Building Self-Sufficient Teams
- Kim Meninger
- Dec 30, 2025
- 18 min read
In this episode of The Impostor Syndrome Files, we explore what it takes to create teams that are not only high-performing but also deeply connected and resilient, especially in today’s fast-changing workplace. My guest this week is Daria Rudnik, a former Chief People Officer turned leadership consultant, who draws on her experience leading tech and telecom companies to help organizations transform how they lead and collaborate.
Daria shares her personal journey from being the only woman in the C-suite to becoming a champion for better workplaces. Together, we dive into why most teams today aren’t true teams at all and how that’s costing us in engagement, performance and well-being. She shares practical strategies to reduce leader overload, strengthen peer-to-peer connections and build teams that can thrive even amid uncertainty, remote work and AI integration.
About My Guest
Daria Rudnik is a Team Architect and Executive Leadership Coach, author of CLICKING: A Team Building Strategy for Overloaded Leaders Who Want Stronger Team Trust, Better Results, and More Time, and co-author of The AI Revolution: Thriving Within Civilization’s Next Big Disruption. A former Chief People Officer and ex-Deloitte professional, she brings over 15 years of international executive experience in tech and telecom.
Having lived in three countries and worked with clients across six continents, Daria has helped leaders and organizations navigate global financial crises, wars, and the COVID-19 pandemic. For the past five years, she has focused on helping busy leaders escape work overload by building self-sufficient, high-trust teams. She does this through a mix of team and leadership coaching, organizational consulting, assessments, and an AI-powered coach she developed.
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Connect with Daria:
Website: https://dariarudnik.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dariarudnik/
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Transcript
Kim Meninger
Kim, welcome Daria. It's so great to have you here today. I'd love to start by inviting you to tell us a little bit about yourself.
Daria Rudnik
Well, thank you, Kim. It's a great pleasure to be here, and I'm again, I love the topic of your show and how you focus on, like, the imposter syndrome, because, I mean, I know how it feels. My career started in Deloitte. I started in Deloitte, which is a pretty competitive place, but it was a good company. But then I grew like I was grown into Chief People Officer for mostly tech and telecom companies, and at some point I found myself being the only woman in the room, like sitting with the CTO, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Commercial Officer, I see you. All of them are mad. I was like, okay, and I was pretty young. At that age, I was 30-something, so I do feel like what most of my clients feel as well, both people, like men and women, that it's like, what am I doing here? All of those people are so smart and like, how can be among them? Why would they listen to me? And if I have some idea, how do I make them? Like, take me seriously. So that really resonates with me. I had this history, and then over time, like, there were more and more women in the C suite when I was working, but a few years ago, I quit my corporate career and focused what I can do and love doing best, which is helping leaders build amazing teams and helping leaders feel well at the workplace. Because I will I believe we deserve better workplaces. We spend so much time at work, so I want people to feel good there, and you can do that by developing yourself as a leader, by building strong, amazing teams, and so that everyone, well, at least within your area, within your reach, can feel better at work.
Kim Meninger
That’s so inspiring. I can't wait to dig into that a little bit, but I want, I want to back up just for a moment, because I think what you're describing is very familiar, whether we've been in the C suite or just been on teams that have been primarily male, and so being that only woman on the team is it can be a really uncomfortable position. I wonder if you could share a little bit about what was internal versus what was external, right? So, did you feel like you were made to feel different on this team? Did they treat you any differently as a woman? Did you feel, you know, that there wasn't enough safety, or how much of the experience was sort of coming from within, and the stories you were telling yourself and some of the doubt that you were experiencing?
