18. Bring Your Cultural Traditions to Work: A Leadership Lab Experiment
As a woman leader operating in a largely male-dominated space, you likely already bring a huge amount of technical expertise and value to your company. But what if I told you that infusing your professional life with personal meaning and cultural traditions that you hold dear could not only energize your workday, but also set you apart as a unique leader?
Many of my corporate clients have definitely resisted the notion of bringing their personal values and culture to work. Maybe you feel the same way, but I’m here to tell you from firsthand experience that infusing these elements with your work is a game-changer for your career trajectory.
Join me this week as I explore how high-achieving women can bring their whole selves to the table by sharing their cultural backgrounds, values, and rituals. You’ll learn how fostering a sense of belonging for yourself and your team inspires others to be authentic and engaged, boosts your leadership presence, and fuels your own sense of purpose.
If you haven’t already, please follow the podcast and leave a rating and review to let me know what you think. I'm creating this show just for you, so I want to know what you would like to hear about in the coming episodes. Find complete instructions here!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
How I infused meaning and culture into my work in the corporate world.
Why infusing work with personal meaning and culture is a game-changer for high-achieving women.
How sharing your unique traditions and values can set you apart as an authentic leader.
The research-backed benefits of cultivating a sense of belonging at work.
Why engaging in meaningful activities aligned with your values is incredibly energizing.
How to take the first step in bringing a cultural aspect or ritual to your workplace.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
If you haven’t already, please follow the podcast and leave a rating and review to let me know what you think. Find complete instructions here!
The Value of Belonging at Work - study by Harvard Business Review
Culture: 4 Keys to Why It Matters - McKinsey & Co.
Full Episode Transcript:
Imagine showing up to work not just as a technical expert, but as someone who brings deep meaning, connection, and cultural understanding to the table. What if embracing your unique traditions, values, and rituals could set you apart as a leader, energize your workday, and inspire those around you.
In this episode, I'll share how high-achieving women can infuse their work with personal meaning and cultural significance, creating a sense of belonging for themselves and their teams, while authentically showing up as the powerful leaders they are.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Welcome podcast listeners. Today we're talking about something that is often overlooked in the hustle to provide value at work. How bringing meaning and culture into your professional life can not only nourish your soul, but also set you apart as a unique leader.
You may already be the technical expert or someone who provides immense value to your company. But what if I told you that creating a sense of meaning and sharing aspects of who you are could also elevate your leadership presence and foster more belonging at work for yourself and others?
I wanted to bring up this episode at this time because I am about to celebrate Lunar New Year or Chinese New Year with my daughter's class and she's about three years old and I just have such a fond memory of my parents coming to my school. I think I was in preschool at the time, and they came and talked about Chinese New Year, and they passed out red envelopes, and they gave out candy, and I grew up in Utah, so there weren't many Asian kids around, and I just had this unique experience of belonging.
When my parents ended up leaving the class that day, the kids were just surrounding me and so excited to know more about me and my culture, and that had never happened to me in my whole life before. I was quite young at the time, and so that tradition has really helped instill in me this sense of pride and belonging and how really transformative sharing culture could be to different places.
So I'm excited this week, I'm gonna go in and read a story and we're gonna do a coloring activity. And I am excited to share this culture with more kids in my daughter's class. But as I thought about this and this episode in particular, I thought about the ways that I have infused meaning and culture into my career.
You know, as I was in the corporate world, one of the things that I loved about being in the corporate world was being the executive sponsor for the Women's Network. And my CEO was a very big champion of this, and so was the head of HR. They really wanted me to create a space for women to show up, to belong, to have connections with each other. And I wasn't really sure what it would be like, but I know for me it was important.
And as I continued being this executive sponsor and bringing in people to help me and support this initiative, I realized that it gave me a lot of meaning. And it actually ended up being part of my brand as my leadership right to empower women and part of this was both doing this on my leadership team and creating initiatives like sponsorship programs and formalizing a lot of this and educating and bringing awareness. But then a big part of it was also being on the ground, talking to other women, creating connections with them. It really gave me a lot of meaning.
It gave me so much meaning that when I would be headhunted for other finance roles, I often thought about the pros and cons. And one of the things that was super surprising to me was one of the reasons I wanted to stay in my company was because of this woman's network, because of the meaning that it had for me and how it helped to fill me up inside and how it really allowed me to feel nourished and be an expert in an area that actually isn't my normal expertise. But for me, it was super important. And I knew it was important to the company as well as they wanted me to lead the way and to get support.
