Ep 25 - Elaine Yew - The Leadership Maestro, on Tea Pouring Boss Bitches and other stories of powerful Asian women

We are super privileged to have with us Elaine Yew, one of the world’s most respected leadership advisors, making a rare appearance on social media! Although Elaine prefers to shun the spotlight, she is very well known to industry insiders as the go to person for advice on senior leadership, succession planning, board advisory and any sort of problem that keeps powerful organisations and leaders up at night.

 In this episode, we cover practical advice for anyone who wants to develop more gravitas, confidence and impact at work, and also delve into deeper topics such as developing your own leadership identity and how to navigate a bicultural Asian and Western context, especially for Asian women! Hope you find this episode as engaging and practical as I did :)

00:00  Introduction

1:40  Elaine’s career

4:49 On having a unrelated career to what you studied and unfair advantages

5:55 Passion and originality

6:13 Egon Zehnder’s research on what the 4 factors of potential in people - Curiosity, Insight, Engagement, Determination

9:00 Navigating male dominated workplaces

13:12 Leadership styles - embracing the range and the “AND”

14:50 Jo Chew’s Masters thesis on how Asian women in Singapore and Malaysia make it to the top of their careers in a bi-cultural context

16:00 Tea Pouring Boss B*tch story

21:33 On the quality of energy in leadership

24:00 Developing your own identity at work - defining who you are, not who you are not

25:15 Being realistic about whether you can bridge the gap or not

25:35 On dealing with people dehumanising or objectifying you the workplace

27:00 Consciously conveying to other who you are about and sharing about yourself

29:25 How to develop gravitas 

30:55 The importance of arriving and connecting in the boardroom

32:05 On not rushing yourself - Crystal’s childhood story

35:49 Setting the tone of a meeting

37:00 The ability to adjust to different time parameters, prioritise and synthesise important points

 Resources:

 Jo Chew’s thesis on female Asian leadership 

https://flora.insead.edu/fichiersti_wp/InseadEMCtheseswave34/98788.pdf

Call number link on the Insead catalogue:

https://librarycatalogue.insead.edu/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=98788