Yvonne Heimann [00:00:00]:
Female leaders don't struggle because they lack talent or ambition. We know that way too well, don't we? The struggle becomes because they are just carrying all of their business on their back. Every decision routes through them, every fire lands on their desk and the team cannot move without permission. Today's guest, Daria Rudnik helps leaders redesign their team so results go up. While overwhelm goes down in this conversation today at She Is a Leader, we'll talk about what keeps leaders stuck in the I have to do it all circle, how to rebuild trust and ownership inside a team and what it looks like to create a self sufficient operation that does not depend on you to function. This episode is for the leader who wants more capacity, more clarity, and a team that can execute without constant oversight and micromanagement.
Yvonne Heimann [00:01:12]:
Now Daria, we are everybody that's been listening to my podcast episodes knows that yes, I do my research on guests and somehow the topics of the episodes always align with what's happening in my own business without me even planning because I go a lot with intuition and what I feel about submissions rather than spending three hours researching everybody. And it's been interesting for me with your topic of really focusing on the team and the support as my business is shifting to I want to start with how did you.
How did you get first pulled into this work, into this work of leadership and team design? How did you get into this and how? What made you commit to oh my God, we just want to create better teams and get leaders into leadership position, not just what I call founders.
Daria Rudnik [00:02:12]:
Well, first of all, thanks for having me on the show. I love listening to your show, I love listening to your podcast. Being here as a guest is such an honor and I'm happy to share everything I know about building self sufficient teams where leaders can finally focus on something that's important for them and grow their teams, make sure that the teams are doing the job and feel well and perform well together. As for my personal journey, I was chief People officer, I was the executive leader on the C Suite. Sitting there with all those men trying to make my point and prove myself and make sure my team is performing because well, how they perform, it actually reflects on me as a leader, as an expert and what I've seen through all of like my career, starting my career in Deloitte and then growing in HR and people and talent functions, is that when companies or leaders have strong teams, those teams can survive any disruption. Like I've seen. Like I've been in a bank in 2008 with financial crisis hit and we did survive that period, all because we had a strong team, all because we had a strong culture. And during that specific time, we even focused more on culture and values and what makes us a team more than we focused on, okay, how can we get revenue and like every other stuff.
Daria Rudnik [00:03:45]:
And that helped us unite and that helped us go through these hard times together. I've seen teams launching offices in other countries, going through mergers and acquisitions, but on the other side, I've also seen teams. And one of my recent experiences was with the team. Unfortunately, that was not a success for me. I have to admit that it's not 100% success because leaders need to do their work. And this team was very much around one charismatic leader and they loved him and he was great and he managed to build a great company, but he couldn't scale it. And when this company was acquired by another company, they wanted to keep them. They wanted to keep this culture, they wanted to keep everything good that they had.
But the executive team was so like, they were fighting for their own resources, for their own attention, for the possibility to talk to the CEO and to make sure their decision is actually accepted. So it was actually, I mean, the executive team was let go and the company is not in business
Yvonne Heimann [00:04:54]:
With going through this myself, right? I'm like, I'm listening to that, to your story with, hey, we made it through the financial crisis, right? I'm like, I'm a Fairly open book. 2024 tried to kill my business. And to this day it's like, I've never let go of my assistant, what's now my business manager, never let go of her. She was at a minimum pay, barely what I can afford, and even found her another job so she can pay her bills. And through that, I'm still getting goosebumps, right? It's like I always used to say, I'm like, I'm going to eat instant ramen before I let you fully go. And to this day, she understands where we are wanting to take the companies, the values and everything. I'm like, I would not be here, I would not be traveling right now, I would not be starting a secondary business if it wasn't for her. So I'm like, I completely felt that story.
Yvonne Heimann [00:05:49]:
And then listening to your secondary one, it's like what I'm hearing in that is that team was ego driven. It's not about the outcome, it's not about the impact, it's not about the big picture. It's about me being right. I want to be heard I want to have full on access. I want to make sure that my thing gets on the top of the pile. And I'm like, don't get me wrong, I'm, I'm, I'm an egotistical person too. I want to be right. I'm like.
