Navigating Feedback, Branding, and EQ in Leadership with Morenike Williams
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Description
In a world where success often feels scripted, Morenike Williams knows the power of rewriting your own story. As a seasoned executive turned CEO of Revision Coaching, she’s redefining what fulfillment means on her terms. As a coach, she helps others do the same by combining her real-world experience with intentional, personalized strategies.
In this episode of Branding Room Only, Morenike and I dive into the importance of emotional intelligence, feedback, and authentic communication for building a personal brand that truly resonates. Together, we unpack how emotional intelligence goes beyond self-awareness, why feedback is an invaluable tool—even when it’s difficult to hear—and how clear, direct communication can elevate your professional impact. This conversation will inspire you to dig deeper into your personal brand and approach each step of your journey with authenticity and purpose.
Chapters
1:14 - What personal brand means to Morenike, how she defines herself in three words, the Dolly Parton quote she loves, and her go-to hype song(s)
6:14 - How Morenike’s childhood as a Black girl in Tampa proper shaped her work ethic and the way she navigates spaces
12:03 - How Morenike’s experiences as a kid in navigating spaces as “other” led to her college and career path
17:48 - The importance of having emotional intelligence and how the lack of it can make or break your brand
23:54 - Morenike’s advice for anyone struggling to do the emotional intelligence work needed to move forward
32:10 - How the way you receive feedback (verbally and non-verbally) can impact others’ view of you and your brand
38:01 - Why who you receive feedback from can be a challenge and how to apply filters to sift through the feedback you get
42:57 - How passive-aggressiveness in your communication impacts your brand and ability to navigate the spaces you occupy
49:11 - Two brand aspects that Morenike will always stand by and the unique sauce that is her Branding Room Only magic
Connect With Morenike Williams
Morenike Williams is the CEO of Revision Coaching™, a minority- and woman-owned consultancy that provides tailored coaching and workshop solutions to empower legal and business executives in accelerating their personal and professional growth, accessing untapped potential, and ascending to new heights.
Morenike’s tried and true experiences at top international firms in Big Law (Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Allen & Overy (London) and Fortune 200 companies (Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Vanguard), business leadership, and entrepreneurship have fortified her empathy and vision for helping others define and achieve what success looks like for them.
Bringing over 15 years of experience to bear, Morenike curates customized experiences focused on career strategy, effective communication, relationship management, emotional intelligence, and leadership development, to propel her clients forward on their development journeys.
Her credentials include a B.S. in Business Administration from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.
Revision Coaching | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook
Mentioned In Navigating Feedback, Branding, and EQ in Leadership with Morenike Williams
Petty Branding Series:
What It Is and How It Impacts Your Leadership
Lessons from a Leadership Misstep
Navigating Ego and Embracing Constructive Feedback
Access Paula’s Recommended Coaches of Color
Personal Branding Strategy Sessions
Subscribe to The Branding Room Only on YouTube
Sponsor for this episode
This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC.
PGE Consulting Group LLC is dedicated to providing a practical hybrid of professional development training and diversity solutions. From speaking to consulting to programming and more, all services and resources are carefully tailored for each partner. Paula Edgar’s distinct expertise helps engage attendees and create lasting change for her clients.
To learn more about Paula and her services, go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn.
Transcript
Paula Edgar: Welcome to The Branding Room Only Podcast where we share career stories, strategies, and lessons learned on how industry leaders and influencers have built their personal brands. Now, let's get started with the show.
Hi, everybody, it's Paula Edgar, your host of Branding Room Only. Excited to be here with my friend, Morenike Williams. Let me tell you about her. Morenike Williams is the CEO of Revision Coaching as well as a seasoned legal executive who leverages her leadership and executive experience, legal industry expertise, empathy, wit, and relatability to help legal professionals not only reach the top but also thrive once they get there.
She has helped partners, senior attorneys, GCs, and other senior in-house counsel, define and achieve what success looks like for them. Revision Coaching's clients hail from various industries and sectors in practice and law firms, public and private companies, and non-profit organizations. Most of all, she is my friend. Morenike, welcome to The Branding Room.
Morenike Williams: Thank you. I'm excited to be here. I've been waiting for my chance to get up here. Thanks for having me.
Paula Edgar: Of course. As you know, because you are one of my listeners, I'm going to start with my question, which is what does personal brand mean to you? How would you define it?
Morenike Williams: I think for me, as it relates to personal brand, it's a bit of my calling card. It's my reputation. I think that really is what it is. What I'm talking with clients and we're differentiating is identity is how you describe yourself. Brand is how other people describe you.
I think of my personal brand as if you ask someone what they think about Morenike. It's what they would reflect back to you. Then scaling that and aggregating that across a number of people. Hopefully, there's some consistency and continuity, but it really is just people reflecting back on how they experienced their interactions with me, my business, and things like that.
Paula Edgar: Love it. Love that. Speaking of interactions with you, how would you describe yourself in three words or short phrases?
Morenike Williams: I would say that I am wise, I am transparent, and I'm spiritual. Those would be the three words I would use to describe myself.
Paula Edgar: I would also use spreadsheet savant. For those of you who know Morenike, you’ll laugh because she loves her spreadsheet. Let me tell you something, I feel so organized just talking to her.
Morenike Williams: Listen, I love me a spreadsheet.
