Leading with Vulnerability: Strengthening Teams Through Connection with Renesha Westerfield

Welcome. Dear listeners to the speak and flow podcast where we dive into strategies, unique stories to help you and your team achieve maximum potential and flow.

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Melinda Lee: Today I have an amazing leader. She's an Hr. Director and she's also director of staff development.

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Melinda Lee: Her name is Renisha Westerfield, Hi Renisha.

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Renesha Westerfield: Hi! How you doing.

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Melinda Lee: I'm so glad you're here today. We're going to dive all into vulnerability. What it means, and give you strategies, tips to

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Melinda Lee: lead with vulnerability, which is courageous. But what does it mean, anyways, and to kick us off? I'm gonna have Renisha. Tell us what what brought you here today, and what was your reason for being on this podcast? Because it ties into this theme.

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Renesha Westerfield: Yes, thank you so much for that wonderful introduction.

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Renesha Westerfield: Yes, so vulnerability led me right here. I know it's a fear of mine as it been, has historically been

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Renesha Westerfield: to be open to tell people about the things I've experienced, or to show

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Renesha Westerfield: sadness, anger, other emotions that make others feel uncomfortable.

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Renesha Westerfield: And instead of that being my story, I want to change that. I want to break that chain of you know what I've been taught as a young girl to not share those parts of myself

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Renesha Westerfield: and open it up. And I've been working on that in my job currently. And

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Renesha Westerfield: it's probably the hardest thing I've done outside of you know, being a mother, but it is

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Renesha Westerfield: paying back in dividends for sure. So I definitely wanted to take another opportunity, or my 1st rather

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Renesha Westerfield: to talk about this further.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah. And so what do you think that was doing within you when you weren't being like open to all the sides of you? The parts of you. What was that doing internally.

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Renesha Westerfield: I think it was, you know, slowly, you know, killing me. I think not in the physical way, right, but I think all the barriers

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Renesha Westerfield: much like, you know, buildings block this the the light right? The light couldn't get into those deeper parts of me that needed it.

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Renesha Westerfield: that needed to be held and seen and and spoken to. It was easy at easy with, you know, putting up a mask and reflecting what I think you wanted to hear, or what you wanted to know, versus what was going on within me, and I think it set a message that I, who I am, didn't deserve to be seen or heard, and that's very much not the case. Right? People want to know about me just as much as I want to know about them.

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Renesha Westerfield: and I was robbing people of that opportunity by, you know, keeping that within myself.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, so fascinating. I really appreciate you. Thank you for your courage to be here to share this story, and I'm curious, you being an Hr leader for for many years like, how do you see this? Within teams within employees like

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Melinda Lee: them, not feeling that they can really open up and not feeling that they're able to be vulnerable in the workplace. What is? How does that look? And have you seen that.

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Renesha Westerfield: Right. I mean, we all heard the saying that it's just work. You can't be who you are. You're there to get a check and go home right. And while to some extent that is true, right? You are hired to do a job and you have to complete the task.

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Renesha Westerfield: I think that

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Renesha Westerfield: today, nowadays it's kind of impossible to not bring your full self as if you're not impacted by life events by the world events right? We have so much going on, and we spend so much time at work. But then we're not to share ourselves.

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Melinda Lee: That does.

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Renesha Westerfield: Doesn't make sense. So you are going to have moments where you're going to be vulnerable. Those in the Hr world know right we are there for your wonderful moments. You're welcoming a baby. You adopted a baby. You're getting married all these wonderful things, and also the hard things, divorces, deaths in the family. So

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Renesha Westerfield: we know more than most parts of the organization or business that life is there. So I think, for an Hr leader to be effective. I have to be vulnerable in order to help somebody.

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Melinda Lee: Okay.

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Renesha Westerfield: And I. You know I thought about that. I think it changed over time. But when I 1st got this position I said, This is the leader I want to be, and let the leader. I wish I had, so I never had this modeled for me. I wanted so much to just be able to bring a little more, a little bit vulnerability into these tough conversations with the hope that it would transform and, you know, lead to change right?

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Renesha Westerfield: It's a gamble, I would say day to day, right? I don't know what I'm going to get, and you know that's where therapy has helped me understand that even if I'm bringing my vulnerable self, and that's rejected, or that leads to a difficult conversation

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Renesha Westerfield: that they don't have the power to define who I am or reject me in that moment that it's still okay to be vulnerable, because that's the work that I'm working within myself to bring that out. But there's no definition there, right? There's no validation that another person can give me.

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Melinda Lee: Okay.

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Renesha Westerfield: I'm enough in that moment. So.

