which is, yes, it turns out, if you want to be a great leader, you do need to feel like a hero. You do need to, I was going to say, be the hero, but it’s more than being the hero. You need to know who you are and what matters and how you move yourself forward. And then you do the same for everyone else. And we can go into the details, but-
Larry:
No, because you talk about-
Donna:
Yeah. You have to feel like a hero or it doesn’t work.
Larry:
Exactly. And you talk in the book about that. Well, one thing, just the way the story you just told, it reminds me of the flight attendants saying, “Put on your own oxygen mask first and then take care of-”
Donna:
Exactly.
Larry:
… “The people with you.” So it’s in that family of care and self-care. But it’s also the immediate obvious next thing is like, “What are my superpowers?” And so you talked pretty early in the book about identifying and activating your superpowers. Is that the first step in this whole process or-
Donna:
Yeah. And so what I said to do when I wanted to answer that question, “Do leaders need to feel like heroes? And if so, how does that all work?” Because again, great leadership is not about saving people. I think a lot of people have this misconception about leadership as if I have to save everyone and do everything for everyone, and it’s not that. And so my big question was, “Well, how do heroes work and how do you be a hero? And what parallels does that have with great leadership?” And what I learned is that, and I see this all the time now, this is what I help amazing leaders figure out for themselves, is, one, yes, to be a great leader, it works exactly like being a hero. And what heroes all have is an identity, superpowers, and a mission. And with those three things, you smash them all up, you do solve some gnarly problems, you save the day, you do incredible things, you bring other people along on your journey, and ultimately you have an impact.
Donna:
And so with all of those pieces, when you reverse engineer them and you figure out, all right, what are my superpowers? Who am I, what are my superpowers? What is my mission and what impact do I make in the world and do I want to make in the world? When you figure that all out and then you start making it happen, it’s more powerful than any other type of, I guess, leadership literature that I’ve seen over the years, which is like, “Here, to be a great leader, you have to have these core competencies. You need to be good at this, good at that.” It’s like that. None of that matters. What matters is what are you great at, what fires you up, who are you, where are you going. And you can start with any of those, start with superpowers, start with mission.
Larry:
No. And as you’re talking just now, I’m thinking starting with that vision of the impact you want to have and then backing up-
Donna:
That’s great place to start.
Larry:
Yeah. That seems like a logical one from that. Okay. So starting from there, how do you measure impact? How do you know once you’ve gone through all The Leader’s Journey and you’re like, “Aha, mission accomplished,” or whatever?
Donna:
Yeah. I mean, it is a great question too, and it’s almost like a great tech problem, or we can use whatever terms we want. We could say design thinking, lean, agile, strategy problem, but you can start at any place. And so how to… I’ll draw the parallel. Let’s say you’re a working on a product, or I’ll draw the content analogy here, which is, let’s say you’re working on something. One of the first things you might do in that case is assess the situation. You might start from capabilities, or here are our requirements, or you might go out and assess the situation, how are things working? Let’s observe users and customers in the wild using our thing. Or let’s do an audit or another kind of assessment. And leadership is much the same. If you want to start with impact, which again, you could start with superpowers if you want, you could start with mission.
Donna:
If you want to start with impact, which I think is an excellent place to start, you go gather data, you go talk to people, or this is something I do for my clients all the time. At the point that you’re at the executive level, you’re often extremely busy. And while I want you to be having as many conversations as possible moving forward, a lot of times at the beginning I’ll go out and talk to people and do interviews. And what we find out is what’s working amazingly well about who you are and how you show up as a leader and the impact you’re ultimately having on your team, your stakeholders, your organization more broadly, or even your customers in certain organizations, that’s important as well. What impact could you have? So what could be even better and what impact could you have.
Donna:
And ultimately, to drag in the content or tech analogy is what we come up with is a clear picture or story of what’s amazing about your leadership and what could be even better. So it’s the same as doing any kind of research, customer research or stakeholder research. You’re just going out and finding what’s amazing, what could be better, and ultimately why does it matter. Because if you’re… Let’s say everyone thinks you’re amazing because she always asks how I’m doing every morning and it feels so good. Okay, so what? That’s nice. I mean, that’s a nice thing. I think it’s very important to like your boss or like your colleagues or like your CEO. But then what impact does that have? Well, I’m excited to come to work every day. Okay. What impact does that have? So I like to think in terms of… You can think of in terms of the five whys or this is same thing as you would do with customers like, “Okay.”
