Sheryl Brinkley
Executive Coach & Career Acceleration Catalyst | Speaker, Trainer & Facilitator
Women’s Leadership
Episode Summary
Are you ready to be inspired and empowered by an influential voice in women’s leadership? Listen to this Keep Leading!® podcast episode, where your host, Eddie Turner, sits down with the extraordinary Sheryl Brinkley to discuss “Women’s Leadership.”
Keep Leading!® Live
60 Second Videos
Bio
Sheryl Brinkley is not just an Executive Coach and Career Acceleration Catalyst; she is a beacon of inspiration for women aiming to break through the glass ceiling. With over two decades of experience in leadership and training roles, Sheryl has a proven track record of helping individuals and leaders discover their self-confidence, harness their signature strengths, and unlock their untapped potential.
Sheryl’s impressive credentials include being an International Coaching Federation-accredited coach and a certificate holder of the UC Berkeley Haas Women’s Executive Leadership Program. Her journey through talent pipeline management and program design for emerging to mid-level leaders has equipped her with a profound understanding of what it takes to nurture core competencies and drive business results.
A Deep Dive into Women’s Leadership
In this enlightening episode, Eddie Turner and Sheryl Brinkley delve into the multifaceted world of women’s leadership. They explore the unique challenges women face in leadership roles and the strategies they can employ to overcome these obstacles. Sheryl shares her insights on building self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and resourcefulness—key traits that are essential for women aiming to ascend to senior leadership positions.
Key Highlights
- Discovering Self-Confidence: Sheryl discusses how women can build and maintain self-confidence in their professional journeys.
- Harnessing Signature Strengths: Learn about the importance of recognizing and utilizing one’s unique strengths to lead effectively.
- Nurturing Future Leaders: Sheryl emphasizes the significance of developing leadership pipelines that support and advance women in leadership roles.
- Emotional Intelligence in Leadership: Explore how emotional intelligence plays a crucial role in effective leadership and team dynamics.
- Mental Fitness for Leaders: Sheryl sheds light on the concept of mental fitness and its impact on leadership performance.
Website
https://www.itmcoachingnextlevel.com/
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheryl-brinkley-mba-acc-chic
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/sherylb_itmcoachingnextlevel/
Leadership Quote
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” – John Quincy Adams
Subscribe, share, and review on Apple Podcasts!
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/keep-leading/id1461490512
Subscribe, share, and review on Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/show/0I7uAW3x4AWsLe6cnAzHp7?si=14549a44dec3495f
Full Episode Transcripts and Detailed Guest Information
www.KeepLeadingPodcast.com
Keep Leading LIVE (Live Recordings of the Keep Leading!® Podcast)
www.KeepLeadingLive.com
Connect with Eddie Turner
Website: https://www.eddieturnerllc.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eddieturner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/eddieturnerjr
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eddieturnerllc
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eddieturnerjr/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/EddieTurnerJr
LinkedIn Business: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eddie-turner-llc
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@eddieturnerllc
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/eddieturner.bsky.social
Agent: https://gray-miller-agency.webflow.io/roster/eddie-turner
100 Coaches Agency: https://www.100coaches.com/coaches/profiles/eddie-turner/
About the Keep Leading!® Podcast
The Keep Leading!® podcast is for people passionate about leadership. It is dedicated to leadership development and insights. Join your host, Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator®, as he speaks with accomplished leaders and people of influence across the globe about their journeys to leadership excellence. Listen as they share leadership strategies, techniques, and insights.
Share the Inspiration
Inspired by what you hear? Share the episode with your network and help spread the message of empowerment and leadership. Use the hashtag #KeepLeadingPodcast and join the community of listeners who are dedicated to continuous growth and leadership excellence.
Transcript
Eddie Turner:
All right. Welcome, everyone, to another edition of Keep Leading® LIVE. Keep Leading® LIVE is a program that is dedicated to leadership development and insights. I’m your host Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator®. I work with leaders to accelerate performance and drive impact through the power of executive coaching, masterful facilitation, and keynote speaking.We are streaming live on LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube. So, if you are with us and you are so inclined, I want to invite you to go ahead and press that share button so you can share it with those in your feed so they can join our conversation. And if you would like to, go ahead and hit that chat button and tell us where you are located. We’ll see your name in some cases. In some cases, the name doesn’t come through, but if it comes through and I see you, I’ll definitely acknowledge it and have you be a part of this conversation.As we close out this month where we celebrated women, International Women’s Day, I wanted to close out this month with the conversation about women’s leadership. And to talk about women’s leadership, different aspects of it, I have invited a phenomenal guest. My guest today is an executive and leadership coach named Sheryl Brinkley. Sheryl empowers women to lead more effectively. She’s a women’s leadership pipeline builder and sustainer. She’s focused on high potential women who want to accelerate their careers. Sheryl has a proven track record of catapulting leaders to discover their self-confidence and signature strengths. She helps them realize their untapped potential. She’s International Coaching Federation accredited coach who’s also certified in emotional intelligence and mental fitness. She earned a Women’s Executive Leadership Certificate from UC Berkeley. So, I am excited to welcome Sheryl Brinkley.
