From Sidelined to Spotlight: Women’s Rise to Leadership with LinkedIn Top Voice Cynthia Pong

In the latest episode of the Resume Assassin presents Recruiting Insider podcast, Cynthia Pong, a prominent advocate for women’s leadership, dives into the barriers that women face in their pursuit of leadership roles. Our discussion illuminates both external and internal obstacles that hinder women from advancing their careers and breaking through the glass ceilings. External barriers include systemic biases and institutional challenges, while internal obstacles often stem from imposter syndrome and fear of failure. Despite these challenges, Cynthia emphasizes that women are not powerless and can take strategic steps to overcome these barriers.

Strategic Actions for Overcoming Barriers

One of the core themes of our conversation is the importance of strategic actions in overcoming both external and internal barriers. She advocates for building strategic relationships, increasing visibility, and developing a robust support system as crucial strategies. By focusing on these areas, women can create impactful and sustainable pathways to leadership. Pong also reframes self-promotion as self-advocacy, encouraging women to confidently assert their achievements and position themselves effectively in their careers.

Reframing Self-Promotion as Self-Advocacy

Self-promotion is often a challenging topic for many women, but Cynthia offers a refreshing perspective by reframing it as self-advocacy. She urges women to view self-promotion not as bragging but as a necessary practice for asserting their value. By confidently claiming their achievements and communicating their worth, women can better navigate their career advancement. She also stresses the importance of having a clear career mission and working backwards to set achievable goals, providing a strategic roadmap for stepping into leadership roles.

Addressing the Glass Cliff Phenomenon

The concept of the glass cliff, where women are promoted to leadership positions during challenging times, is another significant topic in the episode. Cynthia explains how this phenomenon often places women in precarious situations with higher risks of failure. To combat this, she advises women to build a strong network, deepen their self-knowledge, and seek out advocates who can support them through difficult times. This approach not only helps women navigate leadership challenges but also enhances their resilience and effectiveness.

Breaking Down Barriers and Voicing Ideas

Cynthia emphasizes the importance of breaking down barriers and actively voicing one’s ideas to ensure they are heard. She encourages women to be assertive in sharing their perspectives and solutions, which can significantly impact their visibility and influence within an organization. By engaging in these practices, women can overcome limitations and contribute more effectively to their teams and organizations.

The Inspiring Example of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

An inspiring example discussed in the episode is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose leadership journey exemplifies overcoming obstacles and achieving success. Cynthia uses Ocasio-Cortez’s story to illustrate how resilience, strategic thinking, and advocacy can lead to significant achievements. This example reinforces the message that women can lead authentically and effectively despite facing systemic and internal challenges.

Conclusion

Cynthia Pong’s discussion provides a rich resource for understanding and overcoming barriers to women’s leadership. Her insights offer actionable strategies and encouragement for women to assert their value, build supportive networks, and lead with confidence and authenticity. The episode is both informative and empowering, equipping women with the tools and motivation needed to achieve their leadership aspirations.

 

Transcript:

 

Mary (00:00.611)
Cynthia Pong, welcome to Recruiting Insider.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (00:04.408)
Mary. Thank you so much. It’s very, very exciting to be here. I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks.

Mary (00:10.562)
Yes. So Cynthia is a sought after speaker, the author of Don’t Stay In Your Lane, a LinkedIn top voice and a super introvert like myself. She’s also been featured on NBC, CBS, NPR and many more. As an executive coach, she empowers women and leadership roles to advance their careers into positions of power. As the founder,

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (00:21.432)
Yay!

Mary (00:37.409)
of Embrace Change, she leads an elite team who provides specialized coaching and training programs for high performing women to the C -suite. She has helped clients break down barriers, lead with authenticity, and has collectively negotiated over $750 ,000 in salary increases. She is truly an incredible human. Today…

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (01:01.464)
Thank you, Marriott.

Mary (01:06.432)
Today, we are going to discuss how to break down barriers for women and leadership positions. So Cynthia, let’s kind of just dig right in. In your experience, what are some of the biggest barriers that women face when pursuing leadership roles?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (01:12.088)
Yeah.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (01:23.032)
where to begin with that one. And also, I’ll just have a quick asterisk because you did make me sound incredible. And I appreciate that. But the 750k plus, thank you. The 750k plus my clients negotiated, I didn’t negotiate for them. But of course, we worked on the negotiation coaching. So definitely want to give folks credit where it’s due. But I think I’ll

Mary (01:30.567)
You are incredible.

Mary (01:39.422)
Yep. Yep.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (01:47.672)
The barriers for women who really want to break through some of these glass ceilings and concrete ceilings, it really comes down to two buckets, if you will. One is the external.

which is the systemic, the institutional barriers and biases, the motherhood tax, like all of that kind of stuff. And then there’s also the internal. So a lot of that is internalized from the external. So our feelings of imposter syndrome, fear of failure, not wanting to let people down in your home life and life life versus your work life, all of those kinds of things. And, you know, they pack a really

good one -two punch in terms of keeping a lot of us from reaching these positions. But, you know, always want to be super clear. A lot of it is the systemic external kind of barriers. At the same time, doesn’t mean we’re powerless. There is a lot we can still do if that is our goal in our careers.

