Quiet Committing: Aila Malik Of Venture Leader On The Five Commitments High Impact Leaders Make & Keep To Themselves Daily
An interview with Karen Mangia
Start each meeting with “this will be a successful meeting if…” to help focus everyone on the intention of the space and be efficient.
Quiet quitting is the emerging phenomenon of employee disengagement, essentially quitting on the job. What strategies do high-impact leaders deploy to motivate themselves and those around them to move from quiet quitting to quiet committing? Because, at its core, there is no change without commitment. Commitment to change ideas. Change beliefs. Change perspectives. Change routines, rituals and boundaries. Organizations change one commitment at a time. One leader at a time. As part of our series about “Quiet Committing: The Top Five Commitments High Impact Leaders Make & Keep To Themselves Daily”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Founding Venture Leader, Aila Malik has stood with organizations during growth, expansion, and change for nearly two decades.
Aila is an experienced leader who collaborates with venture-ready organizations to reimagine their impact to advance equity and justice. She specializes in launches, expansions, process design and implementation, and development coaching for high-performing executives. Aila has dedicated over 20 years to supporting and educating youth in many contexts including: homeless shelters, mentally disabled homes, juvenile justice system, foster care and mainstream public schools. In that time, Aila has served as a nonprofit executive for high performing nonprofits, an experienced trainer in the social impact sector, an adjunct lecturer for Juvenile Justice courses at both Santa Clara University School of Law and Lincoln Law School, and a children’s author. Aila is well-versed in international not-for-profit work and has extensive experience in supporting international efforts in the areas of conservation, employment, and poverty alleviation. She holds a BS in Environmental Science from UC Santa Barbara, earned her JD at Santa Clara University, and is a member of the California Bar Association. Among other accolades, she was a recipient of the 2011 ABA Child Advocate of the Year Award, a Berkeley Law Foundation fellow, Class of 2022 Presidential Leadership Scholar and also was named a Woman of Influence in 2020 by Silicon Valley Business Journal.
Thank you for making time for our visit. What was the first job you had, and how did that job shape the leader you are today?
I have been working nonstop from age 14, the earliest age you can get a worker’s permit in high school! My first over-the-table job was a teaching assistant at the Sunnyvale Music School. I loved working with youth to design and lead activities, build relationships, and be a part of a team that was helping kids learn. I think that job drew me into education and helping as a possible career path. While at University of California Santa Barbara, I worked and volunteered with vulnerable populations in the nonprofit sector. I continued this work in law school where I spent time with children who were either incarcerated or getting out of juvenile hall and onto probation. I wanted to teach others about the law and the consequences of their actions in order to help mold a path of leadership for them. I turned down really lucrative offers to continue this work after law school. Because I am so passionate about equity and justice, I never thought of my work solely coming from either an environmental angle, or the juvenile angle, but from all different angles of society. Every single moment and every single turn, I was drawn to people who were standing up for something. And they were standing up for a better world — whether that was through a hearing, whether that was through visiting someone who was incarcerated, whether that was through being in a substance abuse or mental hospital and navigating that path. I realized that activism looked like a deep intention and a desire for a better planet. Whether that’s through parenting, or building companies to elevate the nonprofit sector, or community building through volunteerism, or through my own advocacy within my community.
We’re talking about quiet quitting in this series. What’s the greatest lesson you’ve learned from a job you decided to quit?
Because of this question, I am looking back at all of my jobs in my head and I am realizing that I never really “quit” a job. I always transitioned because the term ended or I moved. That said, the closest example is my first real career job working with juvenile justice youth. I worked there for 14 years and it took me almost two years to decide to quit — and then I gave 1 year notice!
My biggest learning in this experience was to pay attention to the season that I was in and that the organization was in. After years of leaning into what was I saying “no” to for the bigger yes — my bigger yes became using what I learned to help other nonprofits advance their missions to create conditions for a more just and equitable world
I firmly believe that change in our world depends on human behavior and our ability to create healthy communities that care about a healthy environment. Nonprofits are dedicated to advancing missions that close gaps of inequity and injustice, yet so many well-intended organizations don’t apply the rigor they need to actually facilitate enduring change in people and systems. We must have those hard conversations about true accountability and effectiveness within nonprofit space, in service of great impact. While working in a juvenile justice organization for 14 years, I saw many consultants with pretty plans and advice, but nobody to really partner with us in the implementation of those plans, and so I decided to create a different idea– nonprofit booster shots for change. Our firm is actually a collective of practitioners instead of traditional consultants. We provide tools and support to leaders in the field but we also take seats as interim executives for 9–12 months to drive change from the inside out; then we turn it over to a permanent person to continue this momentum to success.
Employee Engagement is top of mind for most organizations. How do you define an engaged employee?
- An employee who feels a sense of belonging to the team; feels like they can contribute and feels a sense of ownership/autonomy/responsibility for the work.
- An employee who feels fully expressed and at choice for being in this line of work and carrying this company banner.
Say more about your Employee Engagement portfolio. What’s working? What’s not working? And what are you piloting now to address the Quiet Committing trend?
What’s working: Shared values and ways of BEing; honest communications — meaning, transparency on risks/uncertainties; trust in our ability to excel/contribute/co-create our culture and company performance–that each of us is both a student and a teacher.
