Reflection
The AI-Resilient Leader
Many professionals ask me,
“What skills should I be focusing on to stay relevant right now?”
My answer,
“Walk with 2 legs.
One leg is your technical skills,
the other?
Your human skills!”
A recent graph by the McKinsey Global Institute , featured in their report "Agents, robots, and us: How AI reshapes work and skills in Europe", perfectly illustrates the answer.
The 𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗲𝘅 maps out which skills have the highest exposure to automation versus those that remain deeply human and resilient.
Technical skills such as SQL, accounting, invoicing, and software development are among the highest on the exposure scale.
But if you look at the lower-left corner, the zone with the least exposure to automation, you see a cluster of capabilities:
✅ Resilience
✅ Empathy
✅ Influencing skills
✅ Leadership
These are exactly the core pillars I focus on when coaching executives and rising leaders.
AI can write code, analyze a spreadsheet, and automate quality control.
But AI cannot build a high-performing team.
It cannot navigate complex organizational constructs with empathy.
It cannot build the deep resilience required to lead a company through a pivotal change.
The future belongs to leaders who intentionally develop their human capital.
If you want to build an AI-resilient career, stop focusing solely on technical optimization.
Start investing in your leadership presence, your emotional intelligence, and your ability to influence without authority.
Confidence + Humility
We all have heard “no” - promotion, raise, job interview.
We get conditioned by the repetition of "no."
Over time, we internalize the idea that we aren't quite ready for the big seat.
In order to achieve our full potential, we have to unlearn that conditioning deliberately.
The ultimate mindset shift boils down to three words: 𝗜 𝗮𝗺 𝗲𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵.
Believing you are enough does not mean complacency.
Great leadership requires balancing two truths simultaneously:
1️⃣ 𝗜𝗻𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵: We are already fully capable of leading the team, building the product, and contributing to the company's success.
2️⃣ 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘂𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵: We must always continue to learn, develop, and stretch ourselves.
You do not need to wait until you are "perfect" to lead.
You are enough to start today.
❓What one conditioning you had to unlearn in your career?
The secret of overnight success
I won 2nd place in a storytelling competition hosted by NSA Ohio.
What’s the secret of my seemingly overnight success?
I practiced in front of the camera.
I practiced in front of my family.
I practiced in front of my coach.
I practiced while working out.
I practiced while taking a walk.
I practiced while driving.
I practiced while showering.
I practiced the last thing before bed.
I practiced the first thing after waking up.
I practiced loudly.
I practiced silently.
I practiced just part of it.
I practiced the whole piece.
I practiced after incorporating some feedback.
I practiced after not incorporating some feedback.
I practiced and practiced until it became a part of me.
This is the secret of my overnight success.
The Best Is Yet to Come
When we believe that the best is yet to come, we are more hopeful and optimistic in times of reinvention, darkness, and setbacks.
As a result, we will be more likely to take action.
I was a little girl living in a small village, but later attended a top engineering university.
I struggled with engineering drawing classes in college, but later I was offered free admission to graduate school.
Nobody understood me when I first moved to the US, but now, I am a professional speaker.
I started as an entry-level engineer, but then became an executive at Fortune 200 companies, leading global teams.
My current version of “the best is yet to come” is to impact 1 million women in tech by speaking to and coaching people worldwide.
I will also write a book.
What’s your version of “the best is yet to come”?
Great leaders share projects
Our team was building a new product on Cloud.
We had to do performance testing to ensure the system could handle the concurrent load.
As their leader, I stepped in and co-designed the workflow and scenarios to mimic the real case scenarios due to the tight timeline.
As a result, we discovered and fixed potential issues before production deployment.
When the product was launched, it worked seamlessly.
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Good leaders delegate.
Great leaders go further; they share projects.
They don't just assign tasks and wait for the deadline.
They actively engage.
They check in regularly to offer support.
They offer their network for expertise.
They roll up their sleeves when necessary.
They celebrate the wins and share the setbacks.
What's your real-life example of great leaders sharing projects?
Let Her Out
I was weeping on an airplane.
This little girl had big dreams.
This little girl had convictions.
This little girl achieved great things and had big successes.
Then she was caught in the Mundane.
She went to college.
She met a great guy.
She got married.
She started a family.
She had a corporate job to attend to.
No, I am not talking about me.
I am talking about Natalie, even though mine shares some similar paths.
Maybe you can see yourself as well?
At age 40, she hadn't forgotten about her dreams.
She had the courage and created strategies to reconnect with that little girl and
Let Her Out.
