Leading Through What You’ve Lived: Turning Adversity into Leadership Power

Introduction

Nolan: Hello everyone and welcome to the Talent Equation podcast, formerly known as the Learning and Development podcast. This episode is sponsored by Infopro Learning and I’m your host, Nolan Hout.

My guest today is Rhoda Banks, a two-time author, executive coach, keynote speaker, and someone who spent over 25 years leading talent management and organizational development at organizations like SSM Health, American AgCredit, and other large institutions. She also hosts her own show, Breakthrough Conversations, so check that out. And if that’s not enough to make you interested, she also wrote a memoir just about a year ago called Daughter of an Assassin, which must be the most provocative title I’ve ever heard.

Today we’re going to talk with Rhoda about why the experiences that shape you, even the painful ones, might be the most powerful leadership tools you have.

With that, let’s meet our guest. Rhoda, welcome to the podcast.

Rhoda: Thank you, Nolan. Thanks for having me. So excited.

From Parking Garage to Boardroom

Nolan: It’s an absolute pleasure. You’ve got 25 years leading talent management and org dev at these large companies. Where did it all begin?

Rhoda: It all began here in St. Louis, which is where I was born and raised and I still reside. I call my story from the parking garage to the boardroom. I started as a cashier in the parking garage at a large hospital here in St. Louis. I’m quite known in St. Louis because a lot of people used to drive through. I would go to interviews and people on my interview panel would say, I know you from that parking garage. You were always so friendly, you smiled a lot.

I started as a cashier, then moved inside the hospital. I became a telephone operator and patient dispatch. I was the person the nurses would call when a patient needed transport. Then I moved into patient accounts and customer service, and later into people leadership roles.

Even before HR and talent development I have about 15 years of experience leading on the operational side of healthcare, mainly in training and development, IT, the revenue cycle space, process improvement, and project management. I’ve combined all of that with the past 12 to 15 years I’ve had in human resources and leading talent functions. It’s been quite a journey, and I am happy to pour into others and help them reach their full potential.

Nolan: That’s a phenomenal story. Perspective is a great tool in leadership. The more perspectives you can gather, the better, because it’s hard to fake. My background is in marketing, but I started in sales. I’ve always felt that gave me a big advantage because I know what conversations are happening with customers. The more diverse you can get those skills, especially early on, the better.

What has kept this through line of talent development for you? Why did you latch onto that?

Rhoda: It doesn’t feel like work. It’s something ingrained in me that I’m naturally drawn to. Even if I wasn’t doing it in my profession, I was doing talent development outside of my nine to five.

It takes me back to when I was a child, maybe 10 or 11, when I wanted to be a teacher. We grew up very poor in low-income housing here in St. Louis. But my mom managed to make sure we had a nice Christmas, and I asked for a desk because I used to like to play as a teacher. I asked for a big wooden desk, the kind you’d see in a corporate office. I remember waking up Christmas morning, walking downstairs, and there was this desk.

I started college at Harris Stowe State College here, which was known for teaching. I went for two years and then dropped out and started pursuing other things. But that’s really at the core of who I am. I love to teach.

Leading Through What You Lived

Nolan: You talked about your childhood and your dreams. A lot of what we’re going to discuss today is this idea of leading through what you lived, turning adversity into leadership power. Give us an overview of what you believe in that regard.

Rhoda: Your story is not separate from your leadership. As much as we’re told to leave that at home and not bring it to work, we bring our whole selves to work. Your leadership style is shaped by what you live, not just by what you learn. Adversity builds awareness, it builds empathy, it builds resilience, it builds character.

I’m not just leading from theory. Not just from what you see on my resume. I’m leading from experience. Despite my story and my upbringing and my background, I lead because of it. Those situations and experiences really inform my leadership.

About the Book “Daughter of an Assassin”

Nolan: Can you talk a bit about the book? Daughter of an Assassin is such a remarkable title.

Rhoda: I wrote a whole book about my life, so I’m totally exposed. It’s a true story. Everything in it is 100 percent factual.

