Character-Driven Leadership

In this episode of The Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about what it really takes to lead when the stakes are high. My guest this week is leadership coach and author Kathy Archer. Here we explore two leadership lows that shaped her path, the flow from competence to courage to confidence and how values alignment fuels integrity. We also dig into practical tools like vulnerable narration, weekly reviews and micro-moments for learning so you keep growing even when time is tight.

About My Guest

Kathy Archer knows what it’s like to constantly put out fires, question every decision, and carry the weight of an entire organization. She was once that overwhelmed nonprofit leader, teetering on the edge of burnout. Now, as a leadership development coach, she helps nonprofit leaders stop drowning in work, doubting themselves, and carrying it all alone, so they can lead with confidence, set boundaries, and finally take control of their leadership and life.

She is the author of Mastering Confidence and Character-Driven Leadership for Women, the host of the Surviving to Thriving Podcast, and the creator of The Training Library, a membership that helps nonprofit leaders lead with confidence and control.

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Connect with Kathy:

Website: https://www.kathyarcher.com/

Membership: https://www.kathyarcher.com/library.html

Character Driven Leadership book: https://www.kathyarcher.com/character-driven-leadership-book.html

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathydarcher/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kathydarcher

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kathydarcher

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@kathydarcher

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kathydarcher

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Transcript

Kim Meninger

Welcome Kathy. It's such a pleasure to have you here today. I would love to start by inviting you to tell us a little bit about yourself.

Kathy Archer 

Absolutely. Thank you, Kim for having me. I leadership development coach. Kathy Archer, I have been around the nonprofit sector for many, many, many, many years. I currently teach coach and mentor women leaders in that space. And I come back to that space because that's where I grew up, you know, I graduated from college way back in the day, and I was working in group homes with adolescents, and moved into some family support programs where kids had been, you know, apprehended, but the parents needed some parenting skills, so we were teaching parenting and giving kids visits with their parents, all that kind of stuff. And I, you know, very quickly moved into leadership roles in different ways, and learned along the way that, oh, leadership is hard, and nobody taught me how to do it. And so it's interesting, you know, you talk about imposter syndrome, you know, I come into this role without any I was the, interestingly enough, I was the one who had the most education in terms of working with the people, but not leadership training. I had no leadership training, so I move into a leadership role. Things went sideways fast, no doing of my own. The employees brought the Union in, and things went really sideways, and I had to learn really quickly how to navigate in that space. And at one point, I hit a really, really big low. And you know, I was working with my boss at the time trying to figure out how to get things together with the staff. You know, people weren't happy, and I put a Christmas party on, and, you know, less than a handful of people showed up. You know, two or three people showed up. And I went home that Christmas and I was like, What am I doing? Like, I don't belong in leadership. This is ridiculous. I was depressed. I went, you know, after Christmas, I went and seen my doctor, and I'm like, I don't know. And so he put me on antidepressants at that point in time, and, and I really questioned whether I wanted to be in leadership or wanted to be doing any of this. And something in me went, you know, I love the work I do. I'm passionate about the impact we have with families, and I wanted to make sure that, that, that was going to happen. And so I dove back in. And it was at that point in time that I started my management degree. And so I spent the next eight years, you know, I have four children. My husband worked away from home. I was, you know, in a leadership role full-time. So I spent the next eight years, of course, by course, by course, working through and really developing skills and confidence. And at the same time, I was doing a lot of the inner work and growth that was necessary, you know, some of the personal development work, and then hit a second big low down the road after I had really come up. You know, things were doing well, we expanded, got this lovely new big program, and all of a sudden things fell apart again, because once again, I was in over my head, and I was struggling to do all of the work that I was supposed to be doing with the resources that we had. And that's when I got introduced to coaching, and I learned so much about the mindset of leadership, the need to both build skills and continue to grow your competence as well as your confidence. And so that gave me sort of the insights to go, Okay, now I want to do this with leaders. Now I want to turn around and teach leaders how to, you know, navigate these, these leadership lows that we hit. And so I recently published my second book, Character-Driven Leadership for Women. It is really looking at that inner, self-reflective work that we need to do as leaders. How do we figure out who we are, how we show up, the impact we have, and how do we move on from there? That's a quick story.