Daria Rudnik
Well, that's, that's not an easy question, because, like, how do you, how do you differentiate what's with? Let's what's internal, what's external. Because when you, when you see and experience something like, is it something that I see because I, like, I feel myself that way, or is it something that I see because it's, it's really what's happening? I was, I mean, I tell the truth. I'm very lucky person. I worked for amazing companies with great cultures where people treated each other with respect. So there were, there was never intentional judgment or kind of diminishing my words or anything else. I was treated fairly however. We've been raised in cultures where men make decisions, where men rule, organizations, companies, countries, lots of things. And that there were things like, it's good for you, even that you woman, it's good for you, like, even that you woman, that was a good idea. They, they were really, well, intentional. I mean, they didn't mean anything bad, but they kind of, when I don't want to say, show me my place, but they kind of show me that I'm not the same level. So again, it's cultural and internal. However, people were like, really nice. They were really, like, treated me fairly to, to extend like, how they could.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, no, I appreciate that, because, you know, everybody is part of a different organizational culture, and some are a little bit more overtly toxic, right? Others, it's more as you're describing. We have been conditioned socially to behave differently by gender, and I can remember sitting in meetings with lots of men, and one of them would swear, and then they would all look at me and be like, sorry, Kim. And I would I'd be mortified because a right, they were treating me like I was fragile, but also because it. Just reinforced this idea that I was different from them and that they were censoring themselves because I was in the room and it was all well intentioned. They thought that they were just being respectful and doing so, but didn't realize that they are actually like pushing on that vulnerability even more. So talk a little bit about your transition out of those environments, and you mentioned your mission. I'd love to hear even just what it felt like to go from working in an established structure to now starting your own business.
Daria Rudnik
Well, I always wanted to do that, like when I was on my maternity leave. I took a kind of a long maternity leave, one child and another child, and I studied my business there. It was a small project, but still it was fun to run it together with raising two small children. But still it was fun. But when you when you receive an offer and someone says, Hey, come work with me. It was your regular paycheck, it's very hard to say no. So my transition to running my own business, to start my own consulting company, is when I moved from Moscow to Israel. I'm originally from Moscow, Russia, and I moved to Israel about like, three and a half years ago. When you make this transition, when you make this move, lots, I mean, everything's changes, like, it's all just locations, locations, language, it's culture. And okay, well, I'll make this change. I'll make just I'll make another change, and I'll start what I wanted to do for a pretty long time, yeah, which is helping, helping people feel well at work and helping leaders build teams that feel well and perform well at work.
Kim Meninger
Well, that's a lot of change. Like you said, I mean, lots of dimensions of change at once. And, did you experience any self-doubt along the way? Did you experience any imposter syndrome making this kind of a shift?
Daria Rudnik
Well, the good thing is that when you sort of kind of forced into that so it wasn't like the truth. Okay, now I'm, I'm a solopreneur. Now I'm running my business, but when you force it will, you have nothing else to do but just go forward and do whatever you have to do to survive. And so it's kind of a good thing. That's true. You're right, like, you don't have much time to think about it or overthink. Yeah, it's like having it's like having a baby. When you have a baby, I mean, there's no other way but just survive and raise them.
Kim Meninger
That’s right, you just got to get, go through it, right? So tell me more about your vision. And I'm, I'm curious about when you say better teams and you know what you're trying to improve? What? What are you, what problems are you specifically trying to solve?
Daria Rudnik
Well, the way we run organizations nowadays is, is so much outdated when we run it as if it was a Ford, like a Ford company, where you have conveyor and you have lots of workers doing the same thing all like every day in now, in our world, everything is changing. There's so many changes. The technology is emerging this AI, the rewards. There's economic downturns, lots of things happening. Demands are huge, and demands, and mostly, most of those demands, lie on leaders who run like who manage teams, and those leaders are expected to motivate their teams, to engage their teams, to, to like show amazing results, to perform, to satisfy their customers, to satisfy the stakeholders, lots of things they expected to deliver. And it, they just can't. No human being can do that, but what you have is you have a group of people that work together towards the same goal, a team. While most teams and organizations are not real teams, they're just groups of people working together. Manager tells them what to do when you make them a real team, when they can collaborate, when they collectively make decisions, where they share this burden of like rapid changes and multiple demands, that when leaders become more free, they become less overloaded. They can focus on strategy. They can focus on relationship building. They can focus on building this team, and teams can manage stakeholders themselves. They don't have leader to go to every stakeholder and speak for them. They can manage their own mistakes. They can learn from their mistakes. So what when teams become more self-sufficient and more autonomous and more self-managed, they can create better results and they leave more time for managers to like for strategy and relationship building and. And in coaching people. So that's my fundamental belief, is that we need more like strong team working organizations. And I mean, I've seen that when, when you have a strong team organization, can increase performance three or four times, and how, because those teams are more ready for change. So when I was leading, change. It was a major change in the organization that I mentioned before that had amazing culture, that had great team spirit. We managed to do that and increase performance three and a half times. So we did produce three and a half times more products than we used to, because we restructured organization, and this restructure was successful only because we collaboratively made decisions. Everyone was involved, everyone understood the role. Everyone provided feedback, and like every feedback was heard. So it's both beneficial for the performance and for people's wellbeing who are really, really engaged in making those change.