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Melinda Lee: I love that. Yeah.

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Melinda Lee: yeah, no, that's so powerful. And when I want to come back to that, I want to hold on to that like you said, being vulnerable doesn't mean that we still want or expect, or other people their reaction. It's still you're doing it also because it's enough.

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Melinda Lee: Their reaction is gonna be their reaction. But at least but let's get back to that, because.

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Renesha Westerfield: Yeah.

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Melinda Lee: Unpack there. I I kind of want to go back to like understanding. So when people and the teams are not vulnerable, how can a leader

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Melinda Lee: like find out, I mean, because people can put on a face a show.

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Renesha Westerfield: True, true.

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Melinda Lee: The leader would never know if there's a lot in there, or a lot that people.

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Renesha Westerfield: Correct.

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Melinda Lee: Testing or disclosing

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Melinda Lee: so, and maybe do we just gloss over it? And if they don't bring it up, should we not even.

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Renesha Westerfield: Right. I think that does happen right. A lot of us are avoiding it on all ends like you didn't say it. I didn't hear it.

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Renesha Westerfield: But the Comp. The the problems are becoming more complex in the workplace. So I do think that I like to provide examples of things that I have been through as ways to kind of help someone meet me halfway.

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Renesha Westerfield: Right, you know. I can't make them. But I do think that demonstrating like, hey! This thing happened to me, too. I remember, when I was at work. I, too, have been, you know, the only woman in a situation, or the only black person in the situation, and this is how I navigated it. This is what I felt in the moment.

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Renesha Westerfield: But keeping it very past tense and boundaried in the sense that they don't need every gory detail. But and I'm not pushing myself past my emotional checkpoints.

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Melinda Lee: That.

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Renesha Westerfield: I feel that

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Renesha Westerfield: you know what I'm giving you. I would tell anybody. I'm confident in that. I've healed from it, but there's still

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Renesha Westerfield: something to gain from it, even in sharing that story with somebody. And when someone sees a leader say that it does change

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Renesha Westerfield: the way that they're responding to you. I've seen that look on their face. The shoulders will drop. They'll take a sigh. And you know well, yeah, that you know. Then you get the truth from the situation sometimes. It's not a guarantee that you know someone's at that place, so they're ready to show up in that way. But you know. Sometimes you got to keep coming around to certain people and keep showing them like I'm still this vulnerable person in this setting in different settings. The consistency is super important.

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Renesha Westerfield: right? So it doesn't feel manipulative or dangerous or unsafe.

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Melinda Lee: Yes, I love. Yeah. So opening up ourselves 1st as leaders to be vulnerable model, the way share examples, share stories and experiences. And I love what you said like, share the stories when you're like almost healed and and able to see the ways versus yeah versus thinking through the story as much and sharing from a place of

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Melinda Lee: just vomiting, or because we're upset and.

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Renesha Westerfield: Russian.

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Melinda Lee: Leader.

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Renesha Westerfield: Right. It can kind of take over the conversation. The dynamics already there. Right? You're the leader. Maybe they're, you know, a frontline staff, or you know, not at your equal level, and that sometimes can intimidate people if you put too much in it. But, you know I would look at like, just the toe, you know. Get temperature check, you know. Let people know. Yeah.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah. Yeah.

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Melinda Lee: And and so going back to the the idea of

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Melinda Lee: when is enough? Or what? What were we talking about earlier?

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Melinda Lee: Oh.

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Melinda Lee: I was gonna come back to it. But the benefits, the benefits, these are the benefits of storytelling, and what that does to the teams. What that does to you know what is the reason to be vulnerable?

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Renesha Westerfield: Oh, yes,

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Renesha Westerfield: I you know. Obviously I'm speaking from my perspective as someone who has had to heal from a lot of trauma.

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Renesha Westerfield: It becomes who you are in a way that you don't want that to define who you are

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Renesha Westerfield: in being vulnerable. I've been able to

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Renesha Westerfield: get a grasp on it in a way that it does not break me down. It just added to all the wonderful things that make me who I am.

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Renesha Westerfield: Right, but also not this

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Renesha Westerfield: thing I need to talk about constantly. It isn't something that has to be

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Renesha Westerfield: centered in every conversation, but I have some place to draw from almost becomes this well of abundant situations and circumstances that lead you to where you are, and every now and then I got to get a cup, and I get to share this cup of my experiences with someone, and much like breaking bread or or going out.

