Dr. Barbara Swinney is once again going deeper with her new literary collaboration, DEEPER Women Teach-Anthology Project . She is a Holistic Leadership Expert and educational leader whose own experiences and ability to manifest and motivate others to look beyond where they are to achieve leadership success and positive outcomes. Let’s talk to her about her latest project.
Tell us about what you do in the business world and how these roles acted as a spark for this book.
Today, I am the Creator of the DEEPER Women™ Brand, a Certified Life and Holistic Leadership Coach and Coach Trainer, Founder and CEO of The DEEPER Leader Institute for Personal and Professional Development, Speaker, Author, and Educational Leader. However, in 2016, I experienced my own, personal pandemic. After a long and successful career in which I had reached executive level leadership, I was literally taped on the shoulder and told, “Your services are no longer needed in this position.” I was technically demoted. Before I could wrap my mind around what was happening in my career, I learned of long-term infidelity in my marriage. I was doubly devastated! I was lost, I had come to the end of myself; gone as far as my looks, talents, and skills could take me. The two entities with which I most readily identified had collapsed. Barbara was somewhere underneath the rubble. I needed to rescue her, but I did not know her; but I knew enough about her that I wanted to get to know her even if I had to depend on who other people told me she was.
Women in leadership don’t often have a wide circle of people that they can trust with their traumas. So, like most, I thought I would have to go it alone. Turns out, I was not alone. As I started my journey to healing and leading, I heard untold story after untold story from women in leadership; stories of toxic relationships, of mental, emotional, and spiritual suppression, of illnesses caused by the stress of abuse, and the tragic outcomes of cyclical dysfunction. These stories could have freed me twenty years earlier, but few women had the courage to share them. This is why I started telling my story, because nobody told me theirs.
From my healing process, the DEEPER Women™ Brand was established to provide a platform for women in leadership to share their stories and provide strategies to help other women who lead. This is why this book is so important. The authors of DEEPER Women™ Teach are real women, tackling real issues, leading in the real world, and living real lives.
In your own words, define what leadership is to you.
Leadership is about who you are. It’s an evolution of inner discovery that begins with knowing yourself and culminates with living your deepest values at the personal, team, and organizational level. Everything that you do is an extension of your own leadership.
Briefly tell us who the eight contributors are, how you selected them and how you feel overall their stories can inspire other women?
When I started the search for authors for DEEPER Women™ Teach, I wanted to accomplish two goals. I wanted to provide a space for women in leadership, who had healed and overcome life-changing experiences, to share their stories. I also wanted to ensure that the book would be a resource for other women who lead, so I had to make sure that the authors had not only healed and overcome their troubles, but that they were able to provide guidance to the readers. I also wanted to make sure that the authors embodied the characteristics of the DEEPER Woman™. In the end, these powerful women, the authors selected, all exemplify what it truly means to be a DEEPER Woman™. They are all real women who have and continue to healthily navigate the turbulence of life, love, and leadership while balancing the demands in their roles as leaders. They are proven by circumstances, experiences, training, and trade. They are leaders in business, education, ministry, and medicine. These women are indeed DEEPER Women™.
The DEEPER Woman™—
- knows who she is and understands that her purpose is far greater than she is.
- is not intimidated by another woman’s gifts. In fact, she understands that it is her job to help identify and cultivate those gifts.
- does not shake in the face of her problems. She understands that her problems come only as a means to establish her as someone else’s solution.
- understands that her only function is to be the light. When you are the light, you cannot complain about the darkness. All you can do is shine!
- is no longer afraid to face herself, nor does she quake at what others think of her. She is confident, sure in her purpose, and has learned to live The DEEPER Life!
Why do our experiences and the way we recover from them —personal and career wise alter the way we do or do not lead in many areas of our lives?
Most of us professional women, women in leadership, tend to lose ourselves in our careers and in our families. Our identities become so enmeshed with what we do that we forget how to be. Our experiences bring us closer to who we are or pushes us further away. Since leadership is about “being” who you are, not understanding how to “be” will surely impact how you lead; no matter where you lead. I have learned that how you show up anywhere, is who you are everywhere. You cannot effectively lead others until you are first able to lead yourself; you cannot lead yourself until you know yourself; and you won’t truly know yourself until you are able to be yourself. Healing expands your leadership capacity. It increases your ability to operate from the very purpose of leadership-to inspire action and to grow other leaders. Thus, recovering from life experiences and taking the time to heal will cultivate a healthy environment within you, with the people you lead, and within your organization. Your recovery and healing impacts your decision-making process, your ability to grow and empower others, clarity of vision for yourself and your organization; your ability to influence; to expand your impact; and even your income.
