Unleashing Your Leadership Potential

Lynell Green is a highly accomplished strategic management consultant and executive coach, renowned for her expertise in unleashing leadership potential and fostering strategic growth. With over 40 years of experience, Lynell has successfully worked with an impressive roster of clients, including industry leaders at Meta, Netflix, X, Microsoft, and Hilton. Her unique combination of skills, including accounting, corporate management, and teaching leadership programs, allows her to provide invaluable insights and guidance to her clients. Lynell’s ability to understand complex business strategies, navigate organizational dynamics, and develop effective leaders has consistently resulted in transformative outcomes for her clients. Through her coaching, Lynell empowers leaders to inspire and unleash the leadership potential around them, creating a ripple effect of growth and success throughout their organizations.

More at https://www.lynellsplace.com

The Interview Transcript

Hugh Ballou:
Welcome to The Nonprofit Exchange. This is episode number 410. We’ve been doing this a while, and we’ve had great guests. And today is no exception. I know I’ve said that before, but come on. It gets better. And I just met Lynell Green just the other day, and I said, Lynell, I want you on the show. You have a beautiful message and you have such a passion for your work. So let’s get to it. So Lynell, tell people a little about yourself and what is it you want to talk about today?

Lynell Green:
Yeah, thank you for the privilege and the opportunity to be with you today, Hugh. And I love the fact that this is the 410th episode. That means you have been at work making a difference in the world. And those are the people that warm my heart, the people that are actually willing and not only willing, but actually doing the thing that makes a difference for people. So thank you for what you’ve built so far. My background, Hugh, is in accounting, finance, and taxation. Those are what my degrees and certifications are in. I did that for years, worked in corporate. America. I worked as an auditor for an international CPA firm. I worked as a treasurer for a global entertainment company. I’ve done IPOs, bond placements, big deals and little deals. I’ve been in startups and I’ve been in multinational companies. All of that experience ultimately led me to a place where I found that I didn’t want to do accounting, finance, and taxation anymore. I was having more fun when I was training teams, starting with training my own teams. that that’s when I was having the most fun, helping people navigate their career, helping them own their career. I have a saying that we’re all CEOs. We all are in charge of the destiny that we create for ourselves from a corporate standpoint and a work standpoint. We’re in charge. And when people say, well, I’m not sure if I can do, I said, well, then I need to talk to the person that is in charge over there. If it’s not you, then who? And it really is you. So fundamentally, that is what I love doing, getting people to get their arms around the fact that they are in charge over there. And what that looks like is that continue to grow and develop, find your gaps, be responsible to develop and train yourself that you’re never done with that. I could go on and on, but fundamentally, it’s having people discover the next level of their leadership and not like a clone of someone else, but a self-discovery of the gifts that God gave them and how those gifts are meant to contribute and make a difference.

Hugh Ballou:
That is so awesome. And when you speak about it, I can feel your passion. So going from accounting, now, I studied to be a conductor, and you spend your life with your back to the audience. In 2007, I turned around and became a keynote speaker. I had to look at the audience. Very big. So you have a really outstanding, powerful presence. And I can’t imagine you being behind the scenes. And you are an influential leader. So you influence leaders to step up their own game. Talk a little bit more about how you help leaders. I’m guessing this, but I’m going to ask it anyway, that they have the power already inside, and you help them embrace that power, right?

Lynell Green:
Exactly. That’s exactly it. And I think there’s understanding. To me, there’s three pillars of how we examine anything in life, and that is looking at the past and making sure we learn what there is to learn from the past, being clear about the present, not having our head in the sand or being delusional or living in a fantasy world of what’s going on right now, and then having a clear vision for the future. And that we know the future, there are things that will come our way that we don’t anticipate, but we should have a vision for the future, something that we’re living into. And that what we’re living into is informed by the past, activated in the present, and clarity for the future and what we want to create. going forward. So I think fundamentally, a lot of times when leaders say they’re stuck, it’s one of those three places. Either they’re not clear about where they’re going, they’re confused about what they’re supposed to be doing right now, or they’re stuck in either a past failure or something that didn’t go well in the past. and they can’t get their foot out of that bear trap, so they’re stuck. So one of the things I do is look at where you’re stuck. Let’s look and discover where you actually are stuck. And I’m a firm believer that who knows the most about you and your leadership is you. So for me, I just get to be your partner in that discovery. I’m your discovery partner. I ask great questions, have people look and think. I don’t have the answers. You have the answers. You just may have a block for seeing them at the moment, but you have them.

Hugh Ballou:
You have no idea how much of the same page we are. I’ve been teaching this for years. Beautiful. Powerful. Not just because I agree with it, but I see too many leaders that think they have all the right answers. And really, what you just defined is leaders have the right questions. That’s right. That’s exactly right. What are some other misconceptions that you see about leadership out there?

