We recently connected with KYESHA LINDBERG and have shared our conversation below.
Hi KYESHA, thanks for joining us today. We’re complete cheeseballs and so we love asking folks to share the most heartwarming moment from their career – do you have a touching moment you can share with us?
It’s funny, if I were to ask the 30 year old Ky where she would be in 10 years, never would I have stated that I would be remarried, compensated for doing something that means so much to me and living in another State, hundreds of miles from my birthplace. You see, I was raised in a household that didn’t really believe in risk taking and largely we were encouraged to just find a decent job, work and retire. The notion of leading an organization or aligning your passion with your profession was never really an option. A few things that were encouraged though, were education, spiritual grounding and the development of resilience to overcome adversity and failure. I share this because my late teens and twenties were FULL of failures and adversity. I tried to find love in all the wrong places; became a mother, married and divorced; had very little direction in what I wanted to do professionally and experienced housing instability, poverty and the list goes on. Yet amid all the things that were going on, I chose not to give up and gave myself permission to explore. This exploration included attending 4 colleges, changing my major three times… heck I even went to beauty school. While in school and soon after graduation, I began getting job opportunities including working in a hair salon, doing freelance web design, working in banking, selling Kirby Vacuum Cleaners door to door, working for a Congressman and working in education administration. While I was in it I didn’t know that each experience was priming me for what was coming next, but now I am eternally grateful for having going through it.
So fast forward to my early thirties, I had “made it” from the standards of what I was taught growing up. I graduated from college, had a respectable career in k-12 education, my son was an all A student and I finally started to feel like I had this life thing figured out. Then, just like that, life showed me that there was something more dynamic in store for me and it came in the form of an online dating app connection. I wasn’t really interested in romance after my divorce and a friend of mine decided to create a profile for me and I decided to entertain the idea of a little fun. After colorful conversations and a whole heap of laughter, I came across someone who sparked my interest and we decided to meet. To spare the corny romantic comedy-ish details… We met, married, and had our first child within one year of that first online interaction. We just made each other better. After our second child was born we decided that Detroit was no longer the place we wanted to live and decided to move to Georgia. We had no job leads, no real savings and no idea what we were doing. What we did know is that every time we visited, it felt like home.
After moving to Georgia, I continued to use my “people powers” to make ends meet and build a professional network. I started sharing my experiences over the years navigating unjust policies, having babies while black and poor, unpacking the connectivity between early childhood and brain development, and simply showing up as my authentic self. In doing so, I was afforded the opportunity to interview for what ended up being my dream career. Serving as the executive director and subsequently being name the CEO of Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Georgia. Every obstacle that I faced, every win that I experienced, every skill that I developed primed me for this role. See in this work you have to be more than smart, you have to be resilient, grounded and dedicated in a way that only life’s experiences can prime you for. Moreover, you need to lead with love, grace and empathy because social change is a long game and those who are committed to service require a village to be effective advocates and service providers. I have love in spades, my three children and husband (of nine years now) fuel my commitment and reinforce the reality that the world has MORE for each of us. We just sometimes need that people power to help us realize and attain it.
KYESHA, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Georgia was established in 1974 with a mission to improve maternal and infant health through advocacy, education, and access to vital resources. Since our founding, the organization has operated several resource and referral lines, provided free perinatal education classes and resources, provided professional learning opportunities for clinical and community-based provider, and led statewide advocacy initiatives aimed at reducing health disparities for those most significantly affected.
Advocacy:
In a non-partisan role, HMHBGA engages with legislators as well as medical, business and other community organizations to encourage fiscally responsible policies that promote access to care and improved health outcomes for women and children.
Education:
HMHBGA provides evidence-informed prenatal education across the State through collaboration with other community organizations and clinicians. HMHBGA also works to educate and build capacity for healthcare providers and public health professionals working in maternal and infant health across Georgia.
Access to Vital Resources:
On behalf of the Georgia Department of Public Health, HMHBGA operates the Georgia Family Healthline, Children 1st high-risk screening line, and Help Me Grow Georgia to provide callers with appropriate referrals and resources across the State. HMHBGA also operates the Prevent Child Abuse Georgia Helpline on behalf of Georgia State University.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Simply, I’ve learned the power of authenticity and moving away from using my “representative.” For years I had a lot of shame associated with my humble beginnings and thought I needed to “show up” in a way that reaffirmed my educational background and expertise. I would watch people who had perceived power and how they would speak, dress, walk and behave and then attempt to model their mannerisms. When I started to explore why I did those things, it all came down to my feeling like the “real me” wasn’t worthy or good enough. Thankfully, through spiritual work, coaching and having a dynamic village supporting me… I discovered that the things that previously brought me so much shame were really what made me the leader that I am so proud to be today. When I let go of the notion of perfection, particularly as a leader in the professional space… I began to see how my simple modeling of being the realist Ky I could be helped foster similar behaviors in my colleagues. People not only began to own their excellence but also leverage their unique lived experiences to drive the mission forward in ways that I would have never dreamed. I have developed a core belief around the dynamism of diversity and that moves beyond the surface. Some of the most powerful and innovative solutions are birthed in rooms where many ideological differences are represented. If you want to know how to fix a broken system, put a person who is affected by that system in a room with the system designer (and everyone in between) AND give them a safe space to speak freely, with mutual respect and imagine uninhibitedly… magic can happen.
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
My leadership philosophy is really centered in supporting my colleagues in identifying, cultivating and actualizing their unique gifts/talents. In doing so, I not only foster an environment of mutual trust, innovation and accountability but also provide a space for them to leverage those gifts/talents in service of our mission. In our organization, we accept that morale will be like a tide.. ebbing and flowing based off of each employees internal and external environments. With that being acknowledged, we commit ourselves to riding the tide with them, understanding that there is a significant emotional toll that comes with our particular work and providing resources to support them when both as a collective and individually to address feelings of low morale when it occurs. Specifically, through open conversations with the team, we offer mental health time to all employees, established a wellness committee that is employee driven, and even committed ourselves to continuous improvement conversations. There are a myriad of tools that are available that could foster positivity in your business, the most important thing to know is that if you value diversity, there isn’t one solution, strategy or tool that will accommodate all of your employees in order to foster high moral. It is imperative to know the bright spots and pain points of each of your team members and develop multifaceted strategies accordingly.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.hmhbga.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hmhbgeorgia/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HMHBGA/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ky-lindberg-012a45b/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/HMHBGeorgia
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1DRrf9h2M0