My father was a well-known figure in St. Louis. In the early 60s and 70s there was a gang here, and he was the hit man for the man who ran it. He was killed when I was five years old. Growing up, my mom would always say, you can’t tell anybody who your dad is. I didn’t understand that.

One time I was working through a summer jobs program for underprivileged kids. Somehow it came up who my dad was. My supervisor looked at me and said, “You look just like him.” That day he told me and a coworker we could leave early. The next day, his boss pulled us into a room and fired us. He said he never told us we could leave early. He had found out the day before that my dad had killed his brother. But I was 13. Whenever I would hear things like that, I would just say, he was killed when I was five. I don’t even remember. That was always my response.

I ran home crying and told my mother. She said, I told you. You can’t tell people who your dad is. People hold grudges. And that became a pattern. Even when I met my husband, and we’ve been married 30-plus years, I remember him taking me to his cousin’s house and there was a woman on the porch who said my dad had killed her son.

Living under that kind of shadow was not a good experience. And the environment I grew up in, a lot of bad things happened. I witnessed a lot of violence.

What some people realize when they read the book is that my dad wasn’t really a major influence on me because he passed when I was five. The biggest assassin was my mom. She had mental illness she never dealt with, and she was handed down childhood trauma she didn’t know what to do with. But I decided to break that cycle. I didn’t want to pass that down to my two sons. I’ve done the work to be as whole as I can. I bring all of that with me as a leader in corporate America.

When Adversity Becomes a Superpower

Nolan: At what point did you realize that what you went through had made you who you are? Not that you’re happy you went through it, but that it gave you something others might not have?

Rhoda: It was when I first started leading people. Employees would ask what motivates me and what drives me. The shortest way I could explain it was that I never wanted to have to go back to where I came from. So, I worked really hard.

Then employees started sharing with me the impact I was having on them. I took it for granted. I thought that’s how all leaders were. And one employee told me, you don’t realize how very special you are as a leader. That I deeply care about people and have a gentle way of holding people accountable with high expectations but also with kindness and care.

I like to use the philosophy of teaching someone to ride a bike. You don’t just sit there and ride the bike while they watch all day. You give them confidence, you coach and mentor, you hold onto the bike until they get their balance, and then you let go. That’s ultimately how I lead.

At that point I realized these things that happened to me, that’s just it. They happened to me. And I take them and use them for good.

Connecting Authentically to Develop Others

Nolan: Is the reason you can have such a big impact on developing people because you’re able to connect to something they personally relate to? The more personal you make your leadership style, the more authentic it must be.

Rhoda: I would agree. A story that comes to mind is a young woman who was offered a job as my assistant. She was apprehensive because it was a lateral move with no raise. But she called everyone I’d worked with in St. Louis and they all told her, if you get the chance to work with Rhoda, you take it.

I learned who she was, that she was a young mother, smart, highly competent, and that she had never finished her degree. I encouraged her to go back to school. I said, here’s a tip: don’t tell your family and friends right away. Just go. Two years later she graduated with honors. I promoted her a few times in my department.

I also noticed her appearance, because I didn’t want people to judge her and miss everything she had to offer. One evening it came up in conversation. I said, you dress where you want to be, not for where you’re at. She said she wanted to do that one day. I said, you are, because I’m taking you shopping.

I hadn’t planned it. I didn’t even have the money. I used credit cards. I was teaching her how to pair things and dress professionally while still wearing the colors she loved. I didn’t think much of it. I just thought I’d done something nice.

That was 21 years ago. Last August, she asked me to come to a women’s event at a hotel in St. Louis. She was the keynote speaker. She opened her talk on her phone, said, did you see what so-and-so had on, did you see this, did you see that. And then she asked, why do we do that as women? And her entire talk was about me. She never said my name.

She talked about a leader who could have got on the phone and talked about the way she dressed. But instead that leader went out of her way, took her shopping, taught her how to dress, and had this profound impact on her life. She is a serial entrepreneur today. She mentors and develops others because of that experience.

Nolan: That story says everything. The ability to connect with people and meet them where they are is what enables you to help them reach their highest potential. And who benefits? They do. And the company.

