The Future Doesn’t Need Business As Usual
With Halla Tómasdóttir
The world is in a crisis of conformity. Leaders and businesses continue to do the same things yet expect different results. It's a vicious cycle of business as usual* — following the same routes and using the same strategies, yet hoping that something will change. As we near 2030, leaders play a more pivotal role in building a better future for future generations.
How can we become a leader in a more sustainable and inclusive world? In this episode, Halla Tómasdóttir inspires aspiring entrepreneurs to become conscious leaders who aspire to a radically collaborative, inclusive, and transparent business. She shares insightful lessons on how to harness your inside-out power and stay true to your moral compass.
Business as usual won't fix today's crises. If you aim to create a better world, this episode is for you!
*kw: business as usual meta: You can't do the same thing over and over and expect something different. Business as usual isn't enough anymore — so let's change strategies.
Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode:
Be inspired by Halla's leadership journey from her corporate roots to becoming the first female CEO of a university to now leading The B Team.
Discover how leader conformity and doing business as usual endangers our future.
Learn to harness your inside-out power and your inner compass to become a leader for a sustainable and inclusive world.
Resources
● The New Leadership Playbook by The B Team
● Connect with Halla Tómasdóttir: Website | LinkedIn | Facebook
● Connect with Angela Wallace: Website | LinkedIn | | Twitter | Instagram
● Listen to more Scale Conscious episodes here.
About Halla
Halla Tómasdóttir is an Islamic business leader, former politician, public speaker, and thought leader. She is also the CEO of B Team, a collective of global business and civil society leaders working to catalyze better business practices for the well-being of people worldwide
Halla was on the founding team and the first female CEO of Reykjavik University. She also co-founded and led an ESG-focused investment firm. In 2016, Halla announced her candidacy for the presidency of Iceland and won the second-highest share of the vote.
Learn more about Halla on her website or LinkedIn.
Episode Highlights
[02:06] Halla’s Leadership Journey
● Growing up in Iceland, Halla was surrounded by values of sustainability, equality, and especially gender equality — values deeply ingrained in her DNA.
● She did corporate work for years, where she learned the importance of principled leadership and the harsh realities of being a listed company in the capital market.
● Halla felt unfulfilled and knew something was missing.
● She returned to Iceland to find her real, meaningful purpose.
[03:57] Co-Building a University & Starting Her First Company
● Upon returning to Iceland, Halla co-built Reykjavik University, a university that championed teaching entrepreneurship to all students, regardless of degree or gender.
● She then became the university's first female CEO, but she decided to become an entrepreneur after a year.
● As an entrepreneur, Halla founded a company with the mission of incorporating more feminine values into finance.
● Halla has been on a mission to spread awareness about leadership conformity and how it has led us to a poly-crisis of nature collapse, inequality, and low trust.
● These have driven her to run for president of Iceland, engage in activism and social activities, and join B Team.
[09:39] Conformity of Leadership
● The world is in a crisis of conformity, where leaders and businesses continue to do the same things but expect different results.
● All the scientific evidence points to our current ways of living as the cause of this climate, biodiversity, and nature collapse. We can’t do business as usual anymore.
Halla: “Mother Nature will probably survive our abuse. [The] question is, “Do we want to be here?’ and ‘Do we want our children and grandchildren to be here and have the quality of life or the quality of opportunities that we've had?’”
● People have to be willing to change the way they lead, look at things, and shift norms in the system, like bringing more women, people of color, and next-generation people.
● Halla also points out the importance of building bridges between those in power and those with new ideas and mindsets.
[13:09] Inside-Out Power
● Inside-out power is the power to stay the course despite disruptions.
Halla: “I don't know a single human being — formal leadership or informal leadership or my own kids who are 19 and 21 — who don't want to be around to be in service of a better future. I think everyone ultimately wants that.”
● People need to believe in the future and have connections to have meaningful lives.
● Halla encourages people to look to the internal world to regenerate and build resilience.
● A person can only be a successful entrepreneur, leader, or human if they do the inner work as hard as the outer work.
[16:32] Halla’s Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
● Believe that you can create a future where you love where you live and work.