Mary (02:42.842)
I love that you broke those down into both the external and the internal pieces because I think that’s, it’s easy to blame it on, you know, those systematic things that are put into place. But it’s also, you know, a piece of what we bring internally as well, where it’s, you know, we’re facing that imposter syndrome, like you said, that fear of failure, not wanting to let people down. I think that those are all three things that, you know, especially women, we,

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (02:43.576)
We’ll be right back.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (02:48.344)
So this week, I think that’s where we’re going to see it. So we’re going to have a lot of fun. Yeah.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (03:01.592)
Yula.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (03:09.016)
Yeah.

Mary (03:12.697)
We struggle with that. And to me, it seems like the qualities of a leader and the path to really achieve those leadership roles are still largely outdated, right? And they seem to shut women out in a lot of ways.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (03:13.048)
Yeah. Mm -hmm.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (03:26.444)
Yeah, and I think it’s by design. I mean, 100 % it is by design. There’s bizarre ways that, you know, I guess I say bizarre, but really, is it all that bizarre? Not really, if you think about it, but that the workplace can mimic like a very heteronormative, traditional patriarchal family structure. You know, I actually talk about this in my

Mary (03:30.201)
Yeah, absolutely.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (03:51.672)
piece that was in the Atlantic, which I don’t know if the video is showing, but it’s like hung up on the wall over here, which is like the dark side of how a workplace can seem like a family. And so you find this a lot of times in a lot of companies and things where it is the man who is at the top and the C suite is a largely men. If there are women or people of color in the C suite, then they’re usually relegated to certain roles. And, you know, I say relegated to be like a little extra hot take, but like it is, I think also,

We are kind of pigeonholed into certain roles like HR, Chief People Officer, you know, when it was more of a thing, Chief Diversity Officer. Those kinds of softer roles that are not about hard strategy, not about financials, you know, those are the places where it’s really super dominated by men still. So.

Mary (04:45.107)
Absolutely. You know, and I’ve seen that too, and a lot of the clients that I work with, you know, a lot of the males tend to be dominated at that C -suite, you know, in the tech space and product management roles and really highly technical sales roles. While a lot of the women that I work with are in human resources, you know, maybe they’re in healthcare, teaching. It really, I mean, some of those stereotypes really do still exist. And I think it is.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (04:49.972)
Thank you.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (04:54.616)
Mm -hmm.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (04:58.84)
is that we take it to the south coast. Exactly. So it’s interesting, right?

Mm -hmm.

Mary (05:13.842)
It has a lot to do with some of those barriers that us as women are still facing and trying to break down.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (05:17.56)
Right.

Right, exactly. It’s very easy to be kind of shoved into that caretaking role. You know, there’s a lot of that, that conscious or not, it is kind of present and you can see corollaries of it in the workplace. So, you know, we can definitely dig into any more of these kind of alleyways as you see fit. But, you know, also want to not paint a completely bleak picture for it.

listeners and stuff like there if that is your goal again, like I still stand by and I wouldn’t be doing the work that I do with the clients that I do. If I didn’t see this happen on an individual basis, and it’s like it is possible, we just have to be extra strategic about it and make sure that we’re on top of managing what we do control and then being super savvy to influence what we don’t.

Mary (06:10.384)
Yeah, for sure. And I don’t think that there’s a shortage of qualified women to fill those leadership roles, right? There’s a ton of super qualified women.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (06:16.28)
No. Yes.

Yes, it’s not a pipeline issue. It’s not a skills deficit that we have. That’s very common kind of reasons that you may see attributed to this like vertical segregation that we see on a gender basis, which is even more amplified when you fold and raise as well. But it’s not that you’re absolutely right, Mary. And there’s HBR research from a year or two ago that shows how women in the senior leadership C -suite levels, their 360s,

Mary (06:23.024)
Exactly.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (06:49.592)
They score consistently higher than men in those same rules.

Mary (06:54.446)
Why do you think that is?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (06:54.744)
So, I mean, I think it’s because we’re really good at leadership. It’s just that there’s so much, such a strong narrative and so much messaging around the fact that we’re not, or we’re not cut out for it, and also that maybe we have to sacrifice so much to get there that for some of us it isn’t worth it. So that’s a super real thing too, but yeah, I just think it’s so telling that that’s what the stats are. And it’s also because,

As you rise more into leadership, it’s less and less about what you were good at doing as that individual contributor and like your subject matter expertise. It’s less and less about that. And it’s more and more about the people skills. You know, can you actually lead a cross -functional team? Can you be an empathic leader? Do you have strong, deep, active listening skills? It’s really that type of thing that allows you to work with a range of stakeholders to do complex strategic problem solving.

all of that stuff. And, you know, I would say with the conditioning and the societal positioning of women from when we are girls and like how we have, you know, grown up from children, from childhood, that position does very well for doing those things.

