Please note that the following transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.

Erica D'Eramo 0:05

Hello and welcome to the Two Piers podcast. I'm your host, Erica D'Eramo, and today we have guest Aang Lakey joining us. Aang is the visionary founder and CEO of increasing consciousness, a pioneering organization dedicated to transforming leadership through the lenses of consciousness, reflexivity and equity, with a profound commitment to awakening leaders to the interconnectedness of human experiences. Aang empowers organizations and individuals to cultivate equitable and compassionate environments that drive true change. Eng is a life and leadership coach, a senior advisor on inclusive leadership and employee engagement, and an international speaker. They are also the co author in a book on conscious leadership titled The conscious leader, leadership redefined, and the co author in a book on women in leadership titled women Gone Wild leadership edition. They've also been named most impactful and visionary personality to look for in 2024 by insight Success Magazine, very excited to have Aang on The podcast today to share their insights.

Aang welcome. Thank you so much for joining. Really great to have you. Awesome. Thanks so much. I'm so excited to be here. Yeah, you have such an incredible and interesting background, and similarly to me, maybe a bit of a non linear trajectory. So could you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your origin story and kind of what brought you to this point in your life.

Aang Lakey 1:46

Yeah, a little bit about me. I I started my career in violence prevention. I was doing crisis intervention work, working with survivors of sexual and domestic trauma, and I really wanted to be more impactful in the work that I was doing. So instead of supporting individuals in really traumatic moments, I wanted to find ways to prevent that harm from from happening. And so I started doing a lot of research, and I really dove into you know how to prevent violence before it occurs. And that kind of shifted the trajectory of my career into doing more diversity and inclusion based work and to really try and help shift cultural norms. At the time, it was specifically around gender and gendered norms. But then also, I started taking on more marginalized communities in the roles that I had doing diversity and inclusion work, and after a few years of that, I kind of felt very similar about really wanting to get deeper in and doing more of the root work that needed to be done, to kind of let go of some of the unconscious bias that we have in our in our lives. And I started realizing that in order to do that, we needed to be able to kind of explore our consciousness. We needed to become more self aware. We needed to be able to adjust our own actions and our behaviors based on that consciousness that we have about ourselves and other people. And yeah, so I started digging into, you know, what does it look like to explore your consciousness, both on a personal spiritual level and also in a coaching role. And after spending a year and a half coaching, I really decided, you know, I love coaching. I love life coaching. But again, like working one on one with someone is great, but the impact is is not there. And so in one of my own meditations, I was called to try to bring this consciousness to leaders. Because leaders in particular, they are kind of role models for everyone that they work with. And so they have the ability to influence and to shift cultural dynamics and perspectives and to influence or create change in their organizations. And so I really wanted to try and merge those two areas of my life, and obviously I couldn't do that in the government sector, so I decided to start my own company.

Erica D'Eramo 4:21

Nice, yeah. I think I share some of that with you. And having you know, shifted from career to one career path to another, really based on what impact I wanted to have in the world. And I think a lot of our listeners are sort of either facing that crossroads right now, or just looking to kind of transition. So I love bringing forth people onto the podcast who have had these, you know, either non linear trajectories or non traditional career paths, where maybe they were in one sector, one part of the world, one industry, and really transitioned. Would you mind sharing with our audience? Like, sort of what that might have looked like for you, some of those transition points, or some of the, you know, the other hats that you might have worn in your life.