Scaling Authentic Leadership

Nolan: How do you do this on a scale? Leadership is the scarcest resource in organizations right now. What programs have you seen work?

Rhoda: The best approach I have seen work is in small pockets. You create small pockets of magic.

You don’t have to start big. If I take five to eight leaders who are genuinely open to growth and I can get hold of them, help them reframe how they think about their story, about vulnerability, about what it means to show up authentically, those people go back and lead differently. Their teams experience that difference. Those team members become the next leaders. They carry that forward.

You’re not trying to move an entire organization in one training cycle. You’re creating a trickle effect. Small pockets. Deep impact.

The Problem with One-Size-Fits-All Programs

Nolan: One of the trends I keep seeing is that organizations start by wanting small, deep cohorts with real impact, and then the budget conversation happens and it all collapses into one big conference and three webinars. You’re laughing because you’ve been in those conversations.

Rhoda: Yes. And here’s the thing. Training is the least effective solution to almost any problem itself. A two-day workshop doesn’t change behavior. You must get clear on what you are actually trying to solve.

Not every leader is going to be saved through an intervention. Some people are not cut out for leadership. Some may be effective leaders but in the wrong environment or the wrong culture. Part of the work is having honest conversations about fit.

Using Data to Target Leadership Investment

Nolan: How do you have those financial and impact conversations? How do you steer organizations toward investing where it matters?

Rhoda: I steer leadership teams to focus on where they will get the greatest impact. You are not having a problem with all 500 leaders.

What does your employee engagement data show when you filter by manager? Whose scores have been consistently below a threshold for the last three cycles? Which departments have the highest turnover? Which ones have a pattern of ongoing HR investigations?

Those pockets are your real problem areas, and they will be a smaller percentage than the total. So, I reframe the selling point away from metrics and toward outcomes. Stories that resonate are far more convincing than completion numbers.

Nolan: Exactly right. Within those 500 people you probably have 50 who are ready for the next level, 200 who just need the basics reinforced, and 100 who may not belong in management at all. You cannot serve those three groups with the same program.

Results are not completions. Results are attrition going down. Engagement going up. Satisfaction going up. Those are the things organizations actually care about.

What Leaders Can Do Today

Nolan: As we wrap up, Rhoda, what can someone listening today actually do to implement some of this?

Rhoda: First, reframe this notion that because you are a leader you have to present a certain way. Sharing your story strategically builds credibility. It does not create risk. It helps you connect with people and meet them where they are. People follow leaders they can relate to. Your story is not a liability. It is currency.

Pain creates perspective. And your perspective creates purpose. And your purpose is going to drive the impact that you make.

Second, the world is asking more leaders than it ever has. Remote environments, hybrid teams, people spread across continents. The way we led before needs to look different now.

The word I like to use is intentionality. If I am an introvert leading a remote team, I need to schedule one-on-ones. I need to be intentional about checking in on people just to say, hey, how was your weekend? Those things matter. People can be suffering in silence in these environments. Working this way can be very lonely, and you do not always know what someone has going on mentally or emotionally.

When you are leading other people, it is a huge responsibility. You have the ability to break someone’s spirit or build them up. They go home stressed and full of anxiety, afraid to make a mistake. Or they go home and they cannot wait to get back to work. All because of your leadership style.

Think about the shadow you are casting. What will people say about you when your career is over or when you leave the room? What is your legacy?

Nolan: Using your story as part of your leadership requires awareness of your own story first. Then being intentional about sharing parts of it at the right moments.

You don’t go to your team and say, tell me everything about your childhood. You create the safe space by going first. You share something real, tie it to a situation, and now your team can see why you lead the way you do. That creates permission for them to do the same.

Practical takeaway for everyone: stop and understand what your story is, and how it can become the parables you pass on to your team.

Rhoda, thank you so much for joining us. Rhoda also hosts a podcast called Breakthrough Conversations. Please go check that out. Rhoda, thanks for the time today.

Rhoda: Thank you, Nolan.