As goes the leadership, so goes the team. How do you hold leaders accountable for their own level of engagement?
- We talk openly about how we are doing: sleep, fatigue, satisfaction. Leaders at the top normalize rest and vulnerable struggle — that is engagement: showing up and sharing even when things are hard. There are very few surprises from highly engaged people.
- Metrics — shared metrics on performance.
The first phase of the pandemic ushered in the phenomenon called The Great Resignation, where employees left organizations to pursue greater meaning and purpose. Then came The Great Reshuffle, where employees left organizations to pursue promotions, pay and perks. Now we’ve entered a third phase, Quiet Quitting, where employees are deeply disengaged. What do you believe to be the key drivers of Quiet Quitting?
- When it is not fully expressed that we are whole people. We should not have to ignore or pretend one domain doesn’t exist to excel at another, such as neglecting family life to excel in the workplace. This causes misalignment and fatigue/burnout from people holding alternative realities.
- When there is no vulnerability from leaders at the top. It’s normal to question, normal to feel unmotivated some days. Vulnerability of top leadership sets the ceiling of the transparency/vulnerability of the rest of the company culture.
- When there is too much reliance on the “motivational paycheck.” We have to normalize departures and let people ponder them, talk about them if we want the gift of lead time before key resignations. Normalize that we are all at voice to align in or out of the company as it serves our full lives. There is work and opportunity enough for everyone to have their needs met and we will learn from these alignments and make sure our company has a system and is resourced to deal with the turnover — so that turnover is not a crisis.
- When there is no clarity. High-performing companies have clearly defined roles and positional competencies for all staff, thereby providing guidance for appropriate employee hiring/firing, evaluation, and onboarding practices. This clarity allows for a company to norm excellence in employee performance for each role; and ultimately understand which employees should be retained. Thus, talent clarity yields the optimal cadence for turnover to maximize company performance.
What do you predict will be the next phase in the evolution of the employer / employee landscape?
Realignment Revolution: ensuring that a job is values/purpose aligned; that the employee can bring their whole selves to work.
What leadership behaviors need to evolve to improve employee engagement in a sustainable way?
There needs to be a relentless pursuit to create three cycles of intentionality around three areas:
- Transformative Leadership (learning→ growing→ seeing myself and others in a new light → learning again…)
- Strategic Clarity (Clear understanding of organizational intended impact/priorities that create a cycle between staff/role/position clarity → data/evaluation/progress towards goals → creates more role clarity → which increases better outcomes →etc.)
- Thriving Culture (Cycle of trust and transparency)
Change requires commitment and happens one choice at a time. What are the top five commitments you make and keep to yourself daily that have a material impact on those you lead?
1 . Maintain an Attitude of Gratitude — Gratitudes, positive shoutouts right when I see them . We often do Rose, Bud, Thorn, Gardener from the week –Gardener is a shoutout/appreciation space (attitude of gratitude). I have tried different commitments over the years. Each of these I did for a year:
- Pennies from right pocket to left anytime I wore pants. I would move the pennies as I gave gratitudes and ensure 3–5 per day.
- Write one card or note per day to someone I care about.
2 . Choose Connection over Perfection — The best advice that I received from a retired executive/revered leader was to be intentional with edits/constructive feedback. As leaders we can usually make something better, but it comes at a cost to the person’s confidence and/or morale. Decide how much ROI you get on the work product. If your feedback gets a product 10% better but takes a 25% cost, then really think hard about your need for the product to go from an A to an A+.
3 . Three things — I keep a sticky note with the three things that I need to hit out of the park today. This helps me prioritize my long to-do list and allows me space to pivot if staff or company need immediate attention. I often leave myself the note for the following day as I end the workday.
4 . Start each meeting with “this will be a successful meeting if…” to help focus everyone on the intention of the space and be efficient.
5 . Model vulnerability — I try to be reflective and express my challenges, mistakes, growth areas at staff meetings and 1-on-1 to normalize the importance of learning. I have a visible “to be” list — a list of characteristics I want to live into — in my office so that people know what I am working on and how I am holding myself accountable. We come to this work as whole humans and I want my colleagues to be fully expressed to relieve the tension and stress they may carry in trying to hide it.
What’s the most effective strategy you’ve discovered to get back on track when you break a commitment you’ve made?
Accept the lapse as a window of opportunity to see what is appearing for some attention/healing/learning. What is showing up for me to master? It is usually in me to understand why it didn’t happen — something may be appearing that actually shows up in more than one place. The strategy is acknowledge, learn, and adjust –and recommit — try again
Thank you for sharing these important insights. How can our readers further follow your work?
Work articles:
https://aila-malik.medium.com/
About me and how my work and values show up in other spaces:
We wish you continued success and good health!
About The Interviewer: Karen Mangia is one of the most sought-after keynote speakers in the world, sharing her thought leadership with over 10,000 organizations during the course of her career. As Vice President of Customer and Market Insights at Salesforce, she helps individuals and organizations define, design and deliver the future. Discover her proven strategies to access your own success in her fourth book Success from Anywhere and by connecting with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Quiet Committing: Aila Malik Of Venture Leader On The Five Commitments High Impact Leaders Make &… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.