Lynell Green:
Well, so there’s two things, how people lead. Many times, especially now, there’s so much knowledge out there. They’re listening to podcasts. They’re reading books. They’re using chat GPT trying to discover who they are. How should I be? How do I optimize myself for SEO? How do I optimize what I say to get the most likes or followers? So many times, when you look at your leadership through that lens, if that’s your primary lens, you can lose your own passion. and your own uniqueness because you’re trying to clone, be a better clone of something else you see or something else you’ve discovered as opposed to understanding the world needs all of our voices. And they need all of the uniqueness that we see the world through, our unique lenses. So for me, it’s important that each leader discover their uniqueness and be unabashed in sharing their points of view, what they see and what they’ve discovered, because their journey from day they were born till now has been unique. Nobody else in the room has had that journey. And so we need to hear from you and your uniqueness. So that’s one thing. The second thing is how they lead others. Because sometimes leaders, even if they discover their own uniqueness and they’ve become really authentic and you know, leaders and emotionally intelligent, you know, all of that. Then the people that are on their teams, they try to make them clones of them. It’s like, wait a minute, it didn’t work for you. So now why are you now, why do you now try to build your team or your company? And what you’re doing is rewarding people that do things the way that you do them. I think it’s a pitfall. So there’s that both of how people lead themselves and how they lead others. I think both of those elements of leadership need to show uniqueness.

Hugh Ballou:
What I learned in studying from famous conductors is look in the mirror if you’re not getting the results you want. Because the teacher of conductors said, if you don’t get what they see is what you get. And if you don’t get what you want, look in the mirror. Let’s change what you’re doing. So that is one of the most powerful. So folks, you’re going to see the transcript of this. You’re going to get these great sound bites if you go to the nonprofit exchange, THE, nonprofitexchange.org. And you’ll find all these episodes for a look at this one. And so Lynelle Green will have words of wisdom for you. And you can pick and choose from the transcript. You can look at the video. You can download the audio. You can take it with you, because here’s something you can take to the bank. So Lynelle, people use excuses like, I will win. I will be a leader when I get the position. I will be a leader when I get the authority. What are some of those barriers that people need to realize they don’t have?

Lynell Green:
You know what? I love that by when, when am I going to do something? There’s a book by Sam Horne that is that someday is not a day of the week. And And when people say, well, I’m going to do that, I’m like, well, what day? Well, someday. No, no, no. I want to know what day. What day? As in October 15th, you’re going to have the draft of your book done, and you’re going to send it to me. We’re going to get in reality here. But interesting question, Hugh, because what it reminded me of is One of the things that I share with my clients is leadership lessons from Nehemiah. And in Nehemiah, when he went to the king, when he got the news that his brethren were in trouble, Many times we get the news. Our company’s in trouble. Our team’s in trouble. We get the news. And it’s so tempting to start playing the blame game. Who can I blame? Or how can I do some quick fix? But Nehemiah, first of all, got on his knees and repented for what he did or didn’t do, what the people did or didn’t do. So owning your role in the condition of of your leadership and the people you’re leading is the first step. The second thing is being clear on what you need to go to the next level. Nehemiah went to the king and said, I need this, this, this, and this. I need a letter. I need supplies. I need the things that he needed. And then he went to work. Because I think the other thing that we can get fascinated with is trying to understand why it went that way. How come it’s not working? I thought, blah, blah, blah, versus Sometimes you do need to understand why, but many times it’s what’s important is next. Like what are the next steps? And actually going to the king, getting what you need, going to the place that the work needs to be done, looking in your organization, see where the water’s leaking, go for it. And then watching Nehemiah and how he train the people, ultimately, they had enemies before they got started. And sometimes, especially people that are Christians or want to think the best of people, sometimes we’re very naive that in environments that we have real enemies, people that really do not have our best interest at heart. Maybe they don’t want to physically kill us, but maybe from a career standpoint, if they can undermine us or not have us be as successful, those people are out there and they’re real. And we see it with Nehemiah. They showed up when he got to the city. There they were. Like, what are you going to do? What do you mean you’re going to build something? And ultimately, Nehemiah had to train the people that in one hand, you have a shovel to build you have a tool to build, and the other hand, you have a sword to fight. And I think when we can embrace the fact that we really, in order to be a successful leader, we have to be willing to do both, to build and also to protect what we’re building. And not like elbows out, like there’s not enough for all of us because there is, but being clear and not naive about the fact that there are people that don’t have your best interests at heart.

