Episode #151: "I Have SOMETHING To Say" with special guest, Dr. Xaulanda Simmonds-Emmanuel

<p><span data-ogsc="black" data-ogsb="white">First, we celebrate that my sister from another mister earned her Ph.D.!!! And then, Dr. Xaulanda Simmonds-Emmanuel and I take a deep dive into the topic of “toxic leadership”, and how to navigate that, in this week’s episode of I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY.</span></p> <p><span data-ogsc="black" data-ogsb="white">“If ‘leaders’ are not creating a work environment where individuals can be their best selves and do their best work, are they really leading or just creating chaos?”, Dr. Simmonds-Emmanuel recently stated in a post that prompted this raw conversation about workplace environments and the leaders in them.</span><span data-ogsb= "white"> </span></p> <p><span data-ogsc="black" data-ogsb="white">Upon defending her dissertation and obtaining her Ph.D., Dr. Xau was faced with two options: a) hyperfocus on her role as</span> Chief Passion Seeker/Co-Founder of The XauSky Group, dedicated to <span data-ogsc="black" data-ogsb="white">fueling passion in the workplace by providing organizational development, consulting, and training offerings to create high-performance teams and more engaging work cultures, or b) pursue a leadership role in Corporate America. She chose option “a”.</span> Why? Like so many entrepreneurs, she suffers from PTSD caused by having previously worked in toxic work environments that once dimmed her light. Plus, she has a business empire to build 😊.</p> <p>Dr. Xau shares insights regarding the signs of a toxic leader, so we know how to identify them, and she also shares the traits of a leader people will want to work with and for, passionately.  We discuss shifts in organizational cultures driven by the millennial mindset, a more ethnically diverse workforce, and the lasting effects of the COVID pandemic – the human equalizer – that made everyone realize “I am vulnerable”, regardless of race, faith, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual identity or orientation, abilities or disabilities, age, lived experienced, zip codes, etc., etc., etc.</p> <p>The key q