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Renesha Westerfield: Somebody you get to just enjoy that like we had this time. You remember this. And yeah, we learn from that, or you cry sometimes it just depends on where you are, you know in your circumstance, but so much of that used to be this like vault. You don't open it. It's nasty. It's dark now. It's like no that that happened. And it's okay. And and it's it'll build bridges with people right? And I have more in common with folks. I realize in my.

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Renesha Westerfield: I didn't realize I had a shared experience with someone who doesn't look like me, who's not from where I'm from.

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Renesha Westerfield: who know we had that in common, right? So it reassures and validates this thing inside of myself, of

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Renesha Westerfield: you. You did a thing. You took a step for you.

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Melinda Lee: Yes.

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Renesha Westerfield: Someone else poured into that cup with you. It was not this siloed experience. So it's like, I'm opening up, growing. I feel like a new person. I you know I never thought I'd be able to say this about vulnerability, because if you ask me or any of my therapists, they would have the opposite to say, but it is transformative, to say the least.

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Melinda Lee: Oh, I'm so proud! I'm so excited for you! I'm so I mean welcome. I mean, this is amazing, the the power of vulnerability and open it up. I think that what you said is so key. It's like

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Melinda Lee: a lot of times we don't want to take that step because we're afraid of what people are gonna think we're afraid. We don't know. If we, you know, we we can share all these things. But then, you know, there's different reasons to share ourselves, sometimes sharing an experience because we had the answer. But then, like you said, sometimes we don't have the answer, and that's okay. And that reminded me of my story. Of an experience I had, and I think moms can relate, and fathers. But I had my mom. My daughter came home she was so upset.

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Melinda Lee: and at that moment I had no answer for her, and literally there, I don't know what I can do for you, but I just held her, and it was a bonding experience. I just remember holding her. And I realized, like I was like, that's the answer.

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Renesha Westerfield: And.

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Melinda Lee: This moment of bonding that I can cry with you and connect with you, even if you look different from me. Even you have come with different cultures, different backgrounds like whatever, but sometimes just sharing that experience, breaking bread with somebody and then getting in touch with those feelings that we all have as humans, is the answer.

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Renesha Westerfield: Totally. It humanizes you. Right? You can get right.

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Renesha Westerfield: I mean as a parent. You forget what it was like to be a teen. You forget what it's like to go through the emotional turmoil. Same with becoming leaders. We forget what being frontline is like, what it's like to manage for the 1st time.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, those.

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Renesha Westerfield: All those memories we kind of stuffed away.

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Melinda Lee: Right.

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Renesha Westerfield: Vulnerable, allows you to bring them up with hindsight, with healing, with.

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Renesha Westerfield: you know your your takeaways and the wisdom in that is very powerful, and I think

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Renesha Westerfield: wisdom and vulnerability kind of go hand in hand.

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Renesha Westerfield: I don't think people the wise people we know aren't vulnerable right? They're sharing these things that they went through and saying, this is what I learned from it. Right? So, yeah, it's just a wonderful place to be in, for sure.

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Melinda Lee: And how are you doing this at work, are you? There's specific things, steps that you do. And what word of the yeah, can you share some of that.

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Renesha Westerfield: Sure. I mean as far as that work it. It starts with my team as Hr. We're everywhere. You might talk to someone in payroll and benefits and recruitment.

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Renesha Westerfield: And so I lead by example. For sure, I am big about. Let's let it all out. What you gotta say. Dump it out. Yeah, dump it out. That's okay. Call the silence, you know.

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Melinda Lee: Do you do like a time frame like the the is? There.

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Renesha Westerfield: Yeah, we have our set check ins right? Or if something comes up, I make time. But you know I I try to give them the space to say it all. I'm not gonna Judge. You.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah.

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Renesha Westerfield: I understand this is hard. You're angry because you don't get to show that to the staff. You don't get to bring attitude. You don't get to sit. Shut them down. They're coming to us for resources. So you gotta dump that off someplace else so that you can get back in and do your best. So it becomes like a workshop. You yell, you throw it out the wall. And I'm like, Okay, I think I can fix this.

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Renesha Westerfield: Then we can address this. Here are some pointers. Here's something I would do, or there's some things that come up that they shouldn't have been in charge of, and I'll step in, because sometimes those situations can become tenuous, and I don't want that for my staff.

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Renesha Westerfield: But I do. I do provide feedback after I've done something I'm like. This happened to me. Here's what here's what, how I felt, and here's how I handled it. If this comes up, here's some takeaways. Outside of my team, right? Obviously. There I deal with staff outside of my team.

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Renesha Westerfield: I do open a conversation. Are we venting? Or is this something that I need to get my pad and my PIN out?