Hugh Ballou:
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. So be very clear on your values. Let me talk about two people who have influenced my leadership. And let me ask you who influenced yours. One is psychiatrist Mary Bowen. Mary Bowen did his work at Georgetown University in DC. And he holds a different theory than Freud or Jung. But his whole theory is about differentiation of self and managing self. So if a leader is anxious, it’s contagious. So I learned about managing anxiety from Murray Bowen’s writings. But also when I was a teenager in the streets of Atlanta, I got to experience Martin Luther King. And against insurmountable odds, he remained calm and he was very clear on his message. He didn’t attack people. He said, here’s our principles, and I dream for this to be there one day. Managing himself when people were so brutal to him, never lost his cool. So those are lessons. And when I’m on a podium in front of an orchestra and I have an audience, that’s pretty high pressure. So being able to control my emotions is really key as a performer. What about you? Who’s influenced your life and some lessons that help you help others?

Lynell Green:
Well, you know, it’s interesting when you said that, I’m thinking, oh, my God, I read so much. And I, you know, I really am a student of life. But I grew up in Hawaii. I’m from fourth grade through college. My bachelor’s is from the University of Hawaii. And one of the things that we did in elementary school and junior high and high school is study Hawaiian history and the Kings. I knew more about King Kamehameha and all of the different, you know, iterations of that than I did our presidents when I first, you know, graduated from school. So I think watching the legacy of the Hawaiian Kings and how they came from all around the world to build what they built. And then the conflicts that they had, kind of back to what I was saying, even about Nehemiah, that anytime you come to build, which they did come to build, and then it went the way it went with colonization, et cetera. But I would say through the kings and the queens of Hawaii were the foundation of my leadership life.

Hugh Ballou:
Oh, that is so great. That is so great. I’ve been there, but I haven’t had experience of that kind of royalty. So let’s go. You work with all kinds of high-level leaders. You do some work in the trenches with entrepreneurs and non-private leaders and clergy as well, do you? And if you do, is there a difference in the kind of work you do?

Lynell Green:
Excuse me. Well, the majority of my current clients work for tech. Most of them are Christian, but they work for big tech, Facebook, Netflix, WhatsApp. And so they are all, of course, very smart people, but also very competitive, very ambitious. one of the pitfalls that we talk about all the time, and that is the desire to get short-term wins at the expense of long-term innovation. Because there’s always, there’s the game to get as many points on the board as quickly as possible. Launch, launch, launch. And many times that’s at the, if they would sit down actually focus on creativity and innovation. I understand you have stockholders, you have stakeholders, you have people watching the bottom line. You can’t ignore it. But there’s also the opportunity to continue to innovate. So I think innovating as a leader on a personal level and also creating an atmosphere of innovation for your teams and your company is the long game. So fundamentally, what I’m saying is encouraging leaders to play the long game and also to understand that to be a great leader, you also have to be a great follower. And we’re all following somebody, whether we’re doing it intentionally or unintentionally, but there are people that are influencing our journey. And just to make sure we’re being great followers as well.

Hugh Ballou:
You heard that folks, another great soundbite. In order to be a great leader, you need to be a follower. And we don’t realize, so I’m hearing what you do in big companies and I’m reframing it in terms of a local charity. We have some people in small charities, big ones. We have all kinds of people that listen to this podcast, but it’s really no different. We’re not putting out a fire. We’re not doing the short term. We’re looking at the future and we’re building systems. for people so we can have a continuity to what we’re doing. Is that right?

Lynell Green:
Yes. Well, you know, it’s just absolutely. And there are a lot of people that have they work in corporate and they have a nonprofit, like they still because they want to give back. And so many times we’re talking about both. But I would say one of the things that I find with the nonprofit, the people that have nonprofits is if they’re not careful, and they don’t have the funding and the resourcing that they need, then they’re leading through survival. So many times the actual mission, what they’re committed to accomplishing, goes into the backseat of trying to raise money, trying to get the right people on the board to help raise money. And then once the money comes, managing the money, and all of that. So I think one of the biggest challenges I see is how do you lead something that is a passion, I’ll call a passion project, and that may not be resourced the way that you would like and still not get sucked into the survival atmosphere where you actually then sacrifice the very thing you care about.

Hugh Ballou:
Wow. Well, I hope you’re listening. There’s some more really good soundbites. You’ll find this in the transcript at thenonprofitexchange.org. So you shared your journey, Lynell, from being an accountant, a bean counter, so to speak. My father and his grandfather were both CPAs, so I broke that thread. So why did you make this shift? You said a little bit about you wanted to be in front of people. What’s the real passion for this, and why did you start this business to help people?