Sheryl, welcome to Keep Leading® LIVE.
Sheryl Brinkley:
Hello. Hey, I’m am so happy to be here with you, Eddie, and to be in this space. I’m so excited. Thank you for the opportunity.
Eddie Turner:
I’m excited to have you. so, tell us a little bit more about you.
Sheryl Brinkley:
Listen, you touched on that point about being this catalyst. And so, I really have coined this thing about myself of being this catalyst for women to encourage, to motivate them to really help them to be viable as they ascend through the senior leadership pipeline into the executive offices. And so, my thing is to really work with these mid-career women and high potentials in particular to avoid the stagnation of being stuck there. We have too many mid-level women stuck in this pipeline, not getting through. We have a few women kind of popping through and getting all the way up the chain. And I really want to see how I can make a difference in the space of helping them lock in with keeping their head in the game while they play the game and also feeling like they can really rise to the occasion of sitting in these offices of C-suite, owning their power and making impact while doing so. So, this is something I’m quite passionate about and I believe that women are more than capable of leading at the highest levels. And so, that is my mission and that is my passion.
Eddie Turner:
You said you help them stay locked in and keep their head in the game. Now, that’s obviously a sports metaphor.
Sheryl Brinkley:
Absolutely.
Eddie Turner:
Leadership could be a contact sport in some ways, right?
Sheryl Brinkley:
Absolutely. It is a contact sport. I mean, it is a strategic game and we want to make sure that women are positioned from a mental perspective, that’s why we bring the mental Fitness into it, from a mental perspective really understanding that they need to get that piece locked in. We’re struggling with this impostor syndrome and in a lot of cases, sometimes lack of confidence, but we have the talent, we have the education, we have the acumen. Just a matter of locking in that mental fitness to really be able to serve and be strategic as we continue to climb.
Eddie Turner:
Indeed. Locking in that mental fitness. It’s a crisis at this point in not just our country but around the globe, mental fitness, but you said something else that I found interesting when you talked about the impostor syndrome.
Eddie Turner:
And I was privileged to do something for one of our PBS affiliates and I quoted the work of Dr. Ruth Goshen. And she said something that I just found phenomenal, just stopped me dead in my tracks, in an article she wrote in Psychology Today. And she said “Unsuccessful people don’t experience the impostor syndrome. Only successful people.” So, you’re feeling that way because you’re a success. And I just thought that was a beautiful way to reframe that and think about it.
Sheryl Brinkley:
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Eddie Turner:
Now, you’re having quite an impact. You’re having such an impact. We have some folks who tuned in on YouTube, we have a couple on Facebook.
Sheryl Brinkley:
Wonderful.
Eddie Turner:
We have someone joining us from LinkedIn who says she’s a former client. Ms. Spells has joined us and she says “Yay! Sheryl! As a former client, I can attest to Sheryl’s greatness as a coach and a true confidant.”
Sheryl Brinkley:
Thank you for that. Wonderful.
Eddie Turner:
Nasyra, thank you for tuning in and thank you for adding your voice to our conversation. We certainly appreciate that.Now, tell us a little bit more because you mentioned this in your opening words that I alluded to this in your bio that you’re known as a women’s leadership pipeline builder and sustainer. Tell us more about that, please.
