Managing Identity

In my series featuring leaders within Dallas who actively demonstrate authenticity and transparency, this week I am featuring Ashwina Kirpalani, who is a Managing Director at the Commit Partnership a Non-Profit in Dallas. This series on fostering authenticity and transparency is a special project for my 300 Hour Yoga Teacher Training Certification at YogaSport Dallas. 

One of the topics we explored is how sometimes people have different identities in their workplace and personal life. I know when I started teaching yoga a few years ago, I had to shake off the “Marketing Renee” and draw forth my real self to teach a more powerful and inspiring yoga class. I’ve talked to other business leaders over the last few months and they’ve experienced employees doing something similar where they display an identity at work and a separate one at home. In some cases, it may be easier or more difficult for employees to bring their whole, true selves into their job, depending on the culture and the people. To be authentic and communicate with candor, we have to always be ourselves whether at work, home or in the community. 

Being authentic starts with inner inquiry and the practice of asking yourself: “Am I being honest with myself?” and “Am I being completely honest with others?” There is a movement and expression of truth from inside of yourself to outside of yourself that impacts your interactions and communications with your team, employees and people in your life.

My interview below, Ashwina Kirpalani provides her experience and perspective on being an authentic leader who communicates with candor, creates connection with her team and honors the importance of always bringing in her true, whole self into her job. Connect with Ashwina on LinkedIn here:

Tell me a bit about yourself, your role, what you do:

I love getting to know people and learning and sharing tools to connect with internal knowing like meditation and self-inquiry. I have the pleasure of leading the analytics team at the Commit Partnership, a data-focused education non-profit based in Dallas working to increase resources in the education system, and serve on the executive team. Education is my passion I’ve worked on my entire career, including volunteer activities at the Sathya Sai Baba Center of Dallas, the Trinity River Mission, and United to Learn.

Have you ever had a time in your life where you couldn’t be transparent? And how you navigated through that?

Most of the time I am extremely transparent and it’s gotten me into trouble but nothing that I couldn’t handle.

You’ve always been that way, so that’s been pretty inherent, growing up?

Yes, I don’t like being two people – I function most harmoniously when my thoughts, words, and actions are in alignment. The work that I want to do in the future is to help people understand that no one has to be misaligned. The only person I ever need to be is my aligned self and honestly most people can see through the in-authenticity. No one can lie to themselves and when we force ourselves to be misaligned due to difficult situations it creates negative internal experiences. I’ve experienced times where I felt the need to have two or more personalities to adapt to different settings from a place of fear. In a way, I was telling myself neither versions of Ashwina are good enough all the time and this was especially true during difficult situations, putting up walls to feel safe. We’re not meant to put up walls.

When I thought I needed to be internally inconsistent to “survive” it created, deep mental and emotional confusion. Imagine telling a child or a loved one “Leave your heart at the door. Pick it up on your way out. It’s not safe here right now.” I was telling myself that on a daily basis, feeling like it was too difficult to bring my whole self therefore creating fragmented versions of me. There is a way to experience life where you are not having to leave pieces of yourself because that creates a fragmented human. How do you bring all those fragments back so you can be your fully aligned self all the time? That’s what I want to coach people on.

So do you have any tips or practices that people can do to have that kind of unification?

For me it’s meditation and breathing. Taking a deep breath can bring you back into the present, back into your body, and keep you focused. It is a simple and effective tool to release tension and bring clarity.   

A second tool that I use when I feel off center and have a little time and especially when I’m not feeling the love from myself or for myself is an old Hawaiian Prayer – Ho’oponopono - “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.” Many of us, myself included, have a need to feel accepted and it’s almost natural given the social beings that we are. But sometimes that need may be strong due to a lack of love or acceptance as a child so we’re constantly longing and looking for it everywhere but from ourselves. I use the prayer to reintegrate and apologize to myself, my child self, my adult self. To say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. You are enough and I love you.” It’s a practice that has helped when I have time for quiet reflection and contemplation but when I’m stressed in the moment – it’s breathing to center and calm down. 

