Hopefully, thank you so much. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Good afternoon. Good evening. To all of you who are listening from all over the world.My name is doctor Eva Klaczek, and it's such a pleasure being here. I was so honored and humbled to be invited by Anna to do this presentation. Today, we're gonna speak, about empowered led leadership. So look at the title here. Empowered leadership, the future is ours to create. And I want you to focus on the last part of the title, the future is ours to create. That's what we're gonna hopefully leave with at the end of my presentation. But before we go there, I want for all of you to think about, how is how are you experiencing, so we've all of the changes, the future, and how are you feeling?

Is the future really happening to you, or are you walking through the future? So if you wanna think about that, for a moment as I as I start shaping a little bit of this information, when you're thinking about empowered leadership, it's really making a creative and honest choice every single day. With the techno technological changes, with, the many of layups, with the structural changes happening in our economies and political powers, it sounds like we have really no choice but to really participate in a way, very inactive way that we are. But I wanna challenge this. The future is ours to create because we get to experience future through us. We get to be at the seed. So in this presentation, I'm gonna talk a few nuggets, from my book, Empowered Leadership, about how what does it make to create your own future? What does it make to have the strength, to have the capability to actually make it for yourself? So without further ado, let's start, moving further.

So the first thing that we wanna be thinking about is creating your own story. And as I write in my book, your story is your blueprint for empowerment. Don't hide the messy parts. They are the source of your unique perspective and strength. So very often, we think about having a voice or being visible when we are sitting at the boardroom, But I challenge this. It's your strength. It's your history. It's your background. It's all of the messy things that you are experiencing. The pivots, the breakdowns, the fall downs, the failures that you're experiencing. That's what is really creating you, and that's what gives you and makes you so uniquely you. Why is this important? Because very often, we don't embrace our notional characteristics, and we think about them as bugs, like the bug in the in the code. Oh my goodness.

There is a bug. Well, not really. This is a great way for thinking about it. For those of you who hear my accent and saw your name, I'm from Poland. I grew up in Poland. So I always will be representing and probably representing my heritage because that's what defines me. That's where I got all of my, skills. That's where I got my behavior, my my ethics, and I'm very proud of that. So think about it for your own. Where where are you? Where are you coming from? Some of us have histories and stories that are more, more bright than others, but everyone has something that is very unique and shapes it. The other thing is thinking about owning that story and being proud of it.

You're gonna start the shift when you start thinking about your perspective as very important to you. What does it mean is is that your confidence rises and you become unshakable. That means that you can stand in that room and be whoever you are. And then finally, I wanna mention very often we talk about, oh, you have to have Harvard degree, you have to have Columbia degree, whatever this is. I don't discount that, but I would wanna give you a different point. Your beautiful story, your history, your experiences, your perspectives, your authentic self really creates the perspective that others want to hear. That's what makes you stand out in that room. That's what allows you to be you.

So as we define our story, as we know who we are, as we embrace where we are coming from, the experiences we have brought in, the the education we have, maybe we speak many different languages. The next piece is really thinking about what fuels us. And what I mean fueling us is not that you wanna be a CEO or you wanna have this material thing or this, but more thinking about the the why deeper than it is. It's really thinking about the question of, what do I want the universe to remember me as? Do I want to be remembered as the person who did this or impacted this community or whatever that might be? So there's really that much deeper much deeper thought related to, your why, what drives you. For me, for example, this is making, education and health care accessible.

And when it comes to health care, thinking about accessible care for patients who need it at the right time with the right treatments, with the right diagnostics because that's what is important. And that's what my why and that's what I bring in every single day. It allows me clarity. It allows me to look at the different, aspects of different opportunities coming in and say yes or no to them. And in the point when I'm not doing what I want to be doing or I'm or I'm having a little bit of a moment of doubt or maybe failing somewhat, may but failure is really not really a definition I wanna use, maybe having some challenges, it really allows me to be resilient and move forward, persist moving forward.

So I would like to chair challenge you. As you're thinking about your why, take maybe during the weekend few minutes and write up the answers to the following questions. Think about these questions. What conviction drives drives you? So what's important to you? And then the next thing is, what then do you want to make in the universe, or what do you leave in the universe when you are not gonna be longer here? If you take fifteen minutes to reflect on those, I bet you're gonna get a great thought or a great clarity on what it is that is really driving you, and that why now is gonna help you become the next version of yourself and to find the future as you're going. So as we think about heading our story and our why, the next thing is once we do the we know the why, how do we step in? Very often, the why defines it, what we are doing. So we need to think about it.

How do we behave in a world that might be very different than what we are used to? So this is where we talk about courage and courage over comfort. I love the a quote from Mark Zuckerberg. I'm not gonna read it all, but I'm gonna read the first part. The biggest risk is not taking any risk. Think about that. If you don't take any risk, you actually have more to lose than if you take the risk. So I'm gonna again challenge you for with with thinking about this and knowing that courage is not not having fear, because I don't think there is a person that doesn't have any fear. Courage is taking the step despite of the fear. It's really removing and moving yourself in and continuously continuously going forward, moving yourself, taking that action. You might think, say, well, if I'm redefining and I'm doing something that is outside of my boundary, it's very difficult.

But I would challenge you to think about you've done it. For myself, I came to this country when I was 17 years old. That was a huge leap. For you might be the same thing or maybe changing jobs or maybe doing a degree you never thought about doing or maybe going to a school and reshaping your presence, your expertise, whatever that might be. So we've you've already done it. But what it allows courage for us to do is really take it, build it, and not worry about what may happen. If anything, taking that all action and solve the problem and move with authority because that's what's gonna be the biggest thing. So the the note for this slide or for this part of this presentation is when in doubt, do it. Take courage over any of the over the fear. Still proceed. I like to say something. When you don't wanna do something, actually do it. Avoidance is the worst thing you can do. Challenge yourself to continuously do.

