Leading with Purpose: Charting Your Own Course as a High-Achieving Woman - with Dr. Lesley Robinson (part 1)

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:04  

Welcome to The Executive Coach for Moms Podcast where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy while simultaneously leading people at work and at home. I'm your host, Leanna Laskey McGrath, former tech exec turned full time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic and certified executive coach. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:27  

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for being here with me today. I am so excited to share today's guest, Dr. Lesley Robinson, so here in this summer series, we are doing two episodes for each person, and the first episode is where we're going to learn all about this amazing woman and her story. And she actually has a really interesting way of learning her story through her dissertation, so I can't wait to hear about her experience with that. And then in next week's episode, we're going to be hearing more about her work. So welcome Lesley.

Dr. Lesley Robinson  1:01  

Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. This is great. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  1:01  

I'm so excited for you to be here. Let me just tell everybody a little bit about you. So Dr. Lesley Robinson, she is the founder and CEO of embolden education and co founder of the Ayana Foundation, empowering founders, especially women, through entrepreneurial leadership, education and access to funding. She serves as the Associate Director of the Institute for Entrepreneurship at Colorado State University, leading a zero barrier approach to innovation. With over 20 years of experience in higher education, Lesley teaches Entrepreneurial Leadership rooted in self discovery and action. As program director for the University of Tulsa's Cherokee Women's AcceleratHER she supports Native American women founders, dispersing over $250,000 in seed funding from the Cherokee Nation. Previously, she launched and led the Kendra Scott women's Entrepreneurial Leadership Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, distributing over $115,000 to more than 95 found-hers. A global citizen who's traveled to more than 35 countries, Lesley is also a US State Department professional fellow, South by Southwest pitch advisory board member, and holds a PhD from Colorado State University. And I just want to know, like, when do you sleep?

Dr. Lesley Robinson  2:26  

Well, I think it's safe to say, and I know this, that my biggest strength is actually achiever. And so that comes out in the bio, very loud. So there it's achiever and significance.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  2:38  

And also, Lesley is a mom, has a daughter. She's eight. Is that right? 

Dr. Lesley Robinson  2:43  

Almost eight at the end of June. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  2:44  

Wow. So Lesley, maybe if you could introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about you in your own words, beyond your bio.

Dr. Lesley Robinson  2:52  

Yeah. So I think one of the most important things about me is where I come from. So I come from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I've always loved being from Tulsa, Middle America raised have a twin sister, an older brother, and really loved my time in Tulsa and try to get back as much as possible. But what I did know about growing up in Tulsa is that I was ready to see the world and explore and travel, and so once I had my first trip abroad to visit my brother in England, I never really stopped. And so I've always kind of used Tulsa as a launch pad. So I always say, first Tulsa then the world. And so went to the University of Tulsa for undergrad. Studied communications and French and public relations, marketing, really like a design your own major, but all of it to really just study abroad as much as I possibly could. So I always said that I was, you know, best customer of a study abroad office there and then, once I realized that you could make a career out of study abroad, you know, my first career was international education. So saying, you know, the hello to international students coming to the US, and the goodbye to really encouraging students to take the world as their campus that really formed, like all of the lived experiences that I have and all the perspectives that I've gained through, you know, three study abroads in undergrad, and then really just trying to figure out a way that I could have new sights, new sounds, new smells, new tastes through travel. So from Tulsa, went to the University of Tulsa, really happy to continue to have relationship and partnership with U Tulsa, followed my then boyfriend, now husband to New Jersey, where he did his PhD at Princeton. So I always say that we did eight years in New Jersey. But you know, Princeton was a really special place, and was able to work at Princeton University with international students. So so much of my career before was in international education, and then from Princeton to Austin. Eight years in Austin, that seems to be the magic number. And now here we are in Fort Collins, Colorado, which was kind of always the goal and the dream. And so excited to kind of talk about that pathway, but also to give recognition to kind of the origin story, and being from Tulsa.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  4:59  

Yeah, I think what was coming up for me was like, wow, you've had such an impact on so many people, right? Because you were talking about, you know, when they come to the US, and then when they leave, and that's so cool. What an amazing legacy, beyond all of the other amazing legacies that you've created for yourself as well.