● You created your reality; your choices brought you here.
● No one can do everything, but everyone has a role to play.
● Have clarity on your inner moral compass — that is your GPS to the future you love. It is about dropping from your head to your heart and becoming clear about your purpose.
Halla: "We're just in an era of incredible disruption, and you can choose to let that overwhelm you or you can choose to say there are always some of the greatest opportunities for impact found at times like this. There's always the greatest sunshine after darkness too. There is only one way forward [for] me and that is a better future."
[22:46] Changing the Corporate World
● Business as usual is no longer an option.
● Leaders have to be ten times bolder and ten times more accountable.
● There is a need to do much more to stay on track to deliver a future where we can love where we live and work.
● Climate, nature, and inequality are interdependent.
● There must also be radical collaboration between governments, business of all sizes, citizens, and civil society organizations to reach a 1.5-degree world.
[20:51] Who Are We Choosing to Be?
● Halla always asks her leaders to ask themselves, ‘Who are we going to choose to be in this pivotal year when we are seven years away from 2030?’
● These seven years will matter in delivering global goals and making them a reality. Doing business as usual isn't going to achieve those goals.
● Ask yourself, ‘Are you choosing to contribute to the problem or can we contribute to the solutions?’
[27:43] The Power of Human Science
● Human science is the ability of people to work together and collaborate radically - to be inclusive and transparent.
● It is hard to work in a world with no trust.
● The B Team uploaded a New Leadership Playbook to tell stories of how radically collaborative, inclusive, and transparent business practices are.
Halla: “No one person, no one company, no one stakeholder can meet this moment. But if we unlock the full system and service of the future we want, and all the money that's in it, if we get the human science, I think this future might arrive faster than any one of us could imagine today.”
[29:58] Halla’s Four Pillars — And One Extra
● Be clear on your why and who you choose to be.
● Be authentic. No one can be a leader unless they can truly be themselves.
● Strive for gender balance. It’s not just about one’s sex but about gender ideas. Gender balance is capitalism with care.
● Be purpose-driven. It's not enough to have a meaningful purpose if you're not going to be principled about approaching it.
Halla: “Leadership is not something that is given to a few, even if some or all of us are given gifts. I believe there's a leader inside of every single one of us. And I don't believe this moment is about waiting for those leaders to show up and do what's needed.”
● Be intelligent and hardworking but make time for the heart. Drop from your head to your heart so your hands can do something that matters.
Ange Wallace: Hey there. Welcome to Scale Conscious. I'm your host, Ange Wallace. We've returned with our second podcast series and I'm inviting leaders I admire to give us guidance on creating conscious companies and building a regenerative future for all. In this episode, I'm joined by Halla Tómasdóttir, CEO of B Team. A collective of global business and civil society leaders working to catalyze better business practices for the wellbeing of people on the planet.
Halla is an Icelandic business leader and former politician. In 2016, she announced her candidacy for the presidency of Iceland, winning the second highest share of the vote. She was on the founding team of Reykjavik University and was the first female CEO of the Iceland Chamber of Commerce. Halla also co-founded and led an ESG-focused investment firm like before it was popular, a renowned public speaker and thought leader.
I'm excited to hear from Halla how she collaborates with some of the world's most powerful CEOs and companies to help transform private sector leadership for a more just, sustainable, and inclusive world. Let's get started.
Halla, thank you so much for being with us. You have to forgive me. I don't know the proper Icelandic pronunciation for your name, but I'm doing my best with that.
Halla Tómasdóttir: You're fine. Everyone calls me Halla in English. but if we were in Iceland, you would Halla.
Ange: Halla, okay. I’ll practice that one for the next time. Well, thank you so much. This podcast, Scale Conscious, we’re devoted to building conscious companies, to creating regenerative futures for people, for planet, which I know has been the cornerstone of your life's work. You know, just reflecting on your leadership journey and what's brought you to B-Team now, you're the CEO there.
I'm just curious for you to share. You know, what's your journey been like to get to this moment, where you're CEO, leading B team, which is a catalyst to transform the private sector? Tell us a little bit about the journey.