Mary (08:09.226)
for sure. And, you know, and looking at statistics too, you know, it seems women currently out earned or they outnumber men and earning, you know, like bachelor’s degrees and master’s degrees, you know, men are far more likely than women to rise into some of those higher paying, you know, and what I would consider more prestigious leadership roles. So what are you doing specifically to help women overcome this?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (08:22.072)
Yes. Yes.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (08:29.24)
Yeah.

Yes.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (08:37.24)
yeah. And also, you’re so right about that education thing. It’s wild to me. And just as a side note to that, it’s also why I encourage a lot of folks to think very carefully before stacking yet another degree upon degree upon degree. You already can do the thing. That’s not what’s holding you back. It’s other stuff, which is a segue to answer your question directly, which is focusing on what is this other stuff that we can do. And I think a lot of it.

You know, we may hate to hear it, but a lot of it has to do with building strategic relationships in places and spaces and with people whom we might be less comfortable doing that with. So a strategic networking strategy, number one. Number two, also making sure that we find ways to amplify and increase our visibility so that we are more visible to enough of the right people. And I say it in that clunky way because it’s really true. Like a lot of us,

We’re also from our just broad swaths, like painting with a broad stroke or broad brush or whatever. I love to get phrases wrong, by the way, you all have noticed. I just want to try saying. But anyway, broad strokes. We often have tighter and deeper networks and relationships, but really what we need to do is expand it and broaden our networks.

Mary (09:43.849)
Same.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (10:01.784)
and in certain spaces where we might be made to feel unwelcome or, you know, we could leverage, like both of us are introverts, right? So I’m always about how do we hack that and make that work for us? It may mean that my networking connecting with people looks different, but do I still have 175K LinkedIn followers and community on there? Yes, you know, it can be done, but I like a lot of the one -on -one. So I focus on that or environments where it works for me.

So coming up with a combo networking and visibility strategy, are you being seen? Are you being seen in the right places? Are you being seen as a leader in the right places? Like this is a lot of what we talk about in our leadership accelerator program is just about let’s be smart. Where do we want to be visible to get to the goals that we have? So you kind of like work backwards with the goal setting there. And then you just have a plan.

Like each week, what am I gonna do to be more visible in these spaces? Who am I reaching out to? All of that kind of thing. And then the third thing I would say is make sure you have your inner circle of people who you can rely on. So that may be people like you, you know, who are industry experts and can provide that like tactical, technical, strategic support on the things. Make sure that the resume is at the right executive level.

Make sure that folks are interviewing properly and reaching out to recruiters the right way. That might be a piece of it. Another piece of it is the mindset stuff that really gets into that internal stuff that we have going on. So that could be, I’m a huge fan of therapy. Other forms of healing exist. Working with a career executive coach. Figuring out what that executive presence looks like for you. That entire bucket, you got to have your advisors in place.

so that they’re supporting you and also saying your name in rooms and spaces that you’re not in. So sponsors and champions there as well. All of it kind of loops in together. If you sort of see those are kind of like interlocking pieces, but that’s what I would say is the formula.

Mary (12:10.403)
Yeah, I mean, I think that that’s amazing advice. And I think that the other aspect of it, and you kind of touched on this as well, is many women struggle with self -promotion too, right? And I’m sure a lot of our listeners can relate. How can we encourage these women to confidently advocate for their leadership abilities?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (12:16.928)
Yes, yes. that’s hard. And I also just want to say like, yeah, that’s so real. I will even tell you all like moment of vulnerability or whatnot, like, I’m often still uncomfortable with the fact that my anthem award is like right here behind my shoulder. Like I forced myself to put it there.

Mary (12:42.307)
Heheheheh

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (12:46.392)
And I probably should have a copy of Don’t Stay In Your Lane in my background, but I don’t because like, you know, I’m still kind of working on that too. And I’m someone who’s like has a lot of visibility online and in different digital and in -person spaces. So I just say that to say like, you know, none of you all are alone. We’re not struggling alone in silos. We’re stronger together. And it’s, we’re each on our own timeline and path with that comfort level. So with the self -promotion part, I mean,

Mary (12:57.379)
Yep.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (13:16.408)
One, you could view it as self -promotion. Two, you could view it as self -advocacy. You could view it as I’m simply stating facts about myself and what I’ve done, what I’ve achieved, where my expertise is at. So I think that’s an important reframe to consider. And the truth is, for women, for women of color, for people of color, if we don’t self -advocate, we’re going to get chewed up and spit out so fast. It’s just not a question.

So, you know, are we able to meet the reality that we’re in? I think it’s an imperative if we have certain financial career leadership goals. And I don’t think it has to be like a painful slog throughout, like we can make it fun too, and you can make it work for yourself. So yeah, just a huge nod to like, yeah, the self -promotion can feel uncomfortable. I would say maybe a baby step is…

and kind of a stepping stone to this is thinking about not as promoting yourself, but actually promoting the work that you’re doing and the mission that you have behind the work that you’re doing. So another thing that we unpack in, whether it’s my coaching VIP day or like leadership accelerator packages and stuff is, yeah, what is your career mission? What are you trying to do with this whole entire thing? Because when we are women, when we do have these identities,

everything we do is not only for us, it also is for everyone else who comes from a similar background to us, who looks like us, who looks to us to see what’s possible. So there’s a bigger responsibility. And I take that on with full force, because I think it’s a huge privilege to be able to do that and try to break down barriers. But yeah, so just remembering it’s not only about you, it’s never only about you, it’s also about the future and the current folks who are looking to you and…

talk about it as your why. Like, why are you doing this? Why is that important? And of course, you should be the one who is there executing on that why.