So as we think about navigating our current, technological changes, it moves so fast. I I we are all here in STEM. We all know where we are headed, and it's and we know how quickly this moves, and it's hard to actually keep up. The question that is coming in, while AI is helping to solve how we are potentially doing the work, the question is, what is left for us? And I think the previous speakers somewhat touched on that, so I will rephrase it and underline again. It's really that leadership that is important, the human integrity, the leadership, and the ethical component that drives it. So I would tell you the following. AI is not gonna replace you, unique you, your experience, your perspective, your authentic self, your background.

It's gonna help you navigate the complexities of the world and automating all of the stuff that we don't wanna be doing. But it's not gonna replace you and your perspective. I even challenge even more. Learn everything about AI, as many of you do, and use it as your copilot. Like, you have it in on the plane, two people. Use that as your copilot but never a pilot. You have the control, and you define where we are headed. What is the direction that we are going? So as we define our story, our why, we know that we have to work with fear, and we have to come in with courage and continuously keep doing. And we understand that we can be the driver at the driver's seat, be the pilot of the plane. Now let's redefine success.

And what I mean by it is success, like everything, is either you take the external validations and say, oh, I have to be like this, or you create your own algorithm. Do you really have to be a a CEO, or do you have to have the million dollars or whatever that is, whatever your material or your external factors are, the metrics are for your success, or do you get to define it yourself? I argue that you all get to define it yourself. This is a a logarithm that we all get to shape depending on the metrics that we wanna be using. It connects with impact, balance, and purpose. Finances are also there, and I will speak on it in a moment, but I'm gonna leave it out because those three things are really shaping the foundation of redefining the success that can help you then with your purpose, with your why. So impact, Is there any tangible difference, whether it's in your family, in your organization, in your community, whatever you are doing? We can see it.

Balance is how you're structuring your role that maximizes the utility for being well-being. Meaning, you you wanna be balancing. You cannot pull from an empty cup, and we're gonna talk about it in a moment. And then the purpose. Allowing your l your daily output with what is your conviction, what is your why. So as you see here, it's your policy, your impact, balance, and purpose. And I'm gonna tell you, finance is also there. But over your career, this is all gonna be changing over time, so be mindful of this. And, but it's very important to think about this. Let's now go into the next piece, which women don't often talk about, that leadership starts with them. You see this quote from from Diane von Furstenberg, about relationship at the end is really with you. How many of us women actually think about it?

Because I'm gonna tell you probably not many. So one thing that we need to be doing is having self compassion for ourselves. Studies show that leaders who are self compassionate, who lead, who understand themselves and are kind of themselves, actually creating safer teams, safer environments for the teams to make mistakes, to experiment. And those teams actually have 27% greater rate of innovation, which is quite stunning if you are thinking about it today's world. So allow yourself to be kind. Talk to yourself in the mirror and say how great you are. If you make a mistake, say that's okay and move on. The second thing is thinking about building resilience against burnout. How many of you have been, hearing so many powerful women, so many women at the top deciding to leave, whatever their positions, their political, our roles, whatever that might be, and citing burnout?

In 2023, several women were very much on this, and now there's even more of them coming up. It's almost becoming a pandemic. So it's in our best interest, we as women, to truly take it and work through this, meaning create a framework every morning. Do you go for a walk? Do you maybe have a night routine? Do you meet with maybe you have a coach that you meet with to do some, nutrition planning or activities planning, whatever that might be. Maybe you wanna make sure that you know what is your must have, what you will not sacrifice when it comes to building whatever the next thing is, and really implementing this. And the final piece is as you become kind to yourself, as you become compassionate for yourself, and as you take care of yourself, you start creating you become empathetic, and you ultimately become a leader that creates empathy and leads with empathy throughout your teams.

Many of you probably have heard what's called the compassionate leadership, and I think this is really important because this is a huge multiplier. The more we are kind to ourselves, it presents how we show up to our teams and, ultimately, how they perform. We allow them then to really rise up and be to the level that that we would like them to be without any fear, actually, with more, resilience and with more power to to succeed. So we now created our story. We know, we love our background. We are confident about it. We are telling everyone who we are. We have our why, our purpose in life here beyond just the little things that we are thinking about. We take care of ourselves. We have the courage. Now it's time to find the key action. And I'm gonna use, aspect of product management here.

Whatever you are doing, whatever is the dream or whatever is the business, whatever next step you're doing, think about it as the as launching your MVP, minimal valuable product. You don't have to be perfect. We will not tend to be perfect want to be perfect continuously. There is no such a thing. Launch it with three steps and then pivot, and then work on it and then move through it. And you're gonna see how much big difference that makes. So there are two opportunities as I'm wrapping up here that we wanna be thinking about where we are headed. There are two opportunities to think about it, the leap and the pivot. They're both equally important, and they come in in different lives. The leap is a foundational change. I'm changing the industry I'm working in. I am selling my house, and I'm traveling all over the world. Then the pivots.

The smaller changes may be going to a new car to a new position, maybe taking a class to become better AI specialist, whatever that might be. These are very important as you're creating your future, and they are balancing them out at the right times. So pivot, again, one one more thing about pivot is important. This is where the financial considerations might be coming in. Dips require a big move. Maybe you are not financially ready to do this. Pivots are moving you from the margin. So as we are writing up, I I hope you enjoyed these presentations, but what you learned are a few things. Own your story, redefine the success, be courageous, and create the future you want. The future is for you to create. Step in, be proud of who you are, and take future. Don't allow future to make you to go to to lead you. Allow you to lead the future.

So with that, thank you so much for for this time. I truly appreciate, and, I look forward to the question.