Aang Lakey 5:08

Yeah, you know, each time, it's always very different, very different experience. I mean, the experience of being in a situation or an environment where you're where you're like, Nope, this isn't it. I'm not passionate about this anymore. I am not doing as good of a job, or I can't learn and I can't grow anymore. In this environment, it's always a bit different. And I'll say probably the first time I did it, I was transitioned my career. I was so scared, because all I had ever done was social work. And I had never, I had never even worked for another organization before. And my first organization that I worked with, I worked with them for probably about six or seven years, and so I was committed on some level, and then on another level it was, you know, I've definitely been here for too long. I can't continue to grow. I can't continue to create change in this environment. So I had to change. And there was a lot of fear that for sure that went into that. But I will say that the next six to eight months of deciding to leave that job, even before I had another job was probably one of the biggest growth areas of my life. I moved across the country. I totally changed everything in my life, and it was, I think, impactful in that, you know, I learned and I grew more in those few months in ways that I never could have done had I had another job lined up right after that one, and yeah, and then, you know, the second time, it wasn't as big of a change, because I stayed in the same city, and I just transitioned from doing crisis work to doing diversity and inclusion work, which was a bit of an adjustment, but I got to, I got to learn so Much in the first six months of my new job, because it was a totally different way of thinking about the world, and so it was really helpful for me to experience working in a context that's not crisis response. And I will say that, you know, a lot of my own trauma really plays into my well being in terms of the trauma that I still hold in my body from some of the things that I experienced in my life, and never realized that I was still hanging on to even 20 years later, and so like it was the first time that I had pause in My life to see and experience the impact of that work on my body. And so, you know, I never would have had that, you know, body intelligence, had I not transitioned from working in crisis to working in an office every day, and like, really slowing the pace down and getting to dive in and to get a little deeper with some of the concepts that I wanted to so, yeah, I think each time is very different. There's always fear, but for me, at least, there's always been growth in that.

Erica D'Eramo 8:12

Yeah, so tell us a little bit more about what drew you to some of this work, like what makes it important to you?

Aang Lakey 8:22

Yeah, well, I think probably the most relevant thing is having one worked in the field that I worked in so working in violence prevention, working with survivors of trauma. And you know a little bit about my background. I worked previously with the Army, the Air Force, the Navy and the Coast Guard in their sexual violence programs with the Army and the Air Force. I also manage their domestic violence program. And so a lot of really intense trauma work in the beginning of my career, and especially when you when you work with people every day who are who have either experienced some form of trauma or continuously experiencing the repercussions of going through the reporting process in those environments, it really takes a toll on you, on your body, on your mental Health and on your well being. And so I think again, like I shared before, I really wanted to do whatever I could do to kind of lessen that burden, to try and prevent that from happening, so I didn't have to sit across from people every day who have experienced these really emotional and traumatic events in their lives. And so, you know, of course, the work that I did with the military services, I also worked with federal organizations, and I also served as a service member, as an Army officer for 15 years. And so it doesn't matter really what in the environment. It was like every environment that I was in, had this, like, really intense working, I don't know what the right word is, working environment, yeah, and trying to navigate that working environment was taking its toll on me. And so, like I said, I really wanted to dive in. I wanted to understand, how do we prevent, not just sexual and domestic violence, but how do we prevent do we prevent discrimination based on racism, sexism, homophobia, like whatever it whatever it is. And so I really wanted to do everything that I could to step in and to do my part to lessen that burden for other individuals. And yeah, I think it's important to me, because I have my own experiences of being a queer and non binary person in the military services, again, in the federal workforce, and I also know a lot of people in my life, not only that, are close friends and family members of mine who have experienced sexual and domestic trauma, but all of the people that I worked with in every organization that I worked with, I mean, imagine having conversations every single day with survivors of trauma about their experiences and how that has has landed for them, And what they're experiencing and what they're going through. It's really hard not to develop an emotional connection to these individuals and to want them to kind of find their way in the world. And of course, it's very different than coaching and what I say helping them to find their way in the world. When you are a coach and you're working with clients, you actually get to push them to the limits and to motivate them to go further and to go faster. And it's the exact opposite when you're working with survivors of trauma, like you want them to get to where they need to be in their own time and in their own space. And so, yeah, it's important to me because of my own personal experience, and then also the experience that I've had working with so many different people in so many different arenas.