Mary (15:24.035)
I work with a lot of women leaders specifically and writing resumes for them and they always have the toughest time either finding those achievements or talking about those achievements or even being willing to write them on their resume because they don’t feel like, if I didn’t single -handedly achieve something, I shouldn’t be listing it on my resume when it’s like most men, they don’t…

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (15:27.0)
Mm -hmm.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (15:34.2)
Yeah.

Yes. Yeah.

Mary (15:53.795)
They don’t even think about it. It’s like, yeah, that was an achievement, you know? And I like to explain to people that it’s, you know, even if you played a role in achieving something, it’s still your achievement. You know, it’s, of course there was a team around you that helped you do this. You didn’t achieve it on your own, but it’s still something worth writing on your resume, worth shouting from the rooftops in a sense, right? And I think a lot of us women do have issues or trouble.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (15:55.572)
Yeah. Yes.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (16:11.832)
Thanks.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (16:15.384)
This is a real type of thing. Yes. Yes. A lot of us want to do that.

Mary (16:21.795)
bragging about ourselves. And I love your idea of reframing that mindset to self -advocacy because, like you said, at the end of the day, we’re going to be the very best advocates for ourselves and what we’ve done and what we’ve achieved and also what we’re capable of. So I think that that’s so empowering.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (16:39.704)
Yeah, I’m fond of saying we have to be our own hype woman first before anyone else is going to jump on the gravy train or whatever. And it’s true because and you I’m curious actually if you see this with your clients because I knew you were going to go to that point with the res. I have a feeling I was like, are you talking about the we like when people put in the resume there they want to frame it as a we thing like a team effort instead of claiming the

Mary (16:57.059)
Yeah.

Mary (17:02.467)
Yeah.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (17:06.232)
the part that they led or what have you. And I would actually argue that, you know, I think, yeah, this might get me in some hot water, but I think men generally don’t claim stuff that they barely had anything to even like do with, do you know what I mean? And it’s like the gulf in behavior is very interesting. But yeah, the resume cover letter interview process, that’s not the place for you and your team. That’s the place for you. And, you know, we do have to…

Mary (17:16.579)
Yeah.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (17:32.952)
close any distortion or gap that there might be between what we see as a reflection, I think of it as like funhouse mirrors. A lot of us, like our whole lives, it’s like we’ve been looking in funhouse mirrors that are like all distorted and stuff. And it’s like, the second you work with somebody like Mary and like, you’re reflecting back the actuality, then there’s a resistance, right? Cause like, that’s not me. Like you look in a real mirror after looking at funhouse mirrors for 20 years, you’re going to have a reaction.

And that process can be fraught and difficult and take time. And that’s all well and good. We have to have space for that. But little by little, we can chip away at these things. So I honestly forgot if there was a question after what you said, but so many plus ones to what you were saying.

Mary (18:20.867)
I think that that’s perfect. You work with a lot of women of color and just women in general, helping them step into leadership roles. So if I were a fresh client of yours, could you walk me through how you would help me break down some of those barriers to step into a leadership role?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (18:24.44)
Well.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (18:41.08)
such a juicy question. I do love to start with the big foundational stuff, because I’m a real like, let me get a whole sense and comprehensive sense of the the person in the landscape that they’re facing, and then break it down into the smaller pieces. So one thing I already mentioned before is the career mission part. So like, big picture, I, you know, I’d want to know what does Mary, what is Mary’s why? What are you aiming to achieve?

with your life’s kind of body of work, what purpose do you want it to serve for you in your life? And then figure out what that long range target is and then work backwards and be like, okay, well, how does XYZ leadership position fit into this bigger picture? And just, you know, test it. Like, is that the way to what you ultimately want to go to? Or is this also maybe some idea that you had that you were like, I should do this, but it’s really not.

actually for you, like maybe your path is entrepreneurship or something else, you know, like, so I always like to just double check those things before we really invest a lot into diving deep. And then once we’ve clarified like, okay, where you want to go where you’re at now, what the next step might be, then it just breaks down into problem solving. So what are the specific blocks that come up for you? Is it?

Perfectionistic tendencies and you’re spinning your wheels spending too much time on things that you don’t have enough bandwidth to actually go out and make those relationships Is it the imposter syndrome like you have a debilitating? Fear and not that’s not a definition of imposter syndrome, but I’m just painting a picture here let’s see if it like a really strong fear of Going to certain spaces because you do feel like that imposter when you have all the receipts to back it up

that you’re not, you have every much of a right to be there as anyone else. Is it a confidence thing that’s maybe related to some of the others, but maybe it’s also separate? And so how do we find ways to build your confidence, help you be able to see, identify and claim the achievements like you were talking about just now and really own them and bring them up to people when it makes sense to, so that you can.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (20:52.152)
be the first person who’s top of mind the next time a position opens up before they even post it. You know what I mean? Like that’s where we want to get you if that’s actually the goal. But those are some examples of getting into like specifics.