Dr. Lesley Robinson  5:19  

Well, I think it's just finding home, where you go right, and understanding who you are and where you can contribute and what that give back is. And so I'm lucky to be able to call so many places home. But also, I think the innate ability to understand when a chapter is closing. And I love new chapters and new beginnings, new adventures. And so I also just love the idea that, you know, at 41 years old, you know, I've had a lot of very distinct chapters of my life that have really informed me and also shaped who I am.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  5:50  

Yeah. So tell me more about your dissertation, because I just thought it was fascinating, this idea of learning about yourself through dissertation, through research, so I'm curious to hear more about that.

Dr. Lesley Robinson  6:03  

Yeah, we'll talk about literal chapters, right? That one took 10 years. And so it's interesting because I had already mentioned that my two greatest strengths are achiever and significance, but third is learner. And so I've always loved the structure of learning, and that's why I work in higher education. I love the environment of learning and being open minded and really seeking knowledge from people and experiences. And so coming from a very educated family who has prioritized education my entire life, kind of you know, PhD was the next step, and it was a formal way that I could just keep learning and become an expert. And so I started the PhD when I was working at Princeton University. And so it felt kind of just a really nice natural supplement to the work that I was doing there with international students and scholars and their families. The journey of the dissertation was actually kind of three fold in that I had an original dissertation topic, and I went in knowing exactly what I wanted to study, and that was the program that I chose, is I really wanted to focus on leadership, and especially in the context of higher education. So there was a degree in higher education leadership. I was looking between Colorado State and the University of Texas at Austin. And so really interesting, these two places that have become chapters of my life. But the original topic was international student identity development. So it was really at that point in my life, so this was 10 years ago, so in my 30s, early 30s, wanting to understand the journey that students could go through to become more culturally adjusted, not just to the US, but at that point, New Jersey, Princeton, and then the campus of Princeton University, and so I was really excited about programming that we were doing around unique stressors that international students face. Then how could I take programming that I was doing, put some data points around it, right, publish and present on it, to then offer it, as you know, promising practices for other institutions to welcome and adjust, have international students feel more well adjusted. So that was the first topic, that was the passion, that was, you know, the career, that was what I was really excited about. 

Dr. Lesley Robinson  8:10  

And then we had a presidential election. There was a president that was elected, and it quickly changed the topic in terms of all of a sudden, the stressors that I had identified for international students, academic, linguistic, financial, interpersonal, then really became political. And so at that point, we were also looking at our next chapter of life, which was moving from Princeton to Austin. And so I took a pause to kind of then see how this topic might be able to translate from Princeton to Austin to the university that I was at. And it didn't translate very well. And so I really had to take a hard look at my topic, my interest, my passion, really kind of in the future that I saw for myself in international education, and for a lot of reasons that I think will come up more in my leadership journey later on, it wasn't a fit anymore, and I had changed. And so they always say that you divorce, sometimes divorce your dissertation topics. And that was very true. And so that was a hard closure on not just a topic that I was passionate about, but a career that I was really invested in, in international education. And so I, you know, took about a four year pause to see what was going to be next. 

Dr. Lesley Robinson  9:19  

And what was next was actually then really getting involved in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Austin, really then figuring out what women's role was in entrepreneurship and some of the challenges and barriers that they were facing from women that I was meeting. But also, I think, you know, focusing on the the beauty that women bring to business, I do think women bring a different skill set to building businesses with different whys and impact and legacy. And so I really wanted to focus on that. And so the dissertation, you know, was redirected to gender and entrepreneurship. And from that really, then was focused on becoming an identity scholar, a gender scholar. Really, then. And still looking at ideal development. So instead of from international students now to women who were starting businesses and so for a lot of reasons, you know this, this is a long story. It took 10 years, but there was also just different advisors and different committee members that were not necessarily always aligned with the vision that I had with my dissertation. And so that was also hard was navigating just the administrative part of doing a dissertation. So I was really clear that I wanted to work and study women in entrepreneurship, that I wanted to contribute, especially to the undergraduate experience. When I became clear on that it wasn't a great match for my advisor. I think that that's really important, because, you know, you're in charge of this dissertation journey, right? They oftentimes say that a finished dissertation, that's what you need, is really about the end product and resilience that you need to get through it and along the way, right? There's different life events that happen too, and to be completely transparent, you know, there are lot of different times that I thought about quitting the dissertation. I had two mis- three miscarriages during it. I had a daughter, you know, I changed careers, I changed cities, I I had changed. And so I think when I talk about the dissertation and that it took 10 years, you know, that that was a big 10 years of of life that happened too and the evolution of myself. 