Erica D'Eramo 12:10

Yeah, yeah. I think that that's, it's a very, it's very impactful and moving story, like story and trajectory that your career has taken, and I think that that will resonate with a lot of our listeners who have worked in a lot of these remote environments, worked in very extreme environments or in environments where they felt isolated, whether they were truly physically isolated or just emotionally socially isolated due to a variety of factors. So think very important work. And I also, um, you know, it Harken it makes me think back to my risk management days, really, where, when we talk about, kind of, from an engineering perspective, the bow tie diagram right, and you have, like, the event in the middle that you don't want to happen, and on the right hand side you have, okay, what do you do if it does happen? And here, here, here are the mitigations that we can put in place if it does happen, but on the left hand side, it's the prevention measures and like, that's what's most important to focus on. We need both. Certainly, we need both. But I love that you're talking about, like, how do we go upstream and figure out how to have less violence, rather than just solely focusing on when the violence happens, how to re respond and support survivors. They're both important, but so often, I feel like the conversation misses that left hand side of the bow tie diagram, the reduce the probability side,

Aang Lakey 13:39

Yeah, and I think, to the part that is often overlooked by people is the role that we play in in this as just everyday individuals, and also the role that leaders play in this. And if we as everyday individuals and leaders who are leading different organizations can increase our consciousness or their consciousness, then the impact that that has, it will ripple across our communities and our teams. And when I talk to leaders specifically about this, the again, the influence that they have is so impactful if they can recognize their own unconscious bias or their own conscious bias, and if they can adjust their behaviors to better support the individuals on their team, whether it's a someone who has experienced some form of trauma, or whether it's someone who is feeling like they're being bullied in their workplace or being discriminated against, like all of this, these actions on the right hand side of that diagram can all be prevented with effective leadership, and not just leadership, but leadership encouraging everyone to raise their consciousness, to increase their consciousness, to have a better understanding of who they are, what their values are, and what their unconscious bias are, so that they can work to kind of redirect themselves and their teams.

Erica D'Eramo 15:03

So can you just for the folks who are listening, who are this is maybe a new concept for can you help us understand what you mean when you talk about, you know, consciousness, conscious leadership, maybe some of the core values associated with that, or some of the core tenets?

Aang Lakey 15:21

Yeah. So when I talk about consciousness, I talk about it and at its most basic level. And what I mean when I say consciousness is we want to have an awareness of ourselves. We want to have an awareness of other people, and we want to also be aware of how we all interact as a as a system. And that is what I mean when I say conscious it's a general awareness of those three levels, or those three layers. And when I talk about conscious leadership, I talk about it in the in the frame of a couple of different components. And so the big picture is there are the three levels, personal, social and systemic, which I don't usually get into in my seminars or my keynotes or anything like that. That's really just for coaching clients who really want to dive in and they want to hit all of those levels. But when I talk about consciousness with people every day, I talk about it mostly from that, that personal level. What is consciousness? What do I need to know as a leader? How do I implement it in those kinds of things? And there are three areas that I talk about with with this, and that's reflexivity, intentionality and congruence and reflexivity. Most people don't know what this is, so I always share is a cycle of self awareness, self evaluation and self adjustment. And so not only do I have to sit and I have to think about, what are my values, what are my beliefs, what are my bias? But I also have to ask other people, what do they see as my values? What do they see as my bias? What do they see as areas that I need to improve on? And then they have to follow all of that up with, how do I actually adjust my own actions and my own behaviors to live in accordance with the way that I want to be in the world. And so it's taking that feedback from other people, it's taking your own self reflections, and it's kind of molding a path forward for you. And there are two things that I talk about with that, the intentionality and the congruence. And when I talk about, you know, you've already done the reflexivity part of it. You've thought about what you need to change and how you need to change it. Now you have to bring intention to that. And so you let's say, I want to stop trying to say the phrase, you guys. I'm trying to be more culturally sensitive, and I want to make sure that all of the female identified people feel included in that conversation. So I'm going to use more inclusive terms. I have to bring intention to that every single day in everything that I do. And I also need other people to help me as well. So I tell them that I'm trying to bring attention to this, and they help me in that process. And quick example, you know, I actually had to go through this myself about 10 or 15 years ago, and I had a co worker who had to help me with this every single day. And so I would say, Oh, you guys, what are you guys doing? And she'd be like, you guys, what do you mean? You guys, you know. And so, like, I brought intention to it. I shared with other people that I wanted to change my language, and they also brought intention to it as well. And so they helped me navigate that. And so that's what I mean when I say intention. And the last thing, when I talk about this, I talk about congruence, right? And so if we do not act in accordance with what we say is important to us, then that incongruence is what other people see. And that incongruence leads people to believe that I'm not a trustworthy person. And so if I can live in congruence. So if my actions and my behaviors can match what I say are my values and my beliefs or my goals, then I can live in congruence, right? And this is really these three concepts are really important when we talk about conscious leadership, because, you know, if I have an unconscious bias, I cannot change it unless I'm aware that I have that bias, and I cannot change it again without bringing intention to it, reminding myself that this bias is there and that I need to navigate that circumstance appropriately, and I also have to be mindful of am I being congruent? So if I have told people on my team that I have a specific unconscious bias, and I'm trying to navigate that unconscious bias, then I do something that is not in alignment with the version of myself that I want to be, then I am not living in congruence, right? And so all of these three things kind of add to each other to help leaders to be more conscious in their actions and their behaviors with themselves, but then also with their teams as well. And so that gets into that interaction with other individuals that becomes really important when we start talking about things like diversity and inclusion, and how do we prevent other forms of violence and those kinds of things.

