Meet Laura Barnard, founder of Breakthru Brands
Omaralexis Ochoa: Hey, it's Omaralexis, but you can call me Lex. Today I am thrilled to introduce you to Laura Bernard, founder of Breakthru Brands and author of the upcoming book, Leadership Types.
Laura is on a mission to revolutionize leadership by fostering inclusivity. She empowers diverse founders and entrepreneurs to break barriers and collaborates with global companies to instill leadership values that embrace authenticity and promote equity.
Laura, it's really great to have you on the show. Thank you for joining me today.
Laura Barnard: Great to be here with you, Lex. Thanks for having me.
About Breakthru Bands
Omaralexis Ochoa: Of course. So I touched on a little bit in the introduction: your book, Breakthru Brands. I want to start first with your company. Can you tell me a bit about Breakthru Brands and the types of people or companies that you work with?
Laura Barnard: Yeah, Breakthru is a leadership empowerment solution, which sounds big and important, and we really believe it is, but what we do specifically is build the personal leadership brands for underrepresented leaders within organizations.
Omaralexis Ochoa: Specifically within organizations or do you work with people maybe working on their own personal brands as well?
Laura Barnard: Yeah, so we're in the midst of our own evolution as we enter our fifth year in business. We are definitely focused on kind of that one to one individual outreach, individual project work, and as we've grown and seen opportunity to really scale our offering and reach more and empower more leaders.
The solution is really a great fit for advancing cohorts of leaders within organizations. So we've shifted to organizational selling and organizational programming. We still do have a fair amount of individual clients who will reach out to us and go through the project work but our bulk of our efforts and our outreach is related to organizations.
DEI Challenges for Organizations
Omaralexis Ochoa: Yeah, definitely. So in your experience working with some of these organizations and really instilling those leadership values what do you often see as the main sticking point or friction point? For companies trying to implement more diverse and inclusive policies, what do you find them struggling the most with?
Laura Barnard: From a macro perspective, we're definitely in the midst of some significant headwinds, backlash to DEI efforts kind of across the country, across the world. And really kind of navigating that as an org: where do you fit in that political landscape and what stance do you want to take in terms of your willingness to invest and talk about championing these DEI initiatives. So those headwinds are real, those macro forces are significant. Policies are getting changed and things are rapidly evolving as we speak. So that's sort of the context that we're operating in.
I think the organization where the friction sometimes is, is they have good intention, but the execution is sometimes lacking. And I don't know if the strategy is always there. I think the optics are there and the setup is there to recognize and talk to these different groups within the organization. But really, what is the strategy? What is the intention? What is the outcome that we're seeking through this work? And really our perspective is more kind of bottoms up or individual; of, activating their potential versus trying to change the structure of the company.
With our work it gets very specific to identify and activate the individual leaders, their authenticity, their leadership, help them find their voice and have that sort of bubble up through the organization to advance diversity and inclusion on a more "feet on the ground" perspective.
Omaralexis Ochoa: I think that makes a lot of sense because I think there is a lot of encouragement to be gained when you are someone that enters an organization, especially a large organization, and being able to see people such as yourself in positions of leadership, in decision-making positions, really is important, not only for your own self confidence, but really seeing what's possible at this organization. Seeing people like yourself in those positions, opens the door for you as someone trying to find your way and potentially move into those roles in the future. And so working on the individual basis, I think, is a good way to break those barriers and break down those doors.
And I think is a more tactical way of approaching DE& I, where oftentimes, like you mentioned, we have these big lofty goals to say: as an organization, we want to be more equitable. And so we'll do a lot of these things that really just amount to lip service, really just amount to: here's a budget for some events and a pride activation or something.
And those are all great for visibility and all great for showing what it is that you're doing as an organization. But at the end of the day, if it's not a part of the DNA and it's not what you're seeing actual real people achieve at the organization then really it just is lip service.
Working with individuals is a really great way of actually making concrete, specific, incremental change at a company. And it really just works little by little.
Laura Barnard: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, the power of this it actually can have a quite a big ripple effect and amplifying effect across the teams and the organization. And I think from a business perspective we talk about diversity and inclusion as: this is fair, this is the ethical thing to do. And we want to make sure that we are also, conveying the business case for this work.
When we can retain and elevate and activate these leaders, good things happen; innovation happens. And like you said, having these role models within the organization keeps other folks around that are maybe looking elsewhere. They want to stay in those places where those leaders are rising up.
So this idea of your individuality and your authentic leadership as an individual can be, for you, a strategic advantage because it helps you be more effective and more clear, more confident in your leadership. But then for the business, it can really serve as a strategic advantage: the companies who are activating and really tapping into this leadership potential across the organization can realize the financial and economic benefits of it as well.