Halla: Oh, thanks Angela, for having me. Well, it's been quite a journey. I think I'm still on it, and it's not the traditional straight line or the traditional career by any means. I guess part of my leadership journey is the fact that I was born in a country where sustainability and equality, particularly gender equality were more than the exception. I guess you could say that's always been in my DNA and always formed my ideas around what is possible.
I came from that kind of a background and went to university and then had a career in corporate America in my twenties. Stayed here for about a decade in the United States, and I guess learned quite a bit in corporate America. I worked for a couple of iconic companies. First, the Mars Company, M&Ms, and then later Pepsi-Cola and I think I learned a lot about principled leadership and the harshness of being a listed company in the capital markets.
The former from Mars maybe more, and the latter may be a bit more from Pepsi which at the time counted more employees than my entire country. It was quite a shocking experience for a young leader like myself. But I learned quite a bit and I'm always very grateful for it.
But ultimately, it didn't leave me feeling fulfilled. I felt like something was missing. I returned back to my home country, Iceland, where I soon thereafter found real meaningful purpose in helping to co-create and build a new university called Reykjavik University. Because your listeners are entrepreneurs and people building companies, one of the interesting things we did starting in 1998 was to teach entrepreneurship to all students, no matter what you were studying. Really seeing entrepreneurship as something that was a skill whether you were studying as a lawyer or an engineer or a computer scientist or a business or social scientist, learning to become an entrepreneur was sort of a life skill we thought. It was a very transformative time for me. I became a mom during this time, a boy and a girl, and I taught a lot of boys and girls of different ages.
I guess I became really passionate about gender equality, which Iceland is good at, but not just in terms of men and women, but really in terms of values, really. Why do we think competition is always more important than care? Why do we think that building a capitalistic system, that places competition at the expense of anything that matters to us. Nature, humans, community cohesion, et cetera. Why do we think that's okay?
I'll jump quickly, but this Reykjavik University was owned by the Iceland Chamber of Commerce. 90 year old leading business organization in my country. After about six or seven years in my various roles at Reykjavik University, I was asked to become their first female CEO. This is the pre-global financial crisis. Basically, I took over in 2006 but by 2007, I resigned from that role, which was a very hard decision because I was the first woman. Lot of weight on my shoulders too and sort of walk the talk of believing in women's leadership and gender equality and responsible principled business, et cetera.
But I just lost faith in the sustainability of what was going on. I became an entrepreneur and I founded a company with the vision to incorporate more feminine values into finance. Rest assured that people thought we had lost our mind. Me and my co-founder, we have been women running with men. If I can say it so simply, or men in skirts or whatever you wanna call it.
We had competed hard and we were both very competitive and had successful careers, but something inside of us didn't resonate and we wanted to work more in line with our values. Only a year and a half later. Iceland experienced this infamous financial collapse, at least infamous for those who follow finance and we came through it intact. I guess my earlier questions about the value of embracing profit with principles, the value of embracing the feminine along with the masculine. The value of working in line with your own inner moral compass all became very clear to me.
I guess you could say since 2008, I've been on a relentless pursuit to tackle what I call conformity in leadership, and even conformity in our capitalistic system that has left us facing a poly crisis situation, climate, nature collapse, inequality, and low trust. Now, we're at war and our democracies are suffering and we don't have much trust in any institution. I've been on that journey ever since I even ran for president. I did a lot of activism and social activities to get there.
Five years ago, this landed me with the B team, which is basically a community of courage. I like to call the B team leaders from business and civil society who started 10 years ago. This year it's been 10 years to tackle business as usual.
Ange: Wow.
Halla: Afterwards, even if I've done so many different things, like running for office, being an entrepreneur, being an educator, being an investor, working in corporate America, being an activist, all of it has been about the same thing for me, I think. This is the most long-winded answer I give you, I promise you. But it sort of sets the stage.
Ange: It absolutely does. That's right. I love it and you see how the thread weaves through. That the core, the same core values have led you into those various arenas and corners and, and brought you to this moment now.
Halla: Well, now you do. I'm not sure I saw it when it was happening to be honest.
Ange: The time. Yeah.