Mary (21:06.529)
Okay, so you’ve helped me get that seat at the table now. We’ve broken down the barriers. We reverse engineered everything, right? We figured out what my goals are. We broke down the barriers. You helped me get there. So now, so now I have my seat at the table and you know, my challenges, they’re, they’re just still, you know, going strong. There’s a, there’s a lot more challenges coming up my way.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (21:09.72)
Okay, see.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (21:23.16)
New levels, new devils.

Mary (21:28.32)
Yep, a whole new set of issues arise, right? So how would you help someone in this situation have a really strong voice to make sure that their ideas are valued and actually heard?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (21:40.888)
Okay, so one is kind of like the bad news piece, which is that we can’t necessarily control if our ideas are valued or heard. All we can do, but it’s enough, is we can make sure that we voice our ideas, we bring them to the table, and that we do do everything in our control to be heard. And like, if we’re not being heard here, then we know when to go back to the drawing board and either take a different approach, go to a different space, try a different strategy, you know, find an advocate to…

I mean, this is kind of the ugly truth of it. Sometimes we have to tell the white guy sponsor champion what the idea was so that he can say it first and then we can move the work forward. That happens. And sometimes we do that strategically because we have a bigger goal moving forward. It doesn’t mean that we like let our ideas get stolen all the time. Don’t get me wrong on that. But it’s more of a means to an end thing. We’re always doing a cost benefit analysis for whatever a particular thing is.

If the stakes are high enough, we got to go that route. I say no shame in that game. And we make sure that we have our, you know, what I like to call career insurance and like our protections in place so that if anything goes sideways, we’re still fine. cause there’s just possible tangent, but one thing that happens a lot to women, is the glass cliff phenomenon. So we can, you know, talk about that, but like, once you get to that level, we have to make sure that we’re not being set up in some kind of way, to basically fail.

But one thing I will say, once you’re in the position, the first 30, 60, 90 days, crucial. So really the work to make sure that you step into that role and you’re your best, most confident self has to begin before. It can’t start on your day one. It has to be T minus, honestly, ideally, T minus years so that you’ve been doing the work already of a solid foundation. You’re not really rattled by any of those internal barriers anymore.

This is really more about like, how do you step up your leadership, command the influence, control and respect that you want in the boardroom or wherever it is. Because the chess match is like really high level at this point. It’s like 40 chess or what have you. So you wanna make sure, you know, you know who all the stakeholders are, you know how to maneuver and it will give, it will take some time to do that. That’s why I said like 30, 60, 90 days, but.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (24:05.08)
The work for that to prepare you mentally, emotionally, psychologically, tactically has to start sooner. So, you know, that’s some high level thoughts.

Mary (24:15.48)
Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned a glass cliff. So let’s kind of go back to that because that’s an interesting concept to me. Could you first of all, just kind of define what that is and what are some signs that we may be facing a glass cliff in our own career?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (24:19.704)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (24:29.84)
Yeah. I love it. It’s true because it may not always show up the same and it might not always be at that high high level. But anyway, so glass cliff is called that because the glass part is from like glass ceiling. So the idea that this is something that women in particular or people of color, other people who are historically denied, you know, that top seat or whatever at the table may face. So that’s the glass part. The cliff part is because at this point, you know,

you’re high up in the org chart, you’re at the very tippy top or what have you. And it is a cliff that you can, it’s like a sheer drop and you can fall with just one misstep. And the cliff also to kind of give a sense of how dire the consequences can be for our careers. This is not to be like alarmist about it or anything, but it just happens. And if you Google or look up on Wikipedia glass cliff, you can see example after example.

high profile examples of women who have faced this and experienced it. So that’s what it is. It’s when you get promoted to a very high level and the phenomenon refers to the situation when usually the company is in a bad spot. They’re coming out of some kind of major scandal or like a very bad economic year. Like just, it’s a big mess, it’s a dumpster fire, there’s losses everywhere, shareholders are upset. Like,

it’s that kind of a just raging mess. And then they will promote a woman to be CEO of just fill in the blank, major F100 company. So it’s like, okay, great. A woman is in this position. And also what are we expecting her to do? And then like the idea is like the woman has to turn this whole thing around, clean up the whole mess that was created usually by men and then like excel and look great while doing it. That’s like the brief.

As a woman, that’s what it refers to because you can then very easily see that one little thing or like the next little kind of snafu that happens can get blamed on that woman. And then all of a sudden, like, she’s resigned, or she’s forced out. And then she can’t find work at that level in other places. So that’s like the worst case scenario of a glass cliff. I don’t know if you want to add anything there before I get into like, how we can watch out for it.