Kim Meninger
So I could, I love what you're saying, and would love to see more of that. What needs to change at the system level in order for that to happen? What are what are we getting wrong today?
Daria Rudnik
Well, the most, the biggest mistake I see leaders are doing is, again, I'm biased, because I work with leaders who want change, who want good things. So it means that every like most of the leaders I see, are those who are well, intentional. They want to grow their teams, they want to support their teams. And the mistake that they're all, of like most of them are making is that they, they taking too much. They having a lot of one-to-one conversations with every team member, which is good. But what they're not doing is they're not connecting team members with each other so that they can solve their problems first and then come to manager for the final my conclusion, decisions, support or whatever, and what they also creating, especially that's important for remote teams, is when you have too many one to ones, you kind of create this one connection, employee manager, team member manager, but you lacking many connections that this person could have if they were connected to other team members. So instead of like one connection with the manager. You the manager should connect them with each other, and those, this person has eight connections, or six connections, depending how many people are there on the team. And when they are more connected, they can solve problems better. They feel better because they have many people they can talk to. And again, they, they let managers focus on strategy and coaching and other stuff. So that's the mistake. They take too much. They, they solve problems for their people without letting them make their own mistakes. I want to share a story, yeah, and that's another story about the cyber-security lead in one of the companies I was working for, and she was again, she was very well intentioned. She wanted to support their team members. She wanted to put she wanted to protect them. She wanted to protect them from, from problems, from mistakes that they were making, from negative feedback, from difficult conversations with stakeholders. So she was the, the only person, basically, who was talking to various people in the organization, getting feedback, understanding the goals, like taking the blame for the mistakes, and the team members, they were just working together, but at some point they started to feel disengaged, and they were losing motivation. And we saw that through the engagement survey, and she was wondering, why, like I'm, I'm doing so much to protect them, I'm doing so much to help them. Why are they feeling so bad? But when we looked at the like the connection that she has and connections that they have, like she was connected to the whole organization, while they were connected only to themselves, and they, they felt isolated, lonely, and they didn't see the how they were contributed to the goals of the organization. So when she switched, when she changed that setting, and she like connected team members with various stakeholders, so that they are going out to them. They present in their results again, they're responsible for their mistakes. They became more engaged because they had the meaning. Like, we're doing our work for those people. And I know those people, I can talk to those people, I have, I have connections with them. So I my work has meaning, and that changed everything.
Kim Meninger
Hmm, it's so powerful what you're describing. And I think it's, it sounds so simple, but it's hard for there. I feel like there are logistical challenges, but there are also mindset challenges that come with making the kind of transition that you're talking about, right? Because you're also, every manager is different, right? Every manager has a different i. Um experience with developments and preparing them for that role. And a lot of managers really do see their roles as I need to know everything that's going on. I need to have my hands deep in the work, right? And you're describing a manager who has the ability to be more hands off, because the team is more autonomous. You trust them to do the work. They've got other resources to rely on, not just you, which frees up your time to do these other things. But if you can't make that break, then this isn't going to happen.