Donna:
And why does that matter ultimately? Oh, yeah. Well, I come up with the really, really creative ideas, or we doubled revenue last year because you know what? My whole team’s excited and we have a culture of excitement and innovation because of this. And inevitably you can attribute leadership presence and how you show up to not just the impact you have on people emotionally, but also tangibly to the performance of your business. And that’s where tons of science, not going to go into details, it’s all in the book, but so much science behind how people feel at work and ultimately the results that they have. And the data says it all, which is when people feel empowered and there’s a level of emotional intelligence at work that companies just perform better. And I see it all the time. So I like for this going out and doing qualitative research and finding out what’s amazing, what could be even better. And it’s something if you’re not a fancy executive or you’re not a CEO is something you can do for yourself as well.
Larry:
Exactly. And as you say, that the qualitative approach to it, because assessing the outcome of like, he says hi every morning to everybody in the office when he comes in and you can infer the… I don’t know how you could quantitatively measure that. You could have a little counter for how many hellos came out of his mouth or whatever. But-
Donna:
No. You measure the outcomes of that.
Larry:
Exactly.
Donna:
Exactly.
Larry:
Yeah. And I think as you talk-
Donna:
And I want to actually-
Larry:
Yeah, go ahead.
Donna:
I’m totally going to interrupt you, but I want to give a counter example just to clarify the importance of this. So I once worked with a CEO who was extremely friendly, but it had an adverse impact on her team. And so you can’t just say, “Hey, being friendly, it’s a good thing. Great. Box checked. Good leader.” No, not at all. In her case, being so friendly meant that meetings never went anywhere and that she and her team would spin in circles, and that people were never sure if she really had criticism and wasn’t sharing it or wasn’t… So it impacted trust a bit, even though they loved her and they thought she was great, it really impacted. There was so much squishiness that it impacted their ability to think strategically and get work done. And so it impacted deadlines, revenue, innovation, a whole host of things. So it really is important when I say that you can quantify anything. I’m not saying to get super technical about it, it’s really just about, and how does that affect the ultimate outcomes?
Larry:
Yeah. As you say that, I’m thinking back to your book. In that case, it’s like the difference between best practices and your superpowers.
Donna:
Exactly.
Larry:
Well, if everybody wants to just read some article about here’s how to do this, and you’re like, “Well, no.” And you take a different approach to that in the book. You say, “Well, what are your superpowers? And how can we put that into a superhero?” Am I reading that correctly?
Donna:
Yeah. I mean, there’s a whole world out there, leadership development stuff where it’s all about, again, competencies and this is what great leaders have. And even if it’s died down a little bit, some of that is old-fashioned, but there’s still a version of that, which is, “Oh…” I don’t want to bash emotional intelligence because, obviously, I just said it’s important, but there are these assessments, and these are the ways that you have to show up, and you have to be good at this or balanced at this. And it’s like, “No, it’s what is your unique cocktail of what you’re great at, how does it show up, what impact does it have and how do you want it to be even better so that you can more effectively meet your goals.” I’ll bring the sports metaphor. I always talk about Serena Williams because she’s a great example of what great sort of like a metaphor for great leadership in the sense that she worked with a coach. Not ’cause she was bad at tennis, but she could get even better.
Donna:
Initially when she was a little kid, she worked with her dad to learn tennis and all that, but eventually you’re amazing and you want to get even better. Now, imagine if her coach had told her how to serve, she probably would’ve have done half of the amazing things she did because she could invent her own serve if she wanted to. And there was a time and a long time ago when tennis was played one way, and then eventually someone changed the game and it was played in a different way. And so leadership is much the same. It’s not about you need to do things in a certain way, it’s what’s your best way to be effective.
And if we were to bring identity into this as well, I mean, I work with lot of women in the tech space and a lot of queer folks, a lot of people who don’t fit typical models of leadership, especially in tech. And telling people to just be a certain way, it doesn’t work, and even the science doesn’t support it. So it’s like, “Yeah. What would Serena do?” That’s what I always ask. Or, “What would Dolly Parton do?” I forget chapter four. “What would Dolly Parton do?” Just when in doubt. Think like Dolly.