So people in the standard corporate workplace, what are some of the things they can do for themselves for them to feel safe, to feel accepted, so maybe some of the things that you’re going to be coaching on, would you want to provide one of two of those things?

Breathing is incredibly important and it is very easy to do. Potentially going for a walk and not focusing on the things you see, but focusing on your body, like a walking meditation. Anyone can do this form of meditation -  take one step where you focus all of your mental faculties on your foot, lifting your heel, placing it down, lifting the ball of your foot, and placing it down. Concentrate on every movement, motion, and muscle. You see and experience nothing but what your foot experiences. If you do it right, you will not hear any mental chatter and there is no worry. The goal is to expand that concentration to longer and longer periods beginning to realize that if you are breathing then everything is ok. In that silence answers to what’s bothering you has the space to bubble up from within – answers you never expected.

Communicating with Transparency is typically very easy to do when things are going well, what do you do when things aren’t going well? How do you have those difficult conversations with candor and transparency?

I make sure that I am mentally and emotionally ready to deliver unpleasant news. What that means for me is thinking about what I have to say, how to say it in a way that keeps the intent of the conversation at the forefront while also being direct and kind. I have to play it out in my mind a couple of times or even write it down. Difficult conversations are difficult on both ends – no one wants to be a jerk (unless they actually are one but that’s for another conversation). I want to make sure the other person is emotional okay because I deeply understand the pain others feel. I’ll let some time pass and the emotions subside and will reach out and make sure that the other person is okay and understands that I was speaking from a place of kindness and candor vs. attack.

And do you follow up with them after in the coming weeks?

Yes, 90% of the time difficult conversations will be with people I see most regularly, co-workers, friends, or family and I do check-in with my tribe regularly. I need them!

What do you recommend in regards to collaborating and communicating with colleagues?  Meditation and breathing are helpful individual practices to manage it in the moment for yourself, but what about interacting and communicating and collaborating with others to foster that whole-self connectedness, authenticity, in the communication and engagement with your employees?

I think being very clear and over-communicating is integral to any relationship along with sharing the why for full buy-in. When people understand where a leader is coming from, they are much more likely to be on board – transparency is key. I’ve got a team of eight and we’ve created an understanding on the team if I do not share a key piece of information it’s either because I’ve forgotten or I cannot share. I reinforce an open line of communication by reminding them that they can ask any questions and I’ll do my best to answer especially as it relates to our team and their work. 

I tend to be direct and open to feedback in a group or individual setting, celebrate wins, and work collectively to keep the team culture positive and vibrant. Tactically, I meet with my junior staff quarterly to understand how life is going personally and professionally. I truly enjoy getting to know them more and learn a lot! I know millennial phrases only because of my team. I recently learned the word “whip” in reference to a nice car – all whips are cars but not all cars are whips.

Clarity around expectations is critical to engaged employees. During my individual check-ins with my three direct reports, we talk through goals and tasks and I make every effort to ask about their personal lives because my team and our connection are important to me. They know I value them. I respect that they are whole human beings, with families and lives outside of the office, and I am truly interested in learning more about them. I feel a sense of connection with all of my team members.  I may not be involved in their personal lives, but I want to know what’s going on – it’s difficult to ignore our personal lives at work. I still have a husband, parents, siblings, in-laws, dogs that require some mental attention during the day and I expect that’s the same for everyone. I’m fully bought into them and I’m there as a partner, as a colleague, of course as their leader, but also a friend.  

When I started teaching yoga, I was very transactional. I have to bring my whole self into teaching, it goes into blending these two identities. It’s difficult, depending how your mind is, if you’re very logical and analytical. I like structure to things, but when I have this nebulousness, I’m wanting to get structure, so my delivery turns into structured information, that’s opposite in what we’re trying to do as yoga teachers. The poses, the anatomy and what’s taking place, those are the hard skills, it’s these soft skills of how do I communicate, how do I deliver, how do I inspire, how to I motivate, how do I raise the energy of the class to where it is something greater than a physical workout? What I would like to explore with you, we have goals, we all have things we need to achieve based on the business objectives, but how do you get people, employees, your team, using emotional intelligence and energy to motivate, how do you do that to get people to bought in? 