Kim Meninger 

Oh, thank you for sharing all that, and I think it brings up for me a common point of frustration, which is the lack of leadership development within these organizations, and I think it's wonderful that you invested in yourself in the way that you did, but I just it's it frustrates me to think that that is something that people would feel like they need to do to fill that gap, because not everybody has the resources or the time. Sounds like you didn't have a whole lot of extra time yourself, right?

Kathy Archer 

So you know when, when I talking to leaders now, and they and they talk about that self-doubt and the fear and what am I doing? And I talk about COVID. As being both a mindset, but it starts with competence. So if you've never been taught how to do a performance review, run a staff meeting, think strategically, read a budget. If you've never been taught those skills, you lack the competence. And without that, of course, you're going to feel like you're in over your head and floundering and, and, no, we're not giving people those skills and that training. And so I piece-mailed it together from, you know, university work and local courses at the college and books and self-assessments and, and that's what I teach women now, is, No, you shouldn't have to, but if you want to make a difference, you're going to have to. Have to. I create it. I talk about it as your own personal and professional learning curriculum. What are you going to learn? Who are you going to learn it from? When are you going to learn it and in bite-sized chunks? Because you're right, we don't have time. And so people like, well, I don't have time to take a course and do this. I'm like, they have 15 minutes on a Saturday morning that might start right if you've got time to scroll, you've probably got time to read a book for a few minutes, or, you know, tune into a podcast, and that's what it's going to take to start to develop your own skills, because generally, we're not handing them to women leaders at all.

Kim Meninger 

You're, you're so right too about the connection between confidence and competence, because I think that you step into this new role, other people clearly have faith in you because they've given you this opportunity, and then you start to feel like, Oh no, I'm a fraud, right? What did they see in me? How did I get here, when in actuality, it's simply the fact that you haven't done it before, like you said, right, they're not giving you the resources. So what is your plan for preparing yourself and getting up to speed on some of these? And although on the you know, on the frustrating side, it would be great if all organizations came with a really clear blueprint for how to learn this stuff and gave you all the tools and training that you needed. But in the absence of that, there's something really empowering about taking it on yourself too, right? Like you feel like you're in the driver's seat in your own development.

Kathy Archer 

Well, and the other part of that is, is a lot of leadership is personal growth and development, it's, it's not that there's a one size fits all, and we need to figure out what our strengths are, what our gifts are, what our challenges are, and learn to lead from there. So we've all been raised differently, and we all have different little quirks in our you know, how we were raised? Some of us are people pleasers. Some of us are have this overly high expectations of ourselves and others. Some of us are perfectionists. You know, there's all these things, and so when you're talking about, you know, I'm sitting down to have a conversation with somebody about their performance, and they say something back to me that triggers me? What triggers me may not trigger you. You may be like, okay, whatever. And we have to recognize if we're going to learn to lead, well, we've got to learn to lead from our strengths. So one of the things that we really want from our leaders is integrity. Integrity is walking the talk, right? So what are my values? What are the things I believe in? What are the ethics? The hills I'll die on? And do my actions match those? And, and we've not taken the time to go, okay, what are my values? And just because I believe that family is important, or work-life balance is important, or honesty is important, what does that mean to me? Right? And so when you're in the middle of a meeting with somebody, or, you know, a team, and there's this conflict happening to be able to recognize somebody's got really high expectations for quality, like, we've got to get this done, you know, excellent quality. Somebody else is like, but the clients that need it today, we've got it like a speed, that speed is quick, you know, important, and somebody else is all about creativity. Well, you know, how do we make how do we innovate this? And we're all having these different kind of, you know, this different conversation, and you're going, why is this like, like this, right? And so that's part of those skills we have to figure out. Is, who am I? How do I show up? And how do I make best use of my skills? Not everybody is a people person. Some people are really good at strategic thinking. Other people can dive down into the data and, you know, really analyze it. Some people just aren't there, and so they need more help with those skills.

