Lessons from Leaders: Featured Guest Uma Viswanathan, Executive Director at New Pluralists Collaborative

This week, we have Uma Viswanathan, the Executive Director at New Pluralists Collaborative as our guest on Lessons from Leaders.

What do you know about trauma and leadership? How do you think trauma helps with transformation and leadership? That is one of the many meaty topics Uma and I talk about.

This episode kicks off with Uma sharing her experience as a child of an immigrant family and how that organically led her to a deep curiosity of people, their motivations, and perspectives. It was from this place of curiosity that ultimately led Uma to her position in leadership with New Pluralists.

It is in our conversation about her unique world views that Uma shares her insights towards personal trauma and its place in a work organization.

Uma says: “Some leaders think we need to be completely healed from trauma before we can lead, when actually the process of leading and being challenged allows us to grow in our capacity to digest and learn. Healing then happens while leading.”

Uma also mentions that her organization has chosen an emergent strategy over a deliberate strategy which leans into unplanned actions and initiatives, leaping with faith unsure of the outcome.

“We have set a goal with an emergent approach that requires collaborative efforts. The truth is, our goal is so big we need help. It is too big for our organization, solely. We made it so big purposefully because it causes us to think differently and transformatively.”

As Uma continues she says something I had to write down: “Some people set goals that are too realistic. This way, they do exactly what they've always done. Instead, we took a leap of faith into uncertainty because in history, those are the decisions that have moved us.”

The boldness, vulnerability, and nobility of Uma and her leadership shines in this episode. It is one of our most unique conversations to date and I can’t wait to continue following Uma and New Pluralists on what I am sure will be more lessons learned on their pursuit of that big goal. Thank you Uma.