Dr. Lesley Robinson  11:22  

And so to wrap this up, because I think you know that the end product is at one year left, you have actually 10 year clock to get the thing done. I was very set on a methodology that I wasn't really getting a lot of buy in from some advisors for IRB approval and back to some of the more admin related things to dissertation. And so when I looked at it, I really wanted to encourage others to become entrepreneurial leaders. So I was really invested in this entrepreneurial leadership aspect of being more founder focused than focused on the business. So I realized, well, I needed to figure out how I could become a more entrepreneurial leader. So in the end, with, you know, nine months to go before the you know, the clock is ticking loudly, I decided to transition evolve my topic into an auto ethnography. And what that means, it's a me search, right? It's a really deep dive into who I am and the journey I was going through to become an entrepreneur, so then I could create content and coursework and curriculum and encourage others to go on a very similar journey. So still, obviously gender focused as a woman, but really then, like, what's the practicality and the give back to the field? What it ended up being was just a really deep, introspective look into my lived experiences. You know, who and what makes Lesley, Lesley? Why am I such, you know, a feminist and believe in empowering women. Well, it's because I was raised by a single mom, and so I think about the influence of that on my life, and I think about having a daughter, and I think about all of the things that make me me, and I laugh because my husband, like during the, you know, writing the actual dissertation, all the journaling that would go with it, was like, What are you studying? Like because you're so emotional and crying, I was like, I'm studying me. And I think everyone should go through the research of what makes them me. And I, at that time, I was also teaching, and I thought that there was a lot of power in being in front of a group of undergraduate young students and like, where do I teach from? Where do you know my beliefs come from? And so I think that that is a huge responsibility to then try to unpack it all and understand why you believe the way that you do, or the things or profess right as a professor. And so that was really the motivation behind it. 

Dr. Lesley Robinson  13:39  

So we did it. We finished it. It's out. It's done. The box is checked back to the executor me, who is an achiever. And I think at the end of 10 years, you know, my daughter was able to watch me defend my dissertation. She was able to be at my graduation. So much of this is for her, also for my mom, also for me, to write down my story. If anyone reads it like awesome, but you know, the goal of it was actually, really to understand, you know, my journey as an entrepreneur leader, to then encourage others, and especially students and especially women, to go on their own, to really, then understand yourself as a founder, to find something, whether that's a business or just who you are, in the process of becoming a leader. At the end of the, you know, the pages, that's, that's really what it was all about.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  14:27  

Yeah, wow. What an amazing journey. It sounds like it all ended up exactly where it was supposed to, and in a really great place. 

Dr. Lesley Robinson  14:35  

I will say, you know, my twin sister, Laura, really cheerleaded me through. And we would do writing retreats. And I have a picture of me, you know, cheersing to going ABD, which means all but dissertation. So there was a really, real point where I had made the decision not to complete it. And then my mentor, who I've called on, you know, every big life event, and especially professionally, Dr Cheryl Matherly. I called her said, No, you're not, you're you're not going to do you're too close. Like negotiate this, negotiate what you need to finish, negotiate with your self and your time and your priorities. And I needed that accountability partner. I was so close, and so I hadn't considered that it is my journey as a doctoral student to kind of own how the end product is going to look and feel, and so where I was trying so hard to make a certain methodology fit, in the end, it actually worked out for the best, because with other things that were happening in my life, I really needed that me search, and it has served me well in terms of the self reflection, self awareness and self acceptance that has come from that. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  15:39  

Yeah, that's kind of what I was curious is like. So you've done this me search, before. I ask about the end result of it or what it's given you. I do want to know that, but I also want to know just like, what does it look like if someone wanted to do a me search and this kind of methodology that you're talking about, what would we do?

