Influence starts with who sits at the table before a single message ever goes out, and equity-first communications leader Amira Barger has built her entire career around that idea. Amira returns to Leadership That Shines a year after her first appearance to talk with host Natalie Davis about her work at DNA Communications, her new book, The Price of Nice, and the leadership-of-self practices that keep her grounded while advising organizations on how to reach the communities too often treated as an afterthought.
Amira breaks down the difference between diversity as a checkbox and diversity as an intentional practice, the mindset, skill set, and tool set framework she uses with client teams, and why she believes every leader needs a "kitchen cabinet," a small group of trusted people who will celebrate a win and call out a blind spot with equal honesty. She also unpacks the idea behind her book's central concept, nerve, and why it goes further than simple kindness.
In This Episode:
Why the people closest to a challenge often have the best answers to it
The mindset, skill set, tool set framework for bringing outside perspective into a team
How to build a "kitchen cabinet" of people who will tell you the truth
The pause practice and the twenty-second lull, and why sitting in silence builds clarity
Why "nerve" goes further than kindness as the antidote to shrinking yourself
Amira also traces the personal story behind The Price of Nice, from the messages she absorbed growing up about staying quiet and playing small to the moment she decided not to pass those same messages down to her own daughter. This conversation moves through self-reflection, affinity bias, and what it actually takes to build a career on research and listening instead of assumption.
Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. New episodes drop every Wednesday. Subscribe to the Flamingo Files newsletter on LinkedIn for a deeper dive into this conversation, published every Monday.
Podden och tillhörande omslagsbild på den här sidan tillhör
Natalie Davis. Innehållet i podden är skapat av Natalie Davis och inte av,
eller tillsammans med, Poddtoppen.