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Renesha Westerfield: Okay? Well, yeah, you know. Then they'll tell me the story of whatever's going on and I make it clear that because I am an Hr leader, I'm held to certain laws and compliance. If something gets said that I have to further investigate. I have to do that, and I do give that warning.

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Renesha Westerfield: you know, not in a in a way to cause problem. Just so they know where the line is. Part of the you know. Part of it is what is safe. What can I do? What does it mean? Where are the consequences. So you know, and I leave my door open. Call me anytime text me anytime, I mean

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Renesha Westerfield: with bound. I mean, I'm I'm within work hours, but as far as like, I try to be as approachable as possible, and some folks think that's not the best way to do it, but I do from an Hr perspective. Because I I the less you tell me, the less I can help, the less I can be provide. Whatever resource I can give you before we go down a road. We can't return.

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Renesha Westerfield: So. I try to do that in meetings, check-ins.

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Renesha Westerfield: coaching sessions with staff, whatever facetime I can get with them. That's my my my mode, and you know, of course I make it light. We laugh, we joke. I think humor is super important.

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Renesha Westerfield: And I'm I'm pretty funny in most things. So I think that helps people kinda

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Renesha Westerfield: get the attention of it all, because

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Renesha Westerfield: so scary, right? But if I'm making you laugh and we warm it up a little bit?

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Renesha Westerfield: it goes from there, and then, you know, you're you're kind of just using every opportunity to connect and building. So I I look at it very much like, maybe I didn't go that far today, but there was a block there. We built something, you know.

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Renesha Westerfield: It's 2 little pieces. And I just want their experience of need to be professional and approachable. And it's pretty much been the case.

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Melinda Lee: Wow! And I, because I hear you allowing people to be vulnerable, you open up the space your meetings with. Okay, pour it all out, and I and I hope that when leaders listen to this, that you do the same thing that maybe they don't understand really the benefits of it. But there's a true benefit with allowing people to just pour it out

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Melinda Lee: with the sense of safety, so they're not being judged, and part of it may. And then you may not have solutions in the moment, but they're the solution at that moment is at least they're pouring it out when they say it out loud in front of people. It actually lowers the charge because they're heard. So there's this charge of it is because it's if they don't. If they bottle it up it gets, comes out and manifests itself.

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Renesha Westerfield: Oh, yeah.

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Melinda Lee: So it's like, okay, let's talk it all out. Well, you know the way to open it up for dialogue, or maybe not. But at least they felt heard. And so I hear you doing that. And I mean, I think, that they're so lucky to have you as an Hr leader, and then but then and then but then I'm I'm fascinated because you do that for everybody else. But for you it was hard for you to bring the vulnerability into this.

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Renesha Westerfield: Totally. I mean, I don't get to.

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Renesha Westerfield: you know. Let it all out with everyone for obvious Hr. Reasons. I'm fortunate that my supervisor does allow, you know, venting, and and I can let it out with her. I'm.

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Melinda Lee: Okay.

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Renesha Westerfield: I I would say I would be lost in this work without my personal therapist. Because a lot of things trigger things that have nothing to do with work, and so to be able to lean on that once a week. Right? I'm able to say, Hey.

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Renesha Westerfield: I'm having a tough day, and sometimes it's work related. Sometimes it isn't, you know, but to be able to feel safe, and that has been really helpful. You know, therapy is like giving you a new toolbox like you have some tools, but you get a brand new set of tools to do different things, so I'm able to come back and be my best self.

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Renesha Westerfield: And you know I believe in restorative moments, where wherever I can have a moment, where I can let someone know, hey, what you said and what you did impacted me.

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Melinda Lee: No.

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Renesha Westerfield: And I would appreciate blah blah, or whatever the case may be. Has been super important in the vulnerability journey like. That's the tough part

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Renesha Westerfield: when you get hurt.

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Melinda Lee: Hmm, bye.

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Renesha Westerfield: It's easy to be vulnerable about things that happened in the past, but in the moment at work someone hurt you. Someone said something that wasn't kind.

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Renesha Westerfield: It takes a vulnerability, takes vulnerability to turn back and say

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Renesha Westerfield: that. Didn't. That didn't feel good.

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Renesha Westerfield: I didn't like that, and I wish you'd handled it differently.

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Melinda Lee: Right and and.

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Renesha Westerfield: This comes up in the future I would appreciate if you did. XY. And Z. Setting a boundary around how I want to be treated even though I'm Hr. And even though I know everyone wants to kind of come, and you know, beat you up a little bit, it's still got. There's still boundaries around this, and I still have limits. I'm still a person.