Dr. Lesley Robinson  15:58  

Well, it's funny, because when I was kind of just trying on different methodologies, and especially knowing that I needed to just decide what it was going to be, my PhD advisor, Dr Jodi Donovan, when I had mentioned I think maybe an auto ethnography might be the best, and honestly might be just, you know, the thing to get dissertation done, she said, I think that's going to be a lot harder than you think. I think that's actually going to be actually going to be the hardest methodology that that possibly anyone can choose. And I'm an executor. I was like, Well, I can control me right? Like I can, I can set the deadlines right, IRB, I approved me to be studied on, you know, like I knew administratively, it was going to be easy, but she was right. Emotionally, it was the hardest thing I've ever gone through, because it is a lot of journaling, it is a lot of self reflection, it is a lot of self awareness and really understanding that the strengths that I bring and that I've seen in leadership roles that I've had, you know, it's the blind spots that I really needed to get real on and really needed to start investing more in. And that's not always, you know, the easy thing or the pretty thing to do. And so there was a lot of negotiation with how to move forward with some decisions that I had to make, hard decisions, especially around the environment that I was in, and you know, what I wanted for my future, and myself. I started therapy for the first time too, through it. So, you know, that's important to mention, as well, that as you bring up all of these feelings and really go deep, there's help along the way that can help you kind of navigate all of those extreme, you know, from early childhood memories to current situations. So that was extremely helpful for me, too.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  17:37  

Yeah, and so you said lots of self reflection brought some awareness. Notice, your blind spots, things like that. So now, so there's like, Lesley before the me search and Lesley after the me search. Like, what's different?

Dr. Lesley Robinson  17:51  

Yeah, so I've always known that my strengths are in executing and getting stuff done. And you know that is very evident in every assessment that I've taken, from Strengths Finder to entrepreneur mindset profile to being a self proclaimed Enneagram three achiever, right? Like there's always been these consistencies. So I've always been task over people, and I've known that, but I do think, especially in the last couple years, having to be more intentional on people over task and understanding the importance of relationships, and really spending time investing and cultivating relationships has been the big pivot for me. I always say, like, transparently and with full kind of just authenticity, like empathy was always really low for me. And because I know that I'm not very empathetic, I actually am more empathetic than I would be. And so I really then try to be put myself in the place, in the shoes of someone else. I really try intentionally to do that. I really try to lead conversations and meetings about the people and what's going on in life, because I understand now that that affects the job and the task. And so there's been these very intentional pauses to make sure that I am focusing on relationships over the task being done. And so I think I just blew through that in my 30s and earlier careers that I have and and it served me well to a point. But you know, as you build a village and you build community, you talk about community and belonging and sense of belonging, and things that I know are really important, and I've seen I come from a flourishing mindset now, growth mindset, asset mindset, where as you learn and grow, you give back at the same rate. And so as I learn and grow, I also have to understand the garden that I'm trying to cultivate and give back to .So that's been the biggest lesson along the way.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  19:42  

That's so interesting. My top five include achiever significance and learner as well. I'm also an Enneagram three and so I would love to hear more about how that kind of orientation has served you in some ways in maybe in the past. And like how that's changed for you, because I feel that too. I feel like that served me really well in my early career. And then there came a point. Maybe it's with as you have more influence, you're leading more people where it becomes a hindrance, in a way. I don't even know if it's a hindrance, but it's kind of that idea of what got you here won't get you there. And I think, you know, there's a shift. There was a shift for me. It sounds like there was a shift for you as well. And I wonder too about your personal journey, because last time you talked about how when you moved to Colorado, you kind of made this also intentional transition of who was the primary parent, your husband partner had always been the primary parent, and that's kind of switching. And so I'm just curious, like, how all that plays together in terms of, like, that journey and that transition.