Paula Edgar: Listen, I've never seen anybody use a spreadsheet as adept as you do. Praise to all of the skill sets that we have that is definitely one of yours. Tell me about this, do you have a favorite quote or mantra that you use?
Morenike Williams: I do, and it's actually on my website. It's “Find out who you are and do it on purpose” by Dolly Parton. I love Dolly Parton. I've always loved her since I was a kid. I think Coat of Many Colors and Jolene were my two favorite songs. But that quote in particular for me, just finding out who you are and doing it on purpose, I think especially as I've matured over the years, it just speaks to the fact that we are inundated with so many messages about who we're supposed to be, who our parents want us to be, who society wants us to be.
I don't think a lot of us spend the time to intentionally figure out “Who am I for myself without someone else telling me who they think I should be?” When we don't do that at work, we end up, or we can end up at times just following this other path, never really figuring out like, “What makes me happy? How do I experience joy? What's a feeling?”
I think it's a reminder for me, especially as I've sought to be and show up more authentically, to figure out who I am and be intentional about it, not haphazard. You don’t figure out I don't think who you are haphazardly. It's like, “I need to dig in what's my mess? What's the great stuff? What do I need to work on?”
It's just a daily reminder for me to do that work and to continue to do that work. Because I'm evolving, we always evolve. It's not a thing that you should do one time. You need to do it at different stages in your life as well.
Paula Edgar: I love that because I always say that the personal brand is intentionality and strategy, a good one. You can have a good one without that but I think it's much more fulfilling when you have the intention, the authenticity, and the consistency. I never heard that quote, but I will be using it going forward. Love that. All right, what about this? What's your hype song?
Morenike Williams: I'm going to go with Montell Jordan, This Is How We Do It because it just never gets old. My other hype song, I feel like it's Knuck If You Buck. But I feel like that brings up maybe a little bit more crunk energy. You're like, “I wish somebody would energy.” I think I feel like I'm going into more battle mode. I might put that on, so I'm a little bit ready for my spiciness. I got my armor up, but I think just generally, This Is How We Do It by Montell Jordan is always my go-to.
Paula Edgar: I didn't know you were going to choose that. I actually thought you were going to choose a more Southern-based song, so Knuck If You Buck was [inaudible] for me. But Montell Jordan, I met him in an elevator in Las Vegas.
Morenike Williams: That's so random.
Paula Edgar: It was so random, he got into the elevator and I was like, "Oh, my God, you’re Montell Jordan." I am 5’2, and I've been 5’2 since I was in fifth grade, and he is like 6’7. He's like, "I am?" Anywho, shout out to Montell, I hope you hear this.
Morenike Williams: Right, he's like, "Hey, Montell."
Paula Edgar: Right, right, that part, that part. He knows who he is, and he does it on purpose. Okay. We started talking a little bit about the South. Tell me, where did you grow up? How did you grow up? How did that shape you?
Morenike Williams: I grew up in Tampa, Florida. Born and raised 813. I am from Tampa. Let me just get off my soapbox real quick, but also Tampa proper is 813. Tampa Bay includes Clearwater, St. Pete, and all the surrounding areas. I'm from Tampa proper. I grew up there my entire life. My mom raised me by myself. My parents got divorced when I was probably about three.
It's just always been the two of us. I think that part of that is just being able to see this incredibly strong woman who's extremely independent. When I think about my work ethic and just getting stuff done, it comes from having that example because there were no days off. We didn't have this family unit to leverage, so it was just her.
The idea is that if stuff needs to get done, it needs to get done, I just learned that not even intentionally, but just observing her and how she moved and how she made stuff work. I think that growing up in Tampa was interesting because it's very different from Tampa today.
When people are like, “Oh, I just vacation in Tampa,” I'm like, “What? Why?” But now that I've gone back, I see it because it's completely transformed in so many ways. But when I grew up there, we definitely lived in the inner city, all Black neighborhood down the street from the projects. It shaped me because I grew up in an all-Black neighborhood, but my mom also put me in special assignments in different schools trying to give me as much access as possible.
I was in primarily all-white classes, especially when I went into the gifted program. I think that is where I started to see that your foot's in one side and the other, it's like, “Oh, I'm not Black enough for the Black kids, but I'm also Black so I'm not white enough for the white kids.”
There's this tension that I think I started to experience not in my first years in elementary because I still had some diversity in my classes but it was when my mom switched my elementary school and I was one of three Black people in the entire school. It was a music teacher, me, and this other student.
That was a shock. I knew how to navigate folks who didn't look like me but my race was very obvious and I was reminded that I wasn't from there, I wasn't from that subdivision. I'll say the other thing that shaped me is in terms of learning to shrink and now because I've done work with my therapist, but I think we're tracing it back to where that shrinking started is from that time in that elementary school because I'll never forget when you asked me when I was a kid what I wanted to be, it was Oprah.
It's like, “I'm going to be the next Oprah. I'm going to have my own talk show.” People would be like, “Oh, you can't do that. Oprah's kind of like a once-in-a-million-time thing. It'll never be another opportunity for a Black woman to be on TV,” whatever.
But the thing is we had a morning show at that school because it was a very well-funded school. I went from going to the computer lab once a week or something to having just a ton of computers in every single classroom. I was on the morning show and you were supposed to rotate off of the morning show, but they always kept me on as a co-anchor because I was doing such a great job.