Lynell Green:
Well, when I worked for what is now known as PwC, and we’re working long 18-hour days, and we’re billing the client by 15-minute increments. So we’re supposed to have our head down. And I just noticed by 3 or 4 o’clock, I was about to blow. So I would get up and go find somebody to talk to, somebody that worked for the client. I didn’t care if it was the mailman or whoever. I wanted to talk. I wanted human connection. I wanted to hear about somebody else’s day other than my spreadsheets and the worksheets that I was working on. And I saw that that was where my joy was. And then I started volunteering for a company where I was helping lead leadership courses. And I saw I would do that 20 hours a week. I’d work my long hours, and then I’d find time and energy to help others. And I found that that actually gave me energy. The things that I was doing on the accounting side drained me on some level, like I needed to recuperate from that. But the time that I spent helping others really did just light me up. And what I tell people, like my clients now, I said, they pay me and they pay me well. But I said, I get paid in progress. I’ve always been that. I want to spend time with people that are willing to make progress on whatever it is. And you don’t have to always know the answer, but you do have to be willing to put in the work. And if you’re not, I’m not a therapist. I don’t want to talk to people for years and years and years about the same thing over and over again. I’m not that girl. It doesn’t work for me. I can’t do it. I can’t. I can’t. But as long as, I don’t care if it’s baby steps, as long as you are willing to make progress, and progress is self-defined. You tell me where you want to go to work. You tell me where you want to make progress. We create a plan together on how I can support you with that. And then I’m your accountability partner, your point of wisdom, like that.

Hugh Ballou:
I love it. Folks, hope you listen. This is the ideal situation for somebody that can support you. So we’re measured, evaluated. people see us in terms of our results, especially in the nonprofit world. Funders want to see the impact of your work. So you have a story of somebody you’ve worked with that’s had a turnaround and was able to embrace your inspiration and make a difference?

Lynell Green:
Absolutely. I have lots of those lovely stories, but one in particular that I love to share was I was actually teaching one of those leadership courses in San Francisco. And I had a husband and wife. I had 80 students in the course. And a husband and wife, they were in the course. And one of the design of the course was that you take on a community project. You have to go out in the community and find a project to make a difference. And it’s a four-month course. So the design is that you launch it within that four-month period. And everybody had to launch something. So that’s 80 projects that were going to be worked, that somebody was going to work on, and many of those were very successful. Well, this particular couple, the husband said, she’s going to work on my project. I said, no, she has to have her own project. And he’s like, no, but I planned for her to help me get mine, which basically he was saying she was going to do it and he was going to you know, not necessarily carry the weight. Bottom line is I insisted that she do her own project. She ultimately, now it’s been about 12 years now, she started, she said, I’m going to have a global women’s circle. She did that. She ultimately ended up in 22 countries, trained other women around the world to do women’s circles, and helped other women get microloans and build businesses in countries around the world. And she didn’t know herself as a leader that could accomplish that. And to this day, she still says, it was because you told me that I didn’t know the leader that I was, that I just kept hearing your voice and I kept taking one more step. And now what she’s built is amazing. And I just, I mean, I watch her. I saw her two weeks ago. Actually, we’re still in touch. What she’s built was, to me, the epitome of what it looks like when you interact, you being, in this case, it was me. I told her that you’re a global leader from the day that I met her. It’s like, no, there’s global leadership there. We just have to discover how it’s going to show up in the world. And now that she is literally 22 countries.

Hugh Ballou:
I’m so inspired. This is great. So we have, I want to show your website, people that are listening on the podcast, I’ll give you the link. And if you want to go to our webpage, you can, you can see this, at https://www.lynellsplace.com. So Lynell, what will they find when they go there?

Lynell Green:
Well, we are actually under construction right now because we just launched a program called Audacious Leadership. So we’re in the process of including that program in the website. But if you want to contact me, you can contact me, or you can using that link there, or you can just send an email to lanelle at lanellesplace.com. And myself and my team will get back to you and set up a discovery call, see how we can serve you.

Hugh Ballou:
Look at that. You’re pretty smiling face. So under construction looks better than a lot of them that say they’re done. So you’re a rock star. Thank you so much for today. This time just flew by. So as we end up here, do you want to leave people with a challenge or a thought or a tip for going forward?

Lynell Green:
Well, thank you for the opportunity. At the end of the day, And I know what I’m about to say you’ve probably heard before, everyone’s heard before. What we have to answer for is how we’ve used that dash. The time between the time we were born and the time that we breathe our last breath. That dash is sacred. So my desire is that everyone see the gifts and talents that you have and know that you’re not designed to do that alone. Look to see what communities you can get involved in, what things you’re passionate about, how you can make a difference in the world. So when you do say goodbye in this physical sense, that you’re satisfied that you’ve done your best work while you’re here.

Hugh Ballou:
Lynell Green, I have not heard that before. Thank you for blessing us today with your passion and your wisdom in the nonprofit exchange.

Lynell Green:
My privilege. Thank you.