Kim Meninger 

So when you talk about who am I right? Are there simple ways to think about that? I think we're so busy, we're just kind of doing and we're not necessarily reflecting. And so I wonder if there are suggestions you have on how to even start there.

Kathy Archer 

Yeah, yeah. One is just simply thinking about what fills me up, what lights me up, what. I get excited about, what kind of work do I love doing and conversely, what do I hate? Like, what pisses me off, what annoys me, what irritates me, right? If I have to sit down and analyze, you know, the budget, like, oh my god, poke my eyeballs out, right? Like, I just can't do that. But put me in a room with a group of people and talk about things, and, you know, the, the ideas are brainstorming and we're swirling around, yeah, like that fills me up. So some of that is important to just kind of look at your work and go, which parts do I really enjoy and which don't I? Um, you can also then look at, there's some self-assessments that I often recommend for people. One is called the via Character Strengths Assessment, and it will look at your it's free, via dot org I think, is via character dot org It will look at your character strengths, so sort of how you show up so high in hope or fairness, or, you know, justice, right? Like those kind of things, maybe, maybe you, you're, you're a real relationship person, those, those kinds of things. The other is the Gallup or the Clifton Strengths Assessment, and there's a little bit of a cost attached to that one. But it looks at your, your talent, strengths. And so when you put the two together, it really kind of, you know, here's what I'm good at, but here's how I show up and what's important to me. And so I'll often work with people around those, those kind of strengths, and look at, okay, so, so what matters? It's also looking at, um, again, we're all raised differently, and so we come into life with this set of values that our family and our culture kind of brought forward, and it's, it's taking a moment to go, okay, you know, Prudence or, you know, money management or frugality is really important to me, okay, but that's how I was raised. Is that a value I still want today? Do I still want it in the same way that I was taught to have that is that important? You know, my mom washes baggies still and saves every, you know, yogurt container imaginable. Okay, do I want to do that still? Right? Like, but, but I'm not going to waste my money either, because that's, that's something that's important to me, and so we got to sit with those values. The world has changed immensely, you know, sitting down and looking at what does fairness mean to me? You know, how do I learn about other cultures and people's views and beliefs, and just taking that time self-reflection is really the key to all of this. It's sitting down again. 15 minutes a week is lovely. If you could just do that, to just do some journaling. What are the values that are important to me? What do those values mean? How do they show up? What are the skills that that I have? How do I use those skills in decision making, in, you know, impacts with other people just doing that kind of work?

Kim Meninger 

Well, you're making me think about when you talk about the values which are so important that a conversation I was actually just having this morning, where one of my clients was feeling a lot of frustration, and we were talking about it, and, you know, I mentioned, it sounds like a values conflict, right? And so that helped to put things into perspective. And I think values conflicts can lead to frustration. They can also lead to self-doubt. And you had mentioned too the scenario in which somebody values speed, somebody values quality, right? And think a lot of times when we find ourselves in these situations, especially if we're feeling like we're new and we don't have a whole lot of experience that when those values conflicts pop up, I'm wrong and the other person must be right, right. I must be doing it wrong. Whereas you know different people are going to hold different values, that doesn't make one person's values better than another. So how can you think about reconciling values conflicts.