Do you feel leadership is naturally a part of a person’s DNA or that it can be learned?
We were all born to lead! We came to this earth completely packaged with the gifts, talents, and tools necessary to solve the problems of this world. So, the question isn’t are we born to lead, the question is: Are we ready? Are we willing to take the time to become leaders? Since leadership is so connected to who we are, it is also about who we are becoming. We must take the time to become leaders by evolving into who we’ve always been.
What can the strong woman, who thinks she has it all figured out, gain from the book to take her leadership to the next level?
A strong woman who chooses to read this book, will likely learn that she’s no different from every other strong woman who thinks she has it all together. I’m confident that she will see herself in at least one, if not all of the authors. More than seeing herself reflected in these women who lead, she will gain insight regarding who she is as a woman and as a leader. She will likely walk away with a greater sense of self and increased self-awareness-the key to next level leadership. If nothing else, one of the most powerful gifts of the challenges and experiences that the women share was the gift of awareness; awareness of self and awareness of others. Understanding who you are helps you to embrace and cultivate the good in those you lead; the good of your organization.
During the last year, women have found themselves struggling to stay encouraged and motivated. What would you say to the woman who hasn’t reached her healing point yet but wants to learn to pivot and make it to wholeness?
To the woman looking to take her life and leadership higher, I would say, “GO DEEPER”. DEEPER is a proven framework that I developed as I walked through my own healing process. The very first step (Discover Your Purpose and Decide What You Want) is the most critical step and serves as the foundation for the others. The framework has truly become a lifestyle for me. I regularly apply in my own life, as well as use it with the women that I coach and train. The entire acronym, DEEPER, stands for Discover Your Purpose and Decide What You Want; Examine Your Life; Eliminate the Barriers; Plan of Action; Evaluate Your Progress; and Realize that You Can Do It!
______________
Discover Your Purpose and Decide What You Want—
Start by asking these questions: Who am I?; Where did I come from?; Why am I here?; What are my gifts?; Who can I serve? These questions all speak to purpose and are sure to wake up in you the reason you are here. Take some time to clarify your vision and get clear about what you would like to accomplish.
Examine Your Life—
Identify behaviors that have impeded your progress. Figure out why you do what you do.
Eliminate the Barriers—
Replace negative behaviors with those that move you forward your goals and the life you want to live.
Plan of Action—
Determine the steps necessary to get what you want! Be specific and intentional in the action steps to accomplish your goals.
Evaluate Your Progress—
Get honest with yourself regarding your progress. Celebrate and make adjustments as necessary.
Realize That You Can Do It!—
Apply these principles in your life and you WILL reach your goals, live your purpose, and become who you want to be!
__________________
Tell us where the book can be purchased and how readers can reach out to you directly for more information on your programs and services.
DEEPER Women™ Teach: Stories and Strategies for Life, Love, and Leadership from Women Who Lead may be purchased at barbaraswinneyinc.com or AMAZON.
The DEEPER Leader Institute for Personal and Professional Development offers an accredited 90 Day Life and Leadership Coaching Certification Program, Group Life and Leadership Coaching (6-8 Week Programs) , and customizable Corporate Training. For more information, program enrollment, and services, or to book a Discovery Call, you should access thedeeperleaderinstitute.org. PROGRAM ENROLLMENT NOW OPEN for program sessions beginning in AUGUST.
To book me to speak at your next event, you should access barbaraswinneyspeaks.com.
I invite you to follow me on all major social media platforms @bswinneyinc
CWM Reviews DEEPER Women Teach-Anthology Project: With this project, each of the contributors covered topics including setting boundaries, loss, hindering negative thoughts, beliefs, and mindsets, giving too much control to other (person or situation), fear, not giving up, accountability and giving yourself grace. As women who lead, these revelations can come at any age or level in someone’s life and no matter how things may look on the outside, just beneath the surface, women still can be struggling with juggling everything going on in their personal lives and careers. Women, in general, can tend to hold on to and continuing to water a dead thing when they simply need to take account and make the decisions that will turn their situation around. It is very hard to present whole and give to others, when are running on an empty tank of self-care. From their stories you can gain insight on how others continued to persevere and recover from negative spaces, environments, and events in their own lives and how to in its own words go DEEPER, pivot and continue to lead in your personal and work lanes.