Larry:
I 1000% approve it. I just love her so much. And that’s interesting. Now all of a sudden, I’m wondering if you were coaching Dolly Parton, she’s obviously like, “Can even somebody like that who’s so accomplished and has clearly identified her superpowers, crafted this amazing identity and presence in the world?” Do you think she went through something like this to get to that level, that aura, or whatever it is that she has or-
Donna:
Oh, yeah. There are multiple levels on it. For someone like her to find herself, she went through a lot of experiences to do it so that a lot of that is bottled up in the book on how you can do this for yourself. If you think about someone like Dolly Parton on a business level, she is an extremely successful founder and businesswoman and runs many successful ventures and nonprofits as well. So does she have an executive coach? Has she done this on the business side with anyone? I don’t know. But in the corporate world, it’s been very common for CEOs to have coaches because it’s hard to do this all alone. You can’t do it all alone. And that’s one of the… Using superhero metaphor, I mean, superheroes don’t work alone. It’s rule number, I don’t know what number rule it is, but you don’t do it. So I think she went through a lot of it probably on her own with mentors, family, as a musician, as a public personality on the business side. I would be shocked if she didn’t have this in a more codified way to help her.
Larry:
As we talk about her, I’m reminded that Hollywood and showbiz and all that, that you have a background in movie stuff and have this whole, not unique, but certainly an approach to storytelling and story understanding that comes out of that world. How much does that inform your work? Like 90% or something or-
Donna:
Yeah. It informs everything. I mean, before working in tech and actually during, I mean, actually, I don’t know which came first, filmmaking or working in tech because I built websites and had a job doing so during college when I was also studying film and then also during grad school. So the order of things, I’m not quite sure, but I used to make documentary films, and I didn’t know that much about storytelling. I thought I did, but I was making it up as I went along. There were a lot of, I guess, professors and people I worked with who were convinced that being a great filmmaker and being a great storyteller just sort of was something that you nurtured and developed and just happened. And I learned the hard way over time that, “Oh, actually, there’s an architecture to it and there’s a formula.”
Donna:
You don’t want to be too formulaic or your formula shows, but there’s a formula to effectively engaging audiences even and especially if you’re making documentaries. And so I wasn’t always doing it until I learned how to do it. And it’s something I carried with me through my work in product development and product management, and then eventually product leadership and product consulting. And it’s absolutely something that shows up in leadership development. The trick is, it’s not about… I think this is a misconception a lot of people have, which is storytelling is a bit of a buzzword, and it’s something a lot of people in the business world are obsessed with. Oh, talk about competencies. You want to be a great leader, you have to be great at storytelling. And I called hooey to that, which is… I was actually watching a documentary on Teddy Roosevelt the other day, and I remember something they said about one of the speeches he gave once, which was, “It was complete gibberish for 10 minutes, but his presence was everything.”
Donna:
And it’s just, no one cares about your story, just like how customers don’t care about your product, they care about themselves. If you want to be a great leader, stand about the stories you tell people because not everyone wants to be talked to, and it doesn’t happen in such a controlled way, it’s about who you are. That’s the story. Same thing as any kind of engaging experience. It’s just like how people experience being around you, how you experience being yourself. That’s the story. So I will fight this as long as I can, which is storytelling, whatever. It’s a nice skill to have if you’re giving a speech or want to polish some kind of communication, but it’s not what great leadership is made of. It’s a skill.
Larry:
I 1000% agree. But also one of the things what you talk in the book about the importance of understanding the stories you tell yourself and working with those. But that’s a slightly different thing. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Donna:
Yeah. And so it is still a kind of storytelling, it’s not what we traditionally think of as storytelling. The psychologists would call it self-narrative, which is the stories we tell ourselves that is so important. The stories we tell ourselves have the power to hold us back in our leadership or propel us forward. And when I say propel us forward, propel you as a leader and everyone you work with because if people are not coming with you, and then you’re not a leader, you’re just running straightforward alone. And that’s not leadership. So the stories we tell ourselves are everything. And so bringing it back to that example of that executive retreat where the one executive asked me, “Can’t I be a hero?” And if so, how do I be a hero? What was getting in the way of him feeling like a hero were stories.
Donna:
So one, story of his own leadership, which is I’m not as effective as I want to be. Was that true? Well, did he have data to back that up? Yes. Okay. So that was a true story. Good. What other stories? “Our head of engineering is a jerk.” Is that true? Well, when you unpack stories like that, that get in the way of us meeting our goals or of us having productive dynamics with people we work with and productive relationships, often something like, “Well, he’s a jerk.” That may or may not be true. There is truth at the bottom of that that you have to get to. And it could be they are frustrated because our teams are not working well together. Okay. Well, that’s a story that you can write to a better ending to together, or a journey that then you can go on together.