And I had to learn to let go of that. Where in the podcast. I'm not here for me. I'm here to showcase you. I'm not, I'm here to, to facilitate the story, not to show up. And in a team, I see that kind of similar. Right where me as a boss, I'm not here to quote, be heard and seen. That's my social media for, with my team and my company.
I'm here to support them to be the best they can be. Am I seeing this right?
Daria Rudnik [00:06:51]:
I love how you at it. Like everyone wants good for themselves. I mean we are humans, we want that. The difference is there is good for me, as I said, or there is good for us and we can multiply that good. And the role of the leader is to actually make sure everyone sees that here is our bigger goal and here is how great we can be if we do then reach it together. Because individually we will not be able to be even close. When leaders don't create that understanding of a shared goal, of the shared purpose, well, people just fight for what they see, for the low hanging fruits, for getting this decision, getting these resources, because they don't have that shared purpose. So the number one thing leaders need to do is to make sure everyone understand that in the same words and with the same understanding.
What is it that we're trying to achieve together that cannot be achieved by individual contributions, like just combining our individual efforts.
Yvonne Heimann [00:07:57]:
How is that? I like celebrating myself. Yes. That means I'm on the right path. One of the big things we have been doing is really focusing on the combined mission of the companies. Where are we taking this? What's the impact we are wanting to have? So I'm like, sweet, we are now working on combining that with the personal goals to. For them to also reach their personal goals. Right. At least on the areas where we can help.
So which brings me to you call yourself a team architect, right? So what does that mean? So what does it look like in practice? Just beyond that title? I'm like, I love the title on its own, Team Architect, but what does that actually mean?
Daria Rudnik [00:08:42]:
Well, I love the question. And the thing is like we never learn how to be a team. Like the first time we join, really join a team, is when we Join the workforce. Because family is not a team, school is not a team, university is not a team. Don't talk me about like this. School projects kind of teamwork. That's not, that's not a team. So basically, if you're not in the team sports or an orchestra, you never know what it's like to work in a team.
Daria Rudnik [00:09:12]:
And the first thing you're hearing a be a team player, like work with our team, let's be a better team. How do you actually do that? And for leaders, the courses they take are mostly about delegation, control, how to communicate, how to give one to ones, how to coach people, which are great topics, you need to know them. But how do you make sure that all the team, all the people that on your team actually connected with each other, they're actually supporting each other, they know how to communicate with each other, not just with you during your one to one sessions. So that is not. Leaders are not trained that way. So we kind of assume that you put, if you put people on the same box in the org chart and give them a manager, hey, you have a team. No, you don't. So the reason I'm calling this an architecture is that you need to design and build a team.
Daria Rudnik [00:10:01]:
And you do that through deliberate process. Which is the first step is you clarify the purpose. What is the shared purpose of your team? How do you make sure you have it? And you do that through just conversation. You get together like, well, when I join a team, we just get together, we have a conversation, we talk. Well, they talk, I listen. What is that that you are trying to achieve together that you cannot achieve individually? The second thing is building this, linking connections, how people are connected with each other. Again, as I mentioned, it's not enough for people to have one to ones. If they have a problem, they don't need to go to you, they need to go to their team members, those who are better experts than them.
Daria Rudnik [00:10:40]:
They can reach out to some people in the organization because they need to have multiple connections. We know how important networking is outside of work. Let's create this inside organizations as well and build those networks of people supporting each other. The third one is integrated work. Actually these are work norms and rules that you have as a team. How often do we have our team meetings? What are we trying to achieve, what kind of meetings we have, what kind of, what are communication channels for our team? What our tasks, how we address gray zones? The fourth one is collaborative decisions. How do you make decisions? What decisions are made by data? What decisions are made by individual contributors, what decisions need to be made together. And finally, the fifth one is knowledge sharing and feedback.
How you learn together as a team. So when you have clear purpose, linking connections, integrated work, collaborative decisions and knowledge sharing, your team will click.
Yvonne Heimann [00:11:41]:
I love that. Now my question is how do you help facilitate those inner team networking conversations? Right? Because I can say so much or hey, just go have a chat, grab a coffee. It's how do I really facilitate these conversations and create a space for that?