This is the book that I was reading and weeping on the airplane.
I wanted to dog-ear every page.
Some pages made my heart ache, and I couldn't help but cry - Natalie speaks to your soul.
Some pages made me laugh - she has a sense of humor.
Natalie has a gift, a gift to make the words flow beautifully.
“If I cannot put myself in someone’s shoes, then I do not deserve to take a stance on an issue that affects them. It’s very easy to say you are pro-this and anti-that. But once you put a name, face and story with someone who holds opposing views, you might have a change of heart.”
“I was alive yesterday…I was sad. I was disappointed. I was proud. I was humbled. I was frustrated. I was alive because I let myself feel these feelings. And I provided space for others to share theirs, too.”
“Not a single person in this world chose where, how and to whom they were born. All of us have a great opportunity - or perhaps even an obligation - to understand our differences and embrace diversity.”
“When you shrink, others can’t grow.”
Natalie Siston is my friend, a professional speaker and coach.
We have known each other for several years.
The book allowed me to get closer to who she is on a deeper level.
The book isn't just another self-help book.
It's an invitation to embark on a profound journey of self-rediscovery.
As a seasoned coach, she asked over 100 coaching questions to help anyone gain more clarity on who they have always been.
I continue following her advice to Let "My Version of Her" Out.
This book spoke to my heart.
If you feel limited in any way, this book is for you.
Thank you, Natalie, for sharing you and your talent with us.
How many sponsors do you have?
Women are under-sponsored.
A sponsor is a person who utilizes their social capital to speak on your behalf, especially when you are not present.
They can influence the promotion decision.
When I ask people how many sponsors they have, the answer is often
0
1
not enough
According to Harvard Business Review
"a lack of sponsorship is preventing women from climbing the career ladder."
I haven't seen anyone get promoted without a sponsor.
Fortunately, I have had many sponsors throughout my career.
If I were to need a corporate job, which I don't, I am confident that many leaders would willingly hire me onto their teams or refer me to their networks.
How many sponsors do you have?
How confident are you that someone would hire you if you need a job?
Sally and product design
Who is Sally Ride?
Sally Ride was the first American woman to go into space. She broke huge barriers along her journey.
However, when she was preparing for her mission, NASA engineers designed a makeup kit for her.
The prototype kit included items such as eyeliner, mascara, eye shadow, blush, lip gloss, and makeup remover.
The engineers went so far as to create compartments for each item, but the kit was never actually used in space.
They didn't ask her if she even wanted one. They just assumed.
This story reminds me of a big lesson in product design.
The first rule should always be: understand your customers' needs.
Don't assume.
Listen to them.
This is especially true when you are designing for someone who is different from you.
When products are built based on assumptions of what people want, not what they actually want, it costs time, money, and reputation.
Do you include customer research in your product design?
The director of the film "Sally", Cristina Costantini, won the "Women in Film Award" at the Mountainfilm 2025 festival.
Highly recommend.
Words
In the fall of 1993, I was a young 21-year-old graduate school student.
One night, while a professor, who was my mentor, and I were walking down the stairs of our office building, the electricity went off completely.
We had to feel our way to the bottom of multiple flights of stairs.
That’s not the worst thing that happened.
It turned out my feet were not as good as my hands at feeling the stairs.
My right high heel caught on the stairs and fell off - I didn't fall, the heel did.
It was a 3-inch heel.
Until then, I had never walked in high heels without the heel, and with the other shoe still having the heel.
However, I quickly learned how to leverage my right calf and the tips of my toes to balance. We walked all the way from the campus to my dorm.
While I was making jokes about the situation, my mentor turned his head and said to me, “You will go far in life. I know it because of the way you carried yourself in a stressful situation like this.”
30-plus years later, I still remember that night and the words he said.
The words we say carry light or weight; use them wisely.
The words are the water that flows from our minds and hearts. Fill our hearts with love, beauty, and empathy.
P.S. I rarely wear high heels these days. I gave my feet freedom.
Compare
“Comparison is the thief of joy.”
In many cases, this is indeed true.
But I encourage us to compare!
Compare ourselves with the experts in your field. What are the skill gaps, and how can we fill the gaps?
Compare ourselves with a parent who can talk to their children with composure and figure out how we can be that person.
Compare ourselves with a person who eats healthy and learn the tricks, such as never stacking junk food (my trick)
It’s not the comparison that steals the joy.
It’s who and what we compare, and then what we do with the comparison.
Compare with the people you want to become.
Before you know it, you become one of them.