Donna:
Or it might be they’re having a hard time at home and things are showing up and they’re not able to do their best work at work. So it’s important and actually essential to be able to differentiate the stories we tell ourselves, “I’m too quiet”, “I’m an imposter”, “I’m not making the impact I want to make”. And the stories we tell ourselves about the things we can do, “Oh, they’ll never go for it,” or, “No, our team is too incompetent to get things done.” And the stories we tell ourselves about other people, they’re a jerk and so on and so forth.
Donna:
You have to be able to differentiate the stories we tell ourselves from the actual truth, and it’s the stories are there to hold us back or to help us survive as humans, and they’re not productive at work most of the time. When you can find the truth, that’s when you can find out what the real story is and use that to move forward. It’s essential. So I’m going to contradict myself. One of the essential skills that every leader needs to have is the ability to differentiate between the stories they tell themselves, stories everyone else tells themselves, and the actual truth.
Larry:
Well, I think, and that’s not just leaders, that’s anybody. I think-
Donna:
Anybody. You want to be an effective human. Check your stories next time. Is that true? It might not be, it might be.
Larry:
I went to journalism school and you’re making me realize that I’ve been a horrible at applying those lessons to my own, assessing my own. Does that story check out?
Donna:
Hey, Donna, I can’t believe it. We’re already coming up close to time, but I always like to make sure you get the last word in. Is there anything last before we wrap up that you want to reflect on from the conversation or that’s just on your mind about leadership or anything?
Donna:
Not that I can think of. I mean, this is always such a treat and so much fun. And I would say take your journalism background, take everything in the book, apply it to your own leadership, and ring me up anytime. I want to know how it goes. It’s been so much fun getting feedback from people now that the book is out there in the wild. I love getting feedback from my clients. That’s amazing. But part of why I wrote a book, I guess, one of my… Well, my kryptonite is writing. I hate writing, but one of my superpowers is also sharing powerful ideas with the world. So I had to share this with more people. I love finding out how it’s going. So that invitation is to you and your listeners as well.
Larry:
Hey, well, let me sneak in one last question there because you just made me think of this, I thought of it earlier in the conversation. This notion that you can lead from anywhere. You you work mostly with executives and at a higher level in your organization, but any quick thoughts on that? Do you have to be in an executive position to lead, or can other people lead as well?
Donna:
Yeah. And that’s a great question. I get that a lot. It is a lot easier to figure out how to lead when you’re already in a position of authority. And when I say easier, I mean, it takes a lot of inner work and inner transformation to do it effectively, but it’s doable to lead when you’re not in a position authority it’s possible. It takes a lot more work in a different way, a lot more, I would say, internal work and then a lot of external work because then it turns more into politics and relationship building, and marketing, and sales. And so that kind of stuff, it’s not my happy space, even though I do have to do it as a solo business owner of one who has a stable of contractors who are technically not employees.
Donna:
And also, I’m a leader of sorts, thought leader, but I don’t manage the world, so I have to effectively do all those things. But internally, in a work context, if you have authority, it’s a lot easier to figure out the inner work and make it all work unless you hate managing others, which is another thing. But if you’re not in a position of authority, you could do it. You could do it, it just takes different kind of work.
Larry:
Nice. Well, thanks. Oh, hey, one very last thing, Donna. What’s the best way for folks to stay in touch if they want to follow you online or connect?
Donna:
Yeah. The best way to stay in touch is I’ve got a sporadic, occasional newsletter, that people love when I do send, and so I recommend you can find information about that. And also, my entire toolkit of leadership tools is available for free on my website, no string attached, so you don’t even have to sign up for the newsletter if you don’t want to. It’s donnalichaw.com, and it’s spelled, L-I-C-H-A-W, or it’ll be in the show notes. But reach out, download stuff, join the newsletter, and those are all great ways to reach me. I would say LinkedIn as well, but I feel like social media is coming and going. And two years ago, would’ve been Twitter. And so email is the new social. Reach out.
Larry:
Okay. Thanks. Well, thanks so much, Donna. I really appreciated the conversation.
Donna:
Of course, Larry. This was a treat.
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