Daria Rudnik [00:12:05]:
Well, that question is especially relevant for remote and hybrid teams. When people just don't, they can't grab a coffee because the coffee is miles away. And the thing is there are lots of things, there are lots of tools to do that. Like one of the simplest, the easiest one is at the beginning of every conversation, spend some time for a social connection. Like get to know like what's happening on the side of the screen. Like is it raining? Is it sunny? How's the dog? How are their kids? Like, what are they learning? What are they reading? What movie have they watched? Where did you go for weekend? Something very simple, something that they are ready to share, share something with them and start to build this relationship and connections that. And you can do that on one to one meetings, on the group meetings as well. The other thing is again, as I mentioned, leaders have a lot of one to like good leaders.
Daria Rudnik [00:12:54]:
I think good leaders have lots of one to ones because they really want to support their people well instead of having too many one to ones and people still need to have those conversations, pair them with their team members, have a reverse mentoring or like real mentoring, buddy groups, micro projects, something. If someone has a task, well invite someone else to do this task with them. I was working with a team and they had this kind of, they had a process and each team member was at a certain stage of this process and their work wasn't really overlapping, they just were doing their job. But what they started to do is when the first stage was on and the person responsible for that was working, they invited the person responsible for the second, second stage to join them. Same thing. The person working on the second stage invited the person working on the third stage to join them. What that created, well, first of all created connections. But more importantly they started to understand the whole process better.
Daria Rudnik [00:13:58]:
They knew what's happening before them, what's happening after them and the work went faster. It looks like they were taking more time because they were not doing their job but also someone else's job. But eventually they managed to make it quicker because they were Aware and they knew perfectly well what's happening before and after. So this kind of things help you build connections on the team.
Yvonne Heimann [00:14:26]:
I love that. Now with team, with handing off more and more to your team and giving them the, the possibility of doing their own decision, making own decisions in their own realm and taking charge on it. Now I know, I know myself way too well. There is that move of as a leader really having to learn to delegate. Right. No matter if we are in a small business where we founded this thing and it's our baby and now suddenly I have to let go like a mom sending their kids off to college. What is it that you think we, we have to unlearn about leadership and delegation or just doing work to, to be able to delegate, to let control of this and just build healthier teams? Because they're like, don't get me wrong, it's like so often I run into this, yeah, but I could just do it myself or I can do it better myself. And all of the bullshit we tell ourselves when we learn to delegate.
So what do you think we need to unlearn then? And how can we get better at this?
Daria Rudnik [00:15:42]:
And I hear like leaders ask, well, what should I just give it all to them? I mean, how. Well, start small. You don't have to give it all to them straight away. It takes, I mean, you need trust. You need to trust them and you need to trust them on many levels. And you trust them that the responsible people, you probably don't trust them, that they have enough competence to do that. You trust them that they have the competence, but you don't trust them because, I mean, you think that they might have something on their way that they would think more important. I mean, there are different things.
Daria Rudnik [00:16:13]:
You need to be able to trust this person to really make, like give it to them. So just take some steps like you said. Well, first of all, you can give something small, that's fine, and then you give something else. But again, like you said with kids, what I have with kids is, well, when I was so scared to give them phone because, you know, the TikTok and social media and everything's all that out there. Well, I do have parent control and I let go like when I, when they grow up and I see they're responsible using their phone, their phone, I let go like one step at a time. So same thing. Well, establish your parent control. You are aware that there is control, they know there is control.
And then you let go step by step.
Yvonne Heimann [00:16:56]:
It's funny how I always fall back into the parent, child. Like, I don't even have children. But that's kind of what I imagine, right? Where it's like, oh, my God, you let your baby go. Now, when we start building teams that are not dependent on us, how do I realize I've built a team that's completely dependent on me? How sometimes we are not aware of the problem, Right? We. We don't even know what's going on. So do you have some examples how when I look at my business that I realize I'm like, oh, my God, yes, my team is definitely way too dependent on me. I need to change something.
Daria Rudnik [00:17:35]:
I mean, I don't judge teams based on how much they depend, because every team is different. And maybe the way you structure your relationship is exactly, exactly what you need. The. The real measure is your business goal. Are you reaching your business goals? If you have an ambitious goal and you feel like, okay, we can't. We will not be able to make it. I mean, we could, but something is stopping us. I'm thinking of an example.