Then one day I came in, I'd been on there probably for the whole nine-week period. I came in and I had just been snatched off and put back on equipment. I was asking, “Did I do something wrong? What happened?” They're like, “Oh, we just have to give other people a chance.”
I was like, “Okay.” But my mom inquired, and it turned out that some of the parents when they found out that I didn't live there because they were always hearing my name from their kids, like, “Oh, Morenike’s on the morning show,” and when they found out I didn't live there, they complained that “This kid who's not in the subdivision is getting to shine on the morning show,” so I was taken off.
I think what that imprinted on me is if I take up too much space, or if I use my voice, or if I have an impact, then there can be consequences. Again, that was probably to some subconscious level, but that's when I started shrinking and being that people like to joke like, “Florida's not the South.” It very much is.
It may not have some of the obvious country rule aspects, even though it does, but when you think of Miami or Orlando or whatever, the mentality and some of the prejudices and things that you equate with the South are very present in Florida. That happened.
It was again, in every school I was in, it's the, “You're not Black enough to be with Black kids. You're trying to fit in with the white kids. Where do you actually belong?” My hustle was books. I was like, “I just want to go to the best college I can and get out of Florida.” That was my goal. It was like, “I know I'm not going to stay here because I don't feel like this is the right place for me.”
Paula Edgar: Yeah, and books are freedom. If you're not living in the place that you want to be, books give you someplace else to travel to. Because my mother always would say, “I get to go anywhere I want if I have a book.” Books also give you access and the opportunity to go someplace, like passports.” What do you know?
That's interesting. Obviously, I knew that you were from Florida. I have a Florida family, so we've discussed Florida before. I very much, as a New Yorker, think it is the South so I hear that 100%.
Tell me how that experience of learning to navigate in spaces where you may not necessarily have been wanting and also understanding that sometimes you had a shrink to grow led you to your career path.
Morenike Williams: When I think about practicing the law and moving into that space, which at least as a child, I think it's also accurate, it's a predominantly white space, especially at the big law firms. I felt like I knew how to maneuver because I'd been doing it my entire life.
It felt somewhat like a natural transition. I knew it would be tough, but I also felt like it was just a natural extension. It's like you go from high school to college so it’s like I've been navigating people who don't look like me my entire life so now I'm just going to keep doing that in this next arena.
I don't think I had angst about it from that perspective. In terms of becoming a lawyer, that was really growing up watching The Cosby Show. I know everything that's happened with Cosby is separate aside that a lot of us grew up in the 80s and 90s watching The Cosby Show, especially growing up in an area where people weren't going to college, that was the example that I had. He was a doctor, she was a lawyer.
I took biology, I was like, "This class sucks." So I was like, "I'm going to be a lawyer." People had always told me that I should be a lawyer and that I was good at arguing both sides of things and so forth.
I think for me, when I thought about law, I just wanted to move to New York. I had family in Jersey at the time, so I'd been to the city, but to me, it was like, “I want to do contracts.” I associated contracts with Wall Street, and Wall Street was in New York.
I always had a very logical linear approach to things. It was like, “This makes sense. I'm going to move to New York and be a lawyer.” That was my path starting in probably, I think, 10th grade, and it didn't really change until, obviously, now I'm full-time with my coaching and consulting business.
Left Florida, and went to UNC-Chapel Hill for undergrad. It was because I wanted to go out of state because I thought if I didn't go away for college, I would never leave. But I also didn't want to go so far that I didn't apply to the Ivys and stuff because they were just too far for me.
I'd never been away from home. So UNC to me was like, “It's a 10-hour drive. It's just far enough that I can’t just run home if things get hard, but I also can get home in a day if I need to.” That was my journey and navigating that space. That was the first time where I felt like I dealt with a lot of colorism and a lot of the girls on campus.
If you weren't a certain hue, the guys just ignored you. I hadn't experienced that coming from Florida because that's just not how it was. Again, there are just these things where you start to feel like, “Maybe I don't fit,” but again, I was focused on academics.
Just fast-forwarding, coming to NYU, I thought NYU Law School was a very welcoming environment. I had an amazing experience there. My goal coming in was I want to go to the best firm and get great training. I started at Cravath in New York as a corporate transactional attorney. That was just my intro to the legal profession, being there and then going to Allen & Overy London before transitioning in-house and then obviously now full-time with my business.
But I think the prep work for navigating those spaces started all the way back in elementary because, unfortunately, with the climate of being in a space where people remind you of your race or other you and having to learn to navigate people's feelings.
I'll never forget one time this girl, we were supposed to sit next to each other on the bus and I kept asking her, “Where do you want to sit?” She was like, “I don't know, I don't know.” They were yelling at us to sit down. So I just sat down and then she started crying and ran off the bus.
Then I was getting in trouble because I didn't sit. I was like, “What is this world where I'm getting in trouble because I'm not sitting? I'm following the directions, but now I'm in trouble for following the directions.”
Again, they seem like small things, but when you are constantly being given stimuli that are telling you there's a way that you need to act and show up, I got a lot of that training and also some of those scars. To your point about shrinking, there is something about what you said shrinking to grow.
I was shrinking to survive and felt that I needed to be small in order to achieve what I wanted and not understand how to take up space. I didn't think I could be me and take up space and reach the levels professionally that I wanted. That's something that I had to unlearn over time.