Mary (26:51.568)
No, you’re crushing it. Keep going.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (26:53.624)
Okay, I feel like I’m talking a lot and I love to like be in conversation. So jump in anytime. So how we can kind of like look out for it and make sure we don’t kind of fall prey to this setup. And again, I want to emphasize this could happen at other levels too. So you may be moving from individual contributor to your first manager position, director or something. And it could be a similar, you know, plate that you’re handed where it’s just,

Mary (27:21.966)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (27:23.416)
a whole mess, they’re asking you to do the impossible and it’s just a setup for failure. So it can look any kind of ways. But I think the way to identify it early and make sure you’re not set up in this way is, I mean, you gotta have your people in place. That you have that third thing I mentioned earlier about the inner circle and your advisors. If you have enough people who, everybody can play a different role at this. You can think of it kind of like Knights of the Round Table. Everyone has a different role.

So you need some people who are like embedded in the industry or who have been around the block for, you know, ahead of you as it were in the industry and who know the players and can maybe give you a heads up that like, hey, Mary, I know that, you know, we’re talking about you going for this particular CEO position. Just be very careful about X, Y, Z or ask a lot of questions around this. You might want to do extra due diligence on why. Like, you know, think about it and…

maybe consider these other things. So you want to have your early warning system of people who have insider knowledge giving you a heads up. I also think that the other thing about it is the career insurance thing that I talked about earlier, which I’ve kind of just coined this term that I think all of us need to have in this day and age, like 2024, layoffs are still happening. Like it’s been how many years we’re still hearing about mass layoffs and it’s a wild economic and jobs market still.

anyway, I’m going to hold. That was a whole other podcast, but, we all need to make sure that we have the network that’s going to help us survive and thrive to make sure we have multiple revenue streams. So we’re never relying on any one thing in particular. We’ve got to be able to be nimble and pivot not only for startups and tech people. and just like the right skills to be able to land on our feet, no matter what comes our way. So you could have.

Mary (28:53.29)
Hehehehe

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (29:19.48)
gone for a glass cliff scenario, but still find your way out of it and land on your feet. There’s people who I’m kind of watching their public route right now, but I suspect they’re actually gonna be fine despite what might’ve looked like a glass cliff thing happening. But I suspect they’re gonna pop up in another couple of months and actually be totally golden and even maybe winning more because of it, because they’ve spent decades building up their own career insurance.

So they’ve got their safety nets. They don’t need to rely on any one company or anything like that. And it’s just a much safer way to pursue your career goals.

Mary (29:58.438)
That’s great. I mean, I love that comparison to investing, you know, essentially where you don’t want to put all of your money into one stock. You want to make sure that you’re building it up. You’re diversifying your portfolio. That’s, that’s great. And I want to shift the conversation just a little bit because a lot of your work also stems around leading with authenticity, which I absolutely love, you know, and women, they don’t really need to conform to those.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (30:03.416)
Yeah.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (30:11.864)
Thanks.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (30:21.88)
Yeah.

Mary (30:26.661)
traditional leadership styles, you know, like we’ve already kind of touched on. Could you discuss how women can learn to lead authentically while still incorporating their own unique perspectives and experiences?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (30:39.32)
Yeah, I love that you asked this because it does feel like an impossible needle to thread, but I do know that it’s possible. Like, I do see people doing it. I feel like I’m always trying to level up my game and doing it myself too. And you’ve probably experienced it too. Like when we are ourselves, people resonate with that because there is just so much like fake performative stuff out here. And I think…

on mass, we’ve kind of we’re reaching our limits with just that. But anyway, the sort of, I think ways to do this are finding, sometimes it’s about finding a middle ground between what you know is expected of you and what you know, or you, you sense intuitively in your gut is going to get what you need done done. And then finding a way to inject you into it. I know this is very vague and abstract, but it is because

I can’t say what it is for any particular person. Like maybe for one person, it means, you know, doing it with a certain set of values at the forefront. Maybe it’s about framing something and actually wordsmithing something in a certain way that is meaningful and will allow other people to have a different reaction to a same result. Maybe it’s about the energy you bring in to when you’re leading a team meeting.

or getting a meeting with department heads or other VPs or things like that. It could be any of these things and it could be small micro ways that it feels like, but I think those are the ways that we find to slowly block by block build up our own version of authentic leadership. And I do think that this is really important because a lot of us, especially women, people of color, we get put off by…

this abstract idea of like, but if I’m a leader, I have to be like in a suit and like, I have to be very, I don’t know, I’m making robot moves, but you know, certain box. And I really feel like that’s not the way forward. That’s not the future. That’s not what we need. It’s not where everything is going. And I even have this like, personality, like Buzzfeed style personality quiz, it’s a leadership quiz, so that we can get some of the language around.

Mary (32:31.518)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (32:52.248)
how we are already leading in an authentic way that’s specific to, I mean, this is specific to women of color, but ways that we tend to show up as leaders, it’s not this traditional conformist thing. And it’s really helpful for people just to like feel seen and heard, have some language. I mean, we’re all about, like language is so important. Have some language to talk about what they bring to the table. And I can break down like what those four kind of archetypes are that I see, but you know, it’s, I don’t want to get too far into the weeds.