So I want you to think about for yourself, like, your sense of belonging at work, particularly being in male-dominated spaces. I think oftentimes women are, like, really just focused on getting the job done, and they don't spend as much time creating this belonging and this meaning for themselves.
You know, you could almost feel like you're just spending time on the grind and you don't feel nourished, you don't feel that connection, and you don't feel the meaning that really drives women to continue doing the hard things, being in an industry where there's not very many women. This type of activity, focusing on infusing your own personal values, your meaning into work, can have a really significant impact on your career trajectory, both internally giving you energy and excitement and meaning but also externally being known for something that is more than just your technical expertise.
I'll give you some examples as we go through, but let me just share with you just some of the benefits of what this could be like for you and the impact that research has shown that when you belong in a company or in an organization, truly how different it could be for you in showing up, in being able to make that impact.
So, you know, when you bring aspects of your culture, traditions, or values, it really fosters inclusivity and belonging. And it can set you apart as a leader who cares not only about work, but also about the people in the organization. High achieving women are often so focused on doing their job well, that they forget that what makes them unique can be a game changer.
By sharing who you are, your culture, your values, you inspire others to do the same and create a ripple effect of belonging. This can really set you apart. By integrating meaning and culture into your work, you build a unique identity as a leader. And you're not just delivering results, you're inspiring other people to be authentic and engaged.
You know, some examples that I share about this is just even being somebody of, you know, having a different cultural backgrounds, I was able to support our Asian American group at work to basically have a Lunar New Year celebration where all of our leadership team showed up. It just happened to be the time of year where our leadership team was getting together and it coincided with the celebration of Lunar New Year.
And so I had a unique opportunity to not only support the local team to celebrate Lunar New Year, but I also shared with the global team like, hey, they're doing this big thing at the office, we would love for you all to come. And I know we're all coming together, so actually it would work out really great if we came to the office for lunch and to be part of these celebrations.
And it showed to the local team that, you know, this leadership team not only cares about them, but that it matters and they were able to play together. And we had somebody who sang Chinese opera that we didn't even know and it was a way for us to share in the unique talents of the local team. But it also gave people a sense that these rituals, these cultural pieces, this is really about being able to be authentic at work and feeling seen and valued.
Another festival that happened was Diwali and I came in my sari. I had a sari from a wedding that I had gone to, and one of the senior tech leaders came up to me and thanked me for showing up in a sari, for supporting the celebration of it. He said, these things really matter. And I could tell that he himself was very excited and honored for me to be celebrating with them, but also encouraging a lot of other people, a lot of other senior leaders to celebrate and to get to know him in a deeper way and to understand what this important celebration was to them, right?
So for you, you just wanna notice for yourself, are there things that you wanna be celebrating that you could be bringing into your work life that historically you might not think about it, but there is a true nourishment and uplift that you could have by doing this, right? Engaging in meaningful activities that aligns your values and cultures could be incredibly energizing. It allows you to connect what matters to you, making work more meaningful.
Imagine going to work, not just to hit targets, but to create connection through cultural celebrations, women initiatives, or even meaningful rituals. It's like pouring fuel into your own cup. And it not just feels good, but there's a lot of research that says this sense of belonging boosts engagement.
According to the study from the Harvard Business Review, employees who feel a sense of belonging are 50% more productive, 56% more engaged, and 75% less likely to leave the company. So these activities, while sometimes our minds could be like, oh, they're just nice-to-haves or they're just funs, actually result in higher retention of employees. And the sense of belonging that you could be creating by sharing more of your culture, by sharing things that matter to you.
And it doesn't need to just be culture because, you know, some of you out there might be like, well, I don't have like a specific culture that I share, but I'll tell you about one of my clients who I was coaching her to bring more of herself to work. She decided to share with not only her leadership team, but with the global team, her running a marathon where she was getting support for MS. And she had a family member she really cared about, her aunt that she really cared about who had MS. And so it was really important for her to not just run the marathon, but to also fundraise to get research done for MS.
And she was really shy about sharing. First she was like, I don't know, this is really personal to me. And I said, but what better way to share what you're about and what matters to you. And of course she was like, oh, this feels unfamiliar, but she took on the challenge and she actually shared it with her leadership team and she was immensely fueled up by the response. People shared with her personally their stories about people in their life that had rare diseases or MS and she felt really connected to them.