Paula Edgar: That’s probably bringing us to today, and what, we have a lot of things in common, but what I think a lot of people equate thinking about both of us is that I started off my career as a coach. You are the person who, anybody who says they want to coach, I'm like, “You need to call Morenike.”
What I think that it makes you really good at what you do is that you are not coming from a place of holier than thou. You're coming from a place of, “I've been there, experienced this, had some of these challenges. Here's how I navigated them. Here are the tools that I picked up along the way that can help you move to this next thing.”
A lot of the conversations that you and I have, and we have a lot of them, are about what we see people maybe not showing up in the ways that we would love them to show up. I'm being kind when I say that.
Morenike Williams: Absolutely.
Paula Edgar: One of the reasons I wanted to have this conversation is to bring folks into this dialogue with us, and talk about the importance of having emotional intelligence and how it can make or break your brand when you don't have it.
It's that EQ and then it's the IQ and how one does not stand by, you can have as much IQ as you want to, but if you don't have EQ, it's problematic. I thought, let's jump into that conversation and some of the things that we have seen.
I thought I would prompt you with a reminder of some conversations that we have had. One that I think about in anticipation of this is we were thinking of a collaboration that we were involved in and understanding that sometimes your skill set is not enough. It is how you do the things that you do.
One of the things that you experience when you're talking to your clients or just in general, what comes to mind when you're thinking of folks who people are like, “They've got it,” but that ‘it’ is not enough. The experience with them translates, and I'm being cagey on purpose but let's just jump into that. What are your reflections on people who don't have an EQ?
Morenike Williams: Yeah, I think it's just a bear trap that you're waiting to step into because at the end of the day, especially in the legal profession, but in corporate America generally, you are in the business of people. I don't care what it is in terms of the product or service that is what drives the bottom line, but you have to deal with people. You have to deal with people internally, your clients, it's relationship management and EQ is a part of that, like emotional intelligence is a part of that.
The way that I define emotional intelligence is quite simply actions plus awareness. It really just breaks down to that. It's having a level of self and situational awareness. Then how do you now act based on that awareness? At its base, that's really what it is.
Where I think that people fall down is they stop and I'll say it's step one, but I don't even know, it might just be floor like level zero, but it's like, “Oh, I have self-awareness.” That's awesome. Yay. But what else? Someone's like, “Oh, I'm aware. I talk a lot.”
But then you're not pairing that with the action of, “Okay, I'm aware that I tend to talk a lot. Let me think of the impact that has on other people. Let me now think of what actions I can take in terms of, ‘I want to make sure I invite someone else to contribute their thoughts, perhaps before I say my answer’ or if I recognize that I haven't heard anyone else speak in a while, let me pause and ask, does anyone have any insights before I move to my next point?”
Now you're starting to actually manage the behavior you become aware of. A lot of people don't manage the behavior and by not managing it, you're making it everybody else's problem because what you're saying is, “I'm aware I do this thing and you all just need to suck it up. You all need to pivot.”
You need to adjust and just make space for it and that's a very selfish approach, I'll be honest. It's the only way I can label it. It's a selfish approach. I think that a lot of times, people stop at the, “Oh, I've become aware of this thing that I do,” but they fail to start any type of management and that is short-sighted.
I think a really strong EQ is not just becoming aware, but it's starting to manage it. Both what you do, but then also having awareness of your environment, and other people's feelings, and how do you manage your influence based on what you now know. Because management is work, it takes work to manage yourself. It's why most people don't do it.
Paula Edgar: It is work because if you just stop at the “I know” part, to your point, that's not even half the battle. Now you understand the tools that you have, but you ain't using them. You can build the house with the hammers over there and the stuff is over there, you're in the middle and the process is not going to come together on its own. You have to do the work. Doing the work piece, when I was coaching more frequently, that would be the challenge. I would say as a coach, I'm like the foot in somebody's back. You got to do the thing, but you're not doing the thing.
How do we move from your knowledge to do it? That's why I think having a coach is so impactful. We've talked about this. I have a coach. I don't know what I would do without my coach. It's in order for me because I'm not okay with being stuck or stagnant. I want to continue to move.
I have found that folks who have less EQ are okay with right where they are. To your point in the people having to deal with it and having been one of the people who had to deal with it, I'll be even more open in that. I have self-awareness about some things and some of the ways that I show up in some places.
I found myself trying to get some feedback saying, “Hey, what are some things I could do differently?” Asking some of my stakeholders, getting their feedback, and then trying to take action and then understanding my brand was so strong that when I didn't show up the way that people expected, they thought something was wrong.
But they were like, “Well, Paula, you're not bossing us around, I don't understand what's going on.” I was like, “I was told by all of you that I should not boss you around so much.” It is a nuanced thing too. I think you need to understand that.
Because I also am a big believer that people need to be led. Leaders are important for a reason, but it doesn't have to be always like a ruling fist, it can be leading through being strategic and having an understanding of how to move the parts, [inaudible] not checkers, etc.
I wonder what advice would you give to someone who may be having some challenges with going from the knowledge to the action piece? How would you tell them to reflect or act differently?
Morenike Williams: The part of what you said in terms of it’s external support, I'm a big advocate obviously, of getting a coach, therapist, internal like your close inner circle. You have to first and foremost have a trusted advisory board circle encompassing you who can reflect back some of the blind spots.