Erica D'Eramo 20:01

So I love this concept of congruence in terms of, you know, consciousness, because I think it's so particularly impactful for folks with historically marginalized identities, you know, underrepresented communities, who often have to strike a very fine balance between, you know, other people's biases and how they're being perceived. So this piece around, you know, how are others perceiving me, sometimes that's through their own lens, and we get to decide how much we respond to that or adjust because of that. But also the element of, you know, masking or code switching or camouflaging that a lot of folks find themselves having to do in order to navigate some of these more difficult work environments. So I'm curious if you have any thoughts or insights for any of the folks you've worked with that are working to create this congruence, and also are maybe in a work environment where they they don't look like everybody else, or they don't feel like everyone else.

Aang Lakey 21:05

Yeah, and I will say that not necessarily from the leadership teams that I've worked with, but from being an advisor and being in the roles that I've been in in different organizations. People would often talk to me about code switching and feeling like they have to act or present themselves in a certain way, especially around certain leaders, and certain leaders are not really aware of that, and then how do they navigate those, those circumstances? And so I will say it absolutely happens. And the flip side of that is when we're having these conversations with leaders, and we're talking with them about living or leading in congruence. The conversation is, is or circles back around to and not just congruence. I was going to say congruence, but I will talk about congruence. But let me first start with if we are conscious enough that other people on our team are not comfortable being their authentic selves or being their whole selves, then we know that that's an area that we have to work on as a leader, and we have to acknowledge that out loud, right? We have to have we have to say that this is what we value. We value a team where everyone feels included, everyone feels as though they can be their authentic selves, and everyone feels that they can belong. They have to actually say it out loud, right? And then they have to actually model the behaviors themselves. They have to model making sure they're asking the questions of, who's not here? How do we get them here and asking questions like meaningful questions based on their their their team, right? And so if you've got specific people on your team who are from specific cultures or backgrounds, making sure that you're acknowledging you know, what are their beliefs? What are their cultural identities related to this and navigating those as appropriate as leaders. Now, obviously we don't want to make people feel uncomfortable with, you know, asking awkward questions about what is your cultural identity or why? Why is that relevant? But we want to be able to do it in a way that we can engage with individuals, so that we know that they that, so that they know that we care about them, who bringing their whole selves into the office. And also we want to be able to do it in a way that's mindful of acknowledging that every person is unique, and every person is going to bring different concepts and different thoughts and different areas to the team, and if we can acknowledge it from that perspective, and so say it out loud, model those behaviors by asking questions, engaging with their employees and making sure that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing as a leader, to help them feel included, to help them feel as though they belong. And then we have to make sure that the rest of the team is doing that as well, right? And so if we're saying that it's important, we're doing everything that we can to model that and to live in congruence with what we're saying is important, then we also have to hold other people accountable on our team who are who are not doing it. And so if we're doing everything we can as a leader to create a space where people come together, they share, let's say hypothetically, that we have a multicultural team, and we have arranged a team building day where we're doing multicultural events, where each member of the team is going to share a little bit about their cultural heritage, their background, what's important to them, those kinds of things, and one or two people on the team are like, this is this is nonsense. I'm not doing it. I'm not participating right then we have to to make sure that we are holding those individuals appropriately accountable to the cultural dynamics that we want to establish in our team right now, obviously I'm not saying that. You know those individuals need to be fired or anything like that, but there needs to be a conversation with them about why this is important, why we should be celebrating people's cultural heritages or their backgrounds, or whatever other area you want to talk about. I happen to choose cultural heritage, but it's a matter of, again, saying it out loud, having that visible commitment by modeling the behaviors and then holding people appropriately accountable. Does that question?