Importance of Personal Branding for Under-Represented Professionals
Omaralexis Ochoa: When you talk about galvanizing specific individuals and helping them find their voice, I think that's a really powerful way to put it. The concept of internal marketing: it's something that you see some people are very good at and some people aren't very good at, where if you're someone that can speak to your work and your wins, no matter how large, you're likely going to be someone that can move more quickly in the organization as far as promotions and lateral movements and key projects, things of that nature-- because people see and hear about the work that you're doing. Whereas someone that doesn't speak up as much for whatever reason... What would you say is the importance of that, particularly for professionals of a diverse or minority background?
Laura Barnard: Yeah I think it's a great question. We think about building one's personal leadership brand is as much about navigating the internal four walls of the organization as it is about externally expressing your voice, your brand outside of the organization. So whether it be on social media or other digital spaces or in real life, you know, at events or panels and speaking opportunities, et cetera. It's kind of internal brand, external brand.
The work that we do is we like to talk about it as being portable with the leader and durable. And so internally your brand matters as much as it does externally. And I think particularly for underrepresented folks, it's this question of finding and owning and sharing their voice.
What are the barriers to that? We think about the barriers first, and then we do the work, try to address those. And the headwinds in that regard are significant. The barriers are large and we start with kind of the internal or psychological barriers. Things around imposter syndrome, right?
We can talk about that for a long time, but there's different ways to describe that: these feelings of insecurity, self doubt, negative self talk, feeling like they don't belong, they don't fit in.
And I experienced those things kind of rising up through the ranks in corporate America for my previous 20 years of my career. So there was these feelings of, of insecurity and self doubt and lack of confidence. And we have to first kind of break through those internal psychological barriers and then start to address the ones that are in the room.
So if there is bias, discrimination, policies, procedures, cultural things that you're navigating; being a voice to change those things, because those are going to hold people back. When we can dismantle these internal barriers first, from a psychological standpoint, it's really working with the leader to say: who are you? Why do you do what you do? What are your values? What are your beliefs? What are your goals? Deep understanding of their context, what matters to them, and then helping them understand how to share that out with the world.
The BOLD Framework
Laura Barnard: One kind of simple construct that we use is our BOLD framework. It's an acronym for being Brave, Outspoken, Lucid, and Distinct, and starts with this "Being Brave", getting that internal fortitude and really knowing who you are, believing in yourself, and getting clear on why you are doing what you're doing, and why you're there. And then "Being Willing to be Outspoken" is about sharing your truth, sharing your values, sharing your ideas, sharing your goals, putting it out there. Otherwise it's not known or it's invisible. So we gotta put it out there. And then when we do put it out there, moving into the L "We have to be Lucid" we have to be clear. We can't make assumptions about others or assume people can read our minds. We want to be really intentional about what we are putting out there. And then Distinct is really about your story. My story is different than yours, different from your other colleagues in the room. And there's something special about everybody. There's something distinctive about everyone.
If you don't share aspects of who you are and feel comfortable doing so, you're going to miss opportunities to connect with people. And it's really, at the end of the day just like a product brand from a consumer standpoint, that one that can make an emotional connection is one that we're going to stick with and we're going to love it and we're going to be loyal to it and tell friends about it. Same thing from a personal brand. We want to share enough about ourselves to elicit that emotional connection with others and we do that through what we say and what we do and telling our story and we want to get people to that place where they are telling the world who they are and why they do what they're doing and they're putting themselves out there in that way.
Behavioral Change: Advocating for Yourself in the Workplace
Omaralexis Ochoa: Yeah, definitely, and I think tying back to what you mentioned about the psychology, although you're not psychologists and going in for that purpose, tapping into the psychology, I think, is a really strong way of getting folks to internalize some of that. Where they really start to think intuitively about what it is that they're doing, how they can make changes to their day-to-day behavior, their day-to-day mechanisms so that they can bake in the aspects of this framework --because it's definitely a behavioral change that you have to make as far as advocating for yourself, promoting your own work, and stopping the negative feeling of, "Oh, I'm gloating, or I am showing off." This is what's necessary in order to make sure people kind of know the work that I'm doing, know what my capabilities are, so that when there is a next opportunity, they'll have heard of me, they'll seen examples of my work, and the interview starts before I enter the room.
How would you say folks get started? If you're someone that wants to do more of this, who really wants to advocate for themselves or help get other people to start advocating for them, how would you say people get started with that behavioral change?