Daria Rudnik [00:18:02]:
Yes, I know, an example, because, well, most of the examples is when something is falling off their conflicts, people are stuck, we're losing account, we're losing a client. And I've had this kind of teams, but that's obvious. Well, let's say I was working with a team. It's newly formed team. It was a team responsible for major HR transformation in a huge company. Hundreds and thousands of people, really big. And they were leading this HR transformation. And they have a team of members from different departments.
Daria Rudnik [00:18:36]:
Some of them work together, some of them haven't worked together before. And they knew that they have a potential to really make it, but they kind of thought we really need to be sure. So I joined this team to make sure they kind of start smoothly. We define the purpose, we defined roles, we defined everything. And within a month or so, they actually proved the greatest strategy. They talked to every stakeholders, they created a strategy, and they proved the strategy with the board and started moving forward. So it's all about the goal. If you have a goal and you feel like, okay, I'm not sure, then it's time to look.
Okay, how your team is structured, who's making decisions? How can we change the norms and rules? What's the communication? How do we learn together? Things like that.
Yvonne Heimann [00:19:31]:
Yeah, I loved how you separated the idea of. Yeah, there's obvious things, right? I'm like, we've seen the Twitter posts and people being fired over them. So we know the obvious signs that something isn't Right now, when working with teams and when scaling a business, there's a lot going on, right. Sometimes everything just seems to feel urgent and has a high priority flag on it. Especially when it's our business, right? It's all important. It all has to happen now. It's all urgent. And I'm laughing because we see it when clients come to us, right? And it's like, oh my God, this has to happen all now.
Yvonne Heimann [00:20:15]:
And we just kind of giggle and they're like, yeah, it doesn't. And then I do it in my own business, right? So when we, when you end up in like a season where it feels all urgent and it just seems to be one of those high doing seasons, what helps you slow down and, and come back into. I hate the word balance, but come back into a calm mode and come from a leading perspective rather than the, oh my God, it's all urgent doing perspective. What helps you just come back and slow down?
Daria Rudnik [00:20:52]:
I mean, yeah, I can so much relate and again, I'm a, I'm a doer. Like, just, I can do this and I can do this and I start doing this. Oh, I cannot drop this.
Yvonne Heimann [00:21:04]:
Oh, yeah. And I want to start this and let's do this and let's just start another company. Oh, yeah.
Daria Rudnik [00:21:08]:
Yeah.
Yvonne Heimann [00:21:09]:
There is a reason we're entrepreneurs.
Daria Rudnik [00:21:12]:
That's true. That's true. Well, my, my personal strategy is, well, first I, I work in, in seasons. And I know, okay, this is a season where just running until I hit the wall probably, I'll, I, I don't want to hit the wall hard. I'll make sure. I'll not, I will not do that. But I'll, I'll, I'll just push here and then I'll have a season when I just relax. I'll do some planning, some strategies, some kind of talks.
Daria Rudnik [00:21:39]:
There are seasons when I meet a lot of people and then the resistance when I, okay, I don't want to see anyone. I work with my clients, no networking, conversations, no nothing. So I, I do have this kind of cadence. But what really helps me and I, I do always tell my clients that's, I mean, it's, it's a really great tool. It's. I write things down, things that happen to me, things I plan and that helps me process things and plan and schedule, remember? So, yeah, I do have a journal where a book anything, and I write things down that helps me focus. And every week I write three things. What does I really need to do this week? Just major things.
Not all the things that I need to do, publish a LinkedIn post or issue a newsletter or any other crazy idea that comes to my mind. But like, really, that moves the needle.
Yvonne Heimann [00:22:35]:
And that's a practice of mine actually too, when I get to a point where everything just feels too much and there's too many things going on and I just feel overwhelmed. As much as I'm digital, I literally just go back to a piece of paper and I'm like, what are the main things I need to pay attention like right now, what really matters and what's just noise? Now, I think in your submission or somewhere, you actually mentioned letting go creates more power than pushing. So I would love to chat on that. That this practice of letting go, of trusting, trusting your team, trusting yourself, just letting go in general, rather than we are always being told to just work harder, just push harder, just hustle. What does that mean to you in an everyday work week?
