Have you ever caught yourself putting on a different personality the moment you walk into a meeting? Speaking more carefully, feeling less, holding back the thing you actually think, because that’s what a leader is supposed to look like? And then wondered why leading feels so exhausting?
My guest is Karen Ann Bulluck, the first woman promoted to Executive Vice President at AM Best Company, who left the corporate world to write novels about it. Her Ascending Ladders series follows women leaders facing the ethical dilemmas nobody puts in a leadership book. We talk about the disconnect between who you are and who you’re performing as, why the corporate world taught us all to stuff our emotions down, and the moment HR told Karen to fire an employee who walked out of the building for three days — and what happened when she didn’t.
And we go deep on trust. Not trusting other people. Trusting yourself.
In this episode:
– Why so many women believe trusting themselves means never making a mistake, and why that’s backwards
– The disconnect between who you are inside and who you’re forced to be at work, and what it costs you
– The employee who walked out for three days, and why Karen refused to fire him
– How to set boundaries as a leader without turning into a different person
– Why remote work makes real trust harder, and what you have to do on purpose now
– What fiction can say about women’s leadership that a how-to book never could
About Karen:
Karen Ann Bulluck is a best-selling author, speaker, and founder of DARING TO TRANSCEND®. She was the first woman promoted to Executive Vice President at AM Best Company before leaving corporate to write fiction about women’s leadership. She is the author of Discovering Power, Pursuing Truth, and Embracing Trust — the Ascending Ladders series — and a contributing author to three international bestselling anthologies.
Connect with Karen:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenannbulluck
Website: https://www.daringtotranscend.com
Free resources and blog: https://daringtotranscend.com/resources
Books: available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and in ebook, paperback and audiobook
Connect with Limor:
Website: https://limorbergman.com
Podcast: https://limorbergman.com/podcast/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/limorbergman/
Substack: https://limorbergman.substack.com
Search terms: how to trust yourself, women in leadership, self-doubt at work, authentic leadership, setting boundaries as a leader, emotions in the workplace, integrity at work, leaving corporate, women leaders, building trust remote teams.