So there was just like the, you know, first level of people wanting to donate for her cause and cheering her on, but there was a second level of even deeper connection and her CEO even reached out to her and talked to her personally about somebody in his life. So this is a way to, again, create belonging, not just for yourself, but for other people, to connect with people.
And it could be a race, it could just be even an activity. I remember when I was in London and we had a very big Australian contingent, and so we had a cookie contest for Anzac Day. I feel like I'm saying that wrong. I was probably saying it wrong, but we made cookies and everybody was involved in this and it was just a sense of belonging.
The other thing that I was thinking about was when I was working in London and when it was the World Cup. Just like the whole, the whole company just came together. We were so excited about the World Cup and the culture and people playing against each other and it was just this big energy.
I'm sure there's things like this also in the US with March Madness and of course we're hitting on Super Bowl season, but this is a way for high-achieving women to also be known and to care about things. And it doesn't need to just be sports related, but I want you to get a sense for how important this actually is to creating belonging for yourself and to connect with other people.
Another study from McKinsey & Co., it reports highlighting the fostering diversity and inclusion, particularly through cultural recognition, leads to more innovation and better business outcomes. So again, not just fluffy stuff, but really allows for this innovation to happen and people excited to share about themselves and their way of thinking and the way that they view their world.
And leaders who bring their whole selves to work, including the cultural and traditions, are more seen as authentic, and they inspire loyalty and trust from their teams, which really links back to that lower attrition, people less likely to leave a company because they feel like there's a place for them to belong. It's special there. There's something that is being created there that's not just easily created in a new company.
So you want to notice those things for yourself because this is really a way to allow yourself to shine, to be known, and to engage in this way with other people. And oftentimes, like I shared with women in high achieving roles, you could feel like you're so focused on just getting the job done that people don't know your personality. People feel like it's hard to trust you or to have a rapport with you because they know you as Sarah, the financial expert, and not Sarah, the person who is running a race for her aunt who has MS and who cares deeply about her community. Like, they're just this different sense of it.
So as you create more belonging and connection for yourself, other people are also joining into that. And here are just some things that you could do. And I want you to start small. This is also, I'm infusing The Leadership Lab component into this too, as you think about ways that you could be celebrating your traditions at work or that you could be sharing more about what matters to you.
There could be simple things like a book club if you're really passionate about a book that you want to read. It could be to participate in a employee resource group that calls to you that you're passionate about. I have another client who is really passionate about neurodivergent thinking and she wants to bring more of this to her workplace and to share more openly about her own struggles being somebody who is neurodivergent.
And so she just started to create a group around this where they meet and they talk about it and they're also working on educating other people on this because as you know this topic becomes bigger and bigger there's people who have kids that are neurodivergent and they want to be able to connect with other people. So this is again, a different way of bringing some of these personal aspects of yourself to work in a way that creates that belonging and connection with other people.
So here's a simple challenge for you this week. Think of one cultural aspect or meaningful ritual that you want to share with people at work. Maybe it's suggesting a celebration for a cultural event or starting a conversation about a new tradition. Take a step out of your comfort zone and share a piece of who you are. Notice how it feels to bring more of yourself to the table. How do people respond? Do you feel more connected to your work?
So again, there's so many different ideas, but just have a little brainstorm with yourself and think about what it could be like. It could be something even as simple as a chili making contest. Like they don't need to be so deep or so, you know, complicated. It can be something very simple that you care about, but that could also be fun for people to join in with you to do, right? Inviting people into the space of doing that with you.
And I wanna share that if you feel a little fear about doing this new activity, and this process feels really unfamiliar, I want you to know that you are at the right place. When we start sharing more about ourselves and when I started taking a stand and saying what I wanted to do, even with my leadership team, right? There's always this fear that potentially I'll get rejected or people won't want to do it. But I also got to say for myself, like, this is important to me. I care about this and I think this is why it would be impactful for the people locally. You know, like when I had shared about joining our local team for a Lunar New Year celebration. And of course, my leader, my CEO was like, let's do it. This is going to be fun.
We have a huge population of Asian Americans in our group and we would love to support this and it sounds like a lot of fun. So I want you to know that, you know, it can feel unfamiliar, but try it out. This is your Leadership Lab test and see how your energy is and how fulfilled you feel as you share these things and as you create more meaning and belonging for yourself at work.
