Aila Malik, Venture Leadership Consulting, We Are For Good Podcast

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Overview

Meet Aila. She loves molding strong leaders and getting organizations pointed toward success - which means she joins them in the trenches. She's come to know that if leaders enter from a place of humility and ready to learn from everything/everyone, then great partnerships are built from the ground level. We know many leaders are asking now, "How can I lead well during this crazy season of change?" Well, Aila's taking our hand and walking us through the steps to be an in-tune, inspiring leader. BONUS: she's providing tips for rolling out a new vision too.

Today’s Guest

Aila Malik, Founder + Principal, Venture Leadership Consulting

“It’s about how are you holding yourself accountable to your intention, your vision and your purpose.”

— Aila Malik

Episode Transcript

Download Full Episode Transcript Here

Episode Highlights

Aila’s story and journey to where she is today (2:40)
Navigating seasons of change in organizations (7:00)
Key steps for a leader that is stepping into a new role (14:00)
Translating vision into plans (21:00)
A powerful moment of philanthropy in Aila’s life (28:00)
Aila’s One Good Thing: Opportunity without intentionality equals distraction. (34:00)

Powerful quotes

“My strategy has been about caring about the love and spreading the love and building community and stability wherever I could to be able to navigate the world.” -Aila

“The biggest way that we enter organizations and seasons of change is around a place of humility.” -Aila

“We honor it, we enter with humility. And we enter with curiosity. What has to be true for things to be the way that they are? What was the value that underpins this process? And then we build a partnership.” -Aila

“We don't even see ourselves as consultants, we see ourselves as a collective of practitioners.” -Aila

“Leaders have to over communicate in these periods. There's a lot of staff anxiety, there's a lot of unknowns, there's a lot of stakeholders and things. That need to over communicate the visibility, and the ability to be approachable really matters in periods of change.” -Aila

“When it comes to racial reckoning, that's not a crisis and a moment in time, that's a movement.” -Aila

“Being able to know, what are the movements? What are the crisis in this moment? So that you can conserve your energy and be thinking about where do I need to be visible? And how do I communicate what I know and what I don't know.” -Aila

“Communication is in service of transparency.” -Aila

“Create containers of certainty.” -Aila

“Those kinds of techniques takes the extra mental strain off for staff, they just know that the organization is going to guide them. We don't know what it is, but we trust in the leadership. And if we have a problem, they'll let us know. I think those things are just essential for leaders.” -Aila

“Things aren't going to be perfect, You’re choosing connection over perfection. You're choosing to be responsive over waiting for everything to be packaged.” -Aila

“When you're holding space in movement around racial reckoning or space in movement about fear of the pandemic and you're not clear about your own relationship to conflict and decision making and transparency, which in my mind is all conflict, you can get into this trap of trying to appease your staff, and really do a disservice to the mission.” -Aila

“We're here for a mission, and, and our staff is important. And all these moments are crazy. And I'm as a leader, not knowing what my next steps are, please give me grace, like, we're entering with this vulnerability and humility.” -Aila

“It's about how are you holding yourself accountable to your intention, your vision and your purpose.” -Aila

“Does everyone see a piece of themselves in your vision?” -Aila

“But I think that if we're not going to do the work around intentionality and our own decision making in our own alignment. It's easy to get lost.” -Aila

Connect with aila

Website / LinkedIn / Instagram / Twitter / Medium

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