Dr. Lesley Robinson  20:46  

Yeah, well, I think it, it was side by side with the dissertation journey, right? So I co created a class at um, that was focused on entrepreneur leadership. So right, as I was becoming an entrepreneur, I was also trying to come up with coursework, really around a lot of reflections and assessments for students to also understand how they would become entrepreneurial leaders. And so you've got your classic Strengths Finder, you've got Enneagram, you've got five love languages, you've got Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile, you've got self sabotager, a lot of different assessments to just go deep. And so as I was doing the hard work, I was asking students to do that too, but also like, I have to remember, I'm an identity scholar, right? So I've always looked at identity development, whether it was international students to women in entrepreneurship, to myself. And so I realized that for one chapter career which was international education, my main identity was actually my nationality. It was being a US citizen, and the lens that I brought working with international students. And then when I was working with entrepreneurship, and specifically women in entrepreneurship, my main identity was my gender. It was being a woman, right? And an empowered woman who empowers other women. And then I realized, you know, my identity shift was then to become, you know, more of a mother, right, to own that identity. And so when we decided to move from Texas to Colorado, there were a lot of reasons. And the mantra for the year was to manifest, not manipulate. Manifest, not manipulate, because, right, as an executor, I can make check boxes and make the world kind of move in ways that are great for for people who can get through administrative things, especially like a cross country move with a family. But the manifestation thing was really important, because I was manifesting actually a chiller life, a life where I was going to be more the primary parent, that I was going to be the mother where I didn't feel like I needed to achieve so much, where I didn't need all the recognition and the networking and the awards and everything that I exhausted myself before with in Austin. I wanted kind of the complete opposite here in Colorado, and I love the environment of Fort Collins, specifically, especially because I'd been coming to Fort Collins for the last 10 years working on the PhD, but you're right, it was very intentional, as conversations with my husband, who has always been the primary parent and kind of has had his career second to then really invest and focus on his career, especially in a startup, so that I could chill out, do more passion aligned projects that didn't come with all of the networking and travel and working overtime that I could say, I'm really excited to be a mom, to have mom friends, right, to really focus in on cultivating Clara. Clara is our daughter. And so that was what this move equaled. 

Dr. Lesley Robinson  21:48  

And so far, you know, we're almost six months in, it's been amazing, like, the quality of life and her quality of life, and just my outlook has has changed for the better. And so we're, I had done all of the like, women's empowerment stuff, right? It was always for Clara, and now it's with Clara. And so it's been, you know, the same work and the same enthusiasm, the same passion, but now directly with Clara alongside for that, and you know, with her in mind, and her seeing me still have the whys that I have and the enthusiasm, but now I understand how powerful that is for her to see and be part of and for me to bring her along more than I had, because I think you had mentioned, oh, I didn't know you're a mom. Well, I heard that a lot, actually, in Austin, and that's just because I compartmentalize my life so much. And so now, you know, she is, she comes along with everything, and she's the right age, and she's asking such great questions. And you know, my proudest parenting moment is that we were at an event for like, a women in STEM or girls in STEM Day, and they had these stickers, and it was, you know, I am a scientist, I am a chemist, I am an engineer, I am a creative and then there was one that had a blank line, and so she wrote, like, I am an empowered woman. And I was like, Okay, we've done it right. We've done it like she sees that for herself. Then I have to protect that at all costs. And so it's been great to be outside more. It's been great just to feel more aligned with the culture and the community that exists here. And it feels effortless. And so I am embracing this new identity as as leading out as a mother, and the intentionality of that is is not to be taken lightly, because it was actually really manifesting this new chapter to do that.

Dr. Lesley Robinson  23:38  

Yeah, oh my gosh. I have so many more things I would love to ask you about your journey. I just want to ask this one because for the women who listen to this, high achievers, you know, many who probably have achiever, significance, learner somewhere in their strengths, and Enneagram three and things like that. The idea of manifesting, not manipulating, is probably something that feels like, ooh, that feels like a stretch, right, to say, like, I'm gonna not control everything, or not try to control everything, but leave it in someone else's hands or put it out there. So tell me more about that, and how you were able to do that and the results of it. 