Halla:, Now, it makes a lot of sense in retrospect and the reason I say that is I just, I meet so many young people and entrepreneurs and, and older leaders.I think we are all in one way or another trying to make sense or meaning, out of what we do with our time and talents and if we are willing to pivot when things don't feel right. I believe that life gives us ample of opportunity to eventually land where we feel like we're at home.
Ange: That's true.
Halla: But I think very few people figure all that out at once and in the beginning. For me, it's been trying a lot of different things, but always following what my inner compass was trying to tell me.
Ange: Yeah, I love that. That's great guidance because you're right. None of us know the end from the beginning. We're just trying to feel our way forward. Absolutely.
Halla: Yeah, for sure.
Ange: I love what you said about conformity of, of leadership, the crisis of conformity. Tell us a little bit about what that means and how you think it's resulted in those issues that you listed out and, and what it means to change that through the B Team.
Halla: Yeah, that's a good question. Well, I call it a crisis of conformity in leadership when we continue to do pretty much the same things, master the same things and go about leadership and business, and running our economy in a way that has actually, over the last few decades, left us facing these enormous existential crises.
I put climate at the top of the list, but biodiversity and nature collapse is real. We need nature and nature needs us to, to make sure it's here for us. Nature and Mother Nature will probably survive our abuse. But the question is, do we wanna be here? Do we want our children and grandchildren to be here and have the quality of life or the quality of opportunities that we've had?
I'd say that's the definition of crisis of conformity to to continue to do the same and expect that we'll have different outcomes when we are facing all the scientific evidence of how our ways have brought us here to a situation that is probably the scariest that at least we've faced in our lifetimes.
The way I think about it and the way we are increasingly trying to think about it, at least the B Team is, that we have to be willing to change who so we can change how we lead and look at things and shift norms in this system that keeps doing the same things we need to disrupt. That isn't gonna happen — and I say this with so much respect for the many great men I work with — but with a male and rather pale, and consequently rather stale world. We need to be willing to bring more women, people of color, the next generation people from the global south into the dialogue and design of what it could look like.
This is where I get so excited about entrepreneurs and I often talk about. Being born B, because I think there's a generation now that is born B. Whereas, I'm working a lot with a generation that is trying to catch up with where the new generation has already come. And the fact of the matter is, Angela, we are not gonna be able to meet this moment with the leadership that it requires by only embracing the innovators and the emerging power and the entrepreneurs. We need that and we need a lot more of that, but we also need to transform existing power because time is not on our side.
Maybe last but not least, I often talk about sort of the third power is the inside out power. I think this moment is a lot about unlocking those three powers to meet the moment and the inside out power is something that we don't talk a lot about in business, and I'm not sure if business schools teach anyone to be good at this or at least few do. But I think in order to be the kind of leader that the world needs now, that might be the most important one to look at.
But equally important to me is to build a bridge between those who sit in positions of power and those who have these new ideas, values, and approaches, solutions and innovative mindsets that can help us solve these challenges. Because I believe the solutions exist. I really, really do.
Ange: Tell me a little bit about inside out power. I wanna hear more about that.
Halla: Yeah, it's interesting because in face of what the reality is like now, and, and believe me, let me say upfront, I am a stubborn optimist and I'm quite hopeful about the future and what is possible. I'm quite pragmatic in terms of sort of my feet are on the ground when it comes to what science is telling us and how people generally feel in communities all over the world where they have very little trust that existing leaders will show up and do the work that is needed. I'm aware of the perceptions that people have right now. Understandably, how people experiencing anxiety, what Christiana Figueres, one of our B team leaders, coined a term for me last year, as she called it, pre-traumatic disorder.
When you start being so anxious about what is to come with climate, nature, lack of social cohesion, what feels like a civil war at times in the United States. What feels like way too much corruption or lack of faith that our governance will work in lots of parts of the world, et cetera. Pre-traumatic disorder is real.