Laura Barnard: Great question. It kind of feels big and complex and strategic and it is, but the simple place to start is going to sound very basic, but, knowing yourself, and know who you are as a leader. And I think even using the word "leader", sometimes can feel exclusionary 'cause people will say, "I'm not a leader" and we sort of pause in this moment and say, no, everybody has the capacity to lead. Even if you don't have that title, you are influencing, you're persuading, you're moving things forward. You are all leading in different aspects of our lives. So you want to take that premise that: you're a leader, I'm a leader, we all can lead.
What is it about our leadership that's unique, that's special? Who are we as a leader? And once we have a good self awareness and self knowledge, we can start to build the brand strategy sort of off of that foundation.
Our "Leadership Types" assessment is the start of every project that we do. It's something we encourage folks who attend our workshops to take, and it's a basic 15 question self assessment quiz, where you can start to identify one of these 12 leadership archetypes or leadership types that we've developed through our work with now hundreds of leaders.
Where do I fall on this archetype wheel, if you will? What is my leadership type and how does that give me some starting points, some guardrails, some ideas about how I communicate, how I connect, how I relate to others. Giving us a lens to know who we are better and have language to describe that.
And then also have a lens to understand and describe others and how we can fit and work together. So understanding your leadership type is really sort of Step Zero in our process of building one's personal leadership brand.
Omaralexis Ochoa: I'm so glad you mentioned the leadership types because that's exactly where I was hoping to go next as far as that first step: understanding yourself. But even then there's the kind of pre work where it's like, well, how do I understand myself? What am I good at? Who am I? Especially in this professional context, and not only identifying yourself, but using that as a mechanism for understanding other people, like you had mentioned.
Leadership Types and the SLE Framework
Omaralexis Ochoa: And so I do want to delve into the Leadership Types Framework.
So through your work, I know that you've developed this Spectrum of Leadership Empowerment framework, the SLE. So can you walk me through this framework and how it comes into play? You mentioned that that's Step Zero, you mentioned these kind of 12 different leadership archetypes.
Just walk me through end to end: from taking the quiz to maybe doing it as part of your workshop, or maybe even doing it as part of your book how does the SLE fit in?
Laura Barnard: So the model: think about working from the inside of the leader, out to the external world.
So when we think about you at your core, the core of the core of you what is driving your behavior? What is motivating you? And we talk about the concept of intrinsic motivation. There's great historical thinkers in the space like Carl Jung about what these drivers of human behavior beyond the Maslow, "food, water, you know, shelter," those types of things.
But what is really driving our words, our decisions, our actions? The questions that we ask is really trying to get to in a word, what is most internally motivating to you, Lex, as a leader? Okay, it's going to be different than me, different from our colleague.
And with a deeper, richer understanding of what's intrinsically motivating to you. We can map you to a leadership persona or leadership archetype that we've identified through a combination of our knowledge of more traditional brand archetypes, but really passed through the filter and pressure tested by the now 300 plus leaders we've worked with to kind of identify, okay, how do we describe them?
Words like legend, champion, visionary, trailblazer, these are not by accident. These are the words that really sort of summarize these types of these salient leadership archetypes that we saw emerge. So the intrinsic motivation maps to a leadership type. And then if you imagine kind of taking that now externally, what is that leadership type have the greatest power to do and power, not in a "take over the world," nefarious type, but what is your greatest power as a leader to influence and change ideas and teams and organizations.
We think about the 12 leadership types falling into four categories of these powers. One is the power to create, to make things tangible that are just in our imagination. One is the power to awaken or transform, change things. The next is the power to unite or bring folks together. And then the last is a power to provide order, provide structure.
And so these are distinct categories of our power as leaders to influence and persuade and impact. But the way that the questions are designed, underpinned in those motivations that it's a really powerful tool to say, "Okay, where am I, where am I charting on this spectrum?" Give you some language to, to understand that and then use that as a jumping off point. It can be, for the individual, a sense of where you may be charting across those 12 and then start to give you some language, some ideas of how to activate that and bring that through as a filter for your brand.
Developing the SLE Framework
Omaralexis Ochoa: Right. And so I know with your background in psychology, you mentioned that you've worked or studied motivational psychology for a time. So how is it that you developed the framework? You mentioned having worked with about 300 different leaders, testing this framework over time, maybe changing things over time.
How has it kind of come together?
Laura Barnard: Yeah, we wanted something that was going to be dynamic, inclusive, forward looking not designed, as most leadership assessment tools are, to box us in. There's different categories and we wanted to make sure that we have to put names to these things, but it's not intended to categorize or box people in.