Mary (33:21.756)
Yeah, I mean, figure out what makes you you, right? What makes you authentic? How do you relate to people? And then I think that’s a great start in figuring out how you can authentically, you know, step into those leadership spaces. You know, and it seems that a lot of women who are really authentic, they also have a good understanding of themselves, you know, and their priorities. And they they also figure out what’s important to them rather than what other people want.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (33:34.68)
I’m just stepping to that something else instead of this.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (33:41.656)
Yeah. Yes.

Mary (33:51.579)
Right? Yeah, I mean, they’re clear about how they feel, what they need, what they prefer, all those things. You know, so I think for many of our listeners, you know, it’s they’re trying to step into their authentic self in a lot of different ways, right? And lead in a way that’s really true to themselves. So what advice would you give them? What’s one step that they could take today to do that?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (33:59.704)
Yeah.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (34:13.964)
Yes. Okay, great. I mean, I think you already said it, to be honest, which is to block the time. Like, seriously, take 30 minutes, take 90 minutes if you can. That’s my preferred and 90 minute or longer chunk for deep work to think about.

Mary (34:18.49)
Hehehe.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (34:30.2)
Who are you? Because all of this work really, it is about deepening your self -knowledge. It is about reframing and deepening and redefining your own relationship with yourself. It just comes out as work or leadership or career, like whatever these other words we put on it. But taking that time to just journal and be like, what are the things that are most important to me in life, in career, in this job? What is my career mission? What am I trying to achieve here at Long Range?

Why? Why do I do that? What moves me? What energizes me? What activates me? What gets me really going about this thing? That’s important because that will fold into values, which is kind of the things that stem out under that, under your why and under your crew mission. So what values are important to you? Those will all be the pieces that come together and will help you define you and your authentic leadership. Like it’s all going to just come together in like a…

a messy soup or what have you, but then you can then boil down what that means to you. And having that clarity, that’s what allows people to be like, this is what’s important to me, that’s not important. I’m not giving that any more time, I’m focusing on this. That level of confidence, I do think a lot of us really, we want that, right? That’s what we think it is, and that is strong leadership.

whether you’re in whatever position you’re in that is strong leadership, because you are taking ownership over what gets your attention, what gets your time, what gets your dedication and what doesn’t. So ultimately it just really boils down to some very basic stuff that we often back burner, because that good old Eisenhower matrix, we love to focus on putting out the fires and the urgent important stuff that other people externally are telling us is important. And we don’t pay attention to what actually.

Mary (36:11.828)
Hehehe

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (36:21.72)
is important that we should be investing in our time, money, resources, all of that. And that’s that quadrant two of the matrix, that deep work. Yeah.

Mary (36:34.322)
Yeah, and I want to go back to something that you touched on previously too. And, you know, we briefly passively touched on storytelling and how that really, you know, makes a great leader and how women who share their stories can really shape the next generation of women leaders. Right. So I’m curious, could you share an example of a woman leader that you admire? You know, what leadership qualities do you find inspiring about their story?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (36:46.424)
Thank you.

Yeah.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (37:00.408)
Yeah. OK, well, I love AOC. I’m a big, big fan of Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez. And what I love about her story is what aligns with me because, I mean, some folks may or may not know. I mean, they probably assumed, but Embrace Change is like my second career. You know, the career coaching and the training and the speaking and all that, my second career, my first career, which I write about in Don’t Stay In Your Lane was as a public defender.

Mary (37:09.233)
Mm -hmm.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (37:28.792)
So that was why I wanted to do for the longest. And when I burned out, I had no choice but to reinvent what on earth I was doing. Ties back to AOC because, you know, she didn’t, she’s not, you wouldn’t look at past her and be like, that’s a future Congress person. Like that’s a future political leader. You know, that’s a future potential presidential candidate. Like you wouldn’t look at that. You know, her bartending background, like just really salt of the earth kind of like background.

And I love that she has had this story where she has just not taken no for an answer. I feel like it’s so gutsy. I mean, there’s incredible leadership that she’s just had from the early days, this unshakable belief in herself and just like defying the odds. I love that story. I think I love everything it stands for. And I love her values, of course, because it aligns with, you know, my kind of roots and still core values in embrace change.

And yeah, so that’s a story I think about a lot of times when I get frustrated myself too, because it’s a hard time right now. It’s a hard year for a lot of people. It’s hard to witness a lot of our clients struggling in all kinds of ways between jobs or just having to deal with a lot of unfairness in the workplaces and spaces. So that impacts us, I think, too. I mean, I don’t know how it is for you, but I’d imagine when you hear about a lot of those things and you

I know I’m personally like, I can’t go and fix that, you know, for the person. It’s just hard. So it is important. As my former public speaking coach told me, it’s like, data is great, but stories transform. So I’m really glad that you asked this question. And yeah.

Mary (39:00.011)
Right.

