Let's discuss what it means to teach people how to treat you. You can't go out into the world expecting people to understand how you specifically need to be treated. This especially holds true when you are in a leadership position because your time and energy have to be optimized. In this episode, I challenge you to answer this question: "How do you want to be treated?" I want you to identify what matters to you regarding your treatment as a leader.  It's okay to feel hesitation or confusion about this. As a woman in leadership, or as a woman of color in leadership, you desire to lead a team in a way that's different from what you've experienced in your past roles. You want equity. You want your team to feel heard and supported. But a big part of leadership has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with you getting clear on what you need and what your expectations are. So we must learn how to shift back and forth between being open-minded or collaborative and being very specific and directive about what we want our team to do or not do. This starts with learning how to articulate what you need from your team as a leader. We need to assert what we want in life. Unfortunately, that is a skill that most women of color are grossly inexperienced in. Ask for help. Engage with a coach. Because making this a priority will drastically change how you feel and move as a leader.  GEMS DROPPED “You have to train people for how you want to be treated. You can't go out into the world expecting people to understand how you specifically need to be treated. …this holds especially true when you're in a position of leadership because your time and your energy have to be so well optimized. It's critical that the folks who say they're on the team with you, the folks that you hire, the folks that you're engaging with day to day to get things done towards your mission, towards the vision of your business, they need to know how to … best leverage you and how to best set you up for success because by setting you up for success as the leader, they set themselves and the entire organization up for success…we as women of color are particularly untrained in how to do this… it's really uncomfortable for us”. “As a leader, it can feel like this dichotomy of either I am democratic, or I am a dictator… Either I am someone who is a doormat or I am a big boss, ‘shut it down. Shut up. I don't care what you have to say,’ right? Like, this false dichotomy, right? Y'all know, and whenever I talk about dichotomies, they're not real. There are always tons of shades of gray in between, there are so many different options and nuances in between and ways that we can be with our leadership… being a strong leader, getting things done, and getting what we need out of our teams without having to occupy either of those polarizing states”.  As women of color, we are grossly under-resourced and under-leveraged. And so when you've positioned yourself to be in a leadership role, and then all of a sudden, it's like, here I go, again, I'm getting that feeling of being under-resourced …it’s like we're being re-triggered…just more evidence …, in our minds that I don't deserve to be here, I'm not equipped… Because we've been hearing these messages forever in our careers, in our lives, and in the broader media. …our absence in these spaces, in these places of leadership in these places of like well-resourced, well-funded, you know, our absence says it all.” STAY IN TOUCH Come and follow me on Instagram @moniquershields and I would love your feedback so send an email to [email protected].