It's really designed to help be, again, that springboard or starting off point to know who you are, but then very quickly share that out with the world and step into that power that you have as a leader. The psychology behind it is really rooted in those motivations that are really wide ranging. But if you think about the four quadrants that I described, the quadrants that are in diametric opposition, there's a tension there.
Omaralexis Ochoa: Right, so developed with the idea that folks on a team will fit together as far as the different types but also even maybe with an idea that people shift their leadership type over time, is that correct?
Laura Barnard: Yes, absolutely. As we change and adapt and evolve in our careers, you know, who I am as a leader, this today is very different than five years ago, very different from 10 years ago when I was in more of a traditional corporate role where I was a connector and I was in a matrix organization.
I had to work on cross functional teams and it was really about you know, driving things forward that way. And now as a founder, as an author, stretching into that visionary space... as a leader in this moment, it gives us a way to do that versus an old assessment, once you get identified as a certain type you're kind of stuck with that.
We want to make sure it's adaptive and dynamic in that way.
Omaralexis Ochoa: That makes a lot of sense.
Developing Leadership Identity
Omaralexis Ochoa: So as far as the various steps, so Step Zero, find who I am, core of who I am, get assigned one of these leadership types. Maybe some of my colleagues have been assigned-- now have more language, more words to put into play around our strengths, our weaknesses, and kind of how we can fill the gap by working together.
So once we've identified these types, identified our colleagues or our teammates, what's the next step after you find your leadership type?
Laura Barnard: Yeah. The assessment quiz is meant to be sort of a first pass, first blush of where you may be charting. For us to get a really pinpointed, more honed in understanding of what your specific type is. Cause most people, when they take the quiz for the first time are we, we lovingly call it a little bit scattered, right?
They're answering these situational questions and they're showing up in a couple of different places. From a branding perspective, it's important to have singularity and a primary leadership type identified. And that's going to be, you know, we want to be consistent, clear, cohesive, and if we're all things to all people all the time, could be scattered and chaotic.
So what we would do from our team perspective, where our expertise lies is really in it's a 60 minute sort of deep, immersive motivational interview where we get understanding deeper into who is this person? What is their story? Pinpoint a type for them so that one on one assessment will give us the ability to really identify that primary type. And then from there, it's one thing to kind of understand the type and read about it and sort of say, how can I put this into practice? But we want to build on to that.
We call it "Leadership Identity". So the type is one thing, but then to hone in even further based on your unique strengths, your specific opportunities, we'd move into the strategy piece.
I'll say the words context matter a lot, but you know, where are you at in your career path? What are your goals? From a places and spaces perspective, how are you showing up? Where are you showing up? And what is the strategy to position yourself as a leader and start to develop what we call your "Leadership Authority?"
Now comes the final phase, and this is people always want to jump here, but they want to activate their brand. They want to build their leadership platform and that really gets into what is your leadership narrative? What is your brand story? What is your communications plan? Just like a company has a communication strategy, right? You as a leader need to identify, okay, I'm going to communicate in this way. These are my main messaging themes. These are the subject matter expertise areas I have. This is how I want to talk about the work I'm doing. And that's really where the activation comes, sharing that out verbally in written form, in social media, on your bio, all those touch points externally. We get to that place at the end and talk about that as your leadership platform, but it really kind of brings everything together in a cohesive strategy document deliverable, but it really is useful for the leader to start to say, okay, how do I now start to share this with the world?
Exciting Partnerships and Success Stories
Omaralexis Ochoa: What would you say are some of the most interesting or most exciting anecdotes that you've seen or heard from, from some of the leaders that you've worked with?
Laura Barnard: Yeah. I think the organizational partners who we've had the great opportunity to collaborate with and partner with. If I go back to kind of really early beginnings of, of Breakthru you know, I was a former college basketball player. So one of our first big partnerships was with an association who brings together all the coaches in women's basketball.
So it's the WBCA, Women's Basketball Coach Association. And we were intentional from the beginning about seeking out mission aligned organizations . So it could be companies, associations nonprofits, but groups of leaders who were really seeking to develop, grow, and thrive and really empower, in this case, women's basketball coaches; but empower folks to lead more effectively and increase their impact.
So we found a great fit with the WBCA and to be able to partner with them to create something that did not exist, right? To develop a scholarship program whereby we work with a select number of nominated and awarded coaches to deliver that work that I just described to really build their brand strategies to help them not just win basketball games, right, but to really increase their voice, increase their impact.
And these coaches-- we've now worked with 50 coaches within that organization, and growing-- they all have something that is greater than just winning basketball that they're seeking a greater impact, whether it be in their community or something that's really important to them: mental health or breast cancer awareness.