Sheryl Brinkley:
Well, this midlevel space is the spot where a lot of us are stuck in. I’m going to speak from a person that’s been there, okay? I am she, I was there, I was a part of that middle space for some time and not only finding myself working to do all the things to really try to accelerate my career, working by myself and doing so, thinking that I’m playing this game and that I’m actually in the game and delivering all the goods, smashing all the goals, continuing to drive all of these business goals forward and not really paying attention to being intentional about driving my own career. And heck, I wasn’t the only one. And as I was getting there and sitting in this space myself, I noticed that I was not the only one. And I said “How is it that we have so many women sitting, we get so far, and then we just plateau?” And I’m saying “Well, what is it that … what am I doing? Is there something that I’m doing here that I need to make some adjustments on?” And so, for me, the big question I had to come to realize and ask myself was “Who are you more loyal to, Sheryl? I mean, listen, I mean, are we being more loyal to the organization, are we being more loyal to the leader that we’re working for? What is it that you need to do to really understand how to get some traction around here and really leaning into making some shifts?” And so, that was part of the story that helped me to determine how I needed to learn how to pivot myself out of being where I was and moving in a direction that I felt I can make some traction. And so, that was the start of putting me on the path to getting certified as a leadership certified professional myself and ultimately in the space of coaching when I noticed that I think I’m being a little bit more too loyal to what I’m doing as far as delivery on the work and not really leaning into growing my own career. And what I also came to learn statistically that a lot of us spend more time planning our vacations than we do actually working on growing our careers. And so, I know that I was doing that myself. And so, this is an area of passion for me to really help others to see that we have to have a mindset that is more in line with aligning myself to doing both and delivering on the work but also making sure that I’m intentional about growing my career at the same time.
Eddie Turner:
Sheryl, you say that we spend more time planning our next vacation than worried about how we’re going to develop our careers.
Sheryl Brinkley:
A lot of us are doing that. I guess, the statistic actually says about 40 hours planning a vacation. And I’m sure that more time is spent in international planning if you got children and all these other things logistically then we really are being intentional about leaning into what are my goals for my aspiration, how far do I want to get, and what is my plan to get there.
Eddie Turner:
You speak with a lot of passion when you’re talking about this. What makes you so passionate about this?
Sheryl Brinkley:
What makes me so passionate about this is that I know that women are capable, women are highly educated and we just need a little bit something more to help us to unlock what’s going on the inside as far as our dreams are concerned and being able to move in a direction. Now, the thing is that a lot of us are waiting, a lot of us are waiting for someone else to create this pathway for us. I think I was in that camp also. I was waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and say “Hey, let me put you in the game” but no one can …
Eddie Turner:
Did that tap ever come, Sheryl?
Sheryl Brinkley:
That tap never came, Eddie. That tap never came, okay? But the thing about this is that once I realized that I needed to follow my own bliss, I actually read that book, to really say “Hey, what am I most passionate about?” and as you hear me speaking this from my heart and my spirit today, I was finding that in my roles that I was becoming more in tune to my superpowers of coaching, mentoring, and developing talent and I wanted to figure out how to lean into that. Now, this thing about mind reading, no one can read your mind and no one can read my mind. And so, until I can get clear about what I really wanted to do and how I wanted to grow my career, I couldn’t articulate it to anyone, they can’t help me if I can’t articulate it. People would ask me “Well, what do you want to do?” I don’t know. I have to make sure that I am getting that clarity first and then I can articulate that and then people can come alongside and help me to get there. And once I discovered that clarity, then people were able to say “Hey, I’ve got some people that you can talk to that might be able to answer the question for you or tell you about their story to give you some insight about how to navigate.” And so, now we can get mentors on board, now we can get people that may want to sponsor you on board. So, these are the things that I feel like women can really be leaning into to really help them continue on their forward progression up the chain of command.
Eddie Turner:
Going back to your illustration about the planning of that stat, so I hear you saying that just as we research different locations and what might be needed and where we’re not sure we might talk to someone and get a couple of personal reviews from people who may have visited a location, you’re saying we should do something very similar when it comes to our careers.
Sheryl Brinkley:
Absolutely.
Eddie Turner:
Excellent. And specifically, as women, you said “Hey, don’t wait for somebody to tap you on the shoulder. You must take the initiative.” What’s one tool that women can use if they find themselves stuck? Here we are at March, it’s the end of the quarter rather, it’s the first 90 days, everybody set up goals at the beginning of the year and they say “I’m going to accomplish this. This is what I’m going to do this year” and now we’re at the end of the first 90 days of the year of 2024 and “Oh my! I haven’t even taken the first step.” What advice would you give to a woman who’s listening to our conversation now about how to get unstuck and get moving?