Kathy Archer 

I think naming them is so important. You know, if I can say, I hear you thinking about creativity and innovation right now, I hear you talking about, you know, the need for speed, right? And if you can name those, at least, it helps us. Like, okay, here's what we're looking at. I was having a conversation last night with people, we need to find a new place from a regular meeting that we have. And so we started talking about, well, what's important about the meeting space and, and, you know, it was safety. You know we're meeting late at night, you know people are coming into the building and it's dark. We needed to be quiet. And I could sense, as we were talking about different things, that even within that conversation, there was some people who were more concerned about safety than quiet, right? It wasn't like this was just like a running list of things that were important, and so we kind of then had to go, Okay, now let's prioritize those. Values, which one and not just thinking about you alone, but all of us, which one is, you know, higher on the priority list? And so, yeah, it starts with naming it, but then having that open dialog around those values. I wanted to touch on something too when we're talking about values, because when I hit the second big leadership low in my career, one of the things that really kind of felt like it was nailing the coffin clothes was when my staff put on my performance appraisal that I lacked integrity, and it was like what like. And I realized when I started doing values work after with my coach, I had said family was most important to me, but I was working late, I was traveling more than I should, and when somebody, you know, said, Oh, my kids sick or, you know, I'd be like, really, like, you can't come in today. I said I had an open-door policy. I'm here for you, you know, if you need me, just yell. And yet, I wasn't answering my phone, my door was shut. And so while I said this was the list that I espouse to, I wasn't living it.

Kim Meninger 

And it's so interesting too, that there's a way in which we feel the disconnect when our values don't match our actions, but that the people around us experience as well.

Kathy Archer 

Yeah, and we see that individually, but we also see it organizationally. You've probably worked with people, or you're like, Okay, what are they? What are the values of the organization? Well, a, they have time, they can't even name them. B, they name them and they're like, but that's not what we're doing, that as an organization or as a team. And then that's where you start to feel that conflict in organizations.

Kim Meninger 

Yes, you're absolutely right. And I think so much of the conflict that we experience is rooted in these either unnamed or conflicting values as you're describing them, right? And so one of the things I love about what you said in naming them and prioritizing them is adding that extra step for conversation that doesn't typically happen. I think we tend to rush into the, the work itself, as opposed to pushing the pause button and saying, like, how are we going to work together on this? What is everybody what, you know, what's motivating everybody here, right?

Kathy Archer 

Yeah, slowing the conversation down is so critical. But I think, you know, back to feeling that sense of imposter syndrome, or I, you know, we're not comfortable going, Oh, okay, let's slow this conversation down and talk about values, because it's not something we talk about, it's not something we've been taught or we've seen other people even do. So to do that that's that requires that level of vulnerability and courage. So I often say it starts with competence and moves to courage before we get to confidence, right? You gotta have that. Okay, oh, this is going to be weird kind of thing. And, and I'll tell people I talk about a skill. I call it vulnerable narration in my book. So where you step up and you kind of say to everybody in the room or to the person you're talking to, this is really awkward for me. I'm uncomfortable doing this, but I'm going to do it anyhow, right? And you sort of so you almost are having two conversations at once, where you're kind of putting it in this container, where this is new. You know, when I first took my coach training and I was still in my leadership role and my, my team lead, I would practice on her, and I would say to her, Okay, let me practice this skill of whatever I was doing, right? But it was just kind of naming it for both of us to go. Don't expect perfection. And if I have to pause and look at my notes and see what I wrote down, or, you know, you've got to learn to practice it. And without that, you're, you're never going to get to that point where you start to feel that level of confidence.

Kim Meninger 

I love the emphasis on courage because I always say, you know, confidence follows action, right? It's not the other way around. You have to do the scary thing and then your coffee just catches up.

Kathy Archer

It might be messy. In fact, it probably will be.

Kim Meninger 

Yes, exactly. And I wonder too. I'm just thinking about how people might be hearing what you just said about the vulnerability, that is always my go-to strategy as well, is to kind of name the discomfort, and then most of the time, people will conspire to support you because they know that you know they don't want you to feel uncomfortable. They know what being uncomfortable feels like, and so it becomes a more supportive environment. But I wonder if there are times when you think that that could be risky, because it might, you know, sometimes people will say it might be used against me, right? I need to look like I've got it all together.

