We recently connected with Nancy Benter and have shared our conversation below.
Nancy, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
The lesson that has presented itself to me over and over again until I have learned it is when people share altruistically, communities thrive. It’s through the act of sharing where I reaffirmed my leadership purpose. This will be an intentionally provocative point of view, yet I believe it’s critical to share why sucking at sharing is holding us all behind.
It was the kindness of strangers that saved my family’s fate. My mother and father were in China, surviving the Cultural Revolution. I can recall fragments of information in my childhood when my parents were brave enough to share their experiences. Both my parents survived through unspeakable famine and there was nothing edible to be found. My father was suddenly torn away from his family and forced to work in manual labor in the countryside as a child for years. I remember hearing my parents recall as children, the importance of steel and how all consuming mass production of steel was during the Great Leap Forward.
Asides from the books authored by Mao Zedong, all books were banned and restricted from the public. I now understand my father’s insatiable appetite for knowledge, and the ever growing rows of books in his office. Pursuing education and knowledge was weaponized and considered dangerous under the rule of Mao Zedong. Till this day, these are the tiny recollections of their truths I hold closely. I only know a portion of my parent’s immigration story after they survived the Cultural Revolution. And I don’t blame them. I honor their decision to want to forget. It’s painful, it’s not really a story you want to relive. I do want to respect their privacy, and hope one day, I will learn every detail of their courageous journey.
Yet I’m learning, for us to heal as a community, we need to share our stories. I’m a mother to a teenager and toddler, and I want them to know all the interconnected moments that made us who we are today.
I want them to know about a family based in Portland, Oregon — which we lovingly came to know as Papa Don and Mama Evelyn, sponsored my family as if we were an extension of their very own. We weren’t family by blood, yet became a chosen family through a shared purpose: to support each other during dark times.
As a young girl, I can still remember learning about Thanksgiving when they hosted dinner at Papa Don and Mama Evelyn’s home. Papa Don would always make the same dad jokes that made our bellies roll in laughter (…I got your nose!) There were many unfamiliar scents and it was a process trying to understand the importance of American Thanksgiving. They graciously shared turkey stuffing, jello salad, sweet potato casserole. And in exchange, my parents shared their soy sauce tea eggs, braised pork rib, rice noodles, steamed pork and chive dumplings. Two completely different cultures, and with no questions asked…we bridged the unfamiliarity into belonging. The home was always filled with warmth and laughter.
As I reflect on these memories, it was the act of sharing that saved my family’s future. It was my parent’s trust in complete strangers in an entirely different country that blossomed into this merging of two cultures. It was Mama Evelyne and Papa Don’s belief that sharing creates more space and abundance for us all.
So how did we get to where we are today? How did we come to accept individualistic thinking like “I got to look out for number one.”
“Me and my family come first. I can’t care about anyone else.”
“What’s in it for me?”
I heard this reasoning time and time again after entering the corporate world. These mantras grew louder after the massive lay-offs in the tech industry began in 2022. I get the pain and the time that’s necessary to heal. And yes, oftentimes it’s individual space and barriers that allow us to heal in our own timing. Yet, how do we come out of the hurt with a renewed capacity to share? When does this kind of thinking shift to, now it’s time to not allow the scars of my past to prevent me from creating space for myself and others?
As a first-generation, Chinese American leader, the history of my community understands the healing benefits of a collectivist culture. My collectivist values were in conflict with the popular response “I’m looking out for number one.” It reminds me of a Chinese proverb that I often heard in our community. “When someone shares something of value with you and you benefit from it, you have a moral obligation to share it with others.”
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Empathy, empowerment, excellence. This is a leadership philosophy I embodied after experiencing first hand what people-centered leadership can do to change lives for the better. After leading in Fortune 500 companies and a start-up, these three verticals always ground me in what’s important. I lead with empathy in mind and building a trusted relationship with each member of my team is my first priority. I prioritize building trust in relationships before getting into the work because I’ve learned time and time again, trust is extremely hard to build, and can be shattered in a moment’s notice. I believe in empowering my team by supporting their ideas, getting out of their way so that they can truly be empowered to work autonomously and once empathy and empowerment is flowing through the culture of the team, that’s when I witness a high collaborating team where we’re demanding excellence from ourselves and those around us.
I’m deeply curious and inquisitive. Not everyone is a fan of what can come across as never-ending questions, yet I’m a leader that’s drawn towards messy, complex problems that impact people. And the first step to understanding a problem is being courageous enough to ask the tough questions. Why are there still gender equity challenges in the workplace? Which employees are thriving at work and why? What are the key ingredients in people feeling like they belong and why? What are the truths people are scared to say outloud and why? I gravitate towards leaders who think in systems because I’ve learned if we dig deep enough, there are more connection points below the surface.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Sharing has had such a profound impact on my life, the advice I’d give is to reflect on what sharing means to you. If your mind goes straight to sharing financial resources, let me share how we all have the ability to give and share. There’s other alternatives that arguably are more meaningful, impactful, and transformative for people in the long run. Here’s why sharing is good for business, healthy for our communities, and has made me a better leader:
Sharing your network:
Think about your social circle, and who could benefit from meeting someone within your network. That means for a leader in a marginalized position, introducing them to your network has a similar effect of an elevator: you’ve sent the elevator down to lift them up to new heights. Bernice Chao, author of the Visibility Mindset, wrote the only book dedicated to helping AAPI close the career gap. She has constructed a new pathway for our community. Because of her generosity in sharing her network, doors that I didn’t even know existed started opening up for me. I started getting asked for guest speaking engagements aligned with my purpose. Invitations in my inbox to TedX and leadership conferences. Bernice is also the co-founder of Asians in Advertisement, a 501(c)3 global non-profit organization with 6,000+ members providing scholarships, mentorships, events and podcast programming for AAPI leaders across the globe. There is a direct correlation to Bernice sharing her network and the ripple effect it continues to have in the community.
Elizabeth Hunter and Sarah Osmer are executive leaders in Fortune 500 companies who completely changed my career trajectory by simply making introductions and having an always on approach in allyship. The chances were slim for a leader of my lived experience to ever cross paths with Elizabeth and Sarah. These are prime examples where the workplace cultivates human connection. My life (and countless others) are better off knowing Elizabeth and Sarah.
Sharing your truth:
How many times have you wished “if I just knew that ahead of time, I could have approached the situation differently.” Leaders save themselves from stepping on controversial territory through the wisdom of stories. What kind of culture does that company have a reputation for? Which leaders hold the most influence and how do you partner with them that enables your team to be effective? Think about how you provide actionable tips to leaders who are about to walk into a path that you’ve already navigated.
Sharing your time:
I’m going to say something provocative…If we have time to binge watch a new series on Netflix, we all have the time to share. You don’t have to be an executive coach or someone holding a fancy certification to hold space for people. During the rise of anti-Asian hate during COVID and Black Lives Matter, it was an extremely scary time for these communities. One of the most impactful gestures an ally did for our community was hold space for our pain. He would call me and schedule time so I could sob in privacy. Then I would wipe away my tears, and have just enough capacity to carry on in the day. We still had a day job — teams to lead, strategies to implement and just needed time here and there to break down. These allies knew how to invest the time in being a container for us, and shine their light on us so we weren’t alone.
Is channeling the altruistic leader from within’ the answer? I’ve recently learned that Papa Don has passed, yet the impact of his family’s generosity has grown into a core memory that continues to transcend from generation to generation in my community’s history. What Mama Evelyn and Papa Don taught me is when people are showing up as their best selves, they’re beginning from an altruistic place. My question will remain: what will it take for us to all share in a meaningful way?
What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?
Gaining excitement when I fail has been my biggest area of growth. I used to ruminate constantly when I failed, wasting a significant amount of time fantasizing about the ways I could have handled that scenario differently. And the light bulb turned on when I started embracing failure as surprises. I love surprises! My heart skips a beat when experiencing surprises. Failure is just another way of explaining unexpected outcomes and it’s information.
Contact Info:
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancylinan/