Inside out power to me about doing the work that makes you okay and makes you be able to stay the course no matter how much bad news, media, social media, or your neighborhood might bring onto you and being able to stay the course. Because at the end of the day, I don't know a single human being and formal leadership or informal leadership, or my own kids who are 19 and 21. Who don't want to be around to be in service of a better future. I think everyone ultimately wants that. We may argue about the ways, but people do agree that they need nature to be happy and content and to enjoy life.
People do agree they need clean air and food that is healthy. People do agree that their kids need to believe in the future to feel good. People do believe that they need to be able to love, to truly have meaningful lives and they need connections with others. There's lots of things we know as human beings, but feel is somewhat lost.
I think we can't look to the external world to be okay today. We have to look to the internal world to regenerate and build resilience in ourselves. I think you can pretty much only be a successful entrepreneur or successful leader or successful human if you do the inner work at least as hard as you do the outer work.
Ange: Well, I think that's a lot of wisdom for all of us. You know, many of the people listening to this right now are entrepreneurs. They're startup founders, maybe they're part of a startup team. They're working as entrepreneurs. You know, the way you taught all your students at the university, no matter what they're studying to act entrepreneurially.
There's a lot of sacrifice that goes into trying to build businesses that change the world; can take a toll, you know, a lot of energy, a lot of effort. I'm just curious, what advice do you have for them as they are doing these things to keep their minds focused on what the possibilities are, you know, those beautiful possibilities because as you've mentioned, taking that inner care and holding onto that hope.
I'm also a stubborn optimist, but it can be hard to hold onto the image of a better future when we look around at the world we have right now. How would you speak to that for them? Just to encourage them.
Halla: Yeah, no, you are right. I come across that in myself, my team, my leaders, the young leaders I make an effort to engage with. I think this is a struggle for all of us and I think tools are very important. But I would start with it is so important to choose, to believe that we can create a future where we love where we live and work. Because we created this one. This reality is created by us. We are capable of creating what we choose to create.
We have made choices to be here and now we can choose differently. We can choose to love where we live and work, which is ultimately the destination that I'm trying to catalyze with the B team — that we can love where we live and work because we don't do that right now, by and large, I would say.
But when we do, first of all, I don't know anyone who doesn't want that. We want to love where we live and work. It's a simple human truth.
Ange: Pretty universal.
Halla: I actually don't think our differences are as stark as they are painted now. I think we've sort of all fallen into — I would venture to say that Pareto's 80-20% rule is pretty spot on — meaning that I think we are looking more to the extremes on both ends and somewhere between 60 and 80% of people are sort of stuck in the middle and they have a more balanced an approach to life and would like us to be able to have more complicated conversations. But I think there's only one thing you can do to be able to stay sane in that kind of insane setting.
That is to have a real clarity on your own inner moral compass, or your own inner compass if you don't like the word moral. To me that is being absolutely crystal clear about your purpose and your principles. I think this is where you go for sort of guidance, that's your GPS towards how you are gonna go from where we are recognizing the hard truths and realities to how you're gonna find your role in contributing to a future where we love where we live and work.
I don't think all of us can do everything. In some ways it's overwhelming sometimes at the B Team and probably in your universe, and many of us are trying to solve the whole grand puzzle of this system change that we need. I don't know if it's realistic that all of us can play there, but I know it's realistic for all of us to play a role.
Ange: Yeah.
Halla: I think having that purpose and principles clearly put down in a picture for yourself and it's really about dropping from your head to your heart and becoming really, really clear about that purpose and those principles. We call it the B Team Compass for our B Team leaders. It guides everything we do. That's where we go for answers when in trouble. That's where we go to know who we are gonna choose to bring into our community of courage. Which would maybe be the second advice I would give you. Try to create your own community of courage.
Ange: Yes, I love that.
Halla: Maybe even courage and accountability.
Ange: Ah, yes. Courage and accountability.
Halla: So that you have a community you meet that keeps you brave. I see courage growing and, and groups and with peers. I've seen that on the B team multiple times, and I see it in other communities of entrepreneurs, of young people, of scientists and lots of different artists. People who come together to try to imagine new futures and start to build them together with others.