Kathy Archer 

Yes, yes, 100% I will tell people to start in Safe places or, or start small. You know, find a. A trusted colleague or ally that you can do this with. I'm often working in their personal lives at the same time going, Okay, well, try it with your spouse first, maybe, or, you know, practice that. And you know. The other thing is, it really does come back down to values. Sometimes I'll find that people are in positions or organizations, whether it be like, yeah, it's too risky. I can't do it. And the question then just becomes, so do you want to stay there for the rest of your life? Kind of, you know, is this the situation you want to live in? You came talk to me because you want to change. And so yes, there's, there's risks associated with it, and it's not going to be easy, and you may have to come back again and again, but that's a decision you need to make, which is, again, why I always go back to that self-reflective piece, go back and write about it on the weekend, sit down and talk about, you know, here's the pros and cons, or what if I do, or what if I don't, or why is this so important to me? Or, you know, what's the it often comes back to that sense of purpose. Why are you in this job? Why are you in this role? What's the difference you want to make? What's the difference you want to make in the world, that sense of legacy, and are you doing it? You know, and there's times in your career where you're getting the skills, you're doing the grunt work, and that's fine, and you just need to know, where am I at in my career? Is it time to push or is it time to play it safe? But when you more consciously make that choice, then you're feeling better about it, and you're still feeling somewhat aligned with your, your goals. You're deciding that this is a period of my time when I'm doing this, you know, when, when we start to feel icky and start to get that sense of burnout, and you know, we're really struggling with values alignment, when, when I look back at my, my top strength is learner, like I love to learn and read. And there was periods in my life where I didn't read for years, and I look back, and then I'm like, Well, no wonder I'm so bitchy. I'd like that the number one thing I needed in my life, my cup wasn't being filled up, right? And so once I started diving back into that learning world. And I mean, I was raising kids, and, you know, there was lots going on, but yeah, I realized that I needed to get back into that learning world in at least a small degree, or I wasn't going to be happy.

Kim Meninger 

That's really important, too. And I think just bringing, bringing a lot of what you just said together, I think about reminding ourselves that we have choices, and sometimes it feels like we're stuck in these situations, or that, you know, the power differential is, is, is so big, but oftentimes, you know there are, there are going to be situations where you know you can't take a risk. But oftentimes we have to really examine that belief that we can't take a risk, because maybe it's fear and not reality, right? And sometimes you just have to take, as we're talking about, with courage, take the step, and then on the other side of that will be data, data that either tells you that it's safer than you thought it was, or data that confirms that it's not safe and gives you information to help you make decisions about whether this is the best place for you in the long term.

Kathy Archer 

Yeah, yeah. I tell people to do a weekly review and kind of do that post mortem, like, Okay, here's what I was working on. Here's what, you know, what I tried. Did it work? Didn't it work? You know? What did I learn? How can I take some of that lessons forward? Yeah, we gotta go back and see what happened.

Kim Meninger 

Yeah, and that too, reinforces the importance of slowing things down, not just in conversation, but with ourselves too, because we're operating at such a rapid pace, where we're over-stimulated in so many ways that we're not reflecting and I think that, you know, I see this in my work. I, I see this in the world around us, is that everybody's under a lot of stress, but nobody can actually pinpoint what's contributing to it. What can I do differently? Right? It's just kind of this acceptance that life is overwhelming and we have no power over it.

Kathy Archer 

Yeah, we can't control it. In my book, I teach a model called the infinite leadership loop. And it's five Ps, pause, ponder, pivot, proceed and people. And the idea is we need to ebb and flow between that self-reflection and that engaging with people, so pausing and doing some of that pondering and shifting or pivoting our perspectives. And then, you know, proceed as that courage piece of getting back into action with our people and some of my students, I have a little assessment where I get them to score it. You know, how good are you doing at pausing, and how is your self-reflective practice and right? And in the scoring process, pause counts twice, so you double the pause score, because if you don't pause, none of the rest of it happens intentionally, and we don't. We are just go, go, go. We're from meeting to meeting and back-to-back. And you know, the day blends into the evening, and we never pause. We never stop to catch our breath, too. To, to reflect, to ponder, to, you know, just consider things, and we need to do more of that.

Kim Meninger 

What would you say to someone listening who thinks that sounds great, but I don't have time for that?

