Making Corporate Leadership Human with Ginny Clarke

We invite our friend, Ginny Clarke, to Hacker Valley this week to talk about conscious leadership and self-awareness as a way to take our organizations to the next level. Using her prior experience at tech giants like Google and her five dimensions of leadership, Ginny explains how we can better hold the leaders in our lives accountable, what will benefit our civilization the most for future generations in the workplace, and where we should focus our efforts for diversity, equity, and inclusion.   Timecoded Guide: [05:34] Losing her parents at a young age, connecting to a spiritual guide to cope with grief and stress, and getting back in touch with ourselves in order to connect with others [12:03] Seeing and validating the past experiences of our fellow humans, healing ourselves in order to heal organizations, and acknowledging the role of mental health in the health of our companies [16:34] Understanding diversity, equity, and inclusion beyond just hiring, and stopping yourself from waiting for an organization to step up to an opportunity that belongs to underrepresented communities [22:38] Shifting the metrics of how we value organizations and leadership, and seeing where the accountability issues of CEOs for what they really are [27:48] Leaving a legacy through creativity and inspiring others to recognize how they have the power to change the world Sponsor Links: Thank you to our sponsors Axonius and Uptycs for bringing this episode to life! Life is complex. But it’s not about avoiding challenges or fearing failure. Just ask Simone Biles — the greatest gymnast of all time. Want to learn more about how Simone controls complexity? Watch her video at axonius.com/simone. With Uptycs, modern defenders can prioritize, investigate and respond to threats across the entire attack surface—all from a common solution: uptycs.com.    How do we move current leadership statistics to something much healthier? With a depth of experience in recruiting executive leaders in a variety of organizations, Ginny shares a striking and horrifying statistic with us: 18% of leaders are considered good. Only 18% feels incredibly low, especially when a large portion of companies claims to hire the best leaders based on pedigree-level qualifications. In Ginny’s opinion, leaders are not held to a high enough standard in the workplace, and aren’t measured on their performance beyond basic financials. With so much more at stake, Ginny warns that companies are only as strong as their leaders, and are even weaker when they never hold those leaders accountable. “That’s why we have organizations that are, I dare say, quite fragile. It’s because of the lack of leadership. They might have a lot of money, they might have really intelligent, well-educated people, but to the extent, those organizations don't have actual leaders for whom they are holding accountable for their leadership competencies.”   How do we show up better for others and really see the whole human? We cannot improve our society as long as we continue to see ourselves as completely separate from it. This, among other world-changing views, guides Ginny towards seeing people beyond just their outward appearance, viewing them as a whole human, composed of all of their experiences. There is so much fear, anxiety, and bias, especially in the world of hiring and recruiting, and Ginny hopes to show up better for others through better accountability for our leaders and a stronger connection to ourselves. “We, as a civilization, can't fix it as long as we're seeing it as separate from ourselves. So, that's where the self-love comes from, and the support and the sharing and the non-dualistic orientation, which defies everything about tech, right? Tech is all about the binary, the ones and zeros, and here, I'm talking about something that is far more inclusive than that.”   What have you learned from this big effort that we have going on with diversity, equity, and inclusion? Ginny, much like man