Daria Rudnik [00:23:39]:
The best example for me and like, more like a metaphor, but it's really true. So I started practicing Tai Chi for year already. I. I do that at least four times a week, maybe more. And in Tai chi, you do action and then you release and let go. It's like you can lift the hand and you can put down the hand, but you can lift the hand and you can let go in a kind of a goes down on by itself. And learning how to do that, like physically, it reminds me of how we do that with our teams as well. And as in, like in Taichi practice, it doesn't happen like overnight.
Daria Rudnik [00:24:23]:
It takes time to practice. Same thing with my team. And I remember myself just like I said, one step at a time, giving a task and just closing your mouth and not saying anything. Just be very intentional about not saying anything and see what happens. And of course I do that in some safe tasks where I know if there is a failure, if there is a mistake, I mean, that's not a big deal. And the next time it will be more challenging, more difficult task, and the next time it'll be even more challenging, even more difficult. But that's how we build trust and that's how we build skill. So step again, step by step and close your mouth.
Yvonne Heimann [00:25:01]:
So if somebody is listening and they've now realized, oh my God, I'm the bottleneck and maybe micromanaging and just not building, not having the knowledge yet and not building the team in a way that supports them, what would you say the first step they should take so they've realized, okay, there is a problem here. We need to change Something. What is the first thing you would have them do?
Daria Rudnik [00:25:29]:
Leaders often ask me a question. How should I be a better leader for my team? How should I manage my team? The thing I always tell them, go and ask them. So the first thing, if you really want to build strong self sufficient team that will make you feel better, them feel better and more importantly, you can create great results together. You can achieve amazing things together. So if you want that, get together and say, hey, I have one question for you. 1. What is that? That we need to change so that we become a better team. And then shut up and listen.
Some teams will tell you something, some teams will be quiet because it's unexpected, it's okay. Again, one step at a time. You hear something, you take it, you try it out and then you meet again and you ask the same question and give it.
Yvonne Heimann [00:26:24]:
Oh God. Yeah. I didn't even think about it. Like it's a practice I do with my, with my coaching clients a lot. Right. And sometimes we don't expect the question. And you sit there and if you haven't practiced it, the silence feels weird. It feels like you have to fill it, you have to do something, you have to say something.
And it's interesting that I've never. We have similar practices with, with the team too. Right. But specifically like that to approach it with the team and to just sit with the silence if they might not have an answer yet. You don't have to fill that silence. Just sit with it. People are going to think about it. They might never have been asked that question.
Yvonne Heimann [00:27:11]:
They have no idea and they're going to sit with it and they're going to think with it it and you just let it sit and you just sit with your awkwardness that you are creating in your damn head. Just sit with it and practice it. I'm like, yeah, we're gonna, gonna have to work with the team a little bit on that, on me becoming better with it. I've always focused it a lot on the tools. What resources do you need? What tools do you need? But yeah, I think it also helps with helping them be more solution oriented. You are not just talking at them, you are not just telling them. You are asking the question and let them find the answer, figure it out. So now you are suddenly also creating a more solution oriented team rather than them always coming to you wanting the answer.
Yvonne Heimann [00:28:08]:
So if you've been telling yourself it's just the busy season, but your business always seems to require you at full capacity, this is your reminder. You do not need more willpower. You do not need to push. You just need to design a team that creates trust and clarity and ownership. And you can do that. Daria just gave you a whole bunch of resources and a whole bunch of tips so you can lead with strength without carrying everything. You can build results without burnout. It doesn't have to be hustle culture and it doesn't have to be pushing all the time.
Yvonne Heimann [00:28:47]:
Start small, get honest about where you're at, about realizing you might just be the bottleneck and begin building the systems and the standards and the connections that led to your team rise. And if you want more conversations like this, plus practical workflows and leadership systems that you can implement right away because we are all action oriented, right? Make sure you follow along and stay connected with this podcast so you can meet people like Daria and others. And with that, thank you so much for joining me today and thank you for everybody that joined the episode. I'll see you in the next one.
Daria Rudnik [00:29:29]:
Thank you.
Yvonne Heimann [00:29:30]:
Bye.