But the moral compass to me is the most critical piece of advice I give leaders of any age because without it you will easily become like a leaf in a wind of all of this enormous crisis that top each other and are not over. I don't see any kind of going back to normal. I think we're just in an era of incredible disruption and you can choose to let that overwhelm you or you can choose to say there are always some of the greatest opportunities for impact found at times like this. There’s always the greatest sunshine after darkness too.
There is only one way forward to me and that is a better future, and I'm pretty convinced that that's where we'll go. But I think we are going to have to endure some tough challenges while we fight it out a little bit with those who think we can go back to something that was and those who embrace a new reality and do their bit in making it better for everyone.
Ange: That was a whole, I'm gonna play that whenever anyone is discouraged, I'm gonna queue that up for them so that they can get the encouragement they need. I love that idea of a community of courage and you've done that with B Leaders. You've really called in so many incredible people from different corners, whether it's titans of industry like Sir Richard Branson, whether it's Mary Robinson, of course, just the amazing Mary Robinson. Mohammed Yunus. You've really gathered together, honestly, some of the most prolific people, in a generation, if I can say. How are you working to address the private sector changes together with B leaders? All of these wonderful, just impactful people. What are some of the practical ways on your 10 year anniversary that you're calling people to change in the corporate world?
Halla: Yeah. Thank you. I am their humble server, I like to say because they are all lions in their own right. I sometimes call myself a lion herder because I have an incredible group or community of courageous leaders who have gone further than most. But I'm also gonna be very honest, and I think they would agree with me, they're not going far enough, even if they are the tip of the spear, because if we were, we'd be in a better place.
Now we're ten years old and we were founded around this notion that business as usual was no longer an option. I would say that our leaders have definitely been leading with a brave action and setting the bar high for others and asking others to do a lot but we need to be ten times bolder in our tenth anniversary year.
We need to ask for ten times greater accountability in business, and we need to do a lot more because we're pretty far from track on delivering a future where we can love where we live and work. There are lots of challenges right in front of us and we're near. Negative tipping points as well as positive tipping points that could, I sometimes feel like we're a little bit on our knife’s edge with the geopolitical situation in the world with the energy crisis. Making it so that maybe we're doubling down on our old habits instead of going ten times bolder towards the new futures we need. There's lots of short term challenges that could get in way of us getting the long-term outcomes we need. I'm asking the team and myself to be ten times bolder and ten times more accountable this year.
There’s very, very specific things that we ask of our leaders and their organization. First, to get very specific, to align with the 1.5 degree world that's very critical that every company thinks about how are you doing that? And by the way big companies alone, and most of our business leaders on the B Team run big companies, can't do that without their supply chains and small companies and innovators. We need radical collaboration between governments, businesses of all sizes and right citizens and civil society organizations to keep 1.5 alive and keeping 1.5 alive is critical.
We got a big win in December. We got a global agreement for nature, biodiversity framework. That was a big, big win. It's bigger than even some of us who work in this space dare to dream of. Now, we know that climate and nature are interdependent, and hopefully we're starting to recognize that inequality is also an interdependent crisis to the other two.
If we can sort of stand on those three legs and start thinking about just an inclusive transition to this net zero, nature positive, people positive future. We can do that if we decide to do it again. It’s a big decision. I ask my leaders as well as your listeners, who are we gonna choose to be in this pivotal year?
We're even years away from 2030 and we're far off on delivering the global goals or delivering on that reality and those seven years are really gonna matter. I think the most important question is, who are we choosing to be? Because we can contribute to the problem or we can contribute to the solutions, and thankfully, more and more people are choosing to contribute to the solutions.
I would say that the solutions are there. I'm blown away with all the innovators I meet in my role, all of the good things that are happening. I don't hear a lot about it in media, but I need it. I need scientists on the top of the mountain above us and sit with them for a night, and yes, we cry because there's lots of emotion and feelings involved in the next generation particularly and understandably. But there's so much hope I have about all the solutions that are happening and all the innovations, and I know we have the money because there's plenty of money. When we needed it, we printed a lot of it and created other problems, inflation and economic challenges, right?
But we printed it when we needed it. I think the biggest question I have, can we redirect or repurpose the money that is in the system into our future and not our demise? It's a fact, Angela that 1.8 trillion US dollars at least, is invested by governments in our own demise every year. It's called environmentally harmful subsidies. That 1.8 trillion would go so far at creating this new world.