Sheryl Brinkley:
Well, number one, create a development plan, really being intentional about “What are the things that I need to do to grow my acumen?” and leaning into “What kind of skills might I be adding to my tool chest now that will help me not only serve me now but also in the future?” And then another piece of wisdom that I want to drop in the space is that cultivating a mindset that career development and career pathways forward is really a game of chess. This is not a game of checkers. There are strategies involved. Getting to the highest levels of leadership, it doesn’t come accidentally. It will not fall in our laps. And so, we have to be intentional about that. And so, when we think about the game of chess, there’s the queen that’s on the board. And so, as the queen on the board, we have to know that we can navigate positionally in all different directions that may serve us to help us get the acumen that we need and also the exposure that we need in order to continue to grow. Now, though the queen on the board, she’s moving around and she’s making moves, and I’ll throw in here that Deloitte created a model many years ago that is called the Career Lattice, I reframe that to call it the career rock wall because if anyone’s ever seen or climbed a mountain or done a rock wall at a gym or some other facility, you know there’s no straight way up. There is side to side, there is sometimes lateral, there is taking steps back. There are all the things that women might need to do to pivot and position themselves to ultimately acquire what they need to now be more competitive and also have the confidence to compete when they do so.
Eddie Turner:
Indeed, because it’s not always going to be a straight line.
Eddie Turner:
I’ve enjoyed my conversation with Sheryl Brinkley. If you’re listening to our conversation, feel free to ask Sheryl a question. We’re talking about women’s leadership. Ask her a question. She is a leadership expert and she works with leaders especially at that midpoint in their career to help them identify their career and catapult the next level. Go ahead and tell us who you are you can drop a comment there, ask your question, and don’t forget to share with your friends in your feed. We’re on Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn.Sheryl, when people discover this, to your point, they’re often at that midcareer point and they’re having that epiphany that you had. Is there a role that executive coaching plays in this especially as you talked about with developing a leadership plan?
Sheryl Brinkley:
I absolutely believe that. I’m such an advocate for bringing coaching in as another tool and another resource because we have leaders that are operating right now in the C-suite that got there because of other ways of delivering work and maybe they’ve left a lot of dead bodies in their wake. Now, they’re sitting in a seat of influence leading at the highest levels and they may have a board member telling them that “Hey, this isn’t working.” They may have other stakeholders that are telling them that their approach to things isn’t working. They may have direct reports saying that “This way that you’re showing up isn’t working” because their self-awareness is not in alignment. And sometimes companies now will bring in an executive coach to work with them. Well, there’s a lot of other players involved in the mix now because you’ve got an audience of HR and you’ve got these other stakeholders trying to see if we can turn this leader around. And so, what if we were able to work with these leaders further down the rung because heck, if they’re not addressing their habits that they have, growing through the middle all the way up the chain, they’re taking those habits with them and those habits are not serving them. And Marshall Goldsmith wrote the book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. There are things that at every leadership level, from an acumen perspective, we’re supposed to be learning, we’re supposed to be mastering as far as people leadership is concerned and as far as our ability to influence and our ability to gain allies to help us achieve business objectives. And so, if we’re not getting the development that we need at the lower rung levels, then we’re basically growing a population of leaders that are really not equipped to lead. Now, Gartner the tech research and consulting firm, just recently put out a study, a survey, their 2024 HR Priorities Survey that talked about the challenges that they’re having with leadership development right now that are barriers for that middle layer of leadership. And the study reported that 75% of managers are feeling overwhelmed with this compression of having more work with less resources to get things done. And also, 71% report that midlevel leaders are not effectively being developed. Now, if we’re not taking time to develop these mid-layer leaders, then what we’re doing is creating senior leaders that are really not equipped to handle the waves and the change that we are seeing in the horizon with the rise of AI and other things that are on the change forefront for business. And so, we have to have leaders that have a mentality that will allow them to survive the winds of change, also in this new paradigm of working in a hybrid situation, new generations coming into the workforce. We have to have a mentality that’s fresh that will allow them to be able to scale their ability to relate and to create this culture where all can feel like they’re served and that they can follow behind this leader. So, this is something that is really important that we are able to tap into, especially when it comes to not only women but to men too. So, I wanted to just say that it’s not just a women’s issue here that we’re speaking about.
Eddie Turner:
Indeed. Well, it’s interesting in terms of the point you make there. I’ve heard you refer to it as an inverted pyramid when it comes to leadership development and that the most dollars and resources are dedicated to that top layer in an organization and there’s less and less being invested as you get to the bottom. And so, that definitely leaves the leadership pipeline lacking what it needs to … even though they say they really want a strong pipeline to really be able to be competitive with a strong bench of talent.
Sheryl Brinkley:
That’s right.