Mary (39:16.074)
I love that. That’s an amazing response. So what are the top three things that you want our listeners to take away from our conversation today?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (39:18.52)
Most of the work that we do is specific to the way we’re dealing with this.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (39:24.6)
this is hard. You might have already guessed I’m like an expansive person, a lot of words, a lot of energy. So editing myself is my growth edge. But three things I would say, invest time every single week into building the right network that you need. People hire people, people hire people they like, people hire people they like, no one trusts. Especially if you are on that leadership track, you’re going to need people. So invest today.

The second thing, and I’m gonna try and make a triple out of invest, because I like that you said that. And it is about that. Invest in deepening your self -knowledge. Like end of the day, our relationship with ourself is the most important relationship. We are always with ourselves. We, at the end of the day, truth be told, we have only ourselves and our own integrity to answer to. So invest.

time, money, resources, whatever it is, into deepening your self -knowledge, be that through therapy, career executive coaching, another healing modality, your own journaling, whatever it is, right? Carve the time out for that and pay attention to that because it’s easy to focus on the fires. The third thing, hmm, I feel like this is my third wish with a genie or something. Maybe the third takeaway is, yeah, find ways to be your own hype woman.

You know, we really have to be that initial spark to set off like a bigger fire around what we’re doing. And like I said, it’s never only about you, what we each individually do as women, as people of color, as women of color is way more about, it’s about the collective, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. So it’s important. And whatever that means, maybe it means taking up a new hobby that makes you feel really confident and like, I can learn new things and it gives you joy. Like that could be the thing that helps you.

be your own hype woman. It could be doing the work of writing down and owning your achievements when you don’t want to. It could be reaching out to somebody that you felt intimidated by or something, but you made that move. And whether they write back or not, it’s not on you. You reached out. So you get credit for that. Finding ways to just really solidify that foundation, because that’s going to be yours wherever you go. And it is that.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (41:48.536)
base building block to the career insurance thing I was talking about. So that’s the three takeaways.

Mary (41:54.465)
That’s good. You know, and I’m glad that you mentioned invest in yourself because I feel like there’s a lot of narrative on LinkedIn right now that says invest in upskilling, right? Try to get these certifications, try to get better at this skill, that skill, which is amazing. Of course, that’s a part of your career, but I think that a lot of us do tend to overlook actually doing that deep introspection and really investing in ourselves. What do we want? Why do we want it? Yeah. So I think that that’s amazing insight.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (42:04.632)
yeah.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (42:11.16)
Thank you.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (42:19.288)
Yeah. Yeah. my god. I love that. That’s also so interesting to know. And, you know, I know this, I don’t know if we have time for this really, but I will say, always pay attention to who is telling you what you should be doing. What is their agenda? What are they trying to tell you? you know, is that really what you need? We need to have that discernment always. and that only gets stronger if you do.

Mary (42:38.047)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Mary (42:44.895)
Mm -hmm.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (42:48.472)
invest in your own self -knowledge. And yeah, I don’t put a lot of stock into this. well, if only I had another degree or another certification, I’d be able to do the thing. No. We are good enough as it is. It’s actually some of this other stuff we have to clear out that honestly might be the harder work to do than to go to school for another. Fill in the blank.

Mary (42:56.767)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mary (43:10.846)
Yep, it may be more of an internal barrier than an external skill barrier. Yeah. Cynthia, what are you up to now and where can we find you on social media?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (43:15.352)
Correct. Yeah, it’s hard. What are you up to now? my gosh, what am I up to? I mean, I feel like so many things, but you know, we are growing, we’re doing a lot of stuff. Folks can find us on the internet, embracechange .nyc is the website and everything is linked from there, but the main social channels I recommend for folks are LinkedIn, of course, you can search my name, Cynthia Pong, and find it most easily.

Instagram at Embrace Change NYC. Also, we have a really great pop and YouTube channel where you can hear all kinds of tutorials and get tips from me. That’s the same handle, Embrace Change NYC. But the thing I really want to tell folks about, and this is the thing that like, they think it’s all about the social media or whatever, but the real thing is actually my newsletter. So when people get on my newsletter, the trajectory, that’s where I share the actual meat and heart of the stuff that’s going to help you move the needle in your career.

Mary (43:45.948)
Yeah.

Mary (44:00.88)
Yeah.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (44:09.688)
That’s where we share all of our exclusive like bonuses or like early offers, early birth stuff, like all the good stuff is on the newsletter. So folks want to get on that. You get tons of freebies through it. But if you sign up at embrace change at NYC slash sign up, you will get my freebie. That’s five steps to a winning negotiation mindset so you can get that money. So I encourage people to sign up for the trajectory there and talk to me through it. Like that’s the main line.

my inbox, people can reply there and and we can chat about their specific situation. So thank you.

Mary (44:45.785)
Amazing. Thanks for coming on today. It was a pleasure to have you on.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (44:47.896)
Thank you so much, Mary. And thanks for the work you’re doing. I’m so amped for your podcast, pun intended. And I know it’s eating lives out here. So thank you for what you do.

Mary (44:55.192)
Woo! Yeah! Thank you.