Erica D'Eramo 25:26

Yeah, I love that. You know, I asked about like individuals, which is sort of the wrong question, and you were, you sort of brought it back to where it needs to be, which is at the leadership level and at the systemic level. And I've talked about this in the past, but there's a TED a TED Talk by Jodi-Ann Burey about like, the myth of bringing your full authentic self to work. And it really does kind of talk about this element that it is not truly safe for a lot of people to bring their true authentic self to work, and it's not the individual's job to try to navigate that necessarily. I think it's a reality a lot of people face, and especially when we hear people talk about how great authenticity is, and it's like, well, authenticity is sometimes a privilege that not everyone is afforded. But I do love that you bring this back to like, yeah, we need to change the reality that people are operating in such that they can do this. And that falls to the leaders who need to be doing their own work first, and then modeling and setting the tone, setting that, setting the culture.

Aang Lakey 26:26

I actually, I have two thoughts related to this. The first one is related to when I talk about leaders, everything that I talk about for leaders, obviously, any single person can learn and grow from all of these things that I'm talking about. This is, this is a basic skill set and have you don't have to be in a leadership role. I happen to work with people who are in leadership roles, and I talk about it from this frame framework, because that's what they're that's what's on their mind. They want to be better leaders. They want to learn how to, how to, how to, how to be better. And so I talk about it from that framework. But anyone who is navigating, you know, changing cultural norms, or anything along those lines, can benefit from from the things that we're talking about. The second thing that I want to say is I absolutely agree with you, it is a privilege to bring your authentic self to work, and having served in the army for 15 years, you know, I had to write on my paper every day my gender. Like every time I did anything in the army, I had to choose a gender box, you know. And even when I was in command, like I still was a low person in the organization. Even though I commanded a group of individuals, I still had to command them and say, Oh, I used they, them pronouns, but on all my paperwork, it has a mark next to one gender, right? And so I'll say it from from that perspective, for myself, and then also for all of the other communities that are not able to do that on a regular basis. And even if they do feel like they want to do that and they want to help contribute, it not being a safe place sometimes, and even if leaders are doing everything that they can do, leaders also have to recognize that it is a privilege, and not everyone on the team is going to want to play ball in this regard. And until the leader can step up and do the work themselves and with managing the team appropriately, it's not going to be a place where people can come forward, especially about some of the harder identities, or some of the harder communities that have been marginalized in American society and also in the workplace. And so I think you know, leaders have to recognize that even if they do everything that they're supposed to do in this arena. It's not always going to be enough for some people, yeah, and that's okay too, yeah, yeah, absolutely right. This is, it's a it's a process.

Erica D'Eramo 28:54

Some of what you were mentioning about, you know, each person being a unique individual, really brought to mind the concept, concept of intersectionality. I think somebody said recently that they were having a conversation with their autistic daughter, and their daughter reminded them, like Mom, just because you know one autistic person, all that means is that you know one autistic person. And so this element of like intersectionality, right, all of these overlapping layers and and leaders coming to it with their own point of view and their own, you know, their own lens. What are your thoughts there? How do how do you suggest leaders kind of manage that and navigate leading diverse teams?