Ange: So far. It’s gobsmacking.
Halla: We have the solutions, we have the money, but I think what we are not terribly good at in this world today is what I call the human science. And human science is our ability to work together. Radical collaboration, our ability to be truly inclusive, radical inclusion, and our ability to be truly transparent.
Because in a world with no trust, it's very hard to work together and be inclusive. We need radical transparency, and this is what I call the new Leadership Playbook. We put out a website where we're starting to tell stories of how radically collaborative, radically inclusive, and radically transparent business practices are.
I think this is a new playbook. Nobody is learning to do this in business school or anywhere else. I think we're starting trying to have the conversations about it, trying to engage in intergenerational dialogue and design to really get at this and trying to be much more holistic and, taking on the challenges we face, not piecemeal and more multi-stakeholder in our approach to meeting this moment.
Because as I said before, no one person, no one company, no one stakeholder can meet this moment. But if we unlock the full system in service of the future we want, and all the money that's in it, if we get the human science right, I think this is future might arrive faster than any one of us could imagine today.
Ange: That's probably one of the best summaries I've heard of this vision and this dream in a really long time and I wish I could keep talking to you indefinitely. I will have to have you back because I feel like we've just scratched the surface of the whole conversation of what you're doing at B Team and all of the lessons you've learned along the way.
But I always hold space for my guests at the end of our episodes just to invite you in really, just with that open-heartedness for one last story or one last wisdom, if there was something else you could leave everyone with, before the mics get turned off, sadly, what would that be today?
Halla: Oh, there's so much to be said at a time like this, maybe not so easy to narrow it down, but I think being really clear on your why and, and who you're choosing to be. My why is unlocking leadership in service of a better world.
There are four pillars to me. Authentic: I just don't think anyone can be a great leader unless you can be truly yourself. Gender balance — and that's not just about our sex, but about our gendered ideas. I really believe gender balance is about capitalism with care, and I believe it's possible, and I've seen it at work in the Nordic countries. I think we could learn a lot from the Nordic countries. It’s purpose-driven. It's driven around on why and it's principled because it's not enough to have a purpose that is meaningful if you're not gonna be principled about approaching it. Those are the four pillars for me.
Then I would just say to you: listening. I believe we need to rethink leadership, leadership is not something that is given to a few. Even if some, all of us are given gifts, I believe there's a leader inside of every single one of us, and I don't believe this moment is about waiting for those leaders to show up and do what's needed — although we should hold business leaders and our publicly elected officials to account for sure. This is a moment to not point out the window. But take the mirror and ask, who am I gonna choose to be? What am I gonna choose to do at a time like no other for humanity?
I think the answer for everyone is different, but finding that answer by dropping from our head to our heart is probably the most important work we can do at this time. I would really encourage you, be smart. You know, be hardworking, but make time for the heart, drop from your head to your heart so your hands can truly be doing something that matters, not just with your brain capacity, which I know those listening have a lot of, and we are well trained in school.
I'd say maybe we could also double down on critical thinking with all the misinformation going on out there. But truly the answers to who we are and what we care about and what we are here to do are probably found when we make more space for our own humanity.
Ange: Amazing. Thank you so much. It means so much to me to have you at a distance. I have been lucky to follow along with your work on Instagram and Twitter, and it is really meaningful to have you share like this today. I think there's so much depth here. I'm gonna come back to this episode again and again, so from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much.
Halla: Thank you Angela, for scaling consciously and for your kind words and for having me. I'm humbled by the opportunity but also have so much faith that when we raise our own consciousness. Anything is possible and maybe you didn't invite me for a final, final thing, but choosing joy every day in doing the work we do is a very important personal practice of mine, joy and gratitude, honestly. Thank you, Angela.
Ange: Thanks for listening to Scale Conscious. I'm Ange. This show is produced by Lead Podcasting. Special thanks to the Angela Wallace Impact Agency. Discover more about our work with cpgstartups@scaleconscious.com. If you like what you heard, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player.
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