Kathy Archer 

Well, probably you have time to scroll so you have time for that. That'd be my first you don't have time. You need to make time. And this comes back to the prioritizing values, right? And people often think, oh, I need an hour. You know, it's like, if I don't have an hour to go to the gym, I can't work out while you could do 10 squats. You know, I'm famous for doing my 10 squats. You can find I call them micro moments, micro moments of five minutes here, 10 minutes there. And when you start to prioritize and make time for it, you'll start to viscerally feel the difference, and then you'll crave it. But no, you don't have time because you're in a whole different way of thinking and running through your days. But if you choose again, back to power of choice. If you choose to make some micro moments, you'll start to find more time.

Kim Meninger 

Yeah, I think that's a really good way to remind us about intentionality, right? And I think you even mentioned this when you said, when people come to you, they're looking for a change. [Yeah.] The situation you're in isn't working for you, you're going to need to do things differently than you do…

Kathy Archer

That’s the definition of insanity, right?

Kim Meninger 

That's right. And so, I mean, I think part of it is that there is that sense of, I'm doing so many things right now, I can't add something new. And also part of it is just, you know, fear of change and the all of the resistance that comes up when we as humans decide to do something that's outside of our comfort zone.

Kathy Archer 

Yeah, absolutely. When I made the biggest change, and I've heard it from so many of my clients, I started getting up a little bit earlier each day. Again, I have four kids, no time to myself. Really just wanted to do a little bit of yoga, a little bit of journaling, little bit of, you know, reading. And I started to back it up by like, 15 minutes, and I remember I would get up, and I would come into this room, and I'd lay out my yoga mat, and I'm like, I can't and I'd fall back asleep, okay, but at least I got up right and my bad, I started, and I've been a 5am riser for, oh gosh, years and years and years now you can't take that 5am out of me. And I know other women have said the same thing when I've started to carve out that space in the morning, because as much as you mean to later in the day, it's not going to come it just, it's so hard, and you don't have the willpower left to do any of that at the end of the day. And so again, it's just little bits at a time, just finding an extra 10 minutes, you know, before the kids get up or and I know that doesn't work for everybody, but wherever you can, I have one lady who will go to the office and just shut the door for the first half of the half hour. She's like, I'm here, but like, this is my space, right? However, you need to do it.

Kim Meninger 

Yeah, and in this situation like that, or even in any of the situation, I think it's helpful going back to what you said earlier, too, about naming it, because I think if you do adopt that practice of saying, I'm going to go into my office for the first 30 minutes keep the door closed. There's the possibility that people might perceive that as you're unsupportive, but instead, you're modeling it in a way that encourages other people to find their own solutions to this problem.

Kathy Archer 

Yeah, I have this whole thing against open-door policy. I'm like, no, no, times where you're available, not 24/7.

Kim Meninger 

Exactly, exactly. And I think, you know, you also made the point, do it in ways that work for you. Because I know I am guilty of saying, Oh, I'll do it tonight, and by the time tonight comes around, forget it. My brain is fried. I'm not doing anything. Maybe there are people out there who are better, you know, I, It's not me anymore, no. So I think set yourself up for success by being realistic about when you are trying to commit to these types of activities.

Kathy Archer

Absolutely.

Kim Meninger 

Oh, well, Kathy, this has been such a great conversation. You've given us so many great tips and insights to think about. I know you have written a couple of books, it sounds like so where can people find you if they want to learn more about your work, read your books?

Kathy Archer 

Yes, absolutely. Kathy Archer dot com is my website. I am Kathy D Archer on all the socials, mostly active on LinkedIn and Instagram. You can get my first book, Mastering Confidence, and then my second book, Character-Driven Leadership. Wherever you buy books, they're available everywhere, audio version as well Amazon, but yeah, you can grab those. And on my website, you can get the first chapter of Character-Driven Leadership for free, and the first chapter of my Strength, confidence for free. So if you just head over to Cathy Archer dot com you'll find everything you need.

Kim Meninger 

Wonderful. So I'll make sure the links are in the show notes as well. And thanks again for being here. This was really fun and really insightful.

Kathy Archer 

Thank you, Kim. Thanks so much for having me.