Dr. Lesley Robinson  26:08  

I mean, well, the hard lesson is, is that I worked my strengths where they became weaknesses, so I was not an environment that was healthy for an achiever, significance learner with belief. You know, who's an activator. Those are my top five. And also, you know, I've always wanted to be a Strengths Finder coach, and so I'm doing that next week. So I'm really excited, because I've always used this language and this narrative to describe myself. So finally, I'm investing in myself. But what I do know is that I worked my achiever and significance to weaknesses because I was so focused on achieving things that were so significant to me that I burnt out. I was trying to validate the direction of an institute. I was trying to live in a place where, politically, you know, it was misaligned with the values that I had, that the leadership wasn't aligned with visions that I had. So I over exhausted achiever, to a place where I wasn't achieving anything. Externally, I was but internally I didn't have any boxes that were checked, which for me are like metrics of impact and success. Learner, obviously, I mean, I was over exhausted with learner, with the dissertation, the PhD, and at some point that was a check, you know, a box to check, too. 

Dr. Lesley Robinson  27:25  

And then the significance was that I just was so completely surrounded by women's empowerment and women's rights. And, you know, from, you know, having a daughter, to running a Women's Entrepreneur Leadership Institute, to being a woman in Texas, to researching women in entrepreneurship, to teaching about it. I mean, there was just no escape. I had absolutely no escape from that, to a point where I just couldn't care anymore, because I cared too much. So I got to a point where I cared too much, I couldn't care anymore. And so that's when I kind of realized, like, we've got to change the environment. I'm this isn't a place where I'm, you know, thriving anymore, I'm barely surviving. And I could see glimmers, and I think glimmers are really important. It's the concept of, like, going towards things where you find little sparks of joy and where you find yourself, and especially moments of flow. And I always found that in Fort Collins. And so I knew, like, I've just got to get my family to Fort Collins. I don't know why. I've never been able to describe, like, the vibe here or the people. It's just how I have felt being here. And so I worked with my husband, my partner, to kind of figure out what that would look like. And then we manifested certain, you know, checkpoints, because that's how I think to be able to make that a reality, and so that that's the lesson in it was that I realized, as much as I was working on my purpose and my why and the impact and legacy, and I oftentimes describe that in terms of ikigai, which is a Japanese framework of what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and what you can find value in. I realized I'd figured that out in Austin, but the environment was bad to be able to continue doing that work, or really doing that work at all, and so that was the impetus for making the move.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  29:14  

Awesome. I love it. Well, I can't wait to hear more in our next conversation, where you're going to talk about your journey with entrepreneurial leadership, and I know there are lots of things that we're gonna learn from you about that that we can apply, whether we're entrepreneurs or leaders at corporations, and how we can kind of embody an entrepreneurial mindset. So I can't wait to talk to you next week. Thank you so much everybody for tuning in this week to hear about Dr. Lesley Robinson's story, and next week, make sure you come back to hear part two of our conversation, and we can learn all about all of the amazing things that she's thinking about and that she's learned across her journey. So thank you, Lesley.

Dr. Lesley Robinson  29:57  

Thank you. This is wonderful. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  29:59  

All right, we'll see you all. Next week, everyone. Bye.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  30:06  

If you're loving what you're learning on this podcast, I'd love to invite you to check out The Executive Mom Reset. It's my six month coaching program for ambitious, success driven, career focused women who are ready to stop surviving and start thriving. Together, we'll tackle the stress, guilt and overwhelm that come with being a high achieving executive mom. You'll learn how to set boundaries, prioritize what truly matters, and build the confidence to show up powerfully at work, at home, and for yourself. Head on over to coachleanna.com right now to schedule a free discovery call. We'll spend an hour talking about where you are now, what you want to create, and how I can help you get there, because every woman deserves to live the life of her dreams. Let's create yours together.