Okay, and a final thought is infusing your life and work with meaning is not only adding joy and fulfillment to yourself, but it's also creating environments where people feel they can belong and can thrive. You have the power to start this. I encourage you to take that first step today. And if you want more support or ideas on how you could do this, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. Let's have a conversation about how you can show up more fully, confidently, and meaningfully at work by sharing things that matter to you, your culture, your rituals.
There are so many ideas out there and this could just be a really great way to start sparking belonging for yourself and other people, especially in male-dominated spaces. This is where we start breaking down the barriers of men versus women and we start connecting with each other as human beings in a world where there's a lot of different cultures and there's a lot of meaning that can be placed on doing activities that are outside of work but really have a powerful impact inside of work and in those relationships.
Okay, that is the episode for today. Go out and try it on and see what works, see how it is impacting you and your organization and see what new conversations it generates for you as you bring more and more of yourself to work.
All right, have a great week ahead. We have a really powerful episode next week and I can't wait to see you in a week to talk about it. All right, take care, bye.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
In this episode, I'll share how high-achieving women can infuse their work with personal meaning and cultural significance, creating a sense of belonging for themselves and their teams, while authentically showing up as the powerful leaders they are.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Welcome podcast listeners. Today we're talking about something that is often overlooked in the hustle to provide value at work. How bringing meaning and culture into your professional life can not only nourish your soul, but also set you apart as a unique leader.
You may already be the technical expert or someone who provides immense value to your company. But what if I told you that creating a sense of meaning and sharing aspects of who you are could also elevate your leadership presence and foster more belonging at work for yourself and others?
I wanted to bring up this episode at this time because I am about to celebrate Lunar New Year or Chinese New Year with my daughter's class and she's about three years old and I just have such a fond memory of my parents coming to my school. I think I was in preschool at the time, and they came and talked about Chinese New Year, and they passed out red envelopes, and they gave out candy, and I grew up in Utah, so there weren't many Asian kids around, and I just had this unique experience of belonging.
When my parents ended up leaving the class that day, the kids were just surrounding me and so excited to know more about me and my culture, and that had never happened to me in my whole life before. I was quite young at the time, and so that tradition has really helped instill in me this sense of pride and belonging and how really transformative sharing culture could be to different places.
So I'm excited this week, I'm gonna go in and read a story and we're gonna do a coloring activity. And I am excited to share this culture with more kids in my daughter's class. But as I thought about this and this episode in particular, I thought about the ways that I have infused meaning and culture into my career.
You know, as I was in the corporate world, one of the things that I loved about being in the corporate world was being the executive sponsor for the Women's Network. And my CEO was a very big champion of this, and so was the head of HR. They really wanted me to create a space for women to show up, to belong, to have connections with each other. And I wasn't really sure what it would be like, but I know for me it was important.
And as I continued being this executive sponsor and bringing in people to help me and support this initiative, I realized that it gave me a lot of meaning. And it actually ended up being part of my brand as my leadership right to empower women and part of this was both doing this on my leadership team and creating initiatives like sponsorship programs and formalizing a lot of this and educating and bringing awareness. But then a big part of it was also being on the ground, talking to other women, creating connections with them. It really gave me a lot of meaning.
It gave me so much meaning that when I would be headhunted for other finance roles, I often thought about the pros and cons. And one of the things that was super surprising to me was one of the reasons I wanted to stay in my company was because of this woman's network, because of the meaning that it had for me and how it helped to fill me up inside and how it really allowed me to feel nourished and be an expert in an area that actually isn't my normal expertise. But for me, it was super important. And I knew it was important to the company as well as they wanted me to lead the way and to get support.
So I want you to think about for yourself, like, your sense of belonging at work, particularly being in male-dominated spaces. I think oftentimes women are, like, really just focused on getting the job done, and they don't spend as much time creating this belonging and this meaning for themselves.
You know, you could almost feel like you're just spending time on the grind and you don't feel nourished, you don't feel that connection, and you don't feel the meaning that really drives women to continue doing the hard things, being in an industry where there's not very many women. This type of activity, focusing on infusing your own personal values, your meaning into work, can have a really significant impact on your career trajectory, both internally giving you energy and excitement and meaning but also externally being known for something that is more than just your technical expertise.
I'll give you some examples as we go through, but let me just share with you just some of the benefits of what this could be like for you and the impact that research has shown that when you belong in a company or in an organization, truly how different it could be for you in showing up, in being able to make that impact.