Aang Lakey 29:39

Yeah, so I will say that intersectionality is a topic that I talk about with everyone that I interact with. It's in most of my courses, most of my content, when I do presentations, I almost always talk about intersectionality becausewhile while the reality of stereotypes existing in world is there, and sometimes stereotypes can be helpful. Most times they're, they're, they're not as helpful as they should be. And so especially as leaders, what I always encourage them is to recognize that there are some healthy aspects of of stereotyping or creating conversational pieces around specific areas. For example, religion. And religious accommodation is something that comes up very regularly, and so in general, we can say that people need space to pray. They need space for quiet reflection and those kinds of things. But at the same time, we can't, can't use that to say all people who need religious accommodations, r, x, y and z kind of a thing, right? And so when I talk about intersectionality, I try to really help them to understand that every single person on your team is unique, even if every single person on your team is a straight white guy, like those straight white guys are all coming to you from different parts of the country. They could be coming to you with different religious backgrounds, with different beliefs about how the world operates, and all different kinds of things, right? And so recognizing that regardless of the people who are sitting in front of you, every single one of them is a unique individual. And I have never seen two individuals who were, you know, similar in all of the areas that we would talk about in any conversation, you know. And you know, I share in one of my, one of my presentations recently, that, you know, I was, it was on intersectionality. We were doing an exercise, and it was, you know, I wanted people to talk about, what are the areas that the identities that people have in their lives, how do they overlap? How do they like talk about those identities with other people? And I said, if you are a queer non binary white person, I do not want you to talk to another queer, non binary white person. And then, you know, the follow up is, even if I did talk to another queer, non binary white person. The reality is that those might be the only three things that we have in common, right? And like just recognizing that even though we're giving people labels to help us navigate the world a little bit better, like we still have to recognize that those individuals are unique individuals, and they have their own characteristics. They have their own thoughts and their own beliefs about how the world needs to operate, how the organization or the team needs to operate, and we have to be mindful of that with our work with leaders and so personalities come into play, strengths come into play, and other dynamics. So yeah, thank you.

Erica D'Eramo 32:37

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, you know, just looking at a set of identical twins is a great example of how it doesn't matter how many you know identical twins do we know that have the same personality? None. I've never met a set of identical twins that has the same personality. So, yeah, I think

Aang Lakey 32:55

And that even controlling all of the childhood variables.

Erica D'Eramo 33:00

Right? Yep. So I, I would love to know, you know, how, how do people find their way to working with you? Like, what are some of the the way you've mentioned a few offerings just throughout the discussion. But you know, what are some ways that you work with people, and if folks are listening and they're intrigued, you know how, how might they find their way to your work?

Aang Lakey 33:27

Yeah, so I work with mostly with leaders, and mostly doing coaching and consulting with leaders. I also do some some keynotes or presenting at different topics or on different topics, and I don't really do very much one on one life coaching. I still technically on my services list, but it's something that's kind of fallen off, because I do like to work with the leaders who can really shift and change some of the cultural dynamics. And so coaching and consulting, work, presentations, workshops, those kinds of things. And if they want to get if, if anyone wants to get in contact with me, they are welcome to reach out to me on my website, which is increasingconsciousness.org or sending me an email, aang@increasingconsciousness.org. I am on LinkedIn and Instagram and YouTube as well.

Erica D'Eramo 34:25

Cool, and we will put those in the show notes for sure. What like just to kind of summarize for our listeners, what would the one key takeaway be that you would love folks to walk away from this podcast episode with?

Aang Lakey 34:39

Yeah, I think probably the biggest thing that I would want people to take away from the episode is an awareness and an understanding of how important consciousness is in their life, whether it's as a leader or just as someone who wants to bring more equity into the world through their personal interactions with others, we need to have a foundational level of our own consciousness, and we also need to know how to shift and change our behaviors as we're interacting with others. And so the importance of consciousness.

Erica D'Eramo 35:13

Yeah, that it starts with ourselves, right? Like the healing and the impact we want in the world, starts with ourselves. I love that. Thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it. Lots of great insights. I'm sure we could talk for literally hours about a lot of these themes and topics. So we're just kind of scratching the surface here. So I would definitely invite our listeners to check out what everything that Aang has out there to offer, including the books that they've co-authored, check out their website. Thank you again, Aang, so much for for joining us today, sharing your insights.

Aang Lakey 35:52

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Erica D'Eramo 35:55

Thanks. And for those listening that would like to see a summary or a transcript of this episode, you can find it on our website, At twopiersconsulting.com, and we'll catch you next episode.