Daria Rudnik
And I'll tell you, like, what's what will happen if, if you don't make that change, AI will come for you. The interesting thing there was a research like this about, like, what kind of roles can be replaced by AI, and it was the research of software developers teams. What they found out is, obviously yes, AI can help developers, like write, like, create code. But what they also found out is AI is perfectly capable of project managing those teams, like delegate, setting tasks, controlling those tasks, setting deadlines, controlling them, everything that traditional manager within the traditional managerial cycle would do AI can do that better than that, because they don't forget anything. So unless you, unless you change that, unless you change your behavior and let teams or AI or whoever like do that for you, you will be replaced by, by the AI the next era, yeah, the next few years.
Kim Meninger
That’s another interesting angle on this conversation as well. Is, what can a human leader do that differentiates them from Ai, because that is certainly the direction that we're, we're headed in.
Daria Rudnik
Well, the role of leaders are now even, again, even more important than ever, because it's not just a leaders need to implement AI with, with like with the teamwork. Because when companies are implementing AI, everyone, most people trying AI, using AI, so it's not a problem. The problem is how we use AI and where we should never use AI. And I was working with the team, and they it was a customer success team, and again, they used AI for, for many things. They, they had conversations with clients. They were transcribed. Then they took those transcripts from the conversation, uploaded to AI, got some insights, uploaded them to CRM, while preparing for the next Conversations, took those inputs from the CRM, had conversation with clients, but with that they, they again, they lost engagement, and they lost of sensing like the feeling of I'm making like my work makes sense. I'm not just something who works with gives input to AI and then takes output from AI to put it in some other system. I'm not an like operator, like, why am I here? And they also tend to forget things because they haven't generated those insights. They haven't like, they read them. But when you like, when you're not thinking it through, when you're not critically evaluating it and kind of processing it, it's not yours, it's someone else's, and it's hard to be engaged with the result of that work. So what leader? And like I was coaching the leader, and what we did with her is actually trained people to collectively discuss AI outputs, because it's it might be hard to do it alone on your own, but when you get together as a team, and so having those meaningful conversations, well, first of all, you get better results because you now understand the output. You now have them, that you own them, and the second, they started to talk more. And it's always a good thing when you talk to people and you build relationship like through those conversations. So that would leaders need to be mindful is teaching teams how to use AI, right? And like, when you're not supposed to use AI, like, you should never use AI to fire people. And, I mean, we've seen that. I saw this. It was a post on LinkedIn when the senior manager was writing, hey, we're laying off multiple, like, lots of people. Here was an AI tool you can talk to, to feel better.
Kim Meninger
Oh, my goodness. Oh, goodness. Yeah. Well, I mean, I love the way that you're describing it, and I wonder. I feel like we're at this point, and maybe it's always been this way, but it just feels like people feel busier now than ever before, and so it almost feels like, Yeah, I'd love to do what you're saying, but I don't have time, right? I've got so much work to do. And the, you know, the day never stops, and everyone else is so busy, even if I'm not busy, I don't have my team doesn't have the bandwidth for this. So what do you say to that argument?
Daria Rudnik
I love that question. It's it reminds me of a picture, like people pushing the cart with square wheels and saying, why? Don't have time to change? Yes, but again, I'll tell you a story. It's a story of a retail manager was like a very big retail store. One she, she was new in the role, and again, she was very, very busy. She wanted to help the team. And at some point she realized, I mean, I mean, I can't, I can't do it all. So what she did, she blocked time on her calendar for strategic thinking because she had to plan for the next year. And she said, I'm unavailable on that time, so I'm available after that, but I need to plan the strategy for the next year. I'm not available. And what happens? Wow, team members can't talk to each other. They can solve problems. It didn't happen overnight, but she encouraged that. That behavior. She told them, you can solve problems. She told them they had meetings together, and eventually they learned how to do that because, well, they were now on their own. Like again, it's like raising kids. When you say, I don't have time to cook dinner for you. Just go figure it out. They will.