The first step is to get the awareness but also don't stop at your own awareness because I think what people think is, “I know I do this thing.” But how do you know? Is it something that you notice? Is it something that someone else told you? You need to have that holistic piece so make sure you've tapped enough external resources to reflect back.
I always say you can't see yourself and so you need other people to be mirrors for you. Just make sure you don't pick a fun house mirror because some people are living in a state of delusion, and you are surrounding yourself with people who are just doubling down and letting you be delulu.
You have to get some folks who when you walk into that mirror, it's like when you get on the scale, you're like, “Oh my, I had a good holiday, didn't I?” There may be a little shock factor, but that's just the starting point because even when people tell me they have awareness, my first thing is still to dig based on what? Where are you getting this data?
Are you only asking people who are your BFFs? Are you asking someone who knows you but you're not as close because they may have a different perspective? Have you asked people who observe you more in a professional context? You need to get a good 360 view of yourself because that also, from a branding perspective, if you are not showing up consistently across the board, that can highlight gaps.
To be clear, I'm not saying you are acting the same way in church that you are in the club because we all turn up and down the aspects of our personality. But that doesn't mean that you're being inauthentic. You just recognize there's a time and a place for certain things.
So I'm transparent. I think that's something I'm relatable to. That's not something that I stop being in any of the settings I'm in. How much transparency, and how much vulnerability obviously may depend on the depth of our relationship or the context, but you're always going to get that aspect.
That's the first benchmark is making sure that you actually have the level of awareness to figure out who you want to be. Who do you want to actually be? What do you want your brand to be? Who are you evolving into? What does your aspirational version of yourself look like? Again, this isn't about coming up with something that's, “I want to play for the NBA and I'm 5’1.”
I mean, [inaudible] but it may not be your portion, but it is to say that I aspire to be someone who is healthy and that looks like me working out three to five times, whatever it is. But do you have a clear image of what your ideal self looks like? Because that then is like, “Okay, the awareness is like your GPS. We've taken what our starting position is. Now you need a clear picture of where it is you would like to grow to. Then you can identify the gaps.”
That's when then you start to put the different strategies in place. For instance, like I said, with the awareness, if you're made aware that you speak a lot, you talk too much, then I was like, “Simple ways in the meeting, okay, these are some strategies I'm going to do. I'm going to let someone else answer the question first. I'm going to invite comments before I share, before I move to my next point, I'm going to ask, does anyone have any thoughts?”
You then put in little steps and things that you can do easily that check the behavior. Also, they need to have accountability in terms of asking others, back to the trusted advisory board. If there's something that I'm working on, someone else needs to know I'm working on it so that they can give me feedback so that they know to look for this thing.
It's like, “Hey, I'm working on speaking slower so when we're in meetings, give me feedback. If you hear me going really, really fast, send me a message so I can start to pull it back and get my pace back in order.” It's things like that. I also tell people, “Start to be more present in your body in terms of what is happening physically when you are doing these behaviors that you have decided maybe you want to do less of.”
For instance, if we just go with someone who is speaking a lot or speaking very quickly, those people tend to get out of breath, because they just aren't taking an air. So, being aware that when you are starting to lose your breath, could it be that you're speaking too fast? You're not giving yourself the time to take in oxygen.
I was working with one client, I said, "Make a little metronome on your thigh with your finger and just tap it at a steady pace and then start to slow your speaking down to now match the pace." Nobody can see that I'm tapping my thigh under the desk, but I've just naturally been able to regulate.
So I think part of it just to sum it up is one, get the good awareness, two, get the circle to make sure that they can reflect back and validate the awareness and also highlight any blind spots that you have. Then you want to kind of, three, get clear on who it is that you like that brand to be evolved into, identify the gaps, and then start to put those little strategic things in place, little action steps that you can do that over time shift the behavior.
This isn't like you decide tomorrow because to your point, when you have an established brand, it takes time and consistency for people to buy into a new brand. Just how you established the one reputation, when you look to rebrands, for instance, with me in my business, people knew me as being a practicing attorney. Even as I started building my business, I was doing both.
So like, “Oh, she's an attorney, but she also does coaching.” Then when I went full time, heavy rebranding, heavy business development, coaching, coaching, consulting, really making sure that that's what people associated with me. But that was consistency over time.
Now that's what people think of. So they remember that I practice law, but their first thought is for me for coaching or speaking. I think people fall down on the consistency piece. They want to do an action one time. People instantly would be like, “Yes, this is your whole new brand and it doesn't work.” Then I think people get discouraged because they don't feel like they're getting the affirmation that they desire when in fact you just haven't been doing the behavior long enough for it to take root. You plant the seed, you got to water it, you got to give it a little fertilizer, give it time to germinate, and move from there.
Paula Edgar: Look at you. See the biology just came right back.
Morenike Williams: I like biology conceptually, but that class was painful. I actually took years of biology just because I love the teacher in high school. I wanted to be in chemistry. I just couldn't get the time slot with the chemistry teacher I wanted to match up.
Paula Edgar: Well, I honor that because all of the ones that had science-y backgrounds, I was like, “You know what, Paula shouldn’t be doing this.” Know thyself. That was my first part of my self-awareness. I was like, “Hmm, this is not my portion,” to your point. I was just thinking about when you were talking about the steps, a place where the steps can trip up is getting an acknowledgment of where you're messing up or where you can do better, I should say, is feedback.