Eddie Turner:
(Inaudible) said something similar when you talked about the dead bodies that are left in the Wake. He said that the average leader goes 10 years without training, 10 years in the leadership role before they actually get their first leadership training. And so, yes, behind them, there’s a lot of carnage left because people have had to deal with them as they were literally practicing leadership without having proper training and tools.
Sheryl Brinkley:
Yes, yes.
Eddie Turner:
You have a way that you help leaders address this problem, I understand. How could people learn more about you and the work that you do?
Sheryl Brinkley:
First of all, reach out to me at my website address and I’m happy to have a conversation but I just want to also advance this notion here, Eddie, right here that it’s important that we see this as an opportunity and a moment here that we can feel empowered to get the resources that we need. Now, if your company is not in a position to invest or they’re looking more up here than down here as far as development, then we have to be able to feel empowered to go and get the resources that we need ourselves in order to get to where we’re trying to go. And I will just drop into the space here that 80% of people working with a coach typically report that they’re increasing their confidence after having worked with a coach and 71% are coming through a coaching experience feeling like they’ve got more juice to perform. And so, there is the investment of taking on these kinds of supportive resources but typically, I usually tell women, basically, one promotion can probably pay back that investment, really. So, it’s worth it. And to really be able to see that as we look at people that we look up to in the public spaces such as Michelle Obama or Oprah or Sheryl Sandberg, these people are working with coaches. They have all kinds of coaches that are working on their team to help them to get to where they’re trying to go. And so, this is something that, in addition to mentors and getting sponsors on board, is another tool in the arsenal that you can deploy and employ to get you to where you’re trying to go and help you to accelerate it. There’s no need to struggle like the rest of us had to struggle trying to get another promotion or trying to find our way through, fight our way through the middle when we can take advantage of things that can really help us accelerate the process.
Eddie Turner:
Excellent. And Ms. Spells says that her confidence definitely increased since she worked with you. She said “I now go into interviews feeling much more prepared and confident in my ability to talk about myself.” So, thank you for your affirmation of what Sheryl is saying, Ms. Spells. We appreciate that very, very much.What’s the key message you would like those listening to us to take away from our conversation today?
Sheryl Brinkley:
Key message is certainly have a plan, creating a development plan, working through understanding where your gaps are, soft skills acumen I might need to continue to grow on, what are the hard skills, business skills that I might need to learn. One of the things about growing through an organization, unfortunately, sometimes some of us stay too long in one particular area of the business, we want to make sure that we can diversify our experience and also get exposure at the same time and that is a critical piece for a lot of women as well as getting exposure and allowing others to understand our brand and what we bring to the table as far as a value proposition is concerned and certainly, understanding that you’re playing a game of chess here, understanding that you need to also be intentional about growing your career alongside the work that you’re doing to deliver the goods for the organization.
Eddie Turner:
Outstanding. Well, thank you very much, Sheryl. I thoroughly have enjoyed speaking with you.Thank you to those who joined us live to have a little bit of interactive discussion as well.
And if I did not acknowledge you, that’s because it didn’t pop up. So, I see there’s some people there who I just don’t see a name or a badge for or a comment but sometimes people tell me afterwards.
What a fascinating discussion and acknowledging the importance of women’s leadership in organization. Sheryl Brinkley, thank you very much.
Sheryl Brinkley:
Thank you so much, Eddie, for this opportunity.
Eddie Turner:
Everyone, I would encourage you to follow Sheryl Brinkley on social media, look her up on LinkedIn and connect with her.That concludes this episode of Keep Leading!, everyone. I’m Eddie Turner, reminding you that leadership is not about our title or our position. Leadership is an activity. Leadership is action. It’s not the case of once a leader, always a leader. It’s not a garment that we put on and take off. We must be a leader at our core and allow it to emanate in all we do. So, whatever you’re doing, always keep leading.
Thank you for listening to your host Eddie Turner on the Keep Leading!® Podcast. Please remember to subscribe to the Keep Leading!® Podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen. For more information about Eddie Turner’s work, please visit EddieTurnerLLC.com.
Thank you for listening to C Suite Radio, turning the volume up on business.
The Keep Leading!® podcast is for people passionate about leadership. It is dedicated to leadership development and insights. Join your host Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator® as he speaks with accomplished leaders and people of influence across the globe as they share their journey to leadership excellence. Listen as they share leadership strategies, techniques and insights. For more information visit eddieturnerllc.com or follow Eddie Turner on Twitter and Instagram at @eddieturnerjr. Like Eddie Turner LLC on Facebook. Connect with Eddie Turner on LinkedIn.