So, you know, when you bring aspects of your culture, traditions, or values, it really fosters inclusivity and belonging. And it can set you apart as a leader who cares not only about work, but also about the people in the organization. High achieving women are often so focused on doing their job well, that they forget that what makes them unique can be a game changer.
By sharing who you are, your culture, your values, you inspire others to do the same and create a ripple effect of belonging. This can really set you apart. By integrating meaning and culture into your work, you build a unique identity as a leader. And you're not just delivering results, you're inspiring other people to be authentic and engaged.
You know, some examples that I share about this is just even being somebody of, you know, having a different cultural backgrounds, I was able to support our Asian American group at work to basically have a Lunar New Year celebration where all of our leadership team showed up. It just happened to be the time of year where our leadership team was getting together and it coincided with the celebration of Lunar New Year.
And so I had a unique opportunity to not only support the local team to celebrate Lunar New Year, but I also shared with the global team like, hey, they're doing this big thing at the office, we would love for you all to come. And I know we're all coming together, so actually it would work out really great if we came to the office for lunch and to be part of these celebrations.
And it showed to the local team that, you know, this leadership team not only cares about them, but that it matters and they were able to play together. And we had somebody who sang Chinese opera that we didn't even know and it was a way for us to share in the unique talents of the local team. But it also gave people a sense that these rituals, these cultural pieces, this is really about being able to be authentic at work and feeling seen and valued.
Another festival that happened was Diwali and I came in my sari. I had a sari from a wedding that I had gone to, and one of the senior tech leaders came up to me and thanked me for showing up in a sari, for supporting the celebration of it. He said, these things really matter. And I could tell that he himself was very excited and honored for me to be celebrating with them, but also encouraging a lot of other people, a lot of other senior leaders to celebrate and to get to know him in a deeper way and to understand what this important celebration was to them, right?
So for you, you just wanna notice for yourself, are there things that you wanna be celebrating that you could be bringing into your work life that historically you might not think about it, but there is a true nourishment and uplift that you could have by doing this, right? Engaging in meaningful activities that aligns your values and cultures could be incredibly energizing. It allows you to connect what matters to you, making work more meaningful.
Imagine going to work, not just to hit targets, but to create connection through cultural celebrations, women initiatives, or even meaningful rituals. It's like pouring fuel into your own cup. And it not just feels good, but there's a lot of research that says this sense of belonging boosts engagement.
According to the study from the Harvard Business Review, employees who feel a sense of belonging are 50% more productive, 56% more engaged, and 75% less likely to leave the company. So these activities, while sometimes our minds could be like, oh, they're just nice-to-haves or they're just funs, actually result in higher retention of employees. And the sense of belonging that you could be creating by sharing more of your culture, by sharing things that matter to you.
And it doesn't need to just be culture because, you know, some of you out there might be like, well, I don't have like a specific culture that I share, but I'll tell you about one of my clients who I was coaching her to bring more of herself to work. She decided to share with not only her leadership team, but with the global team, her running a marathon where she was getting support for MS. And she had a family member she really cared about, her aunt that she really cared about who had MS. And so it was really important for her to not just run the marathon, but to also fundraise to get research done for MS.
And she was really shy about sharing. First she was like, I don't know, this is really personal to me. And I said, but what better way to share what you're about and what matters to you. And of course she was like, oh, this feels unfamiliar, but she took on the challenge and she actually shared it with her leadership team and she was immensely fueled up by the response. People shared with her personally their stories about people in their life that had rare diseases or MS and she felt really connected to them.
So there was just like the, you know, first level of people wanting to donate for her cause and cheering her on, but there was a second level of even deeper connection and her CEO even reached out to her and talked to her personally about somebody in his life. So this is a way to, again, create belonging, not just for yourself, but for other people, to connect with people.
And it could be a race, it could just be even an activity. I remember when I was in London and we had a very big Australian contingent, and so we had a cookie contest for Anzac Day. I feel like I'm saying that wrong. I was probably saying it wrong, but we made cookies and everybody was involved in this and it was just a sense of belonging.
The other thing that I was thinking about was when I was working in London and when it was the World Cup. Just like the whole, the whole company just came together. We were so excited about the World Cup and the culture and people playing against each other and it was just this big energy.
I'm sure there's things like this also in the US with March Madness and of course we're hitting on Super Bowl season, but this is a way for high-achieving women to also be known and to care about things. And it doesn't need to just be sports related, but I want you to get a sense for how important this actually is to creating belonging for yourself and to connect with other people.