Sometimes feedback comes from trusted advisors, from people who are stakeholders, and sometimes it comes from people who are not and who are in a place where they're just giving you feedback so that we can move the truck along or whatever the thing is. It can be really challenging to get feedback when you haven’t asked for, one, and two, when it is not great feedback.
As you were talking, it reminded me of some conversations that we've had about receiving feedback and how that can be a way your brand can be shaped amongst others because everybody needs it. None of us are perfect and all of us can do better and all of us I think should want to grow and do better. Let's talk a little bit about receiving feedback and how that can impact how you are seen in all of your spaces. What comes to your mind?
Morenike Williams: Yeah, feedback, I think it's critical. I mean, first of all, that's the quickest way to validate what your brand is, is obviously asking other people. But feedback is, to me, when people are looking to accelerate their growth from a leadership development perspective, from a professional development perspective, is using feedback. Where are your perceived gaps? Where are your perceived strengths?
Feedback doesn't always have to be negative. I think people think of feedback, and Because most of the time, a lot of us can think about that one time where we got feedback and it was really painful and it cut us down to the white meat and I was like, “I just felt like that was just really harsh,” and it felt like it came out of nowhere. We can get really bogged down in the timing, the delivery and then we miss the value of it.
As it relates to feedback and in receiving it well in particular, some of the things I like to tell clients is, first of all, you have to, again, going back to the awareness piece, recognize how do you tend to show up when you're triggered? When someone says something to you that you don't like, that offends you, that is catching you off guard, what is your natural inclination?
You need to have clarity around your non-verbals, not just your verbals, what you do. Do you eye roll? Are you giving them the little neckswing? Are you disengaged and sitting back in the chair? Again, you need that visual because sometimes when people are giving us feedback and we think we received it well, we didn't from their perspective because they're taking in the whole visual.
I'm like, “I'm trying to help this person be great and not step in this mousetrap and they're just giving me all types of this.” I was like, “I don't have time for this,” because the reality is that everybody, life is lifing for everyone, people are navigating a bunch of things behind the scenes that we have no insights to. So when someone is taking the time to give you feedback, whether you like them or not, there is potentially a gift in there.
Now, I will say there's a caveat. This is not about the haters and someone who's always looking for something negative to say about you. This is for people, whether they're close to you or not, who are just reflecting back in observation for your growth. The first thing around feedback, I believe, is understanding that feedback is data. That is it.
Going back to when we talked about identity, I feel like it's so important for you to be clear on who you are so that you're clear on who you are not. I know that I believe I am a kind, thoughtful person. If someone is giving me a feedback saying that I am mean and I am just insensitive and I don't seem to care, well now I know fundamentally that's not who I am but because I have that clarity, instead of going back and forth with them about that's not who I am, because people start to defend, I want to understand “What about my interactions with you left you with that impression?”
So now I can go on a little bit more of a fact-finding mission. But I think a lot of times when people receive feedback, it's difficult for them to receive it well, especially if it's harsh or it feels harsh because they're fighting against what they're taking is, like you're saying, “This is who I am. You're saying this is who I am not and I'm fighting against that because I know that’s not who I am.
You have to take a step away as like, “I'm this person and you're saying and reflecting back, but this is the impression. Let's figure out where the gaps are, why.” I think that's again with emotional intelligence because being able to take a step back from the “Oh, their delivery was trashed with this feedback,” and my good old Florida side of me wants to come up and say some things but what they said may be true or at least true from their perspective and I want to do that.
Because that's how you start to, again, whether it's building a new brand, rehabbing a tarnished brand, or just understanding how people move, they're telling you how they receive information. Right, wrong, or indifferent, they're giving you a glimpse into how they process. That can also be insightful in terms of how you then manage relationship, interact, or even avoid that person. But it's data. I have another thought on it, but before I do that, I'll see if you had anything.
Paula Edgar: No, no, please go ahead with the other thought.
Morenike Williams: Okay, because the other thing I would say because one thing that you hit on around who gives us the feedback can also be a challenge. Because first of all, I didn't ask you your opinion and now you just rolled up on me and gave it to me and I don't like you anyways so let's be honest. Let's just call it space. That makes it difficult.
What I was coaching one client on is I coach them like, “You have to sift through the feedback.” What I like to do is apply some filters. When you hear it, putting the person aside, is this something that is, that's probably true, that's definitely true, it could be true, or this feels very unlikely that this is true or it's wildly off base.
If you can put the person aside and really focus on what was said, especially when you get to that “I think it's unlikely or off base,” that's when you want to go to your accountability corner and vent that “Hey, I receive this feedback and it feels very off base to me but have you ever seen me do this behavior or have you experienced?”
They might be like, "Yeah, you do that all the time." They just haven't flagged it to you because part of their grace in being your friend is that it doesn't bug them the same way. I think that sometimes with feedback, it is something that may be a first impression. We haven't heard it before so we're like, "Oh, this person doesn't know me."
No, some other people just love you and they're tolerating the behavior because it's just not agitating in the same way. A lot of people will love us into stagnation because they're not willing to tell us what we [inaudible].
Paula Edgar: You better say a word right there, love us into stagnation. It's funny that you bring in love and feedback because I always say, "If you are truly going to give good feedback, you should give it out of love. People in corporate are like, "What? I don't love that person. I'm just trying to get this to do the work." I go, "No, if it's love for yourself, if it's love for the money, if it's love for the bill," but give it with a want for that person to be getting better from it, as opposed to “I'm giving it because I'm annoyed. I'm giving it because they annoy me,” whatever the thing is.