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Renesha Westerfield: That has been the biggest chunk of my vulnerability journey, because before I would just say, You know, it's okay. It's fine. I'm not gonna fight. It's not a big deal, and I know it. Is it hurt?

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Renesha Westerfield: And I get to bring that up in a safe space. And that's exactly what I've done. And I've learned a lot out of that. It doesn't mean they're gonna respond with the I'm sorry, and I wish I had done. You know you may not get that. And it's not about that. It's about you advocating for you.

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Melinda Lee: Right, right.

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Renesha Westerfield: Have been injured by something someone did.

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Melinda Lee: Right.

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Renesha Westerfield: You don't get to be the only one walking around with the pain of that.

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Melinda Lee: Right. Folks need to.

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Renesha Westerfield: No, you know.

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Melinda Lee: Right? Right? I love that. Wow! Congratulations on that, too. So it's like, Hey, you did this when you did this. It impacted me like this.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, I appreciate. If you could do. If you could do something else or.

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Renesha Westerfield: Right.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, consider doing Xyz, or can we talk about it?

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Renesha Westerfield: Exactly open up the conversation so that we can learn, because I don't believe there was ill intent. Right? I just don't think they knew that it would hurt me in the way that you know. That's how most of these exchanges go right and so it it did build a little bit of

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Renesha Westerfield: an understanding about who I am and what I expect in how I'm to be treated, and that is powerful for a woman in a leadership position that is powerful for a black woman. Usually we're on the receiving end of all the bad, and we don't get a chance to voice

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Renesha Westerfield: the ways that we've been impacted

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Renesha Westerfield: and and we don't get hurt in it. Mostly we get dismissed. So I've been really trying to

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Renesha Westerfield: use this moment this role to kind of try these things out, because I know leadership will come with its

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Renesha Westerfield: the hard times. So this is a good place to work on that in a safer space. So yeah.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, the leadership does. That's when we stretch ourselves right in the hard times.

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Renesha Westerfield: Yes.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah.

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Renesha Westerfield: See you.

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Melinda Lee: Oh, I love it, Renisha, that was so powerful I learned so much. And this conversation is so important to me. I think that yeah, I think it's in. I think it's important, because we're humans, and especially in our world, with so much misinformation, so much inauthenticity people and filters. And you know, looking. It's like, no, I mean, you know, just like the authenticity. And I can see that I could feel that within you. And so I really appreciate that.

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Renesha Westerfield: Thank you so much.

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Melinda Lee: Conversation. And so I'd like to ask before we leave and end, what is that one leadership, golden takeaway that you'd like the audience to remember.

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Renesha Westerfield: I would say that who you are is enough.

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Renesha Westerfield: and people are looking for that right, whatever you, whoever you are, whatever you've done, that is why you're at that table, and as much as we think that when we become leaders we gotta mimic and be like those before us or those next to us.

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Renesha Westerfield: That's not the case. Someone is looking up to you. Someone is seeing themselves in you. So the more you can demonstrate and

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Renesha Westerfield: project

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Renesha Westerfield: that authentic person. I think that it's for the better. And

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Renesha Westerfield: you know

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Renesha Westerfield: there are ways that that can feel uncomfortable and hard. But the other side of that is.

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Renesha Westerfield: knowing that wherever you go as a leader, you did it on your terms, you did it as you mistakes mistakes, or or you know, wins whatever that looks like. But no one can really take that from you, because it was you the whole time.

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Melinda Lee: And.

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Renesha Westerfield: And you'll. You'll need that as you continue to be a leader, to be reminded of the things you can do just as you with whatever, with all that you have within you.

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Melinda Lee: Right and the whole you right.

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Renesha Westerfield: Yes.

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Melinda Lee: Whole, you not just like parts of you because you're gonna reflect back and think, why did I only show this side of me? There was.

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Renesha Westerfield: Right.

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Melinda Lee: So it's like reflecting back, even if it's people. Shame it or make you feel embarrassed. But at least it's a whole you and it's coming out, because there's.

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Renesha Westerfield: Definitely.

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Melinda Lee: I think there's a lot of strength and growth of accepting parts of us that we want to hide definitely definitely.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah. So being you is enough.

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Renesha Westerfield: This seems pretty simple.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, it's so hard to do. But you know, that's why we come back to this. Podcast. Listen to more tips and tricks to help you elevate and grow your leadership. And so thank you, Renisha.

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Renesha Westerfield: Thank you.

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Melinda Lee: Thank you and audience. Thank you so much for listening until I see you. Next time I'm your sister in flow may prosperity flow to you and through you onto others.

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Melinda Lee: See? You. Thank you.

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Renesha Westerfield: Awesome.