Another study from McKinsey & Co., it reports highlighting the fostering diversity and inclusion, particularly through cultural recognition, leads to more innovation and better business outcomes. So again, not just fluffy stuff, but really allows for this innovation to happen and people excited to share about themselves and their way of thinking and the way that they view their world.
And leaders who bring their whole selves to work, including the cultural and traditions, are more seen as authentic, and they inspire loyalty and trust from their teams, which really links back to that lower attrition, people less likely to leave a company because they feel like there's a place for them to belong. It's special there. There's something that is being created there that's not just easily created in a new company.
So you want to notice those things for yourself because this is really a way to allow yourself to shine, to be known, and to engage in this way with other people. And oftentimes, like I shared with women in high achieving roles, you could feel like you're so focused on just getting the job done that people don't know your personality. People feel like it's hard to trust you or to have a rapport with you because they know you as Sarah, the financial expert, and not Sarah, the person who is running a race for her aunt who has MS and who cares deeply about her community. Like, they're just this different sense of it.
So as you create more belonging and connection for yourself, other people are also joining into that. And here are just some things that you could do. And I want you to start small. This is also, I'm infusing The Leadership Lab component into this too, as you think about ways that you could be celebrating your traditions at work or that you could be sharing more about what matters to you.
There could be simple things like a book club if you're really passionate about a book that you want to read. It could be to participate in a employee resource group that calls to you that you're passionate about. I have another client who is really passionate about neurodivergent thinking and she wants to bring more of this to her workplace and to share more openly about her own struggles being somebody who is neurodivergent.
And so she just started to create a group around this where they meet and they talk about it and they're also working on educating other people on this because as you know this topic becomes bigger and bigger there's people who have kids that are neurodivergent and they want to be able to connect with other people. So this is again, a different way of bringing some of these personal aspects of yourself to work in a way that creates that belonging and connection with other people.
So here's a simple challenge for you this week. Think of one cultural aspect or meaningful ritual that you want to share with people at work. Maybe it's suggesting a celebration for a cultural event or starting a conversation about a new tradition. Take a step out of your comfort zone and share a piece of who you are. Notice how it feels to bring more of yourself to the table. How do people respond? Do you feel more connected to your work?
So again, there's so many different ideas, but just have a little brainstorm with yourself and think about what it could be like. It could be something even as simple as a chili making contest. Like they don't need to be so deep or so, you know, complicated. It can be something very simple that you care about, but that could also be fun for people to join in with you to do, right? Inviting people into the space of doing that with you.
And I wanna share that if you feel a little fear about doing this new activity, and this process feels really unfamiliar, I want you to know that you are at the right place. When we start sharing more about ourselves and when I started taking a stand and saying what I wanted to do, even with my leadership team, right? There's always this fear that potentially I'll get rejected or people won't want to do it. But I also got to say for myself, like, this is important to me. I care about this and I think this is why it would be impactful for the people locally. You know, like when I had shared about joining our local team for a Lunar New Year celebration. And of course, my leader, my CEO was like, let's do it. This is going to be fun.
We have a huge population of Asian Americans in our group and we would love to support this and it sounds like a lot of fun. So I want you to know that, you know, it can feel unfamiliar, but try it out. This is your Leadership Lab test and see how your energy is and how fulfilled you feel as you share these things and as you create more meaning and belonging for yourself at work.
Okay, and a final thought is infusing your life and work with meaning is not only adding joy and fulfillment to yourself, but it's also creating environments where people feel they can belong and can thrive. You have the power to start this. I encourage you to take that first step today. And if you want more support or ideas on how you could do this, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. Let's have a conversation about how you can show up more fully, confidently, and meaningfully at work by sharing things that matter to you, your culture, your rituals.
There are so many ideas out there and this could just be a really great way to start sparking belonging for yourself and other people, especially in male-dominated spaces. This is where we start breaking down the barriers of men versus women and we start connecting with each other as human beings in a world where there's a lot of different cultures and there's a lot of meaning that can be placed on doing activities that are outside of work but really have a powerful impact inside of work and in those relationships.
Okay, that is the episode for today. Go out and try it on and see what works, see how it is impacting you and your organization and see what new conversations it generates for you as you bring more and more of yourself to work.
All right, have a great week ahead. We have a really powerful episode next week and I can't wait to see you in a week to talk about it. All right, take care, bye.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
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