That love can be self-love that you're giving it to them so that you are preventing it from happening again. But when you just give it willy-nilly and with no strategy and thought about how it's going to be received, I think we cause so much more harm than we do good. My listeners will know that I've said over and over again that one of my big beliefs is that sometimes you get feedback that is full on trash and you can just toss it away. You can just be like, “That's great, bye.”
For example, someone gave me a feedback that I was too familiar with folks. I was like, “That literally is my brand. That’s literally how I built my brand.” I'm okay with that being the feedback. Whether it doesn't fit for you, that's okay. I don't have to be for you, I'm for them. But that self-awareness and also me knowing my goals and my vision for myself made me be able to sift through and literally just don't give that one that I leave to that feedback and toss it in the garbage.
But I do think that particularly when you're newer in a space or you're trying to make a shift, brand shifts are something I talk to my clients about all the time, “Here's how you do it,” it can be hard when you get feedback that, “Ooh, it's not working.” But sometimes it's just not working with that person as opposed to generally. So it's really important to have an understanding of who you are and how you're showing up and to know yourself. I used to joke when I did sessions and say, “If I was going to write a book, it'd be called Be More Self-Aware but nobody would buy it.”
Morenike Williams: Yeah, you have to believe me this is why nobody likes you.
Paula Edgar: Right. Exactly that. I love having this conversation and I'm sure for some of my listeners, it's going to not be easy to hear some of the things that we're saying because one of the things that I learned as a coach is that even though I was a paid messenger, it didn't make receiving the message easier for some folks.
In fact, some people would be like, "Well, actually." I'm like, “No, you are literally paying me to be one of your trusted advisors. I'm going to tell you this thing so let me figure this out.” One of the things I wanted to get to in our conversation before we close is just about, and I think we're getting to it, it's about communication, it's effective communication.
You started our conversation, I was like, “I know we're going to have to do this multiple times.” If we don't jump all into this, that's fine, because we can talk again, and of course, you have an open invitation to talk about whatever you want, you'll be able to come back. But what are some of the ways that folks communicate? Actually, I want to retract that question. I want to ask another question.
Morenike Williams: Okay.
Paula Edgar: This is the question I want to get to. How does being passive-aggressive in your communication detrimentally impact your brand and the way you might be able to navigate in whatever space that you're in?
Morenike Williams: Mm-hmm, oh, that good old passive-aggressive, huh? I think for a couple of things. First, people more often than not are aware that you're being passive-aggressive so it impacts your perceived authenticity. It impacts your ability to develop trust with folks because it's like, “Oh, you're someone who talks out of both sides of your mouth. You're saying one thing, but it's clear you're undermining me at the same time. My experience of you is not pleasant.”
People will not necessarily enjoy being around you as much, just because you bring up something in them when you're doing your little digs and things like that. But again, the trust piece, the inauthenticity piece, the not feeling like you are part of the team, so it's like I feel like I have to watch my back and my front from you as opposed to, so back to your point, delivering feedback and reflecting back opportunities to me, it's like you're saying stuff in a way that it's nice nasty. It's this like undercurrent of this whole other thing.
Now you're creating mental and emotional work for me because it's like I have to do my job and you have to manage and relationship manage. But now I have to be playing chess over here, I'm playing 3D chess with you, go fish over here. You're adding work so it becomes this thing of, but I think the trust piece is the biggest thing is people who have you as passive-aggressive, I don't really trust their motives, their opinions where they're coming from.
The other issue is when they actually are trying to be helpful or they do have a nugget that would be valuable, it's discounted. It's like The Boy Who Cried Wolf. It’s when there actually was a wolf, nobody really believed him because of all of his foolishness. It's the knock-on effect of the seeds that you're sowing, it's making people feel, I won't say you're making but people tend to feel like there can be insecurities around you.
It's just to me, passive-aggressiveness is not the desired approach, I think, from a leader. I think it's easy for people to do it because they're trying to appear nice or they don't want to say the hard thing. But as you said, part of being a leader, and this is why everybody isn't called to be a leader, is being willing to say the hard thing. Sometimes that means that everyone may not like you, but they will hopefully respect you in terms of your willingness to push them and leave them forward.
Someone who is passive-aggressive, again, it just is very triggering, especially for certain personality types, and that's a whole other conversation. But I have a personality type where I appreciate people being more direct. Even if it hurts my feelings at times, I still would appreciate the directness because I know that I believe that there is caring and like you said, there's love there because you love me enough to tell me the truth.
I don't trust people who I view as passive-aggressive because I feel like I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Creating that type of unsteady ground for people, it really is going to circle back and bite you in the butt. I know some people will be like, “Oh, well, I have this manager and they just got promoted,” again, it’s not to say that they will never have success, but I always say that you are creating a ceiling for yourself because just because you have this promotion, what could you have had if you actually had a strong wind behind you of people that you have built up who would really push and accelerate you even further?
This may be where you tap out. That's cute, that's great, you've got this role, but you could have had this one if you had built that pipeline and legacy of people who would support you as opposed to people who are shielding themselves from you.
Paula Edgar: What triggered the question for me, and you literally was like, I don't know, whatever sports analogy, I threw it to you and then you caught it or whatever because what triggered the question for me was one of your Mondays with Morenike, when you talked about we need to stop asking people to be nice.