You must see yourself in the people you interact with. I am in tune with my team, I know when things are not right – whether it’s personal or professional. There are times when talking through an experience helps to move past it and I try to provide that for my team and others in my life.

A leader needs to be there with their team. Some of the old battle generals were the first into battle, leading from the front not the back. When I know my leader is with me, supports me, and trusts me, my instinct is to do my best work. Having a leader with high EQ changes the energy of the team. We have one of the best teams in the office because we trust each other. That’s created by the eight of us work working on it. We have taken a lot of time to cultivate the culture. When a teammate has low energy or is not feeling great, we rally around that person. It’s not just me, or my managers, holding the responsibility of supporting each other, even the junior staff will rally around a struggling person. If they bring something to my attention I’ll ask “What can you do about the situation?” It is all of OUR responsibility.  

Yes, it’s creating that connectedness, fostering that connectedness so that people feel valued. You referenced trust, that’s important for healthy workplaces. Are there any other things you want to share on building trust? You went on this journey, it took a while to cultivate that, what are some of the things that you did, the team did?

Taking the hit. Taking the hit for the team. They know that I have their back. If they produce something that is less than perfect, I am not coming down on them in front of anyone. Everyone makes mistakes and we take the time to hire conscientious people who have decent EQ. We have performance conversations privately. I trust them as a person and I respect them as a person and ultimately it’s my responsibility. I will apologize to the client and will work with the team to adjust the process that led to less than perfect work asking “how can we make this better next time? What processes can we put in place?” It is very rarely punitive. I have their back and they know I will not throw anyone under the bus.

This is very, very helpful. It fortifies the connection, they are developing that connection with you, connection with the greater organization and developing that loyalty. 

Yes, that’s right. I am loyal to them and I expect loyalty in return. It’s like the Godfather philosophy of management. I will give you this, and I will ask something in return in the future and you cannot refuse. I mean of course they can but it’s important to build a relationship where you don’t have to lean on being the boss or because I said so type of work spaces – those are ways of the past.

How do you communicate, what words do you use?

I will write what I have to say prior to the difficult conversation. My emotions can sometimes override my mind and so putting things down on paper helps to make the delivery tangible and calm my emotions too. 

Emotions are very, very valuable. Obviously in life, there would be an experience of disconnection or apathy if we weren’t completely open to experiencing and expressing our emotions. One more question on emotional intelligence, how important that is in in the workplace? Do you have anything to share on that?  You seem very connected to your team, energetically aware and in tune. Some people have that connection. I know for me, one of my strengths from Strengthsfinders is empathy. I would not say that, I’m still trying to dissect this, because for me, it’s more, energetically, intuition, when I meet someone or I am around people. I would say that I still need to work on empathy of really getting to understand where other people are at.  What kind of emotional intelligence do you use to create that connectedness with your employees?

Emotional intelligence is applicable to internal dynamics but also external dynamics. During any meeting I take part in emotional intelligence navigates the conversation. I know when am losing the attention of others and will check for understanding – I try to build it into a process or system so it becomes accessible for my newer managers. I’ll be extremely honest about how I’m feeling about a particular conversation and may start with phrases like “this may not come out right…” or “I’m feeling nervous about what I am trying to share.” When they know where I’m coming from and I’m vulnerable and honest, buy-in and connection is much easier.

Thank you Ashwina for your time!  For those of you wanting to connect with Ashwina, please visit her LinkedIn profile.

Curious about Yoga?

Anyone who is interested in exploring or beginning their yoga practice, please visit YogaSport Dallas for more information. We offer an 2 week pass for unlimited yoga classes at our studio for $39.   For those of you interested in our 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training, we are offering a FREE YOGA CLASS with an Open House afterwards on Thursday October 10th at 6:15. Click here for more details. As always, please reach out to me with questions on developing your yoga practice.