Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Phil Williams. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Phil, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to impostor syndrome. Impostor syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame impostor syndrome.
For readers to comprehend any sort of communication, definitions must be clear. For the sake of my story, impostor syndrome is the difficulty of accepting that my accomplishment was and is genuinely the consequence of my efforts, experiences, and acquired abilities. Having developed a good working definition, conquering impostor syndrome is still a work in progress and a way to make it work in my favor. Although it was a recognition title. when I was made a vice president at a big financial services company, my deliberate steps to develop my leadership skills were more important to me. I worked and resided in a town devastated by tragedy in April 1999.
Many employees at the Service Center where I was a Leader were horrified by the Columbine incident, in which two students from Columbine High School opened fire on their classmates, killing 12 students and a teacher and wounding more than two dozen more before killing themselves.
I discovered that living out my deepest purpose and values was the key to my leadership success during those devastating times at work. I want to be a positive and encouraging person for my family, friends, and the people I work with. Being a leader who improves the lives of the people I work with is crucial. Since then, I’ve realized that belonging encompasses more than only being a group member. Belonging is a shared purpose, a place where we have, We stories, A place where Us stories can develop. Belonging is success, where dreams can be dreamed, and where failures are learning opportunities. These are the ongoing experiences to battle impostor syndrome to use impostor syndrome as a tool toward excellence.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
In my professional life, I am rewarded by helping organizations align their people and business strategies. I enjoy partnering with senior, mid-senior leaders and supervisory-level employees using my knowledge about managing human resources to help create policies and programs in line with organizational goals and objectives. What is important and exciting about what I do is it allows me to use my interpersonal and emotional intelligence skills when to help organizations and individuals to be successful with strategic plans and support leaders to optimize their human capital experience. The work is also important because it involves improving employee engagement and relations, supports change management, and stresses the importance of the transfer of learning and development. The ultimate and perhaps personal part of the work I do, is it keeps me in touch with the joy that brings me to the table and that joy is people.
A year and a half ago, I started a new journey of being an academic scholar in a Ph.D. program for human resource management. I am guessing by now readers have figured out that I have an affinity toward nurturing and supporting employees and ensuring a positive workplace environment.
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?
The three most important qualities, skills, and areas of knowledge that were impactful on my journey as a leader and a citizen were and are empathy in my leadership journey, honesty, agency, integrity, and spirituality in my personal journey. For individuals who are early in their journey in terms of how they can develop and improve is to be intentional, have integrity in every aspect of your life, understand that your actions have an impact on the people you love, and change your expectations, expect the unexpected, and expect nothing. The way to improve on any aspect of your life is to recognize the issue and what you need to do to improve to make yourself proud of what you say and do!
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
Several books have played and continue to play a role in my development. ‘Leadership From the Inside Out,’ by Kevin Cashman, and ‘Conversational Intelligence, by Judith E. Glaser.’
The most valuable and impactful nuggets for me are a personal mastery of leading with awareness and authenticity from Cashman’s book. More specifically, knowing what they are and breaking away from self-limiting patterns. I suffered from Stevens-Johnson Syndrome. While in the burn unit for 21 days, my skin pulled away from my flesh, my finger and toenails popped off, and the self-limiting pattern of thinking I am not good enough and that I will look horrifying stuck with me for a year. I created a whole story in my head about how I was not good enough. The final nugget was integrating all of my life experiences into a meaningful context, which means the impostor syndrome I mentioned earlier. I now know that I have to constantly acknowledge my strengths and weaknesses if I am going to lead from the inside out.
Contact Info:
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamsPhillipT
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philliptwilliams61/
Image Credits
Kevin Cashman – Leadership From the Inside Out Judith E. Glaser – Conversational Intelligence