My listeners know that I have a daughter. She's in college and I say to her all the time, “I don't want you to be nice. I want you to be kind.” Kindness says, “I'm going to give you direct feedback.” Kindness says, “I'm going to modulate my communication to impact you in the way that is best for you in our relationship.” Passive-aggression for me, I’m one of those people you talked about, I'm wildly triggered by passive-progression. It frustrates me.
I always say I'm aggressive-aggressive, I'm not passive-aggressive. I want you to tell me what it is and I want to tell you what it is, but that doesn't mean I do it meanly, but I do do it kindly with the thought of our relationship wanting to stay intact. I'm glad that we got there without me even having to say, “This is what we're going to do because, and it's not going to happen.”
Two things, first off, I think I came up with, in the middle of this conversation, something that we need to do going forward. I think it is like Ask Morenike and Paula on Branding Room. One of your to-dos from this conversation with two coaches is that you're going to start sending in questions, I want to hear, “At work, Sheila,” because it's always Sheila, “did X, Y, Z thing, how should I manage it?”
We're going to answer those questions, and I can't wait to see that some of the times it's going to be we are totally aligned, and other times we're going to be like, “I'm going to say fight them. We're going to tell you exactly what to do properly.”
Morenike Williams: 100%.
Paula Edgar: One, so there's that. I'm looking forward to making that happen. Two, is I want to get into my final questions that I ask all of my guests. One, I think I might be able to answer, but I'm going to ask you anyway, which is this, branding is so important to me. It's something that I think about all the time. For the people who have the strongest brands, there's an ethos underneath it. It runs through everything that they do, and it's continual and it's consistent and I call it to stand by your brand. What is one aspect of your personal brand that you will never ever compromise on?
Morenike Williams: Yeah. I would say transparency and relatability I guess are both there for me that I can't compromise on those. I think partly, that is my brand. I think that's what for those who I'm for are drawn to the fact that I don't shy away from sharing when I've done it right, if I've done it wrong. I'm like, “Oh, I'm posting this and I wasn't going to have all these boxes behind me,” but you're going to get these boxes.
So I think just being relatable and desiring to genuinely connect with people and knowing and recognizing that things that I've been through can be helpful. Being transparent, because it's easy to share just the wins, but being willing to share some of the lessons that came from those bear traps I stepped in and those trip wires, I think is a part of my brand that will always be a part of my brand.
If it ever ceases to be part of my brand, I hope that those around me in my advisory circle, yourself included, would be like, “Girl, what happened? You now went off the rails,” and would call me on it. I give everyone permission to call me if you see that my brand has shifted and lost those aspects.
Paula Edgar: I love that. It reminds me of the feedback that I got from the Petty Branding series when I shared my own transparency about how people are still messaging me about that. The other question I ask all of my guests is this, Branding Room Only is a play on standing room only because I am clever. What is the aspect experience of you, Morenike, that folks will be in a room with only standing room to experience about or with you?
Morenike Williams: I think it is my unique ability to blend wisdom with actionable steps. I think that my purpose isn't to just speak and motivate people, but it's really to be a catalyst for change through speaking. I endeavor that you will be inspired, that you will be motivated when you hear something, but that I will also have imparted tools and practical steps about how you can now implement or start implementing or start seeing that change.
That's what I think my unique sauce is that will bring people into that standing room only is that I want to be in a room with her because she's going to not just hit us with things that inspire us. She's not going to just give us wisdom that sounds lovely, she's also going to give us practical ways that we can implement that today and that we can start transforming and changing our lives to move in the direction that we want to see because I think that it's great to be inspired by also gone to stuff and get home and like, “I don't know what to do with this though. I don't know where to start,” and so my desire to help people know where to start is, I think, my unique sauce.
Paula Edgar: I love that. Speaking of that, for the people who want to stay in touch with you to understand how you continue to add value and catalyze the people, what should they do? How should they find you?
Morenike Williams: Yes, so definitely LinkedIn. Morenike Williams on LinkedIn. Mondays with Morenike every Monday, except when I'm maybe on vacation. But even then, I'm going to not have those be gaps, but I'd say every Monday dropping of video, we're just giving some nuggets, some insights, things for you to reflect on. I'm going to be launching a newsletter in Q4, so if you're interested in getting updates through email, then go to my website, revisioncoaching.com, and submit your name and email, and I will pull you into that listserv.
Instagram, @themorenikewilliams is where you can find me. I'd say those are the main places to find me and reach out on LinkedIn, DM me, get in the comments and we'll be doing workshops next year. So if you're interested in some of those topics, again, getting on the newsletter is the best way to stay up to date on what's coming up.
Paula Edgar: Fantastic. Well, I know that I'm inspired and knew that everybody else is going to be too. Y'all, I want you to send this to that person who you know needs to hear whatever the topic was that we discussed, whether it was an EQ, getting feedback, communicating properly, not being passive-aggressive. I know somebody needs to hear one of those or all of those things. Definitely send it.
As Morenike mentioned, we'll have everything on the page for the podcast and also Morenike is listed on my Coaches of Color resource. So we'll share that as well. She'll be back because we're definitely going to do it ask us and we're going to tell you what we think you should do. Morenike, thank you for joining me in The Branding Room. Can't wait to have you back again. Bye.
Morenike Williams: All right. Thanks for having me.