Kim Meninger
That's such a good point that just reminds me like this. I have this random memory of following my mom around and saying, Can you tie this for me? Can you tie, like a bow, like a shoelace or something? I was like, Can you tie this from she's like, I'm really busy. And finally, I was like, I'll just do it myself. And that's how I learned to tie it done asking. And I think that's true. Like, if you leave people to figure things out on their own, they will. And like you said before, there's this way in which we might feel pressure or obligation to protect our people, but you're not protecting them. What you're doing is you're stunting their growth. You're keeping them from developing the skills that will allow them to do their job more confidently. And someday you might want to get promoted, and who's going to step into your shoes if you haven't prepared anybody for that role?
Daria Rudnik
Yes, true.
Kim Meninger
So if you're on a team, and maybe your manager hasn't heard this conversation, but you're thinking about ways that you can maybe try to influence this on your own, creating more connections across your team. Is there anything that you can do, either speaking to your manager or even just working on your own with your team to advance this?
Daria Rudnik
And again, that, that's a very good question, because it's kind of we expect manager to do it all. And I mean, it's true, I understand. But if you are a team and no one is doing that, then just do it. No one, no one can keep you from having conversations with other people. Again, I am coaching a leader now, and he wants to run and imagine each a different company, but he's not a point to do that. But so what he does, he actually goes out and talks to people, getting them together, getting information from them, presenting the results of those conversations to senior leaders. Hey, here's what I'm doing. I want to lead this. Like, I want to lead this and like, what do you think? And I said, Wow, I'm glad you did that. Thank you. So not every manager is like that. Not every manager will say, good, but you can try, and you can do things. You can connect people, you can talk to people. You can like, do team sessions. You are a CEO of your own career in any way, and so you need to manage it right, and you need to be strategic about what you're doing, not expecting your manager to do it for you.
Kim Meninger
Yes, that's such a good point. I think you know, obviously, you have to know your own manager. But I think a lot of this is rooted in time pressure and, and if you bring something to your manager that they can edit rather than create, right? They may be thrilled that you've taken that initiative that they just didn't feel I had time to do on their own. Yeah. Anything else that you think is important for people listening to think about as they're either navigating their own environments, as the manager or as the person on the team?
Daria Rudnik
Well, I just want people to feel like you, you're free to do whatever you want. Well, first figure out what is it you want, what is it your main goal? And don't expect organizations to change your manager, to change your team, to change start doing something you can do that you have power to do that. You have skills to do that. If you don't have skills. Learn those skills, but in nowadays, we're not expected to sit still and do whatever we're told. We can create our own careers. We can create our own cultures. I, I've been working in organizations where managers had had great culture on their teams, and. And those teams, those cultures, were a bit different from organizational cultures, because they wanted to be like that, and they created the environment where they could perform well, they feel well, and they like working together. So you have, you have the power to do that.
Kim Meninger
Yes, I’m so glad you said that. I think that's a really important reminder is we have more power than we think we do, and if we hit a wall, it's also important information, right? I mean, maybe we aren't able to make a change today, but if we're consistently trying to make changes that are important to us and we can't do that, then that tells us that maybe we're not in the right place for long-term growth. I really like how you called out you're the CEO of your own career, and if you keep getting stuck right like that's data, that's important to take it into consideration when you're making your own career decisions. Well, I am so grateful to you, Daria, for bringing this conversation here. I think this is a really important one and very timely one. I'm glad you brought up AI as well, because I think that is on everyone's minds these days, and it will only continue to be an even more dominant part of the conversation for people who want to stay connected to you and continue to follow your work. Where can they find you?
Daria Rudnik
Well, I'm easy to find. Like, you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm very open to connections there and messages. You can also find me on my website, Daria Rudnik dot com, and I highly recommend you read my new book Clicking, which is exactly about building self-sufficient teams, teams that are more autonomous. So whether you're a manager or a person who wants to work in such a team, get the book. There are lots of practical tools that you can use to build amazing team.
Kim Meninger
Wonderful. So I'll make sure that the link is in the show notes as well. And thanks again for being here, Daria, I really appreciate it.
Daria Rudnik
Thank you. Kim, it was a pleasure.