That's been really really cool to see that. And, you know, It helps. It's a very exciting time for women's basketball, but it's been cool to work with those individual coaches through that partnership. But those types of organizations and strategic partnerships are really exciting for us in a way we can scale our effort and impact.
Omaralexis Ochoa: Nice! That sounds incredible. It's so great that you've been able to kind of continue your involvement in basketball now, off the court--
Laura Barnard: Many years later, decades later. Yeah, exactly. Yep.
Omaralexis Ochoa: Awesome. Well, congrats on that. So I want to move into a bit about your book now. So we've talked about the framework. Am I correct in understanding that the SLE is kind of the foundation for the book and maybe your book Leadership Types is an expansion, maybe a one size or fully developed kind of thing to take away if you don't get an opportunity to attend a workshop?
Laura Barnard: Yes, exactly. The SLE is at the heart of what the book is about. We think of it almost like as a manual or guidebook for your leadership empowerment. You could, in the perfect scenario, hear us at a workshop or a keynote, take the quiz, buy the book, and journey through this branding work, especially for new or emerging leaders.
It gives kind of a how to and a guidebook. The way that the book is constructed is to really dismantle leadership stereotypes and break down past assessment tools that may be perpetuating stereotypes in leadership, or based on past behavior of what leadership looked and acted like, which is different now than it was back then.
We want to disrupt and dismantle leadership stereotypes to really serve our mission, which is to advance gender, racial, and identity equity in leadership. We start the book strong with a call to action, why we're doing this, talk about the spectrum, how it was designed and the psychology aspect, the brand archetype methodologies, the client work that we've done, reason for being; to believe us, that this is a viable model, that it is inclusive, it's expansive, it's innovative, and then kind of give folks a walkthrough of each of the types. And then leaving people with the really clear call to action of, okay, how do I take this into practice? What, what do I do next? How do I use this information about myself or others to build my personal leadership brand? And why does the world need folks within organizations, specifically underrepresented people, to do this work and how is it going to transform the leadership landscape.
And so it hopefully leaves people with some self awareness, but then also that urgency to take this into action and share it. Ideally this would infiltrate all the companies, and people would be thinking and having the shared language and shared understanding, and we think that could really create something really special.
Omaralexis Ochoa: Yeah, certainly. And so you mentioned the construction of the book, a bit of an answer to some of the pre-existing stereotypes. The book is not out yet coming out later...
Laura Barnard: Later this summer. I was warned many times by our publishing partner not to give a specific date, but later this summer, you'll be the first to know Lex! But the pre orders are available. Currently if you go to leadershiptypes.com, you can see the spectrum there. You can take the quiz through that. You can pre order the hard cover, beautiful color copy, which will be great to have on your desktop. The Amazon version will be coming later, but you can pre order now.
Omaralexis Ochoa: Excellent. Awesome. Well, I appreciate you sharing a little bit about the book and definitely looking forward to maybe grabbing my own copy and seeing what I can apply to my life. I feel like I could definitely use some leadership type identification myself. As far as some of the takeaways from the book, aside from uncovering your leadership type and getting that next step or guidebook to kind of break the mold, what do you want readers to really take away from the book?
Final Thoughts and Takeaways
Omaralexis Ochoa: What is the big hope that you want folks reading to walk away with?
Laura Barnard: I'll begin and end with this: this belief that everybody has the capacity to lead. It's not just for folks in management roles or the C suite. Those are not the only leaders within organizations or within communities. Instilling that belief that if you are someone who may be doubting that, that you can have that self confidence and self actualize in that way on one hand. And then on the other side, people who may be in a position of leadership already, who are in a position to empower others, that they look at others differently, that they see not just a title or what they're assuming about someone. See their teams differently, see their people differently, and see the potential in them and help, cultivate that, encourage that, develop that and not just keep people in their jobs, but really help them thrive.
We want to give a greater understanding and awareness in which to elicit that leadership potential that is in everybody.
Omaralexis Ochoa: Awesome. Well, very well put. And you mentioned Amazon. Where else can people find it?
Laura Barnard: Leadershiptypes.com that is really the best place right now for the next couple of months. And there'll be news updates coming through that. And our social channels are giving little tidbits.
Omaralexis Ochoa: Great. Well, Laura, thank you so much for coming on. I've really appreciated this conversation and thank you for walking me through your framework and I'm really looking forward to grabbing a copy of your book.
Laura Barnard: Awesome. Thank you for having me, Lex. You're doing great work and happy to be a part of your growing community.